“Jules, did you ever hear the philosophy that once a man admits he’s wrong, then he’s automatically forgiven of that wrongdoing?” – Vincent (John Travolta), Pulp Fiction, 1994
Even as blue laser technology (BD and HD DVD) begins hitting stores, some (webwishers) are saying it is a technology that has passed its prime.
The reason?
Logic says you can download your movies with a little effort so why bother to buy or rent HighDef movie discs.
There are two different approaches and people don’t want to make the wrong choice.
The burners and media are way too expensive.
People not only do everything online, they want their content portable.
Webwishers should be forgiven.
After all:
1. They aren’t real consumers. They hear about, touch, play with, talk about and have every new technology that comes down the pike.
2. Millions of ordinary folks still have Win ’98 or 2000 on their system and struggle to fill a CD.
3. We live with multiple choices every day – Windows, MacOS, Linux; FireWire, USB – and hundreds of others without being numbed into staying in bed.
4. First generation products are always expensive unless manufacturers wrap $300 or $500 bills around each unit sold.
5. Five, ten, twenty million users in a global population of six billion is not everyone.
6. Even the most rapidly accepted product in the CE industry – DVD –took eight years before 50 per cent of the U.S. homes owned one and it only recently surpassed VCR…12 years + after experts said VCR was dead.
For many of us the PC is the centre of our content world. We struggled to install a home network and a couple of peripherals. Our kids showed us how to connect the stereo/entertainment centre. The programmed our PVR so we could timeshift shows and watch stuff when we wanted…cool!
With cable and Internet TV/video we now have thousands of viewing options on virtually any subject.
Of course finding it and remembering how to record it is still a work in progress.
But…blue laser technology is right on schedule.
Content developers and owners are just now testing the storage boundaries and expanded high definition capabilities of the new technology. Creatives are learning how to take advantage of the high capacity discs (30 and 50GB double layer) to keep multitasking kids interested.
The creators and early adopters will show the followers and commodity buyers why we should move to the next generation. And, this group will take their sweet time in making the move.
After all the blue laser burner/player/media is only one component in the mix of how we have to think about, storing, sharing and using our content.
Before we worry about the discs, millions of TV sets will have to be upgraded to HDTV. Ordinary DVD burners and players have to die, the new stuff has to become so cheap we’d be idiots not to upgrade or content has to be so compelling we’ll have to save it to watch again…and again…and…
We’re past the point Samuel L. Jackson made in Pulp Fiction, “Yeah, but, you are aware that there’s an invention called television, and on this invention they show shows, right?”
A $2,000 TV set is not a helluva good deal for a lot of people!
Even then, that NetFlix DVD played on your $40 DVD player looks good enough.
Want it to look even better? Pick up a DVD upconverter. For about $100 you’ve got near-HD quality.
DVDwishers have said CDs were dead for the last 15-20 years. There are nearly one billion burners still in use around the globe. In 2006, more than eight billion CDR discs were produced and sold.
There is just something irresistible about a storage medium that plays virtually everywhere, holds over 700 photos or 20 minutes of good video and costs almost nothing to buy.
By 2009 it is estimated that CDR demand will drop to about 6.5 billion discs. People will finally move up to DVDR media with 4X the storage capacity (single layer) and costs way less than 50 cents.
These deadbeat disc users can move up and double their capacity with DL DVDR media giving them about an hour HighDef video on a single disc.
Actually Tellywood would like to see you go blue sooner rather than later. They lost control of content security early in the game with CSS. That has always ticked them off!
They agreed with Travolta when it came to the issue of consumers making a backup copy. “Yeah, it’s legal, but it ain’t a hundred per cent legal.”
But when blue laser came along, they planned and worked ahead. The DRM (digital rights management) and CA (conditional access) that was possible with both BD and HD DVD was so good it took a 12-15 year-old three – four days to crack.
Of course now that the cracking software is offered as a shrinkwrap package that bulletproof idea kinda sucks!
Even if they steal the content, some images look better in standard rather than high definition.
But regular folks aren’t concerned about ripping off Tellywood. They are concerned that they can accurately – and economically – record, archive and view their photos, listen to their music, watch their family video memories or find their important personal/business records.
How much data is packed on a single disc is of little/no concern to them.
Somehow, most people don’t really believe everything is available to you on Web 2.0. Everything can be stored “somewhere” on Web 2.0.
Why would you want to buy – or rent – the movie? Especially when you can rip it and file it.
Don’t know about you but we don’t have that much extra time.
We have an avatar in SecondLife that needs a date…bad!
We have a Wii tee time in a half hour.
Rather than hunt on the web, most people want to store wedding, birthday, vacation, special events moments and memories on a disc that can sit on the shelf.
That’s why we want our bank, IRS and family documents on an encrypted disc at home.
The Internet and Web 2.0 has room for all of your stuff.
You can access it anytime you want just as easily as you download the latest movie release.
Problem is, most people say…“I don’t mean any disrespect, I just don’t like people barking orders at me.”
Right on John!
Average people want to store their content on their CD, DVD and eventually blue disc…time will tell.
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