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Posted by Ablang on 01/20/08 06:11
Death to the DVD Disc is Coming
No, I'm not joining those who have predicted that Sony's Blu-ray has
won over HD-DVD. What I'm suggesting is the optical disc format has
reached it's peak and will go the way of the cassette tape.
Forget about the DVD Wars
The battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD format hasn't helped. Even with
Warner Brothers exclusively backing the Blu-Ray Association, sales of
movies on disc has been on the decline. This week at CES a lot of
folks are calling Blu-Ray a winner even though the adult industry and
Microsoft has backed HD-DVD.
Some have also said Microsoft wants both to fail because "They want
confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads." I
say, "It worked!". In fact today, Microsoft acknowledged it is backing
off plans to promote HD-DVD exclusively in its xBox game console.
Advocates for both claim superior video and audio but they're missing
what consumers want. There's a point where the average human can't
detect the differences in sound and appearance. If anything, the
increases in clarity can show more flaws in productions. Why would I
pay $20+ for disc when I can just download the movie to my PC or TiVo
for $12 or less.
The future media is Solid State Memory or what's commonly called Flash
memory. I wrote about this a year ago, and I'll stick by last years
prediction.
Granted a Blu-ray DVD can hold 25 GB's per layer it's only a matter of
time before we see an explosion in Flash(NAND) memory size. HD-DVD
only holds 15 GB per layer. Yesterday at CES SanDisk introduced a new
12 GB microSDHD card. SanDisk calculates with 12 GB you can store a
24.5 hours of video along with 2,600 photos and 1,500 songs.
Alternates to DVD
While the size and cost of flash memory isn't there yet it's coming.
It's not likely I can fit a Blu-ray disc into my Phone, GPS or video
camera. No moving parts or lasers means my battery will last a lot
longer watching a movie from flash memory. It's also much easier and
cheaper to build a flash memory slot into a new TV or other home
appliance than it is a disc player.
My new OLPC XO laptop isn't the first laptop to choose a flash drive
in place of a mechanical hard drive and DVD and it won't be the last.
No moving parts, minimal power consumption, well over 100,000 write
cycles, all means my next laptop will include a solid state drive
instead of a legacy hard drive. I won't miss trying to figure out if
my DVD player supports +R - R, +RW or -RW.
http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-to-dvd-disc-is-coming.html
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