Bad Timing: Will Blu-ray Lose Out to Streaming Video and the Cloud?
By David Tobia
September 20, 2012
September 20, 2012
- Timing, Netflix and Apple may prove to be the three leading causes behind Blu-ray’s demise as a storage device, notes ReadWriteWeb.
- Timing: Blu-ray came to prominence in early 2008 when Warner Brothers, Netflix, Walmart, and Best Buy decided to drop HD-DVD. But 2008 was also the beginning of the U.S. recession, and many people did not upgrade to a new player and a new TV.
- Although more people have upgraded since then, a 2011 study shows that 57 percent of households still use standard DVD players.
- Netflix: Streaming video services now dominate the market. “These days, every game console and most televisions bundle multiple streaming video services, every cable provider offers its own suite of pay-per-view titles, and iTunes offers thousands of films and TV episodes for purchase or rental,” explains ReadWriteWeb.
- Apple: Since Sony led the drive behind Blu-ray, Apple failed to implement the technology into its devices. This led software publishers to use either DVDs or the cloud to ship their products. Even though Blu-ray would probably be the best option for software providers, consumer’s laptops cannot support the content.
- For now, Blu-ray will survive because “Americans still like to own things,” suggests the post.
- “Blu-ray is the most archivable, durable format for HD video storage. So until a cloud-based service emerges as a clear winner, there will be a case to keep that stack of discs by the TV. But all data storage formats run their course, and no amount of data-density improvements can stop the natural progression to streaming media.”
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