Blu-Ray Dead or Stillborn?

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Just to add to George's post:

I recently bought a 32Gb USB drive. The rate at which the storage capacity of those little devices is going it is possible to load many films. For example I can get three 1080p .mkv format videos onto my USB drive.

[Shrimpfarmer]

Shrimpfarmer, with 1TB external USB HDDs now selling for under $150, it seems obvious that HDDs are the way to go for storing and playing back one's Hi-Def creations on one's HD TV. And with many if not most HD TVS now offering a slot to plug in a USB drive, it seems equally obvious that, if one's objective is to create a HD project for another user, then outputtting the project to a USB drive is the way to go.

Given the above capabilities, is there still a reason to purchase either an XBox or a PS3?

Probably not but I would insist on playing a film in the output format that I may choose to use before trusting a tv's ability to play the files using whatever software player is in the tv. I recently bought such a tv for use in my caravan only to find I could not get the tv to play any of my files. This feature will of course become more common, but I have yet to meet a tv that can play the files.

The slideshow feature on the PS3 is very good, especially when explaining your shots to friends where you need to stop. With the game controller you use the buttons to flick forwards and backwards and zoom in on the slide with the right control stick. It copes with huge megapixel files with ease and you can zoom with very fine control to the exact point in a picture.

Does anyone else here use a PS3 for playback of high def material or am I the lone voice in the woods here

PS I cannot make any recommendations re an Xbox. It probably can do the same however I have never tried.

[Shrimpfarmer]

One other reason occurs to me, the PS3 gets regular firmware upgrades via the web provided you have it connected. They use these to add new features and keep the blue ray player current. You dont have to have it connected to the internet permanently. I just plug it every few months. Sometimes a blue ray disk that I hire will update the player as well.

I see today Sony have just released details of their latest 3d cameras. It would not surprise me at all if the PS3 was able to display such images in the future. 3D games are about to make there appearance.

I have never had a firmware update for a tv, dvd player. The only ones I have had have been for satellite and freeview receivers.

[Chris B]

Interesting discussions. Some thoughts. I've just (not quite got it delivered) brought a highdef TV - I'm going to want to play Highdef content. For personal content a Hard Drive is great - but there's nowhere (afaik) that will allow the download of high def movies at anywhere near the bitrate bluray provides. I;ve got a lovefilm subscription and bluray disks are no more expensive than normal disks - so the player was about double a reasonable upscaling DVD player- but it does that as well.

My real problem is distribution. Even at a very modest 3mbs h264 the file size for a 15 minute video is astronomical (hundreds of mb) and the compression really shows. Moving to the standard export settings use gives much greater sizes. Distrubuting on DVD is OK (If you only want 40 minutes per disk) but then somebody has got to have something to play it with - and most player's that are not bluray won't touch h264...

If anybody's got a good solution I'm all ears.

[tiny]

I think you hit this on the head Chris.

Any "HD" content available for download or streaming simply can't hold up against the quality of what you find on a Blu-ray disk. As long as this is the case, I believe a disk format will have its place.

I do however think that it is not practical to burn your own BR disks for content you create when there are so many cheaper alternatives. Any media I create I stream from my computer through my Xbox and into my TV.

[Ken Jarstad]

And with many if not most HD TVS now offering a slot to plug in a USB drive,

Huh? I must not have been paying attention. My 32 inch Emerson has only one HDMI port. Do you think they would be so generous as to give a USB port? Do I have to keep buying newer HDTVs to get the latest stuff?

The point of starting up this topic again was to point out that Blu-Ray players are getting cheap now. Perhaps Blu-Ray isn't dead after all. Most folks who are not tech savvy will probably go ahead now and get a cheap(er) Blu-Ray player.

A half-hour video will fit on an 8 GB thumb drive but unless the USB slot is ubiquitous and right on the front of all HDTVs I wonder how this will become the defacto standard for video sharing? Inquiring minds want to know.

[George Tyndall]

A half-hour video will fit on an 8 GB thumb drive but unless the USB slot is ubiquitous and right on the front of all HDTVs I wonder how this will become the defacto standard for video sharing? Inquiring minds want to know.

Ken, I've never tried to play a movie on my Samsung HDTV by plugging in a USB drive.

If I want to view on that TV one of my HD MPEG2 or WMV creations that I have saved to an external USB drive, my video card has a port to the HDTV, so I use Windows Media Player to watch the movie on the Samsung.

My question for Shrimpfarmer was whether I could also play one of those creations by plugging one of my powered USB drives directly into USB slot on the TV. If I understand him correctly, I can only do so if the TV has some sort of playback software built in. The reason I asked is that I am not at home to try that myself. I'll try it this weekend and then report back.

[Ken Jarstad]

You know, it did occur to me....... How do you actually play a movie located on a thumb drive unless it is connected to a computer device with movie player software? A media center PC would work but I don't know of anyone who has a media center PC - and I help people with their PCs from time to time. In fact, I know but one person who owns a gaming console - and they...... play games on it!

Seems to me the universal medium for homemade videos is yet - DVDs.

[George Tyndall]

You know, it did occur to me....... How do you actually play a movie located on a thumb drive unless it is connected to a computer device with movie player software? A media center PC would work but I don't know of anyone who has a media center PC - and I help people with their PCs from time to time. In fact, I know but one person who owns a gaming console - and they...... play games on it!

Seems to me the universal medium for homemade videos is yet - DVDs.

Ken I have Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (MCE 2005), and I do play my media with that software, using the remote control.

But, I am also able to play my media with Windows Media Viewer, albeit the remote control in that case only controls the volume.

Shouldn't any PC with Windows Media Viewer installed be capable of playing a WMV movie that has been stored on a thumb drive?

[Ken Jarstad]

Sure.

But if you take your vacation video to a friend or relatives house how will you display it? Twenty percent (Peretto rule) won't even have a PC. At least another 70 percent won't have a Media Center PC. Maybe 10 percent will have a gaming console that will serve. At least that is the scenario in my local experience. More people are buying flat screen TVs now but many of my friends still have 4:3 CRTs and my wide screen SD DVDs action area on the sides is cut off.

If friends and family want to watch home videos what is the likely media in the future?

[Paul LS]

You plug the thumbdrive into your PS3 or equivalent high definition media player. As for the delivery medium of the future.... there is only Bluray disc at the moment, sad but true. Unless the new Chinese equivalent of HD-DVD takes off... "China Blue High-definition Disc" (CBHD), high definition for the masses, that is what I have my money on.

[Shrimpfarmer]

Mmm I have never heard of CBHD. I just read the specs on wikipedia. I see they have support of some of the studios. Now wouldnt that be interesting if the home consumer adopted that media. I wonder if Sony would relax the home creation of blue ray disks. I can understand sony's strategy of restricting the home market as it was that widespread adoption of dvd that led to easy pirating of dvd films.

Anyway, back to how do you show family and friends your HD material. A PS3 would be one option although they are heavy and your friend needs an HDMI connection. The new slim PS3 is a lighter smaller option however I have not seen one in the flesh yet. The only method that is sure to work is to show your films on your own laptop. The downside to this is the poor sound quality from most laptops. Thats easily solved using external speakers however thats yet more equipment to carry.

I see some people are using PC's with the tv. Thats fine with LCD tv's as most have a sufficiently high setting to show HD material. Using plasma's can be tricky. I have a samsung and I just cant get it to show a picture with my laptop. Many new laptops have HDMI output. Thats probably the best bet at the moment.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

.....Anyway, back to how do you show family and friends your HD material.....

Use one of these? They are quite portable (about book size) and plug via HDMI, USB or composite:

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/ ... item_id=12
http://www.hdx1080.com/index.php?page=s ... Itemid=115

Comparison of sorts here:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/streamer ... 110-a.html

Or go for this type of device:

http://store.westerndigital.com/store/w ... D.13834700

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I have a samsung and I just cant get it to show a picture with my laptop. Many new laptops have HDMI output.

Had the same problem with my XP based laptop (admitedly mine had an HDMI port) and Samsung 46" LCD. Loaded the RC version of Windows 7 and - "Hey Presto" - all problems solved.

It works a treat. So now we can watch BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, Five on Demand and, best of all because it is advert free, STV Player whilst we are in Sicily.

[Paul LS]

I use a home theater PC... it has a HDMI connection for the video and audio connected to my LCD HDTV. I use it for watching home high def movies burnt to AVCHD discs, I use Cyberlink PowerDVD for playing the discs and standard DVDs. I also use it for streaming BBC iplayer and the such, surprisingly good quality when watched full screen on TV. It also has a couple of large hard drives where I store my library of old 50's sci-fi movies that I can playback... I also store music, photos etc on it. The HTPC is controlled either by hand held remote control or a wireless keyboard.