Nine reasons why Blu-ray will succeed

By David Carnoy on 28 January 2009

We've been seeing a lot of articles lately about Blu-ray's fuzzy future, how it's doomed, and how its success will be shortlived even if it does take off. Well, that may well end up being the case, but we gotta say, from where we're sitting, there's a far greater probability that Blu-ray will do just fine — for a long time. And we're not saying that because we're fanboys or shills for Sony. It's just because a lot of simple market factors point toward it doing just fine. Here are nine reasons why.

Blu-ray will be the last major disk format. Credit: grz3gorz.

1. Digital downloads will not eliminate the need for discs anytime soon.
Let's address this first since this is the biggest factor that people cite when trumpeting Blu-ray's defeat. If you haven't noticed, here at CNET we spend a good amount of time covering new streaming video platforms and services and really enjoy testing these new products. That said, all these products have some limiting factors, including lack of content selection, pricing hurdles, and most particularly, bandwidth issues which affect video and audio quality.

We're still a good three to five years away before the pipes get really fat enough for many of these IPTV/ streaming video services to reach their full potential and move from niche to mainstream status. In that time prices for both Blu-ray players and discs will look a lot like what you see today on their DVD brethren (see reasons #4 and #5).

2. Having one clear standard is a big advantage.
One of the problems with digital video streaming and downloads is that there's no standard for the industry to coalesce around. It's all a hodgepodge of stuff with various factions competing against each other with the consumers stuck in the middle of it all. That will slow adoption.

3. Blu-ray isn't going to be replaced by another disc format anytime soon.
When both Blu-ray and HD-DVD were in the midst of their little battle for the right to be crowned winner of the next-generation DVD format wars, there were lots of chatter about skipping this generation of disc technology and moving on to something that offered capacity beyond the 50GB you could store on Blu-ray discs. Our favorite was "holographic storage", discs, which could carry like 10 times the amount of data.

The problem is, no one's got the money or marketing power of Sony and its allies to bring out a new disc format, even if it is technically better. Also, Blu-ray is plenty good enough and will be for the next five years, if not longer, especially when they start adding special layers and all that fun stuff companies do to eke more out of a technology.

Yeah, Blu-ray's got plenty of downside competition from DVD, but there's no upside pressure coming anytime soon from some higher-end format. This is it for a while, folks. Blu-ray is the de-facto standard for high-definition discs.

4. Prices for large-screen HDTVs will continue to drop.
Yes, we're dealing with a serious downturn here. But people are still buying HDTVs (maybe not as many, but there are certain necessities in life, and a good TV is one of them). And with prices becoming more affordable for sets 46 inches or bigger, you've a growing base of installed users who are ultimately going to want to get the best picture they can out of their TVs. Eventually, DVD isn't going to cut it for people with large-screen TVs. And at the end of the day, Blu-ray looks significantly better than DVD — or pretty much anything else, including most HDTV broadcasts — on TVs 50 inches or bigger.

5. Prices for Blu-ray players will continue to drop.
By this time next year, there will be several sub-US$100 Blu-ray players on the market. Once you get to those price points it becomes much more of a no-brainer for consumers to purchase a Blu-ray player. Yes, you 'll be able to buy a decent DVD player for AU$100. But if you tell someone you can have a player that plays back "HD" discs and DVDs, he or she will think hard about shelling out the extra cash. And it will also help if...

6. Prices for Blu-ray discs will drop to near DVD price levels.
In the coming months, you'll probably see the prices for Blu-ray discs gradually drop with the gap between Blu-ray and DVD prices narrowing. They have to. This is how businesses work. You get the cost of production down to the point where you can spur demand and still manage to turn a tidy profit.

While people aren't going to buy as many Blu-ray discs as they did DVDs (plenty will rent), they're still going to buy some. And let's not forget that the price for watching movies in theaters is getting ridiculous. Buying a pristine copy of the movie for AU$30 is going to seem like a bargain, especially for a family of four — or more.

7. Sony will sell lots of PlayStation 3 game consoles.
As Sony trims the price on its PS3, it will sell more of them. Many more. And every PS3 has a Blu-ray player in it (and we still think it's the best player out there). This has always been Sony's Trojan horse for the platform. Don't forget it.

8. Sony can't afford to have Blu-ray fail.
Sony won the war with HD-DVD, and now it's got to take that win to the bank. Sony and its partners will do everything in their power to make it succeed. That's a lot of marketing juice.

9. Sony and its partners will figure out a way to have Blu-ray resonate with the public.
In several market research studies, Blu-ray has run into a basic problem: A high percentage of consumers don't understand just what Blu-ray is and what it does for them.

We always liked the name HD-DVD better than Blu-ray because we thought the name translated better to the average consumer. Some argue that Blu-ray is a better name because it connotes something new and different (and presumably better). Well, when you have people misspelling your brand's name (Blue Ray), you have a problem.

We would encourage Sony to embark on a whimsical, self-deprecating ad campaign that educates consumers about its platform and teaches them how to spell its product correctly. When everyone knows how to spell Blu-ray correctly, the format will be a success. We will bet our old HD-DVD collection on it.

Topics: hd-dvd, dvd, blu-ray, blu ray, disc

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Comments (11)

  • juice commented on 31/10/2009 21:37 Report abuse

    hmm.. reading this article 9 months later, the most obvious point i have to make is Blu Ray discs are still MUCH more expensive than DVD. Was in JB Hifi today Ghostbusters was 30+ dollars. I paid $10 for my DVD copy. They don't look like they're getting any cheaper to me.

    Also, you say "Sony can't afford to have Blu-ray fail".

    Sony don't exactly have a great history in this area. Remember their DRM? Complete failure. Remember them stubbornly refusing to move to mp3 and still pushing their MD players and custom compression formats because they obviously despised Apple?

    Let's face it, the only way blu ray will really take off is when it's a fraction dearer than DVD. The rest is irrelevant.

  • farts a re funny commented on 20/07/2009 18:05 Report abuse

    I think this article misses the number 1 reason why Blu Ray will succeed. "Blu Ray" sounds much cooler and flows off the tongue much easier than HDDVD. It's that simple folks. Never underestimate how simpleminded your average consumer is.

  • plmko commented on 22/06/2009 01:34 Report abuse

    Umm Luddite, I fail to understand how you can be a electrical engineer and not see that higher resolutions means larger screens without picture stretching. Funny how a mere accountant like myself realises this.

    Also HDMI simplifies the process by removing the need for a separate picture and audio cable.

  • Ghitulescu commented on 11/05/2009 17:24 Report abuse

    Well, most people do not know but the scanning standards of the Academy (2k and 4k) are at least twice as detailed (like BD to DVD). This would be probably the next HD standard as soon as they are able to master the technical difficulties.

    The rest of the article is generally a mistification, let's have a look at item 2. BD is one standard. Actually BD is not yet standardized, and there are many variants floating around. It's a hell for BD players to designa an universal BD-player with all these constrains.

    As soon BD+ will fail as protection they will change again the standard.

  • Luddite commented on 06/04/2009 12:43 Report abuse

    I vainly hope that all the high-definition formats fail, and we stick with "old" DVD for the foreseeable future.

    I'm sick of having to shell out extra to chase technology as idiot nerds introduce higher resolutions than the human eye can see, silly reviewers gush about it to a man, and opportunistic companies market this rubbish to fools who want to compete with each other for the latest gear.

    Unless picture quality is actually terrible or the screen is 3 metres wide, who the hell notices resolution when they're absorbed in a movie anyway?!

    Geez, I just want to be entertained, not worry about SSD, HDMI, DVD-RW vs DVD+RW, WD TV and all the other s***. And I'm an electrical engineer; How do older or less tech-savvy people cope with this avalache of zero-value-added technology?!

  • chipped commented on 01/02/2009 18:10 Report abuse

    Backups, SSD and HDCP support for computers?? Are you serious? SSD support has nothing to do with blu ray and multimedia, its high performance for PC's at a premium. Everyone knows that you wouldnt use a blu ray for backups or anything optical in fact, you wouldnt use some 1Tb hard drive either. You would use a RAID5 config, perhaps one of those ready to go ones in a box for your average consumer. And I can confidently say that 99.9% of blu rays target audience wouldnt watch a blu ray movie on their PC.

    Blu Ray has already taken off... slowly...

    Holographic discs can hold 500GB so far but blu ray can hold up to 400GB so forget that, that tech will be skipped.

    I live in Australia too and our internet plus internet plans are not suitable for streaming HD movies, we lack the bandwidth and the quota. Movies on USB wouldnt take off as it costs more to manufacture USB stick plus it still means you have to carry something physical around, how would a USB be better than a blu ray disc? It would be easier to pirate and cost more? Plus big enough USB sticks dont exist and would require yet another player.

  • petergaskin commented on 29/01/2009 19:43 Report abuse

    Blu-ray will not take off like the ordinary dvd player as follows - adding a blu-ray playere to your pc does not guarantee your ability to play back a blu-ray movie on your pc.
    Then - the WD TV is the start of the new revolution - we will be playing our movies direct from external hard drives.
    Th WD TV is still new - but lets wait and see where the competition takes us.
    The availabilty of cheap 1 TB external hard drives means that blu-rays are irrelevant when it comes to backups.
    With ssd hard drives still to come - just what is the future of blu-ray?
    then Video mEzy are proposing to rnet movies on usb sticks - to be played in special set top boxes. This is almost a reality! Now that Ezy DVD have been bought by the Video Ezy Blockbuster juggernaut, this group will have more influence on the future than any other group in Australia. Yes we may end up buying blu-ray dvd players to play the occasional blu ray disc, but given that many Australain households still do not have large lcd or plasma tvs, the blu-ray technology is irrelevant.

  • RaymondG commented on 29/01/2009 16:01 Report abuse

    [quote]We're still a good three to five years away before the pipes get really fat enough for many of these IPTV/ streaming video services to reach their full potential and move from niche to mainstream status.[/qoute]
    BuLL****... i dont have ANY problems.
    I dont have to "pirate" anything... i just hunt for live streaming video and that is it. then i watch it. period.

  • davidkymdell commented on 29/01/2009 15:26 Report abuse

    Nice article, however, you are suggesting that Blu-Ray is here to stay for 3-5 years at least.....not really that long at all considering the war for which disc format would win lasted about half as long as that. I do love my PS3 though and constantly marvel at how much better the quality is to normal dvd's.

  • ilovefooty commented on 29/01/2009 09:04 Report abuse

    I love my blu-ray. I just wish the local distributors would get their act together and release some serious back catalogue like the states are getting. We are being shafted down here, again.

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