It saw off the challenge of HD DVD’s but has the Blu-Ray disk finally met its match in the form of the ever-expanding and successful movie streaming market.
In 2006 movie fans witnessed the start of the High Definition optical disk format war, a battle from which Blu-ray emerged as the clear victors causing Toshiba to announce it would cease the development of HD DVD’s all together in 2008. The decision by Sony to include their player in Playstation 3 consoles may have been costly, selling at a loss of $200 per unit, but it was a crucial point in the war and led to their eventual triumph.
But now they face a fresh, new and extremely popular challenge; Netflix, Blinkbox, NowTV and Lovefilm to name a few, the new world of streaming movies directly to your PC, TV, tablet or mobile phone. As technology advances the consumer becomes less patient so it makes sense that movie streaming straight in to your home without having to leave the house to buy a physical disk. However Blu-ray believe there is room for both themselves and streaming and the inclusion of the player in the brand new Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles will certainly help them compete for a while to come.
In terms of price streaming offers us a monthly cost for unlimited streaming yet buying a Blu-ray disk means you’ve paid more than the monthly cost for streaming for just one film. That being said movie fans still prefer Blu-ray for its bonus content and superior picture quality and sometimes it can even come down to something as simple as wanting the physical disk to add to the collection in your living room. I know people who still travel to record stores to buy CD’s, not because they don’t embrace new technology because they use it for almost everything else yet they want to have the real thing in their hand and on their shelves.
Blu-ray can and will compete, its adaptable, 3D might not be where it felt it could be but its improving and proof that optical disks have an advantage over streaming, that is far from the finished product itself as there are each of their databases are full. Sony are teaming up with Panasonic to create a successor to the Blu-ray disk that will be six times as much data and will have a recording capacity of at least 300GB. So maybe its more a matter of the future’s bright, the futures blue?! Tweet me and let me know what you prefer and whether you think Blu-ray can stand up to streaming @MattMay89
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