This thread reminds me of Sony's terrible 2006 E3 press event.

Here's a recap for those that missed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH2w2l1JTs4

RIIIIDGE RACER!

Sounded like a fanboyish one sided rant.

But MS is really, really good at getting developers on board. Nokia is really, really bad at it and still has droves of Symbian developers due to their market penetration. If even 1/2 of the Symbian folks go over to writing WP7 apps it'll bury the amount of "real" developers writing apps for iOS and Android (no, writing a app that displays pics of half naked girls does not make you a real developer, neither does ripping off someone's software, changing the name and putting it back up on the market).

I think this is relevant to this thread: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/sony-wont-make-massive-investment-in-ps4/

(or adds fuel to the flames, depending on perspective)

I think it's only sensible. The problem with the PS3 was that the architecture itself was radically different from everything else. Everything about the hardware was new and untested. This meant that the PS3 had three distinct drawbacks:

1. It was expensive as hell.

2. It was hard to develop software for.

3. It was expensive as hell.

I know that's technically only two drawbacks, but I think the price tag was enough of a drawback to warrant mentioning twice.

Now, you don't have to innovate everything in order to make a better console. The best way for Sony to handle the PS4 I think, is to simply keep the architechture but upgrade all the hardware. It would make backward compatibility much easier, would cut down development costs enormously compared to the PS3, and would make development easier for existing PS3 developers. Just scale the damn thing up. It'll be better, it'll be cheaper, it'll be easier, it'll be less bugridden.

AN interesting take on Sony's sucess which was well done but lumping blu-ray in with UMD was a poor choice. Blu-Ray is doing very well and was doing well when the video was made. It's market share continues to grow while UMD never really got off the ground.

I've always seen very poor numbers for BluRay, do you have something that shows it's doing much better than I was led to believe?

I mean I know it's not the failure that UMD was, of course, it's just that it doesn't look to be replacing DVD to any great extent.

It almost looks like they're both a shrinking market as people decide they'd rather not own the content... Still, an additional 2.9 billion for BluRay isn't bad, I'm curious what the attach rate is per person. Are people buying more movies than they did during the DVD boom?

DVD looks worse than the average Netflix stream, so a lot of people with high income prefer Netflix for anything that they don't just love a ton (and then perhaps they'd opt for BluRay over DVD, or as you say, both formats in one package).

It's any interesting time. I think BluRay growth almost has to slow as broadband penetration increases, but I could be wrong.

Let's see what happens, Amazon just launched streaming, Netflix just launched Android streaming, it should be interesting if we don't kill ourselves with some sort of mutated anthrax or some other crap.

The comparison between BluRay and UMD is stupid, I agree. The BluRay should obviously be compared to the DVD.

And yes, BluRay is not spreading nearly as fast as the DVD did, but then the situation is different. You need to look at what older technology the newer one is seeking to replace.

The DVD sought to replace the VHS tape for video, and the CD for data storage. I think we can all agree that the DVD has a massive advantage over the VHS tape for video. Aside from the quality difference, the fact that it's a non-linear storage medium is an overwhelming advantage. As for replacing the CD as a storage medium, the DVD arrived on the scene at a time when some games had reached sizes of 7 CDs (Phantasmagoria came on 7 CDs IIRC), and the prospect of replacing these with a single DVD was alluring.

Now fastforward a number of years and consider the BluRay. It is trying to replace the DVD for both video and data storage. Now, for video, the only thing the BluRay really has going for it is the quality. It has no other advantage over the DVD, in terms of video playback. And I'll happily admit that I do think new BluRay movies look better than their DVD counterparts, but I know many people who claim that they can't see any difference at all. Also, for older movies, the quality of which may not exactly be up to modern digital standards, is it really worth it to replace your DVD copy with a BluRay copy? Or, if it's a movie you don't already have, is it worth it to shell out the extra cash to get it on BluRay, rather than DVD?

They've actually thought of a good way to promote BluRays further, namely by releasing new movies as a BluRay/DVD combo. This is especially true of animated movies, but it's a great idea. Many people only have one BluRay player in the house, which means that any BluRay they buy can only be watched there. My kid has a TV with a built-in DVD player in his room, so buying the combo packs means that we can watch the movies in BluRay quality in the living room, but he can still watch them in his room with his friends if he wants. Also, people who don't have a BluRay player yet, may want to buy the combo pack so they can watch the movie now, but still have the BluRay copy for when they do get a player, without having to buy the movie again.

As for data storage, the size of games have stopped growing as quickly as it did before. I haven't seen a PC game of more than 2 DVDs yet. And I've never seen a PC game on BluRay. While BluRay PC drives do exist, they are not all that common yet, and a BluRay burner still costs an arm and a leg.

In short, DVDs represented a significant improvement over existing technology, while BluRays do not, they are "merely" an incremental improvement, and the fact that they are more expensive is detrimental to spreading of the technology.

I'll shut up now.

I'm a regular at blu-ray.com and this misconception comes up a lot. The fact is that old movies restored properly can receive huge benefits from being released on blu-ray.

Check out Buster Keaton's The General or The Wizard of Oz for example. Or look how much better the original Star Trek looks remastered (the non-cgi stuff). It's about the quality of the source in determining how much benefit blu-ray can give because 35MM and hence 65 and 70mm film has far more resolution than blu-ray provides so of course they'll be a benefit. The care taken in restoring also plays a big factor. Predator on blu-ray is a definite improvement over the dvd though only the 2008 version. For the UHE edition they scrubbed away all the grain and since detail is embedded within the grain, the detail goes away with it so it looks like crap. That was the studio's fault, not blu-ray medium itself.

I know that, but for every old movie restored properly to BluRay, how many are restored poorly? How many are not really restored at all, but simply converted in order for the distributor to make a quick buck? And how can I tell when I'm looking at the cover down at the store?

Edit: And what about BluRay releases of things that were never on film to begin with? Will I really get a much better quality out of a BluRay release of an 80's TV series, than out of a DVD release of the same?

Yeah, porn studios switched to VHS in the 70s, some TV shows must have done the same.

There are ways to tell. Many blu-ray distributors put the specs on the disc on the back of the case. If you see 10Mbps, don't expect anything great. High teens or better should yield a solid upgrade unless they DNR the hell out of it. Patton, the first Gladiator release are good examples of over digital manipulation ruining the movie's look. I suppose if you buy day one you're taking a gamble but you could say the same thing about buying anything day one like videogames.

They usually always list the codec used too. Generally MPEG-2 25Gb < VC-1 25/50GB < AVC/MPEG4 50GB when it comes to picture quality though this isn't a definitive guide. MPEG-2 is an aniquated codec and while several movies that use the codec look pretty good, generally those titles are less impressive than one that uses a newer codec like VC-1 or AVC. Whether single layer or dual layer matters also and generally with the higher capacity comes a larger bitrate because of the extra room. Though again Predaotr is 19Mbps MPEG-2 25GB and while it's not a flagship looking title (for which blame goes to the stock used to film the movie also), it looks a hell of a lot better than the AVC 50GB UHE edition because of the DNR mentioned earlier.

Shows that were on videocassette obviously won't benefit. But I mean keep in mind you could say the same thing about many of these shows on dvd looking only marginally better.