Blu-Ray writer

[Arthur.S]

Is this a good time to be buying a Blu-Ray writer? Or are there faster writers around the corner? Any recommendations gratefully received. :)

[Chris Longley]

I think there's going to be faster writers around the corner. Once that peaks there's going to be cheaper writers round the corner. Once they're down to £14, there'll be something completely different around the bloody corner! :(

[Arthur.S]

He he he...I love an optimist! :)

[Alan Roberts]

One fairly common view of BluRay is that it's now too late for it to become ubiquitous as have cd and dvd. VoD and downloads may supplant the "hard copy" of the disk and become "soft copy" held locally on whatever medium you like, obviating the need for the hard copy.

[Mike Walters]

Hi Alan, is it the view then that people will watch their viewing content by downloading from the internet? If that is the case and given people won't want to watch films on their pc are we then expecting a huge take up of media centres (or whatever they are called) and if that is the case what will people store these films on once they have watched them?
Mike

[Bob Aldis]

Hi Alan, is it the view then that people will watch their viewing content by downloading from the internet? If that is the case and given people won't want to watch films on their pc are we then expecting a huge take up of media centres (or whatever they are called) and if that is the case what will people store these films on once they have watched them?
Mike

If Sony carry on trying to make home made High Def unplayable on their blu-ray players, then we should be glad if other means of viewing takes off

[Alan Roberts]

I said it was a common view, I didn't say I share it, because I still reckon hard copies make sense (imagine the problems of getting stuff fvor the kids to watch in the car). But, there's some merit in it. The idea is for internet downloads, like iPlayer. the technology's there, but the bandwidth's a bit spare at present.

[Mike Walters]

I suspect like a lot of these things the next generation will see (and more readily accept) the new media or lack of it. I think storage will be a major issue - we have about 600 dvds and that would take up a lot of space on hard drives. Also as you say there is the problem of portability for use in other places. I wonder if Blueray has arrived a good while before this revolution and will therefore see a useful shelf life before it is eclipsed by this technology?

[Daniel Browning]

I think storage will be a major issue - we have about 600 dvds and that would take up a lot of space on hard drives.

Assuming an average DVD size of 3.5 GB, your collection comes to 2 TB. At $120 USD for a 1 TB hdd, that's $240, or about $0.40 per disc. Backups in full duplicate would bring costs to $0.80/ea. External NAS RAID-5 would probably double costs again (unless you DIY or use the cheap stuff), up to $1.60/ea. If all 600 discs were 7.0 GB dual-layer, it would be $3.20/ea. If we pick 35 GB for an average Blu-ray size, that's $16.00/disc.

There are much more efficient codecs than what's used on DVD, so if they were mastered with a top notch h.264 encoder, you can match DVD quality at just 1 Mbps (burstable).

Personally, I bought Blu-ray the same week that HD-DVD was killed (may it rest in peace) and internet downloads wont replace Blu-ray for me until I can download 50 GB of well-encoded h.264 in two hours.

(Just watched 2001 in Blu-ray, it was great!)

[Mike Walters]

Actually 2Tb suddenly seems like quite an attractive way of solving the physical storage problem of 600 dvds that have taken over my lounge! Mind you if i'd had to download them all it would have been a long long wait till i actually got to watch number 600. But then if i were to clone 2tb in my car as well i could have all my movies on hand whenever i wanted to watch them whilst i was driving. And i thought i was doing well putting all my music onto a 16gig usb memory stick and having them in the car. I guess it is the way it's going but i think it has a while before it is a viable alternative to physical disks.

[Daniel Browning]

I guess it is the way it's going but i think it has a while before it is a viable alternative to physical disks.

Of course, it's not legal to do right now (though it's perfectly ethical and moral). And the future looks like it will continue to be locked up in DRM which will render useless the content if one ever changes software. Only outlaws have an easy time of it.

[Lusky]

I can honestly see downloads replacing video rentals. Think of sky box office or virgin film flex where you get a 24 hour rental of a film to play whenever you want or as many times as you like and it is far better that paying late fees :D

I also have iPlayer on virgin and the sheer amount of content is fantastic and getting it on your tv is brilliant.

However I can't see me keeping movies on hard drive that I want to keep. Already ISPs are complaining that iPlayer is bringing the net to it's knees. BT though is promising to upgrade it.
However I don't know aout sky + but I have a V+ box and a couple of times
i've had to reformat the hard drive due to a corrupt file and if I had to re download 600 movies then i'm going to be peeved.

[DAVE M]

I've recently added an iPod to the car with full connectivity so that it's controlled by the head unit. Hopefully that's an end to about 50 CDs in the car and ending up in the wrong cases. I'll just update the iPod as I have about 800 CDs

At home, I use a Humax pVR and hardly ever need a copy to keep.

a 1Tb HD is £99 in PC world and cheaper elsewhere

The up and coming customer base is the iTunes generation who are used to not owning the physical media. My problem is that a lot of my work is on direct DVD sales rather than payment for a gig, so I have the worry of rights management and need to deliver a hard copy product.

DVDs are fine for the moment but Mac have no interest in BluRay and at some point the problem will come up.

[Mark M]

The up and coming customer base is the iTunes generation who are used to not owning the physical media.

.... and are also not used to good levels of reproduction, whether it's sound or video.

I'm pretty sure most of us can tell the difference, on careful listening, between a .wav and an .mp3 file, and we can all see the difference between YouTube and a DVD. But watching my teenage relatives and students devour these lossy formats with no comment or complaint makes me wonder if Blu-Ray is going to end up being for VideoPhiles only, while the mass market is happy to accept whatever they can download or stream at the quality it's available. Of course there's no doubt that that quality will continue to improve, and maybe one day YouTube quality will be indistinguishable from Blu-Ray.

[Mike Walters]

It is bizarre that on the one hand we have these huge increases in quality (Blueray) and on the other people content to watch videos at a reduced quality to even existing formats. I'm still a believer in having a physical copy and the best available quality but as you say the itunes generation seem content with much less.

[NigelP]

If Sony insist that you need BluRay hardware for HD, how come they can use standard DVD's in HD cameras ?

[PaulD]

Hi
http://www.amexdigital.com/Press_Release-E_Portable%20Blu-ray%20Super%20Multi%20Drive.htm

[Tony Neal]

Higher quality never was a strong selling point in the media world if it had to be paid for.

Laservision, Super-VHS, SACD and DVD Audio all offered better quality but none of them became mainstream mainly because of the cost. Most people will not pay a premium for what they regard as incremental improvements in quality, and manufacturers consistently over-price innovations in order (understandably) to recover their development costs.

DVDs ousted pre-recorded VHS not only because the qualiy was noticeably better, but they are much smaller, more accessible and had more extras than their tape counterparts.

BluRay will not become mainstream until there is llitle or no price difference from standard DVD - it may end up as a Laservision for the 21st century.

As for the future - I have also done that calculation to convert my crates of VHS, DV and HDV tapes into Terabytes in a Data Tank and its beginning to look possible, at least for the more important stuff. Streaming from a networked disk to a PS3 and HDTV is definitely the way to go.

[Steamage]

Hi
http://www.amexdigital.com/Press_Release-E_Portable%20Blu-ray%20Super%20Multi%20Drive.htm

You can tell that's a Mac product! The first attribute listed under "Detailed Product Description" is Color (sic) ;)