The Blu-ray blues

[PeterCH]

This is so true.
Most of the time it's cheaper to import and pay shipping charges than it is to buy from a local dealer. They're just so into ripping us off that they can't fathom making only 10% profit on any product

With Disk regioning, importing from the US is often not feasible. Only some
disks are region free.

 

[RGKCT]

Does anyone remember what the cost of DVD hardware was when it first came out??? how much was a player and who could afford it at the time? ...and ten years ago, what was the price of a DVD movie???

 

[Hosehead]

With Disk regioning, importing from the US is often not feasible. Only some
disks are region free.

Are the BD players multizone? in the stores here or does it depend on the manufacturer.

 

[LazyLion]

Does anyone remember what the cost of DVD hardware was when it first came out??? how much was a player and who could afford it at the time? ...and ten years ago, what was the price of a DVD movie???

I bought my first DVD drive in 1997 I think. Was a Creative 6x with Decoder Card. I think was around R1000.00

Then I bought a Samsung dual DVD/VHS machine for over R4000.00.

 

[PeterCH]

Are the BD players multizone? in the stores here or does it depend on the manufacturer.

They can be made multi-zone for DVDs but not for BD.
Companies are keeping those keycombos a secret though.

BD drives together with AnyDVDHD or DVDFabHD can be made region free.

 

[PeterCH]

I bought my first DVD drive in 1997 I think. Was a Creative 6x with Decoder Card. I think was around R1000.00

Then I bought a Samsung dual DVD/VHS machine for over R4000.00.

I bought the Creative DVD Dxr3 pack (Hollywood Plus card and Creative DVD drive - region free out of box) for R1999 in 1999.

 

[Rouxenator]

Yet again people miss the point with blu-ray. It is not about the definition of the movie on it, it is about the amount of data it can hold.

DVD is good enough for 99% of the people out there. With the fancy up scaling techniques in modern HD players/recorders you really do not need to fork out all that money on blu-ray.

The only reason blu-ray has to live is to close the gap between optical storage and magnetic/flash based solutions. Currently optical is stuck where magnetic was 10 years ago. When DVD came out it could hold more data than the hard drives of the day, but since then optical storages has fallen behind by a long shot.

Blu-ray will bring optical storage up to 25gb (1/40th of leading HDDs) which is at least a step in the right direction.

Movies? who cares about that anyway - we have DVD for that.

 

[Hosehead]

Yet again people miss the point with blu-ray. It is not about the definition of the movie on it, it is about the amount of data it can hold.

.

Different strokes for different folks.

 

[RGKCT]

Different strokes for different folks.

+1

 

[LazyLion]

I bought the Creative DVD Dxr3 pack (Hollywood Plus card and Creative DVD drive - region free out of box) for R1999 in 1999.

Ja, that was it. Probably that price. Wow!

 

[LazyLion]

Yet again people miss the point with blu-ray. It is not about the definition of the movie on it, it is about the amount of data it can hold.

DVD is good enough for 99% of the people out there. With the fancy up scaling techniques in modern HD players/recorders you really do not need to fork out all that money on blu-ray.

The only reason blu-ray has to live is to close the gap between optical storage and magnetic/flash based solutions. Currently optical is stuck where magnetic was 10 years ago. When DVD came out it could hold more data than the hard drives of the day, but since then optical storages has fallen behind by a long shot.

Blu-ray will bring optical storage up to 25gb (1/40th of leading HDDs) which is at least a step in the right direction.

Movies? who cares about that anyway - we have DVD for that.

Meh. Doesn't interest me. Let me know when they hit 500 Gb and are on the shelves. Until then Hard drives and DVDs are still cheaper.

 

[HBee]

Optical storage is a waste of time with the prices and capacities of hard drives today.
Most media players that you connect up to your television (many now HD capable) all use internal Harddrives.

I Hope BD dies soon and it costs SONY to eat a big slice of humbe pie.

 

[Hosehead]

.

I Hope BD dies soon and it costs SONY to eat a big slice of humbe pie.

Just like Betamax, it will be Sony's second helping of humble pie.

 

[Rouxenator]

Meh. Doesn't interest me. Let me know when they hit 500 Gb and are on the shelves. Until then Hard drives and DVDs are still cheaper.

DVDs only handle 4.5gb - that is not nearly enough for a good removable media solution.

Optical storage is a waste of time with the prices and capacities of hard drives today.

So what type of cheap WORM removable media do you recommend then ?

 

[chubster]

VHS won, because it had more storage space with a cheaper price even though Sony's BetaMax was far superior in quality. Now Sony tackled the storage space (more space for better quality), but what about the pricing? So the only conclusion I will see from this whole "race" is that they both will lose to internet streaming via fibre, which I see as the future. Satellite technology will have to improve on DVB-S2 which can only reliably send 1080i, 720p isn't bad at all, but don't expect 1080p soon via Satellite.

DVDs only handle 4.5gb - that is not nearly enough for a good removable media solution.

Well you could go dual layer which will give you a bit more, but too expensive.

So what type of cheap WORM removable media do you recommend then ?

I don't think optical storage is viable anyway, perhaps as a backup media which never sees daylight and high temperatures.

 

[rwenzori]

Meh. Doesn't interest me. Let me know when they hit 500 Gb and are on the shelves. Until then Hard drives and DVDs are still cheaper.

I'm with you completely.

The problem with these optical storage formats is that the developer companies all go off on hands and knees to the movie company associations and feel they have to agree to all the region coding and DRM crap. They should just define a plain old format with an easily accessible file system, so the format is of use for data, and you don't have to pay all these patent fees and license fees and DRM-development money etc etc. This whole business of ensuring that decryption keys are "protected" at every stage of transfer in the internals of your PC results in huge overheads, and doesn't work anyway.

Make the format, then if the movie companies don't want to use it, stuff them.

25 or 50GB is stuffall now anyway. Roll on 500GB media.

 

[LazyLion]

DVDs only handle 4.5gb - that is not nearly enough for a good removable media solution.

They serve me just fine. I can fit plenty on a DVD. If it is not enough, then I use two or ten or fifty.

Or I just buy another hard drive. A 1 terabyte HDD for R800 to R1000 gets me a Gig for about a rand or less.

BD sucks donkey balls.

 

[PeterCH]

I'm with you completely..

SONY the main developer is also the main content provider. This is what makes them evil.

 

[Rouxenator]

I don't think optical storage is viable anyway, perhaps as a backup media which never sees daylight and high temperatures.

The question remains - what compact removable media do you use then to backup stuff and give stuff away on ? Hard drives ? I think not.

 

[LazyLion]

The question remains - what compact removable media do you use then to backup stuff and give stuff away on ? Hard drives ? I think not.

um, external 2.5" hard drives? Ever heard of them? Same size as a DVD and don't require any extra power. Flash Disks? Very new technology. You should Google them. Now come in 32 Gb size. Amazing what you can find on the net.