A director of Consumer Electronics at Samsung, Andy Griffiths, has confessed to the website Pocket-Lint that he believes Blu-Ray will not have the longevity previous formats have enjoyed. In an interview Griffiths says “it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn’t give it 10.” Which is feasible – the distribution landscape far different than ever before with Blu-Ray not being the only option out there to get HD content. Even Sony seems to be wise to this by offering HD movies and television shows through its Playstation Video store. Griffiths also noted that Blu-Ray’s activity in 2008/2009 is “going to be huge. We [Samsung] are heavily back-ordered at the moment.”
Are we living in the last era of the disc? Often, I consider that we may very well be as cable and other digital providers are now able to stream high definition, as well as have elaborate video on demand systems that house hundreds, even thousands of selections in HD. Downloadable content is more prevalent than ever before and will continue to grow. But how far can it go when bandwidth is expensive, and especially when ISP’s, like Comcast, are going to start limiting bandwidth?
Living here in Atlanta, Georgia USA has spoiled me greatly; Comcast high definition is not very expensive, has a plethora of movies available through video on demand and numerous channels that play movies every night in either 720p/1080i. Of course, that is a luxury of living near a major city and there are still many broadband markets in the US that don’t have such options. While true afficiandos banter that you can’t beat a pure Blu-Ray disc, my eyes are pretty satisfied with downloadable/streaming HD and I imagine that the average consumer would feel the same.
