Will bluray/hddvd be the last commercial application of optical media??

[yoda313]

So will the first hd optical discs be the last? Will we go into superhigh capacity flash cards in the future? Will harddrives get so massive that the idea of discs will seem so trivial? What are your predictions??

I think there will probably be one successor to the current hddvd/bluray designs and then we will move into whatever comes after optical media. Be it some kind of drm controlled flash memory or something similar. Thoughts???

[nic2k4]

No bluray or hd-dvd are just a stop gap measure on the way to bigger things. Next on the list is holographic recording using two lasers and offering 30 times the capacity of bluray. E.T.A. 2010.

[mats.hogberg]

Yes bluray/hddvd will be the end of the optical disc and Some other nonoptical media will come into existince that will blow everything away

/Mats

[Baldrick]

Some other nonoptical media will come into existince that will blow everything away...GoogleMedia, 1000TB....

[dvdguy4]

Im the type who has to hold the product. Im not into the on-demand crap cause most likely thats what it will be
This would be cool "Next on the list is holographic recording using two lasers and offering 30 times the capacity of bluray. E.T.A. 2010" but why on earth would we need this much capacity. Its just a movie. Maybe it will let us choose how the movie flows or lets the user change the ending or maybe interact with the characters as if you are playing a part in the movie.Can you imaging how much the next format will be. Its too far into the future to tell whats gonna take over for dvd, and the hd/blu-ray format but until then , Im sticking with normal dvd.

[mats.hogberg]

why on earth would we need this much capacity. Its just a movie.

Who's talking about movies? I see this as some kind of permanent digital storage in general, just like CD, DVD and now HD-DVD/BluRay.
So far, every prediction on how much storage we'll possibly ever need, has in less than 10 years proved to be utterly naive and stupid. I'm confident it'll stay the same for quite some time.

/Mats

[thecoalman]

So far, every prediction on how much storage we'll possibly ever need, has in less than 10 years proved to be utterly naive and stupid. .

Brings to mind Win95 machines with 1 and 2 GB HDD's. A little more than 10 years later that's the recommended amount of RAM for Vista. I can agree more and more storage is going to be required but I predict a slow down on the pace of development of computers for home use overall. Things are getting to the point that your average person simply doesn't need it. 10 years ago your average person sitting in front of computer always wished it was faster /better, that's not the case today for your average everyday tasks.

[edsmith77]

And what is "todays average task?"
What about virtual reality while surfing or on-line gaming.....not to far around the corner as I see it. In some cases it is already here.
Lets not forget it is not all about speed but bandwidth is a large influence.

[thecoalman]

I'm not referring to gaming, believe it or not most people who use a computer don't play games on it. :P Gaming and things like video will always be more and more demanding but if your just surfing the web, using office or writing an email your needs are pretty much covered. I'm using a 3 year old machine myself, i click the the browser icon it loads up almost instantly... what else do you need?

On the other hand 10 years ago I could go make a sandwich while it was loading.

[SingSing]

I am betting on $5.00 10GB USB stick, to carry a HD movie.

Or

Maybe HD and BLu end up like EL-casstte/Digital compact casstte, that never main streamed and die. That will made DVD the one and the only and the last format for video.

[Radixmind]

personally, i dont see the movie buying market taking to another new format for their already existing movie collection - i think the industry has a real hard sell with blu-ray/hd-dvd anyways, and wont really penetrate the market until they get their finger out with recordable versions.

most formats find a market that can sustain them in some way - vinyl is still the format of choice for club dj's, and minidisc is pretty ubiquitous in radio studios for jingles and ads. it takes a new format paradigm to kill of a complete format, and DVD was that, when compared to VHS. the new Disc formats arent that different to most people.

I think the next move will be some form of solid state or hi-capacity unit, the video equivalent of an ipod, that downloads media direct and plays them on your AV system. super high quality won't be an issue, but direct access and purchase will. this will 'kill' both DVD sales and TV broadcasts at one stroke.

[thecoalman]

that downloads media direct and plays them on your AV system.

What's going to prevent that from happening any time in the near future is bandwidth restrictions. The fastest connection in my area right now is 8mbps, good enough for DVd quality but a long ways from HD. That's besides those sorry suckers still on dial-up.

[SingSing]

Verizon is making FIOS the only choice for my residence internet hookup. Maybe they just want to help.

Note : FIOS costs $39.00/month vs DSL $14.99/month

[thecoalman]

Out of curiosity i figured out what it would take to get a 25,000kbps video over dial-up. Asumming 50kbps download speed and a 90 minute clip it would only take 1875 days or little over 5 years.

[oldandinthe way]

BlueRay/HD will be the end of the line for optical media.

Optical media are fundamentally less reliable than other types of media, and have been throughout their existance. Although they have been improved over a 40 year period, their increased size has maintained a high level of risk for archiving data. Just as they had at their introduction.

Video and audio are more tolerant of data loss.

But how much higher definition does anyone need.

Magnetic disks have reached a point where their capacity is a function of software in the drive and mathematical formulas. Growth in capacity while not increasing cost has not topped out.

Flash media yields are increasing and density is increasing. There are now some 16mb flash products and higher capacity products seem to appear at 3-6 month intervals.

Increasingly the sole advantage of optical media is cost, and history shows that advantage is usually lost to technological advances.

[Ai Haibara]

Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of holographic optical disc that stored about 200GB, or something like that? But, yeah, if scratches are considerably more dangerous to an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc, how vulnerable would a 200GB disc be?

I am betting on $5.00 10GB USB stick, to carry a HD movie.

Or

Maybe HD and BLu end up like EL-casstte/Digital compact casstte, that never main streamed and die. That will made DVD the one and the only and the last format for video.

Actually, I can imagine the large rental chains putting USB flash drives to use in the present day. Monthly rental (with possible extra per-movie charges) gets you a special 10GB or so flash drive, which is 'locked' (somehow) - only the store can write to it, and copying from it isn't possible. You rent a video, play it on the computer/laptop, DVD player or any other device that supports playback from USB... then after 2-3 days, the drive wipes itself.

(Note that I'm not saying this is practical/etc., just that I can see it being done. )

[SingSing]

Mark Cuban, who own Dallas maverick, had proposed that rent/buy a movie drive idea.

[Cornucopia]

BlueRay/HD will be the end of the line for optical media.

Optical media are fundamentally less reliable than other types of media, and have been throughout their existance. Although they have been improved over a 40 year period, their increased size has maintained a high level of risk for archiving data. Just as they had at their introduction.

Video and audio are more tolerant of data loss.

But how much higher definition does anyone need.

Magnetic disks have reached a point where their capacity is a function of software in the drive and mathematical formulas. Growth in capacity while not increasing cost has not topped out.

Flash media yields are increasing and density is increasing. There are now some 16mb flash products and higher capacity products seem to appear at 3-6 month intervals.

Increasingly the sole advantage of optical media is cost, and history shows that advantage is usually lost to technological advances.

This is laughable.

I have CDs that I bought in 1983 that still play perfectly well. Do you know of ANYONE who has used a harddrive where the original medium is still usable after that amount of time (with regular use)?

Also, go tell a forensics expert what you just said--a quick pass of a degausser would WIPE much magnetic media formats that you expound, but not optical media. (However, they have their own weaknesses).

The point is EACH has it's place in the format pie. NONE will completely go away. EACH has strengths and weaknesses, suitable for different uses. Why does it have to be ALL OR NOTHING?

AFA HiDEf, don't forget Gates' famous quote of "64k is all you'll ever need". Need (or junk?) ALWAYS expands to fill the available space.

Scott

[lordsmurf]

This is laughable.

I would have used the word "retarded" or the phrase "divorced from reality" instead.

[SingSing]

On these prediction stuff, they are just for entertainment. If any of us are really really good at prediction, s/he should able help us and Sony and Toshiba pick the next 10 powerball winning combinations.

[edDV]

Movies are just data. The movie companies want a package that allows shelf sales with cover art. They want a media that locks the data from copy and gives the illusion that the media is the movie, not just a data container.

Computer oriented folks see a movie as a file, something to be stored on a server. Remote playback should be possible with networked access to the server.

The IPod generation see a movie as a file selection on their tiny remote playback device.

I think the movie industry is going to have difficulty sustaining the box sale concept.

[oldandinthe way]

Hardly retarded. I have 20+ year old hard drives which are still in operation. Their contemporary read write optical drives have long ago been scrapped with all of their media.

Floppy disk based backups. Reel to reel recording tape. VHS. Magnetic media that have degraded but continue to serve their function. I've got plenty of pressed data CDs which no longer can be read. And the format hasn't changed. I wouldn't trust read/write optical media which are generally agreed to be less reliable for long term backups.

Your audio CDs may continue to work, but were they a data device they might not have retained all of their data. Music players tolerate errors which would render data useless. Who cares if you lose a few bits. Hell if quality were important to most music listeners there'd be no MP3. And do you think you could tell if the sound had degraded from what you listened to 20 years ago.

We have a growing collection of external hard disks for data archives, faster and more reliable than CDs or DVDs. And are experimenting with flash for short term backups.

Optical media are only useful to me for music and movies. And in the long term will probably not be my primary storage for them either, as we move to the next level of hard disk technology (no breakthrough needed).

[NiteLite]

On what we will get, a couple things to remember.
You have a generation that thinks "IPOD" is high fidelity; you have the people who will determine what and when you get - Bill Gates and as such. There's really no choice.

You had a - suppose to be smarter - generation that almost totally defaulted on the next wave of superior sound, SACD & DVD-A. Some of the blame can be put on the hardware and software companies for lack of marketing but still...
So back to the future...it depends on what the kids are spending their money on and what the Gates type want to put out there.
I dont think there's ever been a time when money is such a huge, or maybe "the" only factor to where we end up.
One could almost say we are going backwards when considering DRM, keys for usuage, and for other than maybe storage "why" with Blu-Ray & HD-DVD.
I also think 2009 "the switch" will come and go w/o much fanfare except for an extremly huge amount of people hooking up digital to analog converter boxes.
Regards,
NK

[scotto93631]

After Blu-Ray will most like be the Holigraphical Versatile Disc or (HVD) that is in development in Japan at the moment. It uses a dual layer format like most discs now, plus a third holographic layer. The reader/writer uses a blue-green laser to penatrate through the holographic layer and read the information on the disc while a red laser picks up the information on the holographical layer making the drives incompatable from reading current DVD and CD technology. Each disc holds 3.9TB of information. Optiware, the company developing HVD's is planning on launching the HVC or Holographical Veristal Card sometime in 2007. From what I read the card will be around the size of a secure digital chip and hold 30GB, putting it in direct competition with the competing Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs. The cards are suppose to sell for $1USD, but the catch is the read/writer is like $2500. Back to the HVD's this technology is being eyed by NHK in Japan which has been developing UHDV (Ultra High Definition Video) sense 2003. UHDV which should be common place by the end of the 2010's or beginning of the 2020's will offer a screen resolution of 7680 x 4320 running at 60fps with 22.2 audio channels.

[Wile_E]

My dad has some reel-to-reel too, some probably 40 years old. They sounded fine and most had no drop outs. I use hard drives + optical media for archiving. I don't trust optical media. I've had some CD-R's about a year old go bad on me. Also have an old Seagate 20MB, yes MB hard drive (MFM/RLL). I booted it up with my old computer some time ago and data was still in-tact. I would like to see higher capacity flash media so can use it for backup too.