RSSAnalyst: Blu-ray may never replace DVD in PCs
By Tim Conneally | Published August 25, 2009, 3:18 PM
Even though Blu-ray player sales are on a rapid climb, and Sony's new PS3 Slim and cheaper PlayStation 3 are expected to cause an explosion in Blu-ray penetration, market research company iSuppli says the drives haven't even begun to break the PC market.
According to the firm's tallies of the global PC market, only 3.6% of all computers shipped this year were equipped with Blu-ray drives, and the growth rate will remain low.
"BDs won't be replacing DVDs as the primary optical drive in PC systems through at least the year 2013," said Michael Yang, iSuppli's Senior Analyst for storage and mobile memory. "They eventually will find success, but during the next five years, that success will be limited in the PC segment. The cost issue is amplified by the fact that the library of content is so small that there really isn't a reason for users to switch at the moment, and while this is changing, and studios are rolling out more Blu-ray content every week, there remains a long way to go."
By 2013, iSuppli predicts that BD drives will still only be installed in 16.3% of all PCs, at best.
ISuppli cites the succession of removable disc storage in PCs for the last 20 years. The 3.5" floppy was eventually replaced by the CD-ROM because of the dramatic increase in storage, and the precipitously low price of distributing software on that format (remember the stacks of floppies you used to use when installing, say, Microsoft Office?). An operating system or large suite of programs which would take up numerous floppies (Windows NT 3.1, for example, took up 22 diskettes) could be put on a single CD-ROM.
Lower production costs were the principal driver for CD-ROM (CD-R, CD-RW) to be replaced by DVD (DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW). But now, as most software can still be contained in DVDs or as download packages, production costs have yet to be measured lower for the higher-capacity Blu-ray formats, and broadband has made Internet distribution not only cheaper but more expedient, there's little motivation for anyone except for interactive movies and games to make the move.
I think format Blu-ray is like Beta and DAT. Something for the studio. For the consumer it has few benefits. But for professionals, it will allow companies to archive and/or transport large amounts of data off the network. It could even replace those tape drives. Who else needs that much space for the large price? And for video, few movies genres will take advantage of HD: sci-fi, action, fantasy, war. A rom-com or drama in high definition - how would you know the difference?
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|Blu-ray players have a tiny piece of the video market and that is unlikely to change by much.
It's a dud, a niche product and it'll stay that way until the next one comes along.
Blu-ray as a recording media on PC is in an even worse position.
Laughably expensive media and burners.
Why would anyone bother?
If big size, reliability and speed are really your priority then nothing beats hard drives (so large & cheap they can be used in raid 5 arrays to protect in the unlikely event of a failure).
The one tech coming whoch interests me is the flash drive/SD card stuff.
2tbs and 300Mbps speeds.
I'd love to throw away all my discs and bulky cases and have a book (or 2, the 2nd for back-up, if prices drop like they have done to date) of 2gb SD cards with all my films and music on them.
That would be a tech I'd be very interested in.
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|Why bother with Blu-Ray when I can fit a h.264 or Xvid HD movie on less space than a single layer DVD.
I know you are going to say it so here is my response in advance. I don't give a rats a** if it is what you people call "True HD." For me and most everybody else can not tell the difference.(I have played it on a 50" plasma, so size is not a factor either)
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|Uh oh
That should have been a book of 2tb SD cards, d'oh!
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|That's like saying tapes won't be replaced... or floppy drives... or CD's, even.
Oooo, that i7 technology will never catch on...
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|Actually, its more like saying Laser Disc, or DVD Audio won't replace VHS cassettes or CDs.
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|Totally different situation. CDs and DVDs were significantly better than tapes and VHS. Blu-Ray only benefits people with 2 factors. First of all they haft to have an HDTV, which millions do not. Second of all they haft to actually care about the difference between the way a DVD looks vs a Blu-Ray, which many more millions do not.
Before Blu-Ray ever catches on a better technology will come out.
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|Strange that this article considers a library of millions of Blu-Ray titles small. DVD drives won't last as long as floppy disks have.
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|Millions? Is this counting television series on multiple discs? Apparently, this doesn't include the Miami Vice series. Blu-Ray titles are mostly newer movies. There are still VHS movies still not on DVD. And many DVDs were digitized from VHS. Hollywood is still digitizing motion pictures. The Blu-ray.com site has a count just over 18,000 titles. BD is just a short hop to flash drives. I received one that was one-eighth of a credit card. Once they acheive double-digit sizes plastic discs will be obsolete. Besides, what kind of interactive features are going to be on the Michael Clayton disc? Nothing I want to see. All that empty space.
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|"And how long did it take DVD's to fully replace CD's"
DVD's never replaced CD's because CD's were only for audio as DVD's are only for Video
mp3's and mp3 players replaced CD's
DVD's replaced VHS,lazer disk
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|That's weird...I remember buying a PC with a cd burner...now when I buy a pc it comes with a dvd burner, I don't even know if I can find a new machine that comes with a cd drive instead of a dvd drive...I guess that's not what you would call a replacement..?
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|If pc games took the leap to be released on blu-ray then that might help adoption but no company is going to take a chance on that happening without a DVD-based alternative incase the game didn't sell and all their development costs etc would have been for nothing.
As for lower production costs, I was offered the choice of a blu-ray drive in my Dell XPS when I ordered it but for the pricey sum of some £200 extra. Needless to say I chose to stick with the dual-layer burining DVD drive instead (included in the standard purchase price).
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|why would any PC game be released on BD? it's just installation media and it's very rare ANY game takes over 2 DVDs. 2 dvds isnt even a burden. also, i've purchased maybe 4 games over the last 4 years from retail. the vast majority of myself and my gaming friends buy everything on steam when possible and little price difference/cheaper. no tax, almost instant delivery, no worrying about losing DVDs or serial keys, and no worrying about DLing patches.
i dont see a major market for BD-ROMs in PCs. of course there will be a small market, and eventually the price of drives will make them a "why not?" purchase, but this isnt like going from CD to DVD where we had programs and games on 4-6 CDs. even office ultimate and an iso of windows vista/7 32/64bit discs with every flavor of windows on it are only 1 DVD.
DVDs also have DL format for over 9GB data per disc which games could ship on.
in terms of movies, netflix, hulu, and other services/sites let you watch 720 and higher quality videos either for free or part of their normal service fee.
i just dont see a large need for BD on many PCs. i dont think you can compare DVD to BD like we did floppy to CD or CD to DVD b/c of digital distribution and HD streaming.
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|PC games are going to more and more be media-less...steam has been doing great with that model. You can even buy and download full 360 games online. BD is not going to be the new delivery platform...online distribution is.
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|"why would any PC game be released on BD? it's just installation media and it's very rare ANY game takes over 2 DVDs."
640KB should be enough for everyone!
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|Make cheap media, and people will come. When the blank discs are less than a $1 each, it starts making sense to buy a Blu-ray burner and start using it. Until then, it's cheaper to buy a bunch of DVDs, or a USB drive, or an external HDD. All are cheaper than Blu-ray media at the moment.
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|Make cheap media that is fast enough....
--last review I saw for a BD burner said
"[and it is fast. Burned one gig of data in
eight minutes!]"
I saw no signs of sarcasm in that review.
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|Perhaps a mini-Blu-ray disc, similar to the mini-DVD would be a good idea, as it would be more compact, and would not leave so much unused space on the disc. I know that carrying around a pocket sized disc (floppy sized, actually) with large installs, appeals to me.
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|"BDs won't be replacing DVDs as the primary optical drive in PC systems through at least the year 2013,"....
This is FANTASTIC news for the BDA. How long did it take CD's to replace diskettes? And how long did it take DVD's to fully replace CD's... years and years. These things didn't happen within the course of just 3 or 4 years. We're talking about almost 10+ years. So to say that "BDs won't be replacing DVDs as the primary optical drive in PC systems through at least the year 2013," IS PRETTY GOOD.
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|Not when you consider that by 2013, online distribution will be much common...you can already get 1080p content through an xbox...by 2013 even 1080p content online will be much more common.
BD is just late to the party...it will always be a niche market.
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|Your perception of reality seems to be screwed. I know you and I and most likely most people who read this website have broadband but here's a reality check... most people don't and won't anytime soon. Will online distribution continue to rise, sure. Will it pass physical media in the next few years, no. Games are already getting too big for a single DVD, the XBox360 is starting to run into that now. Sure it doesn't matter as much if it's multiple disc on PC's because you just use them during the install unlike a console where you need them to run but downloading a 10+ GB game is simply not going to be a reasonable option for most people anytime soon. Us "geeks" sure, the great unwashed masses, no.
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|Who doesn't have broadband? Do you really think the people that can get broadband but won't are the same people that will buy BD, or even care for it? Like I said..it will be a niche market...for the people who just don't want broadband for whatever reason, and for the few who just can't get it...
I'll give you one thing...size might become an issue, maybe in 5 or 10 years? But by then who cares? I can get a 1TB hard drive today for $70...what do you think it will be in 10 years? What do you think our bandwidth will look like in 10 years? 10 years ago I had 56k dialup, today I have a 25Mb fios connection. It might be slower in very rural areas, but that will change and is changing.
One last point...you know you can install games on the xbox now right? They could technically release a 2 disc game and just have you install it.
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|2013? If the world doesn't end the year before, flash drives will have matured by then. Who needs to carry a 5.25" disc when they can carry a credit card sized flash drive in their wallets with more space that that.
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|They should be learning how to fit the game on one DVD. Better compression schemes. Two DVDs for one game: landfill fodder.
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|No news there. We already knew that since long ago.
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|Why would they? perhaps for Data (amazing games in the near future) but movies?? Who wants to watch an awesome BD movie on a laptop. Thats what 50" HD TV's w/ amazing sound is for. Certain things in life are not made for portability... Some things you need to enjoy sitting on a couch with a big bowl of popcorn and some c***tails!
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|Watch out, logic like that will lead you to getting rid of stupid little receivers and Bose mini speakers that have no chance of reproducing sound faithfully, and into the realm of real high fidelity, where the amplifiers and speakers are large, as large as the experience!
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|Why, even, for data?
Flash is much faster and actually cheaper at this point.
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|I have a laptop with a BD drive and when your collection of movies is on BD discs and you want to watch a movie, say on a long flight, then sitting on your couch just isn't an option. Furthermore if you have a BD drive on your laptop hopefully you also got the thing with and HDMI out (mine does) which is nice because you can hook it up to the LCD TVs in hotels or even friends houses and watch the movies on the big screen even if they don't have BD players of their own. Also if you start recording video in HD the capacity advantage over DVD is great. The media price still needs to come down a lot from where it is but it will and as it does it will replace DVD.
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|On a long flight "Transformers" on DVD will look just like "Transformers" on BD when using a 15.6" screen. The manufacturers were busy trying to create larger and larger storage mediums when they should be working on new loss-less compression formats. Format that will be free to you and me.
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|I dont see a reason to use bd in a pc if you have a standalone player wich is bd at least for regular joe.
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|If it ain't broke.........
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|wrong! Your analysts seems to be wrong. Checkout this blogs Facts.
http://www.taranfx.com/blog/?p=1729
They seem to disagree and give out solid proofs why Bluray would make it to PC sooner.
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|You're quoting a blog? Industry demands? What about consumer demands? Consumers aren't clamoring for all those useless interactive extras on BD. That's what all that space is being used for and everyone knows it - currently, a movie in HD can be streamed to your TV. If the movie was truly that big streaming would not be practical. BD took so long to come to market (fighting with HDDVD) that they allowed flash media to mature.
Right now, there's a 1080 screen connected to a BD player and running "The Dark Knight" at a Blockbuster near you. Yet the latest releases are still on the shelf in the BD section and no one stares at the equipment anymore. BD is today's LaserDisc. Some videophiles will swear by it but the masses will be just as happy watching the same thing from a pirated 700Mb DIVX file off the web. BD is stillborn.
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