In response to a post on CruchGear :
I do agree in part with the essence of this post. Blu-Ray in part was dead before it even hit the market. However it does have some features that will ensure it is around for a while, and it may eventually replace DVD, it just is not going to happen as quickly as the Blu-Ray Association would like.
Blu-Ray always was going to struggle establishing itself as major format for movies. The jump from VHS to DVD was one of the fastest format adoptions in history. Especially when compared to Vinyl vs. CD. In both of these cases there was a notable difference in both technology and quality of the medium. This is really not as straight forward with Blu-Ray.
An upscaling DVD gives an image that is on par with a Blu-Ray player on a full 1080 display, most people will not be able to tell the difference any way. Also because DVD is still a major revenue for the studios, I can’t see any off them going Blu-Ray only any time soon. In fact the positioning of Blu-Ray has made DVD titles even cheaper. Add to the mix digital downloads, be it in DRM’ed format of plain DivX from BitTorrent provide a perfectly good viewing experience.
The problem Blu-Ray always faced was physically and technically it is still just an optical disk. The capacity and how it works is abstract to most people. Technically it is superior due to its storage capacity. But other than that it does exactly the same thing DVD does. It is because of this perception, adoption is going to take time. Sony’s strategy of using the PS3 to drive Blu-Ray is a stroke of genius without it Blu-Ray would not have even got ths far. Also the use of Blu-Ray in the PS3 has pretty much guaranteed Blu-Ray will be around for a while just because of the PS3’s lifecycle, which is going to be at least another 8 years.
Also the argument about Blu-Ray writers getting cheaper will ease adoption is also mute. In that hard disk recording is becoming the major format for recording. Every major comsumer electronics company already offers HD based recorders. Blu-Ray is more likely to become an archive medium for recordings from a HD recorder, much like how I use my DVD-R right now. The argument that older people understand the DVD interface so jumping to Blu-Ray is trivial is probably correct. However HD recorders have the same interface so they don’t cause a problem for the older generation either. I know this because my parents use a HD recorder and Sky+ without issue.
Another factor also slowing High-Def adoption in general right now is cost for services like Sky-HD, and until free-to-air services go fully High-Def in 2010, people in general are not going to rush out to buy Blu-Ray players. As a storage format use with PC’s is really going to be decided by cost of media, right now it looks like it will be a while before that happens.
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