Blu-Ray

[Scott O]

I have broken this off from the recent OS thread. Been told by a couple of people who do home theaters for a living that Blu-Ray is basically dead technology. It will soon be replaced by...AppleTV! I have seen this product in action and it is very impressive. You can stream any AV wirelessly from your computer to your TV. This includes movies, music, still images, podcasts or whatever. Looks like a bit of downloading is in our future. I post this to suggest an option to anyone about to take the plunge to Blu-Ray.

 

[rumbleweed]

Scott

I agree. In addition to Apple TV there are several other providers who plan to stream content to your home. The industry will do to DVD and Blu ray movies what it did to VHS and beta.

 

[PopBeavers]

Technology certainly has changed.

I recently changed cable providers and added couple of televisions in the back rooms. I had no cable outlet back there. So the signal comes in to the primary router via the existing coax and then is fed to the back rooms via the cat5 Ethernet cables that I have. The cable decoder box will work with either coax or Ethernet.

Seems to me that wireless TV would be an easy thing for them to add, since the router is also providing WiFi throughout the house.

I just wonder about bandwidth. How many HD televisions can be run on WiFi? Suppose I had 4 people in 4 rooms watching 4 different channels in HD, and I was also recording another 4 channels in HD? All over WiFi. Or are they using some other wireless technology that has more bandwidth.

Did I mention that there was a bunch of music, videos and software downloads also running at the same time over the wireless?

 

[P and B]

I have Apple TV running over an 802.11 G network in my house. Theoretical speeds are 54Mps but it's really a burst rate so a constant bit rate service like streaming video runs much slower. What Apple TV does is to buffer a good bit of the movie first- e.g., you have to wait from 5 to 15 minutes before the system is comfortable starting the movie so it doesn't stutter somewhere in the middle.

The reality is that it isn't the home network that's likely to be the issue but the delivery or backbone network that is highly shared between many many users. I include the video servers where the content is streaming from in here too.

I have to say though, that like most things Apple makes, it works pretty well and saves many trips to the video store. It also allows you to put your photos up on the screen so you can do "slide" shows. You can also stream your music to it which is nice if it's hooked up to your home audio or theater system.

It does not allow you to share your computer screen or "surf the web", which it could easily do. I'm sure these types of devices will evolve to allow all sorts of things going forward.

Phil

 

[Scott O]

Just the tip of the iceberg! Streaming AV content is just in it's infancy...

 

[ED-n-KEL]

I'm not looking for BluRay support for simple home viewing as you suggest... I'm looking for BluRay support for authoring and distribution. Streaming content over a home network does little for me.

Currently I'm able to author HD slideshows using third party software and using standard dvd-r media. This works great for simple single-show slideshows that are no more than 15-20mins long. The problem here is in the early stages of BluRay players, most didn't support this format (AVCHD), but more and more are.

I'm hoping the "iApps" will support BluRay authoring soon, and ultimately make this as simple as authoring a standard dvd is now. Thus allowing full content BluRay media to be used.

As just one example of what I'm looking for..... I shoot my son's rugby team throughout the season. I then author a dvd containing multiple slideshows of each game, etc. This is then sold at the end of the year to raise money for the team. With today's current technology I can only do this in SD. With BluRay support and a burner, I can then offer a HD version.

I don't buy that "BluRay is dead" crap. I too have been hearing that from sources. This is a lot like our current news media telling us what our economy is doing, thus making the economy do it.
I think this has a lot to do with how Jobs wants to go to market with BluRay, especially since he's on the BluRay board. I personally think there were some promises and concessions made from Apple to be able to market those useless movies from the major motion picture studios. One of which is to hinder "home" BluRay support to thus hinder BluRay piracy and ripping....a issue that is costing the studios millions with standard SD. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Bill]

I have ... been told by a couple of people who do home theaters for a living that Blu-Ray is basically dead technology. It will soon be replaced by...AppleTV!

It seems that there are two things going on here. First, I have seen the "Blu-Ray is dying" comment in print - I think it was in PCWorld magazine a month or two back. Since technology changes so rapidly (often for no purpose other than change itself, in my opinion), I see no reason for that to be a fabrication. But the second thing that happened in your conversation is that the home theater people can't just say "Don't buy Blu-Ray" and then walk away. They want to sell you something! Hence the second half of their comment.

In the limited context of camping in a TM, we think of a small player, to let us watch movies on a rainy day. For that application, a Blu Ray player will be fine for many years. In fact, I expect no problem with my conventional DVD player.

For the larger context of home theater, multiple TVs, and so forth, the answer may be different. Is Apple TV the right answer? I have no idea, but it will be interesting to look into it.

Bill

 

[Scott O]

A couple of additional things come to mind. I also do shows slide shows, mostly of family stuff. The authoring program I use (ProShowGold) has supported export in Blu-Ray format for over a year. The problem is the hardware. Blu-Ray burners are either not readily available or expensive. So I have yet to go there, although I would like to.

Bill also mentioned something I wasn't thinking about...use in a TM. But AppleTV or some similar product might actually be easier to use in that context. The box is much smaller than a standard DVD player and with a small external hard drive would allow access to all of your AV files, both audio and visual. And this would be the same equipment you use in the house so nothing additional would be needed. The mind reels with possibilities!

 

[ED-n-KEL]

While the streaming content is a cool "feature", this will never be mainstream. I don't think the majority of people are going to build a "non-tangible" movie collection and let it be stored solely on a hard drive in any type of device. That's just asking for disaster. If I'm going to build a HD movie collection, I want something to hold in my hand, and as Bill as pointed out, to be mobile, and used where ever I want.

There currently is a big technology hole that everyone seems to be stepping around, and that is consumer/prosumer level HD authoring/editing. Apple introduced SD authoring/editing to consumers and it was a huge hit. The masses bought small, easy to use SD video cameras and started editing and authoring their own dvds.
Then HD video cameras become available and the same ability is now ignored/avoided. There's something to this, and no doubt it is money from a different direction.

I would have no problem if they wanted to limit HD/BluRay to the "pro apps", but even that isn't happening. Again, there is a big plug in the dam, and I'm hoping it's going to let loose soon. I've been holding off spending any computer related money until this broke, but I can't wait any longer.

On a different, but same issue, the computer industry is desperately in need of newer, larger storage media. Standard dvd media (4 and 8 G is extremely dated and needs replacing by a larger capacity media such as BluRay (25 and 50 G. Common hard drive sizes are now out to 2 TBs, while media is still stuck at a ridiculous 4 GBs. Something has to give soon.

 

[rumbleweed]

Without trying to drag this out, I still believe Blu Ray will go the way of VHS. That is not go away but drop from the mainstream of content delivery in favor of streaming. Burners and players will continue to be avail for home use in authoring and distributing, but will fall out of the mainstream of commercial content delivery. Content players will be small and hard-disk equipped so the content can be stored and played at a later date and location. The focus of the semiconductor industry customers is currently on streaming delivery.

 

[ED-n-KEL]

Without trying to drag this out, I still believe Blu Ray will go the way of VHS. That is not go away but drop from the mainstream of content delivery in favor of streaming. Burners and players will continue to be avail for home use in authoring and distributing, but will fall out of the mainstream of commercial content delivery. Content players will be small and hard-disk equipped so the content can be stored and played at a later date and location. The focus of the semiconductor industry customers is currently on streaming delivery.

Well, as you say, we can go back and forth all day... streaming is a great idea, but there are too many cons to this. I think the industry may try to push this, but as consumers, we ultimately have the ability to bite, or leave it on the shelf. I guess I don't need to say that I won't be biting.
I've seen way to many hard drives go belly up to store anything of value on them, not to mention the damage that one heavy thunderstorm would do, which is way to common. How many times have you had to turn your dvr in due to it locking up? (twice for me). If aware, optical media will always win out over such volatile media such as hd's or flash. While the "sheep consumers" may see the initial "coolness" in this kind of delivery, wait until they loose thousands of dollars worth of content because of a surge or sag.

And again...above and beyond the delivery issues, there must be an upgrade soon to media....something to replace DVD media which is now ancient.

Sorry, I just don't see what they are telling us we should do, happening, or being accepted.

 

[PopBeavers]

I do not see the value of owning a DVD player anymore. I only use it to watch rental movies. As soon as Wii makes Netflix available (I already own a Wii) I will probably go that route. For $8.99 per month, when I can't sleep, I should be able to find some old John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie to watch.

My first computer in the house was in 1995. I have had one hard drive failure. I have replaced many drives to go to larger drives. I think I still have about a dozen drives collecting dust in the drawer. My fist was 1.2 gig, but I donated that to the local high school when it still was big enough to be useful. I think the smallest in the drawer is 6 gig and the biggest is 720 gig.

I don't have much use for any hard drive smaller than 1T. But, I won't be upgrading disks any time soon, so what I have may be around for awhile longer than the previous dries were. So I might have a higher risk of failure.

I have seen (I believe) bit rot occur. This is where a disk not being used suddenly has the data damaged while it is in the drawer. The next time I bring it out and go to read some data from it (photo backups), the backups are damaged.

Backing up a hard drive to another hard drive and storing th3e backup outside of the computer is not very reliable, in my experience.

Rather than continuing to make hard drives bigger I wish they would add ECC. With decent ECC you could create a radial scratch, from the hub to the outside edge, and have no loss of data, as long as the heads don't crash on the scratch.

So with today's technology, what is the best way to back up a terabyte of data? Another disk drive is, I think, the best option, but it is not adequate.

 

[Scott O]

Wayne...you have alluded to perhaps the biggest issue with disc media, the lack of permanence. From the tests I have read, I get nervous when a disc hits 10 years old. And this is an outside number, although nobody really knows for sure. Currently, I'll take my chances with multiple hard drive backups when possible. AppleTV - remember that from the original post ;-) - is basically an input device, since it's hard drive is currently 160 GB. Not much, so hence the use of a computer for storage. Fun to speculate on what we are in for in the future!

 

[P and B]

My understanding of Blu Ray was that, until you got to large monitors (like 42"), it didn't buy much visually over S-video. I haven't any empirical evidence to support this though. I'd point out one difference between VHS and Blu Ray from a market POV would be that VHS made it mainstream. Blu Ray apparently hasn't and based on discussions here may never make it.

On the storage front, I'd say that portable storage will continue to evolve in solid state form with perhaps a layered VLSI packaging. The interesting thing to me about storage is how does one back up a 2TB drive? Answer, with another 2TB or larger drive. The first full backup will take a while ;-)

BTW, Apple TV seems to be more of an Apple experiment than a serious commercial offering. As everyone has pointed out, there seems to be limitless possibilities here but Apple, for one, doesn't seem interested in exploring them. I think they've been preoccupied with the mobility market. I'm sure everyone has heard the rumors of an impending iTablet.....btw, I think I need one of those ;-)

Phil

 

[lnussbau]

Bluray is dead? Wow! It's just getting started (I sure hated to see HD-DVD go away). It's really only in the last few months that I've seen a very broad selection of BluRay discs, and especially that I've seen a pretty fair selection in the stores. I just got a BluRay player for my home theater, having used HD-DVD-only for the last couple of years. Now I can watch either. All my home HD movies are, so far, in HD-DVD, so I have to keep that going.

As with some other commenters above, I'll not be going to streaming video (wireless or otherwise) for movie watching (nor for my home HD movies, either). For one thing, I see no particular reason to tie my computer in to my TVs, except maybe on special occasion, and the two aren't within easy reach of each other anyway (nor will they be), and I won't watch movies (maybe a brief excerpt) on the computer. Of course there's also the bandwidth issue, as well as, "How do I watch this movie in the TM?" The latter is only rarely an issue, but I have to address it for those rare occasions.

To add my 2 cents to the above question(s) about editing/writing HD/BluRay/etc.:

I use Pinnacle Studio 12 (14 is out now), and can write HD-DVD or AVCHD to standard DVDs, obviating the need for a BluRay burner, PROVIDING, that you don't need to write more than about 24 minutes on HD-DVD (a little more on AVCHD), or about 44 minutes on a DL disc (again, a little more on AVCHD). For longer movies you'll need a BluRay burner.

This program does a fine job of editing the HDV from my Sony FX1 and outputting either of the above two formats, in addition to doing nice standard DVDs. And this on my almost 5 year-old computer. Studio is also, from both my own experience and from comments from other folks, the closest NLE (Non-Linear Editing) software to being intuitive, the easiest to use.

Oh, yes. It can (with a BluRay burner) also put out BluRay (or AVCHD) movies on BluRay discs.

Note, too, that the output HD quality is excellent, generally matching or exceeding the quality I see on HD programs on Comcast cable, and even matching all but the very finest I've seen on HD-DVD and BluRay commercially produced discs (better than a very few of them), even though the FX1 (and HDV in general) is 1440x1080 anamorphic, rather than 1920x1080.

 

[lnussbau]

My understanding of Blu Ray was that, until you got to large monitors (like 42"), it didn't buy much visually over S-video. I haven't any empirical evidence to support this though. ...

Phil

Well, I can see the difference on a 22" $300 Vizio HDTV (HD cable, HD-DVD and BluRay), so I'd have to disagree. I will say, though, that if your DVD player is hooked up with component cables (three RCA jacks for/red/green/blue, not the single RCA jack composite that is usually yellow, or the multi-pin S-Video), the difference between a standard DVD and an HD DVD (of either sort) is small (though visible) on the above Vizio set. Small in that, sometimes you have to actually look for the differences, rather than have them stare you in the face. With an HDMI connection on a 52" 1080p LCD set, some material (Phantom of the Opera, for example) on HD-DVD and Standard DVD has fairly small differences (some in detail, and some in color).

 

[MudDog-TMO]

Like everything else, it's just a matter of time. Streaming is not going to go away and when bandwidth is sufficient, it will take over. Being able to access your media from anywhere has already been solved - only issue is, is it fast enough from everywhere....no, not yet.

I have over 100Gb of data (pictures, movies, music) that needs to be backed up. I could get 25 DVD's or I could get an external hard-drive, but what happens when there is a fire and both your computer and your backup are destroyed? I had used a home NAS (network disk) solution for several years and those drives were mirrored, but the backup wasn't off-site.

Then came on-line backup...carbonite, mozy and now a host of others.

For less then the cost of a harddrive every couple of years, I have unlimmited online backup.. It's off-site and they are responsible for maintaining the infrastructure. For backups, love it.

Then about 6 months ago, Mozy (now owned by EMC) launched a beta of decho (digital echo) where now thru a secure web front end, I can access the data I'm backing up from any PC/Device that has internet access and can even share content with others (likely a DRM fight on this part of it in the future). With sufficient bandwidth, I would be able to watch my movies, view my pictures and play my music. Bandwidth is not there yet, but it will be (my first PC was a Commodore 64 and the Hayes 300 baud modem cost more than the computer...when 1200 baud modems came out a few years later, we were really flying).

It's only a matter of time before the DVR/Streaming devices are a standard part of the televison itself. You can already stream with most game consoles and they are becoming internet aware (e.g. Xbox and Netflix) without having to have a PC somewhere in the house driving it. At someoint, I would expect to be able to point my game console, my cell phone, or the TV itself to something like my Decho site and press play...regardless of where I am.

Like everything else, there will be the early adopters on the bleeding edge and there will be the people that don't want anything to do with the new technology. Markets usually cater to both and everyone in the middle until the non-adopters become such a small percent (world wide) that there's no longer money in doing it. I can still buy a VHS player today, even though it's been dead for years. I can still by a new 5.25" floppy drive today if I really wanted one...


Just saw this breaking news...unless your home movies are in 3D, they're now officially dead regardless of the media you're saving them on....

 

[Scott O]

Gads, my brain hurts. Who started this thread anyhow???

 

[rumbleweed]

Just a thought
With 3D television, we can now sit inside our TM's around our 20 LCD 3D TV displaying a roaring fire. This will prevent the destruction of our forests for firewood, and eliminate greenhouse gases. This is progress.

 

[ED-n-KEL]

Bluray is dead? Wow! It's just getting started (I sure hated to see HD-DVD go away). It's really only in the last few months that I've seen a very broad selection of BluRay discs, and especially that I've seen a pretty fair selection in the stores. I just got a BluRay player for my home theater, having used HD-DVD-only for the last couple of years. Now I can watch either. All my home HD movies are, so far, in HD-DVD, so I have to keep that going.

Again, don't let this make you totally abandon the BluRay platform, as I don't believe this for a second. I think there may be a GreenRay, PinkRay, BeigeRay or some other favor in the distant future, but for at least the next 5yrs, I would put my money on BluRay. There is nothing on the horizon right now that come close to filling this slot. There were tons of standards, compliance, and licensing issues in the beginning, which have all be worked out for now. I think we'll see something give soon.