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CES Dreaming: Blu-ray vs. the Internet |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Bidness
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Tuesday, 06 January 2009 |
Hello from fabulous Las Vegas, where I've settled in to await the dizzying pageant that is the Consumer Electronics Show. Las Vegas is my favorite place in the world, for the first 48 hours. It's fun to indulge all your vices simultaneously. I can usually commit all seven cardinal sins within about an hour and a half. After a couple days, though, I find I lose my stomach for it and need to head for more wholesome pastures. Des Moines, say.
Also, as a practical matter, I'm blacklisted from all the casinos on
the strip. (I've memorized a card-counting algorithm that really makes
them mad.) They usually wise up to my disguises after a couple nights.
Anyway, I'm keeping my trip this year strictly professional,
representing Dyscern's various worldwide consumer electronic interests.
 More dispatches as the show gets underway, but one thing that's been on
my mind. The big news to come out of last year's show wasn't the
introduction of a new technology, but the withdrawal of one. If you'll
recall, it was around this time last year that Warner Brothers withdrew its
support for the HD-DVD format, essentially killing it and clearing the
way for rival Blu-ray. 2008 was a pretty good year for Blu-ray, as
studios and distributors began releasing new films and re-releasing
older ones in the high-resolution format.
Blu-ray player prices dropped precipitously as well, as did the various
models of high-def televisions swamping retail shelves. So all should
be well in Blu-ray land, yes? Setting aside the ailing economy,
Blu-ray's path as the heir apparent to DVD seems to be nicely cleared.
Well, not so fast. As this excellent New York Times article suggests,
Blu-ray's competition isn't any kind of rival optical format. It's the
dawning of fast, convenient, widely available services that download
high-def content directly from the digital source, via your broadband
Internet connection. That is to say, video-on-demand is narrowing the
window of opportunity for any removable media to make the kind of
splash DVD did in replacing VHS. This is why you see outfits like Apple
and Netflix elbowing for position in the direct digital delivery
market.
So bear this in mind, bleeding-edgers. Building that Blu-ray library
may still be a worthwhile endeavor, but in a few years it will be
strictly for historical exhibit purposes.
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