Current
Status of Blu-ray/Optical Technology
Introduction
In the previous section of the paper we discussed how
Blu-ray technology emerged as the dominant high-definition format of viewing movies
and television shows at home. As one can imagine, many facets of this
technology have changed since becoming the dominant form in the market.
Extensive research regarding the current state of Blu-ray technology has led to
the discovery of new trends in sales, recent renovations to improve Blu-ray
technology, as well as the projected path Blu-ray is taking leading into the
ever-so-advancing future. To better study these areas in depth, this report
will be divided up into three primary sections including the current economic
presence of Blu-ray technology, current state of the technology itself, and
what type of trajectory Blu-ray will be taking in the future.
Economic Presence of
Blu-ray Technology
While the exact date of when HD DVD conceded defeat to
Blu-ray is debated, it is common knowledge that the surrender of HD DVD
occurred sometime in 2008 (Snider, 2012). In 2008, 6.5% of U.S. households
owned a standalone Blu-ray player (Snider, 2012). Since being at the top of the
market for four years, Blu-ray players are now in one-third of U.S. homes
(Snider, 2012). These statistics indicate a clear increase in the amount of
Blu-ray players that have permeated their way into a majority of U.S.
households. This trend can be related to a global report that was released by
Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA) in which many reasons for the increase of
Blu-ray sales are explained. According to GIA, “consumers today continue to
show an interest in the Blu-ray technology as majority of them aspire to own
digital gadgets that help make modern digital lives more entertaining and
productive,” (Global Industry, 2011). Blu-ray serves as the highest quality of
high-definition movie viewing as it can hold the most data and information on
the disc itself, so it is natural that innovative consumers result to Blu-ray
over other home movie viewing technologies.
With our country facing a large economic recession, many
consumers noted that watching movies “provides an escape route from the
hardships on the economic front, resulting to movies as a source of
entertainment during the recession,” (Global Industry, 2011). The recession
also provided more of an increase in Blu-ray sales in that going to see movies
at theaters is now a very expensive endeavor (Global Industry, 2011). The Hollywood Reporter also notes that “…the
box office value of films that came to home entertainment during the year, by
comparison, was down 8.7% (Arnold, 2012). As a result, consumers would much
rather bring the movie-going experience in their own home for much cheaper, and
just as good of quality.
Another factor that largely contributes to the dominant
economic presence of Blu-ray is the technology company we all know as Sony. During
the format war, Sony was one of first and leading developers of the Blu-ray
optical disc format (Snider, 2012). Also during that time period Sony openly expressed
their support of Blu-ray technology. This support could be seen through their
decision to fuse Blu-ray readers into their home entertainment device the
Playstation 3 (Global Industry, 2011). Having access to Blu-ray quality movies
via the Playstation was a huge selling point for consumers and greatly
increased the sales of Blu-ray movies as well as stand-alone Blu-Ray players
(Global Industry, 2011). Sony has long been known as one of the companies at
the forefront of optical disc and laser technology, investing much of their
time and research to improvements and innovations (Smith, 2012). By having such
a credible company in terms of electronics at the helm of laser and optical
disc technology, it allows for the Blu-ray technology itself to be that much
more credible thanks to Sony. From this section we can gather that the increase
of Blu-ray sales since 2008 can be closely related to consumer’s desires to be
technologically advanced, the United States recession, and also the support of
power-house technology companies like Sony. In the next section, we will
explore a critical decision Sony made that helped aid in the rapid and cheaper
production of Blu-ray hardware.
Current State and
Innovations of Blu-ray Technology
Currently, Blu-ray discs commonly have two layers each
consisting of 25 gigabytes (Hannaford, 2010). These double layered discs stay
at 12 centimeters in diameter and can be read by your normal Blu-ray player
(Hannaford, 2010). A new innovation of Blu-ray discs we are seeing is a new
third and fourth layer adding a maximum of 128 gigabytes worth of storage
(Hannaford, 2010). These newly formatted discs are known as BDXLs, and are
mainly used for commercial use currently (Hannaford, 2010). The primary uses of
BDXLs will be to re-write and store data on the high-capacity discs through
disc recording of BDXL that can be installed on your PCs disc drive (Hannaford,
2010). Even with two more layers of data storage, the diameter of the disc
still stays at 12 centimeters.
Another innovation of the Blu-ray and optical disc
technology is something that Sony has recently achieved. One of the senior
Vice-Presidents of Sony, Osamu Kumagai, found a way to mass produce laser
diodes (the devices that read optical discs) in each succeeding generation of
optical data storage (Smith, 2012). Referring back to the first section, this
innovation is another reason and factor as to why Blu-ray sales have increased
so drastically. With Sony being able to mass produce laser diodes now, the
overall cost of manufacturing and producing Blu-ray discs and has dropped
immensely (Smith, 2012). Aside from mass producing this laser diodes, Sony has
now been able to create laser diodes for Blu-ray players (Smith, 2012). Previously
Sony had been developing infared like emitters to read the discs previously
(Smith, 2012). Since the production costs of Blu-ray discs has decreased, so
has the cost of Blu-Ray discs and players for consumers, adding to the increase
in sales that we saw earlier in the report (Smith, 2012). With all of these
innovations occurring to Blu-ray technology, one might be concerned as to
whether or not Blu-ray will be adopted widely as everyone hopes. In the final
section, we will research just that.
What is Next for Blu-ray?
While extensively researching what type of trajectory
Blu-ray technology is taking, I found sources that eluded to both upwards and
downwards trajectory of Blu-ray adoption in the near future. With that being
said, I believe it is appropriate to present both sides of the issue so
consumers are able to make their own claim as to where Blu-ray is headed. The
first piece of evidence that indicates an upward trajectory for Blu-ray is once
again in the 2011 Global Industry Analysts report about Blu-ray technology and
the market surrounding it. The packaged analysis by GIA projected the Blu-ray
market to reach 6.6 billion units by 2017 (Global Industry, 2011). This large
increase in the Blu-ray market can be attributed to the key-players that have a
dominant presence currently in the Blu-ray industry. Currently, there are more
than 1,500 Blu-Ray video releases and this number is only increasing because
almost all renowned Hollywood studios support Blu-ray technology as the
principal video technology (Snider, 2012). These studios include Twentieth
Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, and Warner Bros. Entertainment (Snider,
2012). These studios continue to announce their intention to release a
continuous line up of catalog titles and new feature films on Blu-ray (Global
Industry, 2011).
Further evidence from the Hollywood Reporter also shows an increase in Blu-ray adoption and
purchases in the United States. The article is representing the differences in
sales from 2010 compared to 2011. “Blu-ray sales soared above two billion
dollars for the first time ever, rising 20 percent in the year, as the number
of U.S. households with at least one Blu-ray playback device rose to nearly 40
million, a 38 percent gain from the prior year,” (Arnold, 2012). The evidence
presented from the GIA and the Hollywood
Reporter would surely suggest an upward trajectory of Blu-ray technology
and its products. On the other hand there is evidence that suggests a downward
trajectory of Blu-ray technology and adoption. According to Simon Brew from Den of Geek reasons such as long loading
times, restricted to only Blu-ray players, region coding, and the ease of
streaming, are all reasons Blu-ray will never be adopted as developers would
have hoped and projected (Brew, 2012). Brew touches on a very interesting
factor that Arnold also mentioned in his article, and that is the streaming of
movies and television shows via the internet. Although Blu-ray disc sales were
up, the rentals of Blu-ray and DVD movies went down three percent teamed with a
28.8 percent decrease in brick-and-mortar rental activity, (Arnold, 2012).
These statistics closely relate to the 31 percent of the kiosk rental business
(Arnold, 2012). The previous evidence suggest both an upward and downward
trajectory for Blu-ray and optical disc technology. On one end we have disc
sales increasing quite rapidly and largely, but also rental services greatly
decreasing. It would appear as if Blu-ray is indeed the preferred way to view
high-definition movies at home, but streaming and kiosk rentals are the most
convenient and sought ways to access Blu-ray and optical disc home viewing.
Conclusion
Through this report, we learned that Blu-ray has molded
itself as the dominant product to supply consumers with the ultimate home movie
high-definition experience. Between mass production of diode blue laser
readers, and the economic recession we noticed a large increase of Blu-ray
players being bought for American homes. Most research surrounding
technological developments with Blu-ray and optical disc technology presented
mainly the BDXL technology of the Blu-ray discs themselves, allowing for two
extra layers of storage. While this appears as an immediate positive, special
BDXL disc drives are required to use these newly developed discs. Finally and
most controversially there was evidence suggesting both an upward and downward
path for the overall adoption of Blu-ray and optical disc technology. It seems
the innovation of high-definition home movie viewing is taking two different
routes with kiosk rental and streaming, proving that the future of Blu-ray and
optical disc technology will be something surely to watch.
Citations
·
Arnold,
T. K. (2012, January 10th). Blu-ray sales up 20 percent in 2011:
Brick-and-mortar rental activity down 28.8 percent. The Hollywood Reporter.
Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/blu-ray-harry-potter-280185
·
Brew,
S. (2012, February 21). What's going wrong with blu-ray?. Den of Geek!. Retrieved from
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/18764/whats-going-wrong-with-blu-ray
·
Global
Industry, A. (2011, October 05). Global
blu-ray disc market to reach 6.6 billion units by 2017, according to new report
by global industry analysts, inc.. Retrieved from http://www.prweb.com/releases/blu-ray_discs/blu-ray_drives/prweb8846313.htm
·
Hannaford,
K. (2010, April 06). Blu-ray
discs increasing capacity to 128gb. Retrieved from
http://gizmodo.com/5510396/blu ray-discs-increasing-in-capacity-to-128gb
·
Smith,
C. (2012, October 3). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://blog.cdrom2go.com/2012/10/latest-innovation-in-blu-ray-technology/
·
Snider,
M. (2012, August 26). Blu-ray
technology caught in shift to streaming. Retrieved from http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=84588&page=1
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