I want to see Blu-ray die or at least see no other newer digital video/storage format succeed Blu-ray. It's time the consumer spoke and said the current format is more than enough capacity and delivers more than enough video quality.Blu-ray, like regular DVD, is a digital format, this means, in its self, it doesn't deliver any better quality. The use of a blue-violet laser, as opposed to a red laser, enables data to be packed more tightly onto the disk giving anywhere up to 500GB of storage capacity. Very attractive when you consider regular DVD have a maximum capacity of 8.54GB. (Both format capacities are achieved via 'layering').
High Definition (HD) video is the format delivered on Blu-ray disks. Currently DVD delivers Standard Definition (SD). HD offers five times the definition of SD making the picture incredibly sharp with vivid colors. It also offers access to substantially better audio than SD.
Blu-ray offers quite a few other enhancements for video but these are mostly benefits of the increased storage capacity (such as more interactive menu systems and an increased amount of extra content).
So, why would I want Blu-ray to die? It sounds fantastic doesn't it. Indeed it is. In fact now that I've reached this point in the article (having done all the research as I go) maybe Blu-ray shouldn't die. Perhaps it should become immortal.
When I started this article the point I wanted to make is 'enough is enough'. Do we really need better video quality? Better audio? More content? Interactive menus?
To be honest, I'm quite happy with what DVD, SD video delivers. It does the job. It looks and sounds great. It works. Sure Blu-ray is better but after the initial experience wears off I'm just going to think, 'meah'. It's not like seeing a movie on an IMAX screen where the experience blows you away nearly every time - and never gets old. At the end of the day it's just a new STANDARD.
Standard is exactly that, standard. It's what we expect and take for granted. Let's stop trying to improve on things that work far better than they need to. Let Blu-ray become immortal. The final standard.
Put some of those research and development dollars into something movie related that actually does need improving - like getting George Lucas to re-imagine the Star Wars franchise for an adult audience.
I'm not really familiar with the blu-ray not having used it or know if I need it - getting too technical for me now, but, then, I never thought I'd have a use for any of the new technologies, but I'm using them all, mostly with the exception of the blu-ray, and ipods etc!
ReplyDeleteThink though, how far the audio has come - it's just the same! First we had the large, heavy, bakalite gramophone records that held one song each side, played on a gramophone with the huge trumpet to magnify the sound, as no speakers then, I suppose!(before my time - the phono - that is, though I do remember the heavy records when I was about 8yrs in the 50s)
We progressed to light, vinyl, small 45s - snapped up by teens who had a record player, which was 'portable' with a carry handle, though still heavy to lug around! Artistes brought a 'long player' (LP) record out when they had enough songs to put on it, also made in the light vinyl. (you could heat it in the oven and bend it up into a fluted plant pot if you didn't like the song, hence the phrase, 'That would make a good plant pot' of a disliked song on the radio!)
Now, artistes bring out a whole album, and take a single off it to release seperately, thus, promoting the album at the same time. The record player had advanced to a radiogram - a piece of furniture to put in your lounge with a combined radio and record player with built-in speakers - a real boon for the times! Usually boasted little side cupboards to store your records in.
When we came to Australia in the latish 60s, we rented a '3 in 1' TV, radio, and record player, a long, low piece of furniture as we wanted something to play our little 45s on!
This was the 50s, 60s era - 70s saw the invention of the cassette tapes, which meant that you now needed to buy a combined record player (for your LPs) radio, and cassette player, which we did, having now advanced to a rented COLOUR TV. (the 60s was also the era of the transistor radio, a portable with carry handle, but much bigger than the ones today, but they gradually shrank, but then they were replaced by the walkmans and then ipods!)
Before this, you could get tape recorder machines which would also play your reel-to-reel tapes back, but I don't think there were any music tapes with these, I think they were for speaking only. (we used to record letter tapes to send home to UK on small reels, but when we were sent one on a cassette, we had to get our cassette ensemble!) You could buy the blank cassettes for recording things, and with these you could record music without household noises interfering, as with the reel-to-reel tape recorders.
You'd think this would be enough, but no, the 80s then decided we needed the 'compact disc' (CD) to play our music on, which apparently was far better than the cassette tapes, giving much more clarity and hearing all the music! Also, we now bought Hi-Fi systems with seperate speakers which could be arranged to give better 'surround sound' in your lounge room!
We had of course the video recorders in the 80s and 90s, which have now progressed to DVDs, giving much better clarity also! (makes you wonder how much more can our eyes take of all this 'sharp, vivid, colour clarity!')
They reckon CDs and DVDs might be on the way out in the future, as alot of people download music and movies from 'the 'net' now! I hope not, as I love my CDs and DVDs! Just shows you though, how things have changed down the ages - before the blu-ray!
..........do you know - some of this generation don't know what a record is - having never seen one, and maybe some don't know what tapes are, but still some in the shops?!! The shops and mail order people have begun to sell turntables again, as people were complaining that they didn't have anything to play their LPs on!
Gosh, you're comment is longer than the article - I'm sure!
ReplyDeleteI can see why we've had format progressions over the last few decades but once we moved to digital format we're not really talking improvements in picture and sound any longer (well technically we are but really how much more picture resolution do we need after blu-ray?).
The big improvement Blu-ray brings is storage. More storage means an ability to store higher resolution digital video. Are we going to keep upgrading formats every time they find a new way to cram more info onto a disk?
Downloading movies from the internet is the way we're heading but people still need somewhere to store those downloads. Maybe we won't be buying movies on blu-ray but we will be buying blank blu-ray disks to burn our downloads to.
Well, like you - I was perfectly happy with each format - until another one was presented! You wouldn't want to go back, but if they hadn't invented another format - I would have been happy! Ha-ha!
ReplyDeleteSorry for the previous length, but it took a long while to go through the formats!