North by Northwest » Standards http://northbynwa.com the blog Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:29:36 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 Is Blu-ray’s Victory an Empty One? http://northbynwa.com/2008/03/08/is-blu-rays-victory-an-empty-one/ http://northbynwa.com/2008/03/08/is-blu-rays-victory-an-empty-one/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:43:14 +0000 kas http://northbynwa.com/2008/03/08/is-blu-rays-victory-an-empty-one/ IEEE Blogger Steven Cherry predicts that movies on disk, be it DVD, HD-DVD or Blu-ray, will become a thing of the past as they are replace by movie download services from Apple and Netflix.

And so when you look past the Blu-ray victory, the latest ­developments in digital movies are all about downloads, not disks.

At MacWorld, which directly ­followed CES, Steve Jobs announced a new download service for ­renting ­movies. As with music, Apple has struck deals with the major movie ­studios. You can begin a show on your ­computer or television and finish watching it on your iPod or iPhone. The service started in February with 1000 ­movies, ­costing US $2.99 to $3.99 each.

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So do we really need to trudge out to Blockbuster, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart for a disk? Or wait for the now-­familiar red envelope from Netflix? A lot of ­companies, including Apple and Netflix itself, are ­betting no. Sony and the other movie studios, even though they get a cut from movie downloads, hope the ­competition is wrong. I don’t think they are.

One thing I’ve noticed that is missing from the online/download movies is the extra features that are usually on the DVDs. Plus downloaded movies lack the easy of portability that disks provide.

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]]> http://northbynwa.com/2008/03/08/is-blu-rays-victory-an-empty-one/feed/ 0 Blu-ray gaining support vs. HD DVD http://northbynwa.com/2008/02/12/blu-ray-gaining-support-vs-hd-dvd/ http://northbynwa.com/2008/02/12/blu-ray-gaining-support-vs-hd-dvd/#comments Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:34:21 +0000 kas http://northbynwa.com/2008/02/12/blu-ray-gaining-support-vs-hd-dvd/ Is the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format war almost over?

Best Buy and Netflix have both just announced that they will be promoting Blu-ray over HD DVD.

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That comes on the heels of last month’s announcement by Warner Bros. that they will stop selling HD DVDs and sell only Blu-ray disks in the future. It just so happens that Warner Bros. is Hollywood’s biggest seller of DVDs. Blockbuster had already said that they would only rent Blu-ray disks in the brick-and-mortar stores, while making both formats available for their online customers.

It’s too bad format wars like this end with the early adopters of the losing format getting screwed and stuck with obsolete hardware and media. Hopefully the industry standardization will bring the prices of Blu-ray players down, as they are currently much higher than the HD DVD players from Toshiba. My brief price research shows that you can get a 1080p HD player for $200, while a 1080p Blu-ray player is $350-400. Also, with HD DVD you can opt for a 720p HD DVD player for around $150.

Time to get a PS3?

Update: Toshiba waves the white flag of surrender.

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