The technology in my field of choice, being electronics based, is rapidly evolving. For you consumers, if you're wondering what's the deal with DVD's, Blu-ray, and even the old VHS and why they all change, let me tell what's going on.
First, let me predict that Blu-ray will win. I just bought a Blu-ray at Walmart for a low, low price of $98. Why buy a DVD player at that price? I do believe, that Blu-ray will overtake DVD like DVD did to VHS.
Why? Let me give you some tech data... DVD's play standard definition video-- so even if you have a high def 50 inch plasma hanging on your wall, it will still play that DVD as standard def-- they might widen it, but it's still only 720 scan lines big.
Then came along the upgrade in technology and a war broke out (like the Betamax and VHS war of the early eighties). In one corner was HD-DVD and the other, Blu-ray. I guess you know who won.
The cool thing here is that Blu-ray (and HD-DVD which is over now), can give you true high def quality. To put some more math on it... your DVD movie is probably sitting on the disc at maybe 3.8 megabytes. On the Blu-ray, that same movie is maybe 22 megabytes. Seven times the quality difference.
Throughout post on "Rising Stars," I was constantly burning DVD's to check the edit, send to the producers and such. When we finally got done a few weeks ago and burned a Blu-ray... it was amazing.
So, you heard it here, kiss DVD goodbye. It's over. There's no reason to go out and buy another DVD player. Blu-ray plays both. Even the Sony Playstation 3 is a blu-ray player.
Hello Blu-ray.
Not saying Blu-ray won't eventually take over, but I think it's going to take some time. People are generally happy with DVD and I've heard only 30% of consumers have a TV that can play something HD. That, and the expected social cost to watch a movie is dwindling with Redbox and Netflix. I have a PS3 and I still buy DVDs so I can play them on my computer or lend them to friends, and most of my Blu-rays have come from Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo packs.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe that's just me.
I think it surprised everyone how quick VHS died. Of course, for twenty years they cried the demise of 3/4" tape. But it did finally die. There's not a reason to go buy a DVD player if Blu-ray is so close to same price. And at Costco yesterday, Visio after Visio heading out the door.
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