brigadier Biggles
03-09-2006, 06:45 PM
By Martin Lynch: Thursday 09 March 2006, 12:22
WITH ALL THE media noise and bluster about Blu-Ray and HD DVD you’d think we were awaiting the Second Coming. All we are really getting are massively over-hyped, high-density disc formats that in many ways are already outdated. And too damned expensive. In fact, both technologies are far less important than they think they are. As a consumer, they will also be of limited appeal to me and many others – but we’ll get to that in a minute.
OK, it might seem a bit strange to call a technology that hasn’t yet arrived 'outdated' but my point is simply this: neither format is that great a leap in the larger storage equation. Historically, both Blu-Ray and HD DVD will have much less impact on the world of storage than their predecessors, namely blank CDs and DVDs. There was a time when blank discs made people giddy with excitement. I know, I was one of them. This was the time when we got the first raft of blank CDs and disc burners. A time when the market was dominated by expensive Zip drives and the like with their massively overpriced 100MB discs. When blank CDs arrived offering cheaper 600-700MB of storage, the death knell for Zip was announced and the world went wild. Piracy, as we know it today, was born with the arrival of CD burners and discs. We were so mad with excitement that we backed-up stuff we didn’t even need on CDs we didn’t even like.
They were expensive to start with, but back then with no real alternative storage alternative it didn’t really matter. When I say expensive, I’m talking about £1-£2 a disc. And that’s the key – there was no real storage alternative. For instance, Flash-based storage was not an option, there were no external hard disk drives and certainly no USB Flash sticks. Blank CDs were truly a revolution. They were followed in time by blank DVDs – I’m talking around 2000/01 when the 4.7GB format became a viable consumer option. Again, another revolution. Not just in storage terms, where capacity jumped to 4.7Gb, but because they had already ushered in a new, movie format that doubled the quality of ye olde video tapes. Consumer-based DVD players killed off video and DVD burners largely replaced CD burners in all but the cheapest PCs and notebooks. The media was expensive too, to start with – more so than blank CDs - and in many ways of less use to most people because DVD movie piracy didn’t really kick in until a few years later. Today, you can get 50 blank DVDs for about £10.
And now we have Blu-Ray and HD DVD hair-pulling and slapping like a couple of girls all over the media. The fact that there are two competing disc formats on the way means that, as consumers, we have already lost out. Corporate greed has effectively divided the content providers and hardware makers so that two new incompatible platforms and content are screaming towards us this year. I pity normal folk who have problems getting their heads around one new technology, never mind two.
As a storage medium, the first Blu-Ray offerings will be single-layer 25Gb discs. The rewriteable discs (BD-RE) arrive this month with a price tag of around £21 in Germany – no UK prices yet, so those could be a bit lower or higher, the company has warned. The recordable versions (BD-R) are due out next month and will cost under £17 each. Now, while I realise that this is just the beginning of the new disc formats, it’s still shockingly expensive for a disc that’s been coming for years and that both drive and disc makers are already geared up for. The main selling points for the new discs will be to host high-def movie content, home recording and back-up. But, take a look at the home recorder market now.
The first DVD recorders arrived as disk-only recorders. Then, very quickly, came recorders with internal hard disk drives ranging from 40GB to whopping 500GB models. These are set to replace the disc-only models because the mark-up is better and, for the consumer, it’s far better to be able to tape for days without having to swap out discs every few hours. The same will happen quickly in the Blu-ray/HD DVD space. Recorders will come with HDDs which will largely rule out the need for expensive blank discs. Of course, we might need a couple but we are not talking massive sales. For most people, they’ll never need to transfer stuff to discs.
Then we come to PC-based and standalone burners – unless the price comes down rapidly, they will be restricted to high-end PCs for the first few years and even then, are they needed? I don’t think so. Right now a 500GB external hard disk drive from a big brand will set you back about £225. The equivalent number of blank Blu-Ray disks, which record at a paltry 2x, would set you back £340. Allow for a discount and you are still looking at £300. That’s not including the cost of first-gen burners which will be both slow and very expensive. As a back-up medium, the attraction of blank high density disks is very limited for the near-future. By the time they get prices small enough to swallow, £300 will probably net you a 1TB external drive.
Storage has moved on. High-density discs are no longer the revolution they once were. Hard disk-based storage has passed it by. Even Flash-based storage is growing rapidly in capacity terms. People have said to me that once people get HDTV signals and want to record it, it will push sales of blank high density disks but I disagree. Even with 25GB you will only fit over two hours of broadcast quality HD video (24Mbps) on it. This grows to 10 hours if you cut the quality (5Mbps) but what’s the point of having HD if what you record is inferior in quality? Wouldn’t it make far more sense to record HD straight onto recorders with big fat HDDs. Yes it will and that’s what will happen.
Will I buy Blu-Ray/HD DVD products? Absolutely. I can’t wait to get HD versions of my fave movies and next year when I upgrade my PC, it will probably have a new burner. Will I buy lots of blank discs and use that burner as a primary back-up/storage solution, no I won’t. Too expensive. Give me a cheap and blisteringly fast external HDD any day. Will I buy a recorder to burn regular TV or HDTV to pricey blank discs or go for something with a fat hard disk drive? You tell me.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30167
once again the inquirer gets it bang on...
WITH ALL THE media noise and bluster about Blu-Ray and HD DVD you’d think we were awaiting the Second Coming. All we are really getting are massively over-hyped, high-density disc formats that in many ways are already outdated. And too damned expensive. In fact, both technologies are far less important than they think they are. As a consumer, they will also be of limited appeal to me and many others – but we’ll get to that in a minute.
OK, it might seem a bit strange to call a technology that hasn’t yet arrived 'outdated' but my point is simply this: neither format is that great a leap in the larger storage equation. Historically, both Blu-Ray and HD DVD will have much less impact on the world of storage than their predecessors, namely blank CDs and DVDs. There was a time when blank discs made people giddy with excitement. I know, I was one of them. This was the time when we got the first raft of blank CDs and disc burners. A time when the market was dominated by expensive Zip drives and the like with their massively overpriced 100MB discs. When blank CDs arrived offering cheaper 600-700MB of storage, the death knell for Zip was announced and the world went wild. Piracy, as we know it today, was born with the arrival of CD burners and discs. We were so mad with excitement that we backed-up stuff we didn’t even need on CDs we didn’t even like.
They were expensive to start with, but back then with no real alternative storage alternative it didn’t really matter. When I say expensive, I’m talking about £1-£2 a disc. And that’s the key – there was no real storage alternative. For instance, Flash-based storage was not an option, there were no external hard disk drives and certainly no USB Flash sticks. Blank CDs were truly a revolution. They were followed in time by blank DVDs – I’m talking around 2000/01 when the 4.7GB format became a viable consumer option. Again, another revolution. Not just in storage terms, where capacity jumped to 4.7Gb, but because they had already ushered in a new, movie format that doubled the quality of ye olde video tapes. Consumer-based DVD players killed off video and DVD burners largely replaced CD burners in all but the cheapest PCs and notebooks. The media was expensive too, to start with – more so than blank CDs - and in many ways of less use to most people because DVD movie piracy didn’t really kick in until a few years later. Today, you can get 50 blank DVDs for about £10.
And now we have Blu-Ray and HD DVD hair-pulling and slapping like a couple of girls all over the media. The fact that there are two competing disc formats on the way means that, as consumers, we have already lost out. Corporate greed has effectively divided the content providers and hardware makers so that two new incompatible platforms and content are screaming towards us this year. I pity normal folk who have problems getting their heads around one new technology, never mind two.
As a storage medium, the first Blu-Ray offerings will be single-layer 25Gb discs. The rewriteable discs (BD-RE) arrive this month with a price tag of around £21 in Germany – no UK prices yet, so those could be a bit lower or higher, the company has warned. The recordable versions (BD-R) are due out next month and will cost under £17 each. Now, while I realise that this is just the beginning of the new disc formats, it’s still shockingly expensive for a disc that’s been coming for years and that both drive and disc makers are already geared up for. The main selling points for the new discs will be to host high-def movie content, home recording and back-up. But, take a look at the home recorder market now.
The first DVD recorders arrived as disk-only recorders. Then, very quickly, came recorders with internal hard disk drives ranging from 40GB to whopping 500GB models. These are set to replace the disc-only models because the mark-up is better and, for the consumer, it’s far better to be able to tape for days without having to swap out discs every few hours. The same will happen quickly in the Blu-ray/HD DVD space. Recorders will come with HDDs which will largely rule out the need for expensive blank discs. Of course, we might need a couple but we are not talking massive sales. For most people, they’ll never need to transfer stuff to discs.
Then we come to PC-based and standalone burners – unless the price comes down rapidly, they will be restricted to high-end PCs for the first few years and even then, are they needed? I don’t think so. Right now a 500GB external hard disk drive from a big brand will set you back about £225. The equivalent number of blank Blu-Ray disks, which record at a paltry 2x, would set you back £340. Allow for a discount and you are still looking at £300. That’s not including the cost of first-gen burners which will be both slow and very expensive. As a back-up medium, the attraction of blank high density disks is very limited for the near-future. By the time they get prices small enough to swallow, £300 will probably net you a 1TB external drive.
Storage has moved on. High-density discs are no longer the revolution they once were. Hard disk-based storage has passed it by. Even Flash-based storage is growing rapidly in capacity terms. People have said to me that once people get HDTV signals and want to record it, it will push sales of blank high density disks but I disagree. Even with 25GB you will only fit over two hours of broadcast quality HD video (24Mbps) on it. This grows to 10 hours if you cut the quality (5Mbps) but what’s the point of having HD if what you record is inferior in quality? Wouldn’t it make far more sense to record HD straight onto recorders with big fat HDDs. Yes it will and that’s what will happen.
Will I buy Blu-Ray/HD DVD products? Absolutely. I can’t wait to get HD versions of my fave movies and next year when I upgrade my PC, it will probably have a new burner. Will I buy lots of blank discs and use that burner as a primary back-up/storage solution, no I won’t. Too expensive. Give me a cheap and blisteringly fast external HDD any day. Will I buy a recorder to burn regular TV or HDTV to pricey blank discs or go for something with a fat hard disk drive? You tell me.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30167
once again the inquirer gets it bang on...