06 March 2009

Blu-Ray = LaserDisc

A lot of folks knew it was coming, but with the explosion of solutions like Roku and boxee and NetFlix and BitTorrent and Move Networks and Hulu - I think it's time to say buh-bye to Blu-Ray.

Like LaserDiscs, Blu-Ray is going to become a product for the movie fanatic - the person who simply must own the move/video and for whom the theoretical best possible output really matters. The trouble is - as LaserDisc proved - there just aren't very many people who meet this description.

Streaming now gives us on demand content - of acceptable quality - not tied to a piece of hardware. It's convenient and it is everywhere. Bandwidth to the home is where it need to be to start making this real - the infrastructure and technology on the delivery end is finally there - and consumers simply want the ease of use.

The first question is... who is going to figure out the optimal business models first?
The second question is... which CE companies are going to miss the boat? (hint.... that's a trick question)

2 Comments:

At 10:10 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I'm curious to see the direction Apple TV takes. Waiting for the next generation hardware before purchasing.

What I don't understand is how long cable companies can keep charging double for access to the same pipe/content.

 
At 5:12 PM, Blogger Gong said...

yeah, i will never buy a blu-ray device. on-demand HD and cheap storage makes more sense. i do think there is a market for blu-ray but it just won't be as big as they think or want it to be.

 

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