Detest it or adore it, the signs for digital format to be the next format are everywhere: - Ultraviolet Digital Copy (comes with Blu-rays' nowadays, not always, though) - iTunes Store - Xbox LIVE Marketplace - PlayStation Store - Amazon Digital Store - Steam Store - EA's Origin Store So yeah, digital format is very likely to be the next, I like digital and I know everyone agrees that discs will always have a certain limit, while HDDs can go far beyond. Blu-ray Disc: 25 GB to 50 GB Hard Drive Disk: 300 MB to 4 TB+ I have a 1 TB HDD and doesn't even feel big enough (I don't download much but just to have lots of space - currently the free space is 431 GB), I wish I had 4 TB HDD's.
As far as I'm concerned, Blu-Ray hasnt become a proper format, so few people use or buy them and Movie Studios are pushing them so hard with little success. The Digital age is already here with Netflix, LoveFilm and iTunes. Streaming is also the in thing now, at least in the UK and I assume the US/Canada. Why bother storing it when you can stream it on demand over your net connection? Makes having any format pointless.
Some sort of flash / solid state storage will be after Blu-ray, in 5 years time codes will have advanced loads more and the storage price for a 100gb sd card will be next to nothing. Compared to DVD's / Blu-rays some sort of memory card will take up so little space and perform / hold so much more.
i dont think blu-rays are even that popular, give it another 10 years and any form of dvd's, blurays and hard media wont exist lol. Digital Media ftw!
I thing something like SD Cards will take over DVD's and Blu Rays I personally prefer to have something physical to keep hold off
If we have another storage format after Blu-ray i think it will be some flashed based storage, by the time more space than what a blu-ray can hold is required i imagine we have have flash memory cards in the 100's of GB's for not a lot of cost. I do agree with Nimrod in a way too, the future is definitely streaming. However internet speeds very so much i dont see this becoming the norm like DVD's are for a long time yet. I think they will always be a way to buy a physical copy of something too, people like positions.
Yeah, look at Sony, they're using cards on PS Vita than discs. So it shows that discs are slowly being eradicated from the market.
Problem is, not everyone has decent net (WHY AUSTRALIA?!?!?!? WHY??? WHY CAN'T WE HAVE GOOD NET!??!?!??!) so the streaming and downloading part is a tad (really f******) annoying. :/
Oh indeed i agree there which is why i don't see it becoming the norm for many years to come. Even in the UK there are places that cant get broadband, someone i work with can only get internet via 3g. You could be on 100mbit Cable and the person down the road could be stuck on 2mbit ADSL, speeds vary massively here.
I download 3 GB to 8 GB BRRips and totally happy to watch them on my HDTV. No need for me to get a bluray player. speaking of internet speed. Check this out: Global Download Study
it will be holographic discs next Holographic Versatile Disc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [TABLE="class: infobox, width: 22"] [TR] [TH="colspan: 2, align: center"][/TH] [/TR] [TR] [TD="colspan: 2, align: center"] Picture of an HVD by Optware[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Media type[/TH] [TD]Ultra-high density optical disc[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Encoding[/TH] [TD]MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), NGVC (H.265) and VC-1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Capacity[/TH] [TD]6 TB[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Developed by[/TH] [TD]HSD Forum[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TH]Usage[/TH] [TD]Data storage, High-definition video, Quad HD & the possibility of Ultra HD[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]
It's certainly not going to be holographic discs. There is no way they'd be able to make these discs cost effective anytime soon and everyone would have to play some kind of device capable of playing the discs, which would also be too expensive.
I think the new step is going to be some kind of memory card, just like a small HDD. Look at the PS Vita , those games are on a memory card. I don't know how big the games are, but they look awesome. If they can make games on a memory card, then maybe they can do the same with Movies ???
HVD has been out for ages and it's not going to be BD's next step, it's not the real thing, just an idea.
An interesting article that I saw a while back suggested that the next Xbox won't use digital delivery exclusively (link), and when you look at the global chart of internet speeds, it is easy to see why...
Indeed it would kill the console if they did, its better if consoles never go download only as Microsoft massively overcharge for stuff. If the prices were like on Steam and they had good sales, again like Steam does i would not mind. However Microsoft are very expensive when it comes to digital downloads. I remember when Halo Reach was released on games on demand it was £50 just for a download only copy, it was cheaper to buy it in the shops from day one, and you got the box, manual and other extras too! Plus as you say games now are pretty large and a lot of people just dont have the internet connections and download allowances to be downloading 50+gig games, which i imagine games will be once we get in to the next gen.
Blue Ray will most definitely unlikely be the last physical media platform. Video disk has only gone through it's first upgrade in it's evolution from standard dvd video to blue ray High Definition Multi-Media Interface compliant device compact disks (HDMI). It's not uncommon for history to repeat itself, and just as vhs was phased out with dvd, so inevitably blue ray will too, due to the massive rise in corporate meeting consumer demand for inflated disc space capacity to house the ever rising "higher quality" video renderings that require more and more data, as well as data file transfer.. This means even though broadcasting networks including internet HD streaming may eventually "catch up" to today's esteemed standard of "high quality," much like dvd was considered avanced in it's golden days, it will have already been replaced with a much larger, higher resolution, higher transfer rate as well as frame rate codec that far surpasses H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. This is already been done with the next wave of High Definition Video dubbed "UHD" or "Ultra High Def. Video which utilizes 4k & 8k resolutions, the latter consisting of a resolution that is very close to aprx. 33 megapixels (33.2 to be exact), roughtly 16x the resolution of today's highest commercial video HD standard of (1920 x 1080p) 1,920 vertical x 1,080 horizontal scan lines.. An 85 inch LCD display by sharp was released in Japan sometime between the year 2011-2012 that can handle a full 8K resolution (7680 × 4320) 7,680 vertical x 4,320 horizontal scan lines or simply 4320p at 60hz refresh rate (kinda low if you ask me) and was available for overseas purchase to say the U.S. for aprx. $8K, ($1 per pixel, lol) + shipping costs, and recieved the first UHD broadcast (Japan region only--I think) for the 2012 Olympics requiring a video signal transmission of about 48GBps transfer rate! So evidently before we start to adopt this kind of Ultra Hid Def, a new "Physical Medium" would much greatly be in order, given it's taken over 8 years for networks to broadcast Standard-HD in a full 1080p format, early adopters of better home video technologies would have to adapt to using a physical structure in order to bring about the 2nd evolution of the compact disc and to realistically bring 8k television to your homes in short order. This will prob. most likely be in the form of "HVD" or "Holographic Versatile Discs" that can potentially store more than 1 terabyte (TB) of information, or 200x more than a regular one sided DVD and 20x times more than a current double-sided Blu-ray! It works similar to how to traditional holographic imaging is done using two forms of laser technology one as an information beam, the other as a reconstruction beam which is then sent to a CMOS sensor to recreate the original image. It also utilizes a sizable 1GBps transfer rate and is able to retrieve 60,000 bits of data in one pulse of light as vs. a 1:1 ratio of data retrial per pulse of light as in the now more dated dvd format, not to mention it works on multiple layers that can stack to about 10 TB of data per disk! This would VASTLY improve implications for new and improved video codecs..and is predicted to be widely available in 2020, though I personally predict, given the trend in how dvd was cycled out, and how blue ray was introduced as it's replacement technology with next gen gaming platforms such as the PS3 and the PC, as well as the fact that 8k video displays are already available in Japan and is only limited now to the need for 8k content and lastly on top of all that currently-available, cutting-edge Nvidia/AMD graphics cards fitting 4k resolutions already will all be available with the use of HVD's housed in the soon upcoming PS4 in less than 2 years from now.. Starting early on in 60hz-4k, and 24hz-8k for 3D mode, to a latter 120hz 4k and 60hz 8k or 240hz 4k to 120hz 8k in 3D mode four to six years after it's initial launch.. Think it can't happen, just remember how bringing home 3-D went from an ultra expensive pipe dream to widely available and affordable home ready practically in less than 1 year! Well, however long it takes, expect it, if the world lasts that long... but blue ray mostly likely will not be the last physical medium.