Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
From our front-page news:
Rumors have been going crazy lately with regards to both the "Xbox 720" and "Playstation 4", and everyone has an opinion. One rampant rumor in particular is that the Playstation 4 will lack the Blu-ray player that came with the PS3, and for the most part, it's a good argument. The fact of the matter is, Sony's adding of Blu-ray to the PS3 is one of the reasons why the console didn't sell far better than it did, although the lack of quality games that kicked off the consoles first year probably didn't help, either.

One of the strangest opinion pieces I've seen has to be the one posted at C|Net, by Don Reisinger. He kicks off as saying, "To me, Blu-ray is the LaserDisc of its time. It's not nearly as useful as the DVD that it's trying to supplant". Wait... what? To give the impression that Blu-ray isn't a substantial upgrade from DVD... is just ridiculous.

Let's take a look at the now picture. Blu-ray offers a far higher resolution than DVD, and if Don ever took the opportunity to watch one, he'd know this. The difference would be noticeable by anyone, no matter how inept their technical ability. Then we have the storage issue. Blu-ray can store upwards of 50GB, and with many current games already requiring 10GB+ of data, I'd say the extra storage is worthy.

It's constantly argued that HD downloads is the next big thing, but I really don't see that method taking over anytime soon. The reason, to me, is both the bandwidth caps enforced by ISPs, and also the general download speed. It's fine if you want to download a movie in advance, but it would be impossible to download a 20GB movie some evening and still have the desire to watch it by the time it actually finishes downloading. Even on a 20Mbit connection, that movie would take over two hours to download. Whether or not even those net speeds will be common in three years, who knows.

Lastly, the major hit against the PS3 has been the added price due to the player, but now, the prices are getting so low, people are throwing drives in their HTPCs without second thought. NewEgg has an LG BD-ROM for $140 now... so imagine what the prices will be like three years down the road. It will virtually add so little cost to the console, it's going to be a non-issue. Regardless of your opinions on things, it's going to be a while before we actually have hard answers, sadly.

playstation3_06042008.jpg

But the fact that the Playstation 4 won't feature Blu-ray goes far beyond the fact that it's not as coveted in the Playstation 3 as some want to believe. In reality, it's more likely that the Playstation 4 won't have Blu-ray than you may think. The Playstation 4 should be made available in the next three to five years. During that time, Sony will need to work on getting Blu-ray into more homes and try to supplant DVD as the leader in the media space.


Source: The Digital Home
 
Last edited:

b1lk1

Tech Monkey
The other problem I have with this is the fact that everyone I know that owns a PS3 over any other console bought the PS3 BECAUSE of the Blu-Ray play built in. I could see them maybe offering a low end model without it, but once Blu-Ray gets itself some better implementation and they stop charging stupid prices for the movies, it would be a move to regret severely for Sony.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
"To me, Blu-ray is the LaserDisc of its time. It's not nearly as useful as the DVD that it's trying to supplant". Wait... what? To give the impression that Blu-ray isn't a substantial upgrade from DVD... is just ridiculous.

Reading into the quote, I do not believe that is what he said at all. After all, Laserdisc was significantly better quality than the VHS tapes it was attempting to replace... but it cost more to both produce and sell, and was more unwieldy for the end user to deal with. Blu-ray is the same in my view, it costs significantly more to buy both discs and the player, and secondly it imposes DRM restrictions which further complicates how to hook it up and what you hook it up to. It also requires a 1080P TV for best picture, which keeps people like me from giving it a second thought anytime soon.

Even on a 20Mbit connection, that movie would take over two hours to download. Whether or not even those net speeds will be common in three years, who knows.

Just to counterpoint, this is more than fast enough to begin watching it while it's being streamed in which is the approach some are taking when offering online downloading service.

Now, I do disagree with the original article in that I'd estimate the majority of people I know eventually bought the PS3 specifically because of the Blu Ray. Or especially because it was the cheapest Blu-Ray player, and it was and still is the only BD player that has been version compatible from 1.0 to 2.0+.

To add an interesting twist, even Samsung, the people behind Blu-Ray, believe BD has a limited future. Link Even assuming this is true, it would help explain why a "PS4" might not have BD. But I'd more tend to agree with Rob... by the time it comes around BD will be cheap as a DVD drive, and be thrown in as the game media of choice unless a new HD format is released first.
 

b1lk1

Tech Monkey
Bandwidth caps are going to severely limit anything like major movie streaming from the internet. I already have a 60GB monthly limit and I use about 1/2 of that for normal use. I don't use torrents and I don't download movies and music either. With US companies looking to impose similar caps, it would be the kiss of death for internet TV and movies. Besides that, I personally do not want internet TV or movies and I am not alone.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
ISPs may be loving the idea of bandwidth caps, but as more and more users start to run into them they will eventually have to expand them. Gratefully I am not under any caps yet... I just downloaded 10GB in demo/benchmarking files today to burn and snail mail to a friend of mine that is stuck on a 7GB month cap on his satellite connection. Just my sending him various tester builds of Vista added up to somewhere around 20GB of downloads, since I sent 32 & 64 bit builds.

There are legal torrents that I use, and no I don't use linux. Regardless of torrents however, I do want internet TV. There are very few TV shows I have any interest in, but those that I do I wish to see... whether it is a power outage, corrupted TV signal, or some new stupid error with the DVR firmware so it never records what it claims it is recording, it often fails to record a show it was set to. I often have to resort to torrenting the episode or watching it at some place like Hulu. And this is despite having a DVR... I also watch the NBC nightly news direct from their website when I don't have access to a TV.

Just the internet radio stations I listen to add up to several GB a week, since I only listen to the best (free) quality streams. I did a double take when I realized how much that was adding up to when monitoring my daily usage.
 

Merlin

The Tech Wizard
Bandwidth caps are going to severely limit anything like major movie streaming from the internet. I already have a 60GB monthly limit and I use about 1/2 of that for normal use. I don't use torrents and I don't download movies and music either. With US companies looking to impose similar caps, it would be the kiss of death for internet TV and movies. Besides that, I personally do not want internet TV or movies and I am not alone.
Just got an email from Comcast. They are limiting my unlimited download bandwidth to 250 gb per month

Merlin
 

slugbug

Coastermaker
I can't see HD downloads being popular anytime soon when our ISPs continue to set monthly download limits. My ISP offers a 50mbps plan but then limits customers to 50GB per month.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I can't see HD downloads being popular anytime soon when our ISPs continue to set monthly download limits. My ISP offers a 50mbps plan but then limits customers to 50GB per month.

I almost want to laugh at that, but can't. It's somewhat the same up here... we have an 18Mbit plan, but the overall bandwidth allowance isn't changed in the least bit (95GB). I'd be up for an add-on plan that increases the allowance, but they don't (does anyone?). Seems like it would be a decent business plan.

What bugs me is that I go over my bandwidth each month and I'm not even downloading anything illegal. I am not sure if I am just misinformed, but for some reason I thought these limits were originally put in place to thwart "pirates", but it sure isn't the case anymore. I have to wonder... what's the reason for these limits in the first place? It just doesn't make sense to me. I can't see it being a technical issue, and it sure isn't because of piracy, so why don't they take the limit off or at least charge extra for more bandwidth?
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
I believe the reason is self-preseration. As soon as they attempt to charge extra for higher bandwidth caps they'll get sued over it, it'll turn into a class action affair, and we both can guess which way that one will go judging by the FCC's stance. More than liklely the will lose, and not only have to pay out big but then remove their caps entirely, or at least expand them immensely and lose the ability to charge for them. No single ISP wants to be the first to have that happen.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Well, I don't care who has to step up and do something, but it needs to get done. Could you imagine if your cable company limited your TV-watching to 300 hours a month, or something like that? It sure wouldn't last long... so why do we have to put up with it for our Internet?
 

b1lk1

Tech Monkey
If you ask me, what is going to happen is that they will put some sort of nasty ass cap on internet use, like 40-50GB for everyone, but Internet TV will be a monthly fee for unlimited TV/movie usage. IF they do it any other way, there will be not enough bandwidth for internet TV/movies and noone will subscribe to it if they are gonna get charged more than cable.
 
Top