will blue ray ever become mainstream?

Nodiggidy123

Nodiggidy123

Nodiggidy123

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I've recently picked up game of thrones on blu ray and had trouble sourcing the complete set anywhere other than online.

It got me thinking. In terms on longevity say in 5-10 years time after my blue ray player has packed up. Will I be able to watch my blu rays?

Despite the lack of picture and audio quality. DVD is still much more popular. I'm a little concerned any further investment into blu ray is fruitless.
 
I think the general public have skipped Blu-Ray and have gone DVD -> streaming media (and illegal downloads...). We have a FullHD TV and Blu-Ray player yet my family still buy DVDs!!
 
I've never liked streaming media. For me its all about having something physical.

Just a little concerned my blu rays will be nothing but expensive coasters on the future.
 
With the way that online streaming is being pushed down people's throat I don't see it becoming mainstream imo
 
Have been wondering this too. Bought a couple of 3d blu-rays recently (haven't bought any blu-rays for years) to try on the new tv. Was never into the 3d thing, but I'm honestly impressed with the experience.

TV manufacturers appear to have already moved their focus away from 3d and towards 4k etc. Also Sky is going to pull it's 3d channel and it will become pay per view. So it looks like 3d is dead too.

We are not at the stage of streaming blu-ray quality films, so until we do I don't see blu-ray disappearing. However, there will still need to be advances in blu-ray and compression techniques as there are already 3d films that come on two discs (eg. Hobbit - Battle of the 5 armies).
 
Is there a reason why super high quality streaming services don't seem to exist apart from lack of demand? It isn't as if connection speeds are a problem for most of the UK population, so I can only put it down to the sheer lack of demand for a proper blu-ray quality streaming when lower quality, less expensive (or free via piracy) alternatives exist.
 
Actually the connection speeds are (still) the problem, the UK average is ~17mbps.

Netflix will give you a 15mbps 'super hd' 1080p stream, which is pretty good really, significantly better than DVD but not Bluray quality (25mbps+ just for the video stream iirc?).

We're still a decent way off having the capability to stream a 35mbps+ video to 'most' of the population, unfortunately. And even if the connections technically could if people started doing it BT/VM's infrastructure wouldn't be able to cope at all.
 
It's just another nail in the coffin by the general public, who seem to think that mediocrity is a good thing. To many Daily Mail readers.
Sorry, a bit off topic.

I agree with the comments that I'd expect a lot of it due to be the emergence of decent streaming services like Netflix. We have it ourselves and use it aswell as Loverfilm BD movies rental at home. Being fair, the picture quality on Netflix is pretty good. The audio is where it really falls down as it's still using DD, which as we know, was first introduced with DVD back in the 90s and iis well behind HD audio from a BD disk. The key point is however that the general public don't care about audio quality and probably use speakers in their 40" LCD TVs, which are never going to be capable of genuinely making use of the improved quality.

Funny really how things have changed. When I was 20, all of my friends had seperate systems and most of them ended up attached to their TVs. I visit them now (nearly 30 years later) and whilst most still have the same systems (progress eh), they're often in spare rooms and they use just their TVs. Such a waste.

Whatever, won't stop me using my own system, and I still find it amusing when my 7 year old son brings over his friends and watch movies using our home system or the Xbox kinect on it (120" screen, fairly big audio system).
 
Zefan said:
Is there a reason why super high quality streaming services don't seem to exist apart from lack of demand? It isn't as if connection speeds are a problem for most of the UK population, so I can only put it down to the sheer lack of demand for a proper blu-ray quality streaming when lower quality, less expensive (or free via piracy) alternatives exist.
Click to expand...

Like streaming audio the initial battle was over pricing, but Tidal and Deezer Elite emerged to fight for the high end market. I'm sure the same will happen with video streaming.
 
I don't think so.
Streaming will continue to improve. Netflix now does 4k, not just super hd.
Few people want to pay large money for physical media that most people will watch once. Let alone the space it takes up and the hassle. Then there's the when format changes do you re buy if you're high end user.
Streaming is instant, you don't need to plan days in advanced. It is super cheap £5.99 for as much as you want.
Would like it to go higher quality faster, but tbh the price difference and convience is such a massive difference it's not worth going high end. If something is mega visuals, I'll probably watch it at cinema anyway.

I can't imagine blue ray being replaced, and eventually streaming will overtake what blue ray can handle.
 
Minstadave said:
Physical media is dying. I can't envisage Bluray ever reaching DVD levels of popularity, I suspect it will be largely gone in 10 years.
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I'm undecided.

Until I can use one service and get all the films and tv shows from one place it's pretty pointless. I still buy the media in dvd format and rip then uncompressed to my PC so my son can watch his stuff on any of our tv's. The reason I have stayed dvd is because although lower quality than blueray they are cheaper and that's the trade off I accept. Also requiring less storage.

When storage is bigger and cheaper I would switch to Blueray. I don't see me going away from media in the next 10 years. It's cheap, I can get what I want, rip it in a few minutes to storage and put the physical media in the loft.
 
I think part of the reason for HD streaming (ie. not only the 1080p video, but also HD audio) to not be in place yet is the general internet bandwidth capabilities. Eventually that will change.

Does strike me that maybe the opportunity is for a streaming service to provide legal temporary downloads, but of the FULL BD experience (video AND audio). That way a movie could be downloaded whilst you're at work and be ready for the evening.
The technology is there, just not the will of the streaming services.

Additionally, the costs don't look sensible. For me to rent by post from Lovefilm, I pay £6/month for 2 disks. That allows me to watch anywhere from 8-16 movies a month. Meaning a cost to rent of less than £1/movie. Why pay say £3 for a lower quality instant stream?
 
Nodiggidy123 said:
I've recently picked up game of thrones on blu ray and had trouble sourcing the complete set anywhere other than online.

It got me thinking. In terms on longevity say in 5-10 years time after my blue ray player has packed up. Will I be able to watch my blu rays?

Despite the lack of picture and audio quality. DVD is still much more popular. I'm a little concerned any further investment into blu ray is fruitless.
Click to expand...

It's already mainstream. More or less every major release -in terms of both TV and movies- sees a simultaneous DVD/Blu-Ray release. Players are hardly the most expensive thing on the planet.

Just enjoy the format for what it is; and know that you're seeing Game of Thrones in the best possible way outside of an IMAX Theater. If we move towards better quality streaming in the future, then so be it, but that's not something to worry about today.
 
Zefan said:
Is there a reason why super high quality streaming services don't seem to exist apart from lack of demand? It isn't as if connection speeds are a problem for most of the UK population, so I can only put it down to the sheer lack of demand for a proper blu-ray quality streaming when lower quality, less expensive (or free via piracy) alternatives exist.
Click to expand...

It's not just the connection going into peoples homes you've got to consider either it's the backbones used by the ISPs, moving over to 25+mbps streams is going to increase the traffic going through them massively and no one likes having to spend the money to increase their capacity.
 
I can't wait for early next year to get on the 4k bluray player owners list :) £599 for the first ones but I'll be buying!
 
tom_e said:
It's not just the connection going into peoples homes you've got to consider either it's the backbones used by the ISPs, moving over to 25+mbps streams is going to increase the traffic going through them massively and no one likes having to spend the money to increase their capacity.
Click to expand...

America is still discussing the same problems for their infrastructure. Still lots with not enough bandwidth and the biggest problem they have is data caps.
 
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