I'm pretty tech savvy. I write code. I have a half-decent living room setup, with an HDTV and surround sound. I have an Xbox 360. I get the latest gear when it tickles my fancy. New technology does not scare me.
And I have absolutely zero urge to buy a Blu-Ray player. None at all. And I don't expect that to change any time soon. DVDs are good enough on the rare I occasion I need them. Netflix Watch Instantly is awesome. I'm at the point where if I want to watch something I can't stream from Netflix I say fuck it and watch something else.
Marco's right to be skeptical of the next generation of physical media distribution. That game is going to be over inside of five years.
I'm all the above and I love my Blu-Ray player. Netflix Watch instantly is full of mediocre B-rated movies. Good for background noise on a saturday afternoon, yet too boring for night time viewing.
DVDs are decent but all my movie purchases or netflix rentals these days are Blu rays. I refuse to purchase drm time bombs from itunes or amazon.
Netflix Watch Instantly is full of mediocre B-rated movies. Even the foreign film selection isn't as good as I had expected it to be, considering how horrible it's A-rated movie selection is.
And about BluRays vs. DVDs. There is no comparison if you care about picture quality & movie experience, while trying to own the movie. Try watching the first 20 minutes of Dark Knight on BluRay on a decent quality screen at 120HZ, then watch it on DVD. You will buy a BluRay player.
DVDs are OK, but Blu-Ray players and discs are finally getting affordable, and they are a real improvement.
I'm particularly interested in Blu-Ray disks for data because I do projects today that involve burning 10-30 DVDs and my life would be easier with fewer disks.
Someday I'm going to replace my old PPC Mac Mini, and once choice I'd consider is a new Mac Mini -- it's in a wonderful form factor that fits right under my HDTV. Although I live in an average sized house, I'm very sensitive to the volume that my possessions take up, so it would be sweet to have a Blu-Ray player inside a Mac Mini, rather than having to find a spot to stash a bulky Blu-Ray player next to the game system and other paraphernalia that's around the TV.
I'm trying not to sound like a troll here but: why are you comfortable buying DRM time-bombs in fragile plastic form? I think Apple or Amazon's DRM servers are equally likely to be viable 10 years from now.
My bet is that in ten years, today's Blu-ray DRM schemes are pretty much as busted as dvd-css is today. It sure shows cracks already, and the bittorrent scene certainly seems to have no problem having high quality bd-rips.
Of course, if these online services become big enough for anyone to bother cracking the DRM, they are likely to be headed for a similar destiny.
Because at least a Blu Ray disc is a standard that is playable by a wide range of devices and vendors. You're right that Apple and Amazon aren't dying any time soon, so I should've said I don't want a single vendor determining how I play their videos.
The real question is simply whether the estimated longevity of a Blu Ray disc is greater than the estimated longevity of one of the major online video vendors. I'm not sure I'd bet against the physical media deteriorating or drives requiring replacement or upgrades before then - and since it's usually cost-neutral across the form-factors, there's a temptation to bet on software lasting longer than hardware.
While NetFlix Watch Instant definitely does have a large amount of B-rated (and lower) movies, I've still been able to find a huge amount of things that are really interesting for me to watch. For those that really enjoy blockbuster and big name titles, there really isn't much selection, but there are great films to be seen, so I wouldn't be quick to categorize what's available as junk.
I have two Blu–Ray players, both of which are gathering dust.
I stopped buying Blu-ray discs after one of the players warned that it needed to be upgraded to play the disc, and the other player simply wouldn't play the disc. I don't care what the underlying reasons are, I'm just not interested in playing the upgrade game with a consumer device.
We've gone back to buying DVDs which we can rip to watch on the device of our choice, or we watch video on demand from Amazon/Netflix/etc.
Let me get this straight - you would rather treat the machine as obsolete and not use it any more than extend its features by upgrading it?
I don't know what sort of Blu-Ray player you have, but both the ps3 and the netflix-capable thing my BiL has include a network connection port around the back. This strikes me as far superior to the old approach where you had to take a buggy or outdated device back to a dealer for a replacement, or sell/donate your existing model to someone if you wanted the improved model. Upgradeable firmware extends the life of the product you bought, generally at zero $ cost and requiring only a few minutes of your time.
As a kid I started hacking before I knew the name of the activity, because I liked finding out how things worked and was surprised to discover that many cheap consumer devices had the same components and functionality as higher priced ones, just disabled by a jumper or solder bridge on a circuit board. Later I discovered that many digital devices came with replaceable EPROMs and that carrying out the replacement required only a miniature screwdriver and a little patience. A good chunk of my career has revolved around selling or developing or consulting on making products more modular and user-configurable and arguing against the inherently wasteful approach of planned obsolescence. The increasing popularity of network connections on video players, DVRs, and consoles has been a big factor in getting streaming services like Netflix from concept into reality, since most people don't want to build video servers of their own.
I can see why you're pissed off with the blu-ray player that just won't play the disc; it's bad standard setting/QA not to have any kind of fallback handling. But your other player is upgradeable precisely so as to avoid this kind of problem. I bet that was even one of the selling points in the product description. I'm baffled that you consider this so much hassle you would prefer to use an inferior technology.
I consider it a waste of my time to pop a disc in only to be told the drive needs to be upgraded. Plug it into the network (because I learned that if I leave it plugged in the discs spend 30-45 minutes downloading crap over the network that I have no interest in watching) …anyway, plug it in, click upgrade, and 15-30 minutes goes by while it downloads and then does the upgrade. In theory.
If it was a once in a year thing, then maybe fine, but each of the last three BD's I tried playing required an upgrade. I went through the process twice, but it sort of kills the interest in watching the movie if I have to upgrade each time. Perhaps it was incredibly bad luck, but I really have better things to do with my time then upgrade a consumer device every time I want to use it.
I'm not the one treating the machine as obsolete, it's the media industry which has decided that the best way to combat piracy is to make its customers go through this stupid upgrade process (which may or may not work, and may or may not brick the player). And yes, I would prefer to use inferior technology if I can use it, play it, reuse it as I find necessary. I can burn DVDs once to mp4 format and play to my heart's content on a variety of devices.
Certainly, that should not be happening every time, and sounds like a QA issue at the publishing end. From what I remember of Blu-ray disc authoring, content has a tag for the firmware version it expects to see, but can be set to Require or Warn if it finds an older version present - 90% of the time Warn is more appropriate because while the disc author's firmware may be more recent the content doesn't necessarily depend on any features in that version.
I'm curious about whether these were all from the same studio or finishing house (a lot of video publishers outsource the disc authoring to a specialist company, if you are the sort of person who likes to sit through credits you'll see them come up at the very end). Chances are the publishers are not even aware of this problem, since it's not in their interest to make stuff unplayable if it doesn't have to be. Most producers are rather technophobic. I'm sort of curious about which titles were involved, but although I know some people in Hollywood it's unlikely that I'll be able to track down an answer about this.
Plug it into the network (because I learned that if I leave it plugged in the discs spend 30-45 minutes downloading crap over the network that I have no interest in watching)
It seems to me that your real complaint is that the extra features offered my most movie studios are not that great in terms of content. You do want to watch them (or you wouldn't have tried and been obstructed by the download requirement), but are generally disappointed by the quality of the supplementary content after you've downloaded it.
I don't really remember at this point whether they were from the same studio, filming house, nor distributor, nor do I care to dig into it.
As far as the network thing goes: I assume it's extra features, but don't know, it wasn't something I requested, I'd just clicked "play" on the player and, well, watched as it said it was downloading content.
Rather than finding fault with my walking away from blue-ray, could you explain to me why increasing the friction in the experience over what we were used to with DVDs is going to benefit the entertainment industry?
I've noticed that some large retailers put out new releases on blue-ray and hold DVDs for later release (two or three weeks later). A local Walmart close to me does that. So If I don't own a blue-ray player and I want to buy a new release, I have to wait longer to get the DVD or purchase a blue-ray player.
I have a family member working directly in the manufacture/production of DVD/Blueray media (movies and games).
The company is actively telling employees the facility will shutdown at some point in the future. While the timeline is not specified, the parent corporation is not replacing low level production staffers now, hours for all workers have been curtailed, and generally the production projects are falling off.
Compared to even just a few years ago it is a pretty shocking change - this place used to run full out 24/7/365 and employees were typically scheduled for 20+hours of overtime in a two week rolling schedule. These days, they run two shifts, often close up early and I can't remember the last time they offered any overtime.
It's too bad, this was a pretty solid employer in a rather remote region that doesn't have many other options available for the class of workers facing layoffs.
He is right and it is a darned shame, because with the big screens of today the quality of blu ray is sorely needed. I do own a blu ray player, and i am a huge arthouse movie buff and it does make a difference for the very few good movies that make it on bluray.
The Netflix online service is not nearly as good.
But having to watch 15 minutes of mandatory nonscippable adds before you get to watch a movie you actually paid for is really really f-ing annoying.
It is a shame the industry could not come up with a standard that actually works. Next time, the manufacturers should just make the most technically advanced and open standard they can come up with and completely ignore the content makers.
Hmm, we watch a lot of movies in this household and my two brothers-in-law are avid movie buffs/traders, so quite a lot of blu-ray films go through the PS3 here. I can remember only one or two that imposed trailers, piracy warnings, or other undesired material before the movie. I've seen a lot more of that in DVDs, and on HD-DVD. Blu-ray seems by far the more customer friendly platform.
I also really like the quality, though having a background in film product/editing I admit to being a bit of a snob about such things.
I recently watched a blu ray at a friends, then tried to watch the special features listed on the cover. We couldn't. Turns out the blu ray player didn't have the most current firmware. WTF was my reaction, and I came to fully understand Jobs.
I like having upgradeable hardware, as opposed to a) having to replace a perfectly functional existing device or b) being stuck with the same features for the lifetime of the format. How can you work with computers all day and still have a problem with the concept of a firmware upgrade?
Forgot to mention: Blu-ray is considerably more consumer-friendly than DVD in terms of region coding. BR players must support region coding (although this is easily defeatable because it's not part of the AACS DRM) - but there are only 3 regions rather than DVD's 6, and most publishers have opted not to use region coding. So when I wanted to get a collectible edition of Inception for my wife at Christmas but limited availability in the US had pushed the price above $1000(!), I got a UK edition for about $70. The included DVD won't play in a consumer player due to region coding, but the Blu-ray disc is just fine. The only difference is that the alternative language/subtitle tracks are for various European languages rather than the Pacific Rim options, but we didn't need those anyway.
Not surprisingly, there's an "iso rip" available for pretty much every Blu-Ray disk ever released. It's like iTunes... but cheaper, higher-quality, and without DRM.
On the bright side, codecs are getting more efficient and consumer broadband connections are getting faster. A 20 megabit connection (Comcast's fastest residential plan) can download a 10GB blu-ray rip in about 70 minutes. There will be hiccups along the way (ISP bandwidth caps, piracy concerns, etc) but it looks like streaming quality will eventually be on par with blu-ray.
Internet streaming/renting is great for the US market. But where I live (Portugal) there's no TV Shows tab in iTunes or Amazon Instant or even Netflix. We are tied to DVDs or Blu Rays. They are much more expansive for sure and that's why people don't buy as much, see as much or consume as much media (movies or Tv Shows). Anyway, when they do, it's in DVD or Blu Ray (or piracy...).
We need physical discs here... but we wish we didn't...
Absolutely not, I'd be perfectly happy to pay a reasonable fee (for music I now have a Spotify subscription and I love it!) or be forced to watch adds or whatnot. I keep waiting for hulu.com and similar sites to eventually (hopefully) open up to Europe, but I'm not holding my breath :\
But until that time I just pirate stuff of the internet. (They haven't even aired anything past season 5 of Scrubs yet here, at this rate I will have to wait until my death if I want watch Game of Thrones...)
Even worse is when you try to _buy_ something but can't because it's not available for your country or because they only take domestic (US) credit cards. No, it doesn't seem unethical to me, not one bit.
I am similar. I'm in Ireland and use Linux. They don't cater to me, so I'll just pirate it. It's a much better service. I'm a capitalist and consumer, I've made my vote.
Not at all. Most series I watch don't show here (or with crappy translations), and even if they do sometimes only a few years later. So I just torrent it.
If I actually like something I tend to buy it as a physical disc from amazon.com and let it catch dust in a corner. Even though the quality is (still) clearly superior from a blueray on my screens, the hassle-free experience of torrented mkv's is just much better for casual (re-)viewing.
Well, I'm also from Portugal and I can say that...
Actually, most relevant TV shows are available here, on cable, with proper subtitles (dubbing is very rare in Portugal, unlike other european countries). Some shows are just one episode behind their US counterparts, but most are a few months/a season behind.
Cable TV is widespread, and on more rural areas where the "cable" doesn't go, the providers have a satellite alternative. So, every one that wants to watch these shows, can.
So, it's not really ethic to pirate TV shows. But only in the sense that if most people pirate, the cable networks won't have much (financial) incentive to keep the shows close to their original airing.
You're right. I completely agree with your last sentence. Although it's really hard for people to buy movies/tv shows for a lot of reasons: when we get a proper DVD with subtitles it's weeks if not months behind the DVDs from the US; if we want to import (because it's cheaper) you have to pay a lot of additional euros for transportation; if you wait to see in the television for 3 or 4 months, you always get into spoilers from friends, the web or even television;
I guess it's hard problem and everyone has a point. Let's wait and see if the situation gets better because they get to win a lot providing a better service to fans/consumers.
Interesting question. My initial reaction was "no". But I realised I don't do it. I guess I just don't watch much TV anymore. Anything worth watching is worth buying the whole series for.
Where I live, most shows air a few years late. I don't feel bad about torrenting them when I want the latest episodes. However I do go out and buy the earlier seasons on disc (though I'm suspicious about how authentic those discs are - they're certainly expensive but the printing on the CDs seem to indicate otherwise)
Well actually I do. If they don't want me as a customer, so be it, but that's their choice to make. I'll usually import the DVD box from somewhere around the world (mostly the UK, Singapore or Hong Kong) as soon as I can find it.
These DVD's end up being converted in Handbrake, and end up as a digital copy anyway. It's also a bag of hurt... but let's hope Apple brings movies to iTunes here soon.
I didn't say I do it. I'm just saying that people resort to it in my country as a way to avoid paying very high prices for media. I usually wait for the shows in television, although I have to wait a few weeks to see the latest episodes. Movies, I go the cinema or buy the DVDs because I really like to have DVDs of movies I love.
I feel it has the same moral implications like torrenting while being much more difficult to set up.
It's sad and frustrating - a while ago I spent a couple of hours searching for a legal way to buy music from a Finnish band I really liked, and each and every service was geographically restricted (I'm from Croatia). A couple of clicks on your torrent index of choice, and there was the album in its full glory. The Industry(tm) should really learn a thing or two from the "evil pirates".
I'm not so sure. Renting a VPN seems an awful lot like renting a small space on their network. Sure, it's not residency. What if I rented you a tiny part of my house? Part of the rent includes network access. But you travel, lots, like you're never there. How would you feel about "place shifting" your access to these services?
Okay, okay... I'm reaching. But I guess I'm saying, I don't see it as immoral to use a VPN in order to establish network presence in the US or Canada or wherever.
That's like an escape. I don't want to need to circumvent the system. I would like to be able to purchase and use the same services in my own right. I would be glad to pay for a service like this, if it provided what it's provided in the US for example.
"enough copy protection to kill almost all casual piracy (including such innocent cases as ripping movies you own so you can play them on vacation on your iPad)"
Actually, I think every blu-ray I've purchased recently came with a download code and/or disc containing another copy of the movie specifically for copying to iGadgets. If I cared to put my movies on an iPad, this is even more convenient because it's already pre-ripped.
It's a DRM'd copy[1], and which devices it's supported on depend on the studio (and other mysterious factors). Some will work on iPod & PSP, some only work on Windows.
Those are usually DRMed copies and/or in worse quality. Besides that, the download codes usually invalidate after a certain amount of time. So, for older (cheaper) BluRays, this is often not an option.
That said, people already cracked BluRay DRM and using MakeMKV it is trivial to rip most BluRays to DRM-less MKV. I put most of my movies on the Apple TV 2 (which can take surprisingly high bitrates in high profile): rip with MakeMKV, transcode with Handbrake, and you are done ;).
Owning the Blu-Ray version of a movie is like owning the original film roll to me. Priceless experience, in fact the first time I'm really happy to spend money on my favorite films ever since the Laser Disc. I love Blu-Ray.
I sorely miss BluRay support on Macs, because of this my media center computer is PC and on top of that I can't play movies I own and rent on family trips because our laptops are MacBook Pro and MacBook. It's just lame, I would pay $150 for an option to have BluRay in my MacBook Pro, why not just give it to me?
When companies have too many interests integrated, they start to hurt customers, in this case Apple with it's interest in iTunes hurts it's own customers that need BluRay.
Once again the movie industry seems to believe it calls the shots only to be bitch-slapped by the invisible hand of the market. You'd think they'd learn by now.
As other people pointed out, most people don't care about the difference between a DVD and a Blu-ray, even when they have HD displays.
It would be interesting to know exactly why, but nobody wants to survey the users, prefering instead to pretend that this isn't true.
My interpretation is that when you're 3 meters from a display with the size regular people buy (between 32 and 42 inches), the quality difference between HD content and a decently encoded DVD is barely noticeable.
Some say that sound quality is more important than picture quality. That may be true, but that's not the reason people ignore the quality difference between DVDs and Blu-ray. When you live in an apartment, you tend to watch movies with a low volume anyway, so sound is always crap.
Then, there's the mistake that people moved to DVDs from VHS because of picture quality. This is false, people moved from VHS to DVDs because DVDs have are random-access media. No more rewinds, no more fast-forwards and searching for parts of the movie.
DVDs hit the sweet spot of price/quality and convenience. Blu-ray offers little more.
If the successor to the DVD had been a flash-memory card, it may have been a hit. The same movies in 1/10th the space. Now it is too late.
People will keep their DVDs until online distribution is mature. And this doesn't necessarily mean internet distributed content. Here in Portugal, the two major cable providers have a video-on-demand service (in old-school parlance) that was the final nail in the video rental shops 'coffin, and that all but removes the need for the average consumer to buy physical media.
people moved from VHS to DVDs because DVDs have are random-access media. No more rewinds, no more fast-forwards and searching for parts of the movie.
I miss VHS fast-forwarding. It was impossible to accidentally skip scene, which always fucking happens when I try to rewind a DVD to catch some dialogue I missed.
FYI, DVD actually has about the same sound quality - it does 5.1 surround, which is good enough for everyone besides audiophiles. Blu-Ray can do up to 24 bit-192khz, whereas DVD typically uses AC-3 and only goes up to 48Khz - but this is fine for end-user purposes. Higher bitrates are more important for recording and mixing than for playback, unless it's something like opera or classical music where the acoustics really matter. Film soundtracks are only tenuously connected to reality to begin with :-)
Yes it has, but was it the convenience of typing the name of a movie and streaming it? Or was it the convenience of watching a movie without having to navigate through commercials and menu options designed to ruin the movie experience?
Check all that apply :-)
One thing that absolutely killed DVDs for me was having children. If you ever want to put a movie on for kids, you want to put it on, press play, and watch. Navigating menus and ads just doesn't work for my kids, no way, no how.
I had to handbrake my entire collection of family DVDs. I buy movies through iTunes. A DVD is a pain in the ass if you want to watch a movie with kids.
Not for me, my internet choice is dsl (I think 1.2 Mbit which I currently have) and satellite. Hard tech rules rural America, as well as my parents' house.
It seems Sony has been on the wrong side of this twice now. They released MiniDisc just before digital music players and music downloads took off, and now a new and improved video disc just as the tide is turning toward video streaming. It seems they really should have learned from the first time.
Unfortunately, nothing can match the quality of Blu-ray, and as other commenters have noticed, on really big/high-resolution televisions - the kind that movie buffs tend to have, personally I have a projector - it really makes a difference. Netflix is pretty compressed both in the audio and video departments.
The only thing that comes close is the HDX catalog on the Vudu box. I have my eye on this as a potential replacement but for now I use a PS3 to play Blu-rays because the audio and video quality is just superb.
At the end, I smiled and marveled at how great Blu-ray is.
Then I ejected the ... DVD.
One of Steve Jobs' great insights is the balance of specs vs. usability. Yeah, the Apple product line may not beat out the competition on specs (though it happens more than the naysayers like to admit), but by maintaining a high bar for user experience, the need for top "checkbox" specs is reduced. Yeah, Blu-ray is better and desirable ... but upscaled DVD and 'net streaming is plenty good enough for most users, and the few users for whom it isn't aren't worth the "bag of hurt" to make it happen now.
Broadband is improving. Codecs are improving. Most viewers can't discern 720p from 1080p (as my wife likes to often opine on the subject "I can't see the difference so who cares?"). We'll get pervasive 1080p on Apple platforms soon enough; until then, I'll put up with the good-enough upscaled DVD, 720p streaming, and the occasional Blu-ray from Redbox.
Projector here too. I can definitely see the difference between blu-ray and DVD. It doesn't bother me much (DVD being lower quality) but when I have the option to watch in high definition I choose to, even if it's slightly more expensive. I don't like how I can't stream in high definition, even though my bandwidth is enough that it's technically feasible for me.
The trouble is, the average consumer doesn't understand or see the difference. They get bombarded with acronyms and marketese and they just shut down. And, they don't want to have to replace their movie collection with another one that seems to cost 20% more per disk for a difference they just don't see.
When it comes to media what people want is library size, convenience and cost-effectiveness. DVDs and Internet-based streaming have all of these things for the average consumer. Blu-ray™ is a 'premium' product that average Joe six-pack can't justify.
We have a Panasonic BluRay player at home that gets used quite a lot. Almost every evening it gets used by someone to watch streaming videos from Netflix or Amazon Prime using the built in network interface. Once or twice a week, it also gets used to play standard DVD's from Netflix, and a couple times since getting it we've even found something we want to watch on actual BluRay.
(Translation: BluRay disks aren't going to take over, but the additional features of the devices are a bulkhead for streaming media in the living room.)
I can see the appeal of BluRay for home theater enthusiasts but on a computer it has limited uses. Not sure there's even a good case to be made that BR is useful for removable storage given the size/prices/speed of USB/magnetic storage. Does anyone really travel around with a laptop and a binder full of BR disks? I doubt it. So that leaves you with HTPCs. Not a big market and most of them have a file server in the closet full of 1080P MKV rips anyway.
There is one use case for Blu-Ray that Apple does not have an answer for yet. Home movies that people have taken with their HD camcorders, that they want to keep on permanent medium, play easily on their home theater, and not necessarily upload to youtube or facebook.
Until Apple offers free online storage for high bitrate movies (keeping them on a huge hard drive is ok, but even a terabyte drive wont hold more than a year or so of a typical families precious memories, and you would want some form of cloud backup anyway rather than relying on a hard drive not crashing), and we all have 25Mbps+ bandwidth to support it, AND I can watch my home movies without buying a special device like an Apple TV or whatever, then they are still not competing with Blu-Ray for home movies, or hobbyist film makers.
You know apple used to focus on the creators rather than the consumers, but their attitude towards blu-ray assumes we are only interested in consuming content.
I have a handful of blu-ray films that I bought when i got my PS3, watched once I never watched again. But I have stacks of home movies burnt on blu-ray that we watch all the time.
Blu-Ray isn't a permanent medium. Don't expect to be able to read all the discs after 10-20 years.
Look at how quickly recordable CDs and DVDs detoriates. The manufactures promised a lot longer life time when they launched them, but reality was different.
There isn't any media which is permanent. The one that comes closest is non-acid paper stored in a vault.
I hope you have backups of those blu-ray discs: even assuming the media doesn't get lost, disappear in a fire, flood, etc. it has a limited lifespan before the media deteriorates.
The manufacturers quote lifetimes which are far in excess of what's actually been verified - and that's for professionally produced media, not the home burners which generally use less durable media. Our guidelines recommend a 5 year lifecycle for archived media: http://digitalpreservation.gov/you/ That's conservative but at times I'm inclined to give up on tape, disc, etc. and simply say that you shouldn't rely on anything which isn't online and regularly verified (e.g. ZFS scrubs or manual checksum validation) - and since Blu-Ray hasn't sold particularly well combined with general consumer electronics trends makes me hesitant to say that you should assume easy access to a compatible drive over a decade from now.
I agree, but I refuse to go 100% digital when the quality sucks like it does.
Netflix's streaming catalogue is bad...like really bad, and I don't intend on paying $15-$20 for an HD version on iTunes when I can get the same thing for the same price on Blu-Ray.
Yes, I'm tired of the shitty menus and load times, but until they find a way to reproduce Blu-Ray quality in a digital format, it's a price I'm willing to pay.
Of course, Blu-Ray is digital. What it really comes down to is that 1) existing broadband in the US is too pissweak to stream anything even resembling the 40Mb/s Blu-Ray datarate; and more importantly 2) nobody cares. I mean, I care — I spent a good part of my life's blood (metaphorically speaking) getting those iTunes HD versions to look as good as 3Mb/s of H.264 can, and I can't watch HD TV programming, let alone SD without griping about quality; but for the average consumer, convenience (1.5Mb/s < SD basic profile H.264 streamed from Netflix) trumps all.
It looks like the market for a 'next generation DVD' format is much smaller than what they expected. There wasn't place for two formats, and even the remaining format isn't doing that well.
Either that, or the DRM-related inconvenience caused them to price themselves out of the market compared to online streaming.
Spinning media is the way of the dodo. If there is ever a replacement it will be in the form of an SD card or memory stick. But then again, streaming killed it before being even born. Video cameras went from tape to cd, dvd, hd and now flash mem. If we could insert removable flash memory in different devices like our own TV and play it, then there might be a slight chance for it to start a new era, but I doubt it.
I don't think this has anything to do with the medium. You could create one track on a CD with all the songs, commercials included. But this will be so annoying nobody will buy it. If you don't like the commercials a producer is putting on the BD, just skip the producer.
I own a blu-Ray player that has never seen a disc, I use it exclusively for streaming. Even though the quality of netflix streaming is pretty poor some of the time, it is still not worth the effort of obtain physical discs.
And I have absolutely zero urge to buy a Blu-Ray player. None at all. And I don't expect that to change any time soon. DVDs are good enough on the rare I occasion I need them. Netflix Watch Instantly is awesome. I'm at the point where if I want to watch something I can't stream from Netflix I say fuck it and watch something else.
Marco's right to be skeptical of the next generation of physical media distribution. That game is going to be over inside of five years.