RSSAnalysis: Ten reasons why discs won't die
By Scott M. Fulton, III and Sharon Fisher | Published January 8, 2008, 11:35 PM
Scott Fulton, BetaNews: Well, all the cards are pretty much on the table now at CES 2008, and it's time to start looking at what it all means. For that we've brought along our former Gartner analyst and BetaNews' own Senior CES Analyst, Sharon Fisher.
And Sharon, I'm thinking the place to start this week is with the notion that the high-def format war may be drawing down, if not to a complete close, and the real excitement has shifted over to streaming video.
Sharon Fisher, Senior CES Analyst, BetaNews: Yea, sure, Scott. And there's been some discussion that, now that the high-definition wars are largely over and it looks like Blu-ray will be the winner, it will all become immaterial because by 2010 we're all going to be moving to streaming video anyway and the disc is dead.
Balderdash. Here's why.
Ten Reasons Why Discs Will Never Die
1. Consumers aren't ready for it. Look at it this way: next year is the conversion to digital television, and the industry and the government are printing out 35 million coupons for the people who still use rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna to get their TV signals. How many consumers, other than the leading edge, are going to have the type of hardware and software that will allow them to rely solely on streaming video?
2. Sites aren't ready for it. Even now, when there's big events like Cyber Monday, Web sites can't handle it, and that's just for shopping. How much of a load is streaming video going to be? A good test will be to see what happens with the Summer Olympics this year. NBC and Microsoft announced plans to stream 3000 hours of coverage for every sport. www.nbcolympics.com has streaming video with good performance now, but let's see what happens during the gymnastics finals.
3. Infrastructure isn't ready for it. How many consumers have enough bandwidth to support it? How many consumers even have access to that much bandwidth? According to the National Association of State CIOs, you need 12 Mbps to even start getting IPTV, and what you really need is 24 Mbps to 100 Mbps. I have the fastest consumer Internet service possible in my area, and it clocks at 214 Kb. I downloaded the Microsoft Silverlight software that will be used for the Olympics, and tried to check out the CES coverage on Microsoft's site, and it paused every few seconds.
4. Providers aren't ready for it. Comcast has already taken heat for what's called bandwidth throttling, or cutting consumers off when they download "too much" data (and the "too much" isn't defined), but surely many other providers are doing it as well. How quickly are they going to be able to handle it when everyone is doing it?
5. With all the talk of on-demand video, do we really believe that we will be able to see any video at any time? I happen to be fond of the Icelandic film director Hrafn Gunnlaugsson; am I going to be able to find his more recent movies?
6. How's the pricing going to work? Wal-Mart (which, incidentally, discontinued its movie download service) charged $12.88 to $19.88 for a movie and $1.96 for a TV episode. If my daughter wants to watch Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer five times in a row (in July - and am I going to be able to download it in July?), how much is that going to cost me? Am I really going to pay $10 for every night when I flop in front of the tube after dinner and manage to stay up for Jay Leno?
7. There are some movies, that, ahem, we'd just as soon people not know that we like to watch and that we might like to have on disc so we can hide them. Yes, it's true that such content is available and popular on the Internet now but if all the video coverage is coming from the same provider, how does one maintain one's discretion?
8. Owning a disc is just simpler. There's plenty of Disney channels, but every parent I know has a rack full of Disney videos anyway, which they pass around among themselves, send with their kids to overnights, etc.
9. Let's say that there's a way for consumers to keep the content they get through streaming media. How are they going to manage it? Everyone I know with a TiVo has it full of stuff they never get around to watching and then it fills up and they can't record any more. What happens if a power failure or disk problem zaps the library?
10. Megatrends author John Naisbitt postulated the concept of "high tech, high touch," which stated that with increasing technology, people feel the need to increase the human response. They want something tangible they can hold and touch. People still buy vinyl records, for heaven's sake. Heck, they still buy books.
I admit it: You can have my discs when you can pry my cold, dead fingers from them.
Scott Fulton: Sharon, you mentioned the need for something tactile. I've always used that defense in arguing why electronic books would never replace books.
Sharon Fisher: Exactly.
Scott: There is a certain friendliness, a familiarity with the bound volume that cannot be simulated even by Amazon's best engineers. My wife and I still treasure our 33 rpm collections. (I'm dating ourselves now.)
Sharon: Plus, the distinction between them. My daughter learned to read through the logos on Disney movies. She wouldn't be able to do that through a list on a screen.
Scott: By that same token, you'd think that the record album in its current incarnation would be something of transcendently tactile value.
Sharon: It does. Vinyl record sales are going up.
Scott: And yet CD sales are evaporating. Every analyst from every part of the spectrum is saying that today's buyers prefer the portability of the disattached file.
Sharon: So what are you and I? Chopped liver?
Scott: Once the ratio of available space to media file size becomes the same proportion for video later as it is for audio today, who's to say that trend won't repeat itself, and you and I would become chopped liver?
Sharon: Maybe we will. Someday. But not by 2010.
People are willing to dump old technology when something demonstrably better comes along. How many eight-tracks do you see today?
Scott: Well, 8-track failed because of its relatively low fidelity. MP3s are not necessarily any higher fidelity than what is printed on a CD.
Sharon: Sometimes worse.
Scott: In fact, many are lower fidelity. And you'd think they have the disadvantage of not being bound to something you can touch. For a growing number of people, that's not a disadvantage.
Sharon: True. For them, they like the portability.
Scott: So why wouldn't a similar trend emerge in video, if not by 2010, then certainly by 2015?
Sharon: You know, some archivists are talking about how we're likely to lose our history of this period, because so much of it is stored in computer media that is no longer readable or will no longer be readable in the future. By 2015, there'll be some other big thing, some new format, that everyone will want and that will be incompatible with previous methods.
Scott: That theory only makes sense if you subscribe to the notion that data is "printed" on media. In a storage area network, where a lot of history these days is being kept, that's not the case. It moves around.
Sharon: Is the average consumer going to have a SAN at home?
Scott: Quite possibly, at least in the architectural sense. You're seeing more and more enthusiasts' desktop computers with two or three RAID drives standard. So what if, by 2015, I can hold my whole SAN in my hand? That becomes my entire library. It's kinda tactile, in a strange way.
Sharon: Enthusiasts, yes. Certainly enthusiasts will be doing streaming video. But what about many other consumers? I can't even send my dad digital pictures of his granddaughter because he doesn't have e-mail or a computer. But that's also vulnerable. Part of the reason I don't get an iPod is that I'm afraid I'll run the thing through the wash.
Scott: Well, you see how trends are sold to us at CES every year. It's not something that corporations beg us, please, please do this, it'll make our gross margins so much nicer. They say, this is something that's going to happen and going to sweep the country, and if you're not doing it too, you're chopped liver.
Sharon: People hate throwing things away, especially when they work. Shall we take bets on how many people freak out on February 19 next year when their tvs suddenly don't work?
Scott: There will be millions of people...who suddenly see static where Channel 7 used to be......and they'll issue a Mandate for Change in America!
Sharon: It's going to be very interesting, actually. Bigger than Y2K.
Scott: The reason I ask all that is this: There's a theory buzzing around this week that the high-def format war is almost over at last. And that it's only a matter of time before HD DVD concedes defeat and Blu-ray takes over the last two big studios in a great game of Risk. And that when that happens, everybody who's been waiting around can at last invest in a Blu-ray player.
I think the manufacturers know that this theory isn't set in stone. I think they're looking at the facts and saying, do consumers really think they even need a high-def video disc?
Sharon: Exactly. I'm actually hearing from a lot of people that they aren't seeing enough of a difference in HD to make it worth bothering. These are people people, not enthusiasts, not industry people.
Scott: As long as conventional DVD hangs on, high-def blue-laser disc will always be in the upper crust of consumers. And that's the same profile of consumers who can reject CDs because they no longer need the bulk.
Sharon: Right. So video streaming will actually end up cannibalizing the Blu-ray market, because they fill the same ecological niche.
Scott: You've followed me to the conclusion I had in mind...So Discs Will Never Die?
Sharon: I won't say never. Never is a long time.
Scott: So shall we call your list, "10 reasons why most discs will likely not die for a long time?" Sharon: True, I did say "never" in the title, didn't I?...It is remotely possible that they won't sell discs by 2015.
Scott: And with that bit of cannibalization, we'll say thank you to Sharon Fisher.
Two things, I guess...
Adoption can happen. Competition can come from manufacturers to lower the prices (there doesn't have to be competing formats to lower prices). So prices on players and ROM drives get lower. They become ubiquitous so that all computer come with Blu-ray RW drives instead of DVD+-RW drives. People buy $99 Blu-ray players for their TVs (whether they have blu-ray discs or not) to play old DVDs AND blu-ray. etc. Phase out the DVD players, and eventually people would start buying blu-ray discs anyway. Remember the years in which DVD-ROM drives had been in computers for a while, but software companies still insisted on shipping software in CD-ROMs? Eventually they switched.
To expand on #8, I wouldn't let kids pass around my DVDs, but my friends and family very often let each other borrow DVDs. How the hell would you do that with streaming media? Okay, you can by some sort of managed rights thing (like iTunes DRMed songs on multiple computers I guess), but why make it so complicated by creating this huge system and constantly updating and keeping it from getting abused with cheaters.
I don't know, I'm probably talking out of my butt.
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"Scott: And yet CD sales are evaporating. Every analyst from every part of the spectrum is saying that today's buyers prefer the portability of the disattached file."
theres a difference bewteen downloading an album with about 15 songs, at about 4mb each thats around 60mb
a film is about 700mb minimum, high def stuf can be higher than 4gb, thats over 4000mb, think thatl take a darn site longer that the lil album
on another note, what happens if someone sends you a virus? u lose all of your movies? or if you want to take a film to a friends house coz he just got a jumbo sized tv?
disks are here to stay...
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Sure, the disc will disappear.
It will be replaced by flash media or something similar.
Scratch-proof, rewritable, fast, future-proof as far as capacity goes, and endlessly portable.
That is like saying tapes will never die. Replaced by CD/DVD. CD/DVD? Replaced by flash soon enough.
I honestly don't know why it hasn't already happened. Office 2007 should have shipped on non-rewritable USB flash memory sticks. Any system that is capable of running O2k7 has USB2.0, while making it non-rewritable would make it a permanent copy of the purchased software in case a re-install is needed (and bypassing the limited "write" lifetime of flash memory).
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"Replaced by flash soon enough.
I honestly don't know why it hasn't already happened. Office 2007 should have shipped on non-rewritable USB flash memory sticks."
Manufacturing costs. It probably costs less than a penny to produce a CD/DVD with the data on it. I'm pretty sure it would cost a lot more to manufacture a flash drive and put the data on it... especially when getting into the 4GB+ range; and I can't see how making the flash read-only would do anything but increase the cost.
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It's a bit setting. Simple, really.
The cost issue makes sense. If I'd thought about it for more than a few seconds, perhaps...
Of course, the storage capacity is a big one as well. If they're going to start shipping software or movies on BluRay, what then of the cost difference? Not only are we talking a bunch more for the media, but the consumer is hit with a huge cost for the device to read it. USB is already out there...
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Another reason that Blu-Ray will have a slow adoption rate is because of DRM.
People have all of these electronic bobbles, but they can't easily place shift the content. I'm a big music fan, and I have several DVDs with music videos on them that I would like to rip and put on my mp3/video player and laptop. The problem is that this isn't easy. In fact it's a really big hassle which is my I haven't done it, and why I don't buy DVDs anymore.
People download the content because it's easier to place shift it. It's much easier to go from digital to physical then the other way around. Bits are much easier to strip off then fighting hardware.
Also, blu-ray isn't a cool name. "Do you have my blue-ray dude?" doesn't quite roll off the tongue like "Do you have my DVD dude?"
I do have to say that I am glad Blu-Ray won. Only because of amount of data I will be able to backup onto them once commercial burners hit the mainstream. I have lots of data and 4.7 GB is pretty small.
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No, I don't have your Blu-Ray, but I do have your BRD. ;)
That was too easy...
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"but every parent I know has a rack full of Disney videos anyway, which they pass around among themselves, send with their kids to overnights, etc."
As a parent myself, I just cringed. We certainly don't do this, and never would.
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so tell me what's to stop a handheld device similar to the ipod that plugs into your tv with an hdmi cable from happening? it's portable.. you could plug it into any tv that has hdmi.. your library of movies would be left on your main computer just like with the ipod.. instead of renting movies, you would purchase movies through a service that would load them right into your library.. i mean i just don't understand why this is not possible or believed to be inconvenient.. my music collection is more important to me than my movie collection, so please don't tell me it's too risky as i'm already doing this today all of my music.. yeah sure many people wouldn't be able to upgrade to a device like this, but those are the same people who won't be buying a blu-ray player anyways.. same people who don't own mp3 players, and same people who still use rabbit ears.
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"According to the National Association of State CIOs, you need 12 Mbps to even start getting IPTV, and what you really need is 24 Mbps to 100 Mbps. I have the fastest consumer Internet service possible in my area, and it clocks at 214 Kb."
I live in Central Europe and I thought that my region is really backward. My ADSL is 6Mbps and available for around 90% population of the country. In fact it is considered pretty average here - nothing fancy but anything bad either. Something which clocks 214 Kbps? GPRS/EDGE in my cellhone? I am not sarcastic or something but it proves that there are places in the world with shortages of bandwidth, similar to places with shortages of water or food. I wonder if there is a map of bandwidth poverty. It could be really surprising.
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Don't you find it odd that a senior CES Analyst would live in an area with such a crappy internet connection... I would assume better exists they just dont think they need it.
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perhaps you missed this part?
I have the fastest consumer Internet service possible in my area, and it clocks at 214 Kb.
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The US has broadband issues for a reason. You mention that you're from Europe and have good broadband, which I've often heard about European and some Asian countries (Japan). But when you take geography into consideration, the US has several states bigger than most European countries. Just look at Texas. How many Central European countries could you cram into Texas? And which would have the larger population?
And there you have it. Given the choice of networking the state of Texas or central Europe, which do you think would get you more customers? On the east and west coasts the US has some great broadband around it's metropolitan areas, but they're separated by a huge chunk of land which is sparsely populated by comparison and it's just not economical to network the whole thing. Fortunately for me, I'm in one of the metro areas.
I suspect on a map of bandwidth poverty the central US would be a big red zone with the only green areas being major cities. The same could be said about most countries though, especially larger ones. To make a generalization, in a developed country, bandwidth quality = population density.
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Sadly, this site doesn't have a map, but it will tell you (in Excel spreadsheets) more than you want to know about broadband penetration around the world.
http://www.oecd.org/docu...8690102_1_1_1_1,00.html
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I don’t know much about broadband rollout in the USA but isn’t there some companies spending bucket loads to layout fibre for the future there? I do recall reading this somewhere, perhaps digg hehe.
Broadband in Japan tends to be looked at as if it’s the same as it is in the western world, only faster. It’s not the case. While we now have 160mbit DSL in two of the major cities, it’s not 160mbit to your house unless you are very lucky. For instance my apartment block in Nagoya has 100mbit (used to be 160 but the trial expired). That’s GREAT IF I am the only one using it. Sadly, it’s actually shared amongst the entire block. I would normally average around the 7mbit mark.
I am not sure of the technical reasons behind it but its simular to cable in Australia with the exception that there is a terrific amount of local content (city local not country) that makes it a extremely good experience
Meh sorry I spouted off about that a bit too much :)
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I totally agree. Discs, or their equivilent in innexpensive, disposable, portable, high-capacity media, will NEVER die. Why? Because the medium has essentially no negatives (or none of any real substance) and potentially unlimited future capacity (higher density, ever more layers, etc.)
Streaming media is nice occassionally, and convienient at times, but people will always want to OWN and CONTROL the copy of the movie that they BUY. They aren't satisfied to just rent a movie (for this price point), they want to actually own and control what it is they are paying their hard earned money for. That is why it is called "purchasing" a movie, not getting a "time limited, restricted, conditional right to use, temporary viewing license". Big difference there...and one that matters.
This is NEVER going to change and that is why you will always have a market for portable, self-contained, PHYSICAL film delivery mechanisms, such as the beloved disc.
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Followed by...
Ten reasons why horse and buggies won't die
Ten reasons why steam engines won't die
Ten reasons why wood siding won't die
Ten reasons why vacuum tubes won't die
Ten reasons why disk marketers won't die
I love how pundits can forecast tech trends years ahead, when almost NOBODY can look back 5 years and honestly say they predicted everything we're seeing today. BS.
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In case you wanna do some analogy, let me tell you this: clothes won't die. Shoes won't die. Tables and chairs won't die.
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And for some God forsaken reason, Uwe Bolls' direction of movies won't die either, sigh. Why?! Why?!!!!
If he get Transformers 3 or Halo or dear God, World of Warcraft to direct? I'm seriously going to /emo.
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"Ten reasons why steam engines won't die"
They haven't.
"Ten reasons why vacuum tubes won't die"
They won't.
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Giving ten reasons why somethig might go a certain way is a far cry from from making a prediction.
They are good reasons, but who'd to say there isn't 1 much better reason why they will die.
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