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Top 5 Reasons why ipod and Zune could Kill Blu-ray, HD DVD and even The DVD

Are we assisting to the birth of the real battle for the next generation of movies for our home theaters? With the announcement by Apple of the availability of movies on their itune library and the release this fall of the Zune from Microsoft, we have the right to believe so. Other big players, like Amazon, are already going after the movie downloading market which seems to be a very strong social trend. Blu-ray and HD DVD is not a social trend. It is something built from scratch by audio-video manufacturers. Those formats are also for big technology fans with a lot of money in their pockets.

Here are the top 5 reasons why we think movie downloading from the ipod and eventually from the Zune could be the big winner in this battle:

1. Budget
Consumer’s budget is very limited. Movie downloading is a lot cheaper and consumers are already used to it with music. To be able to watch your first Blu-ray or HD DVD movie, you must buy a high definition TV and spend $2000, a Blu-ray or HD DVD player ($500-$1000), and eventually a HDMI cable ($50). Only after that, you can buy your first Blu-ray or HD DVD movie at $20 or $35, if they are available.

On the other end, movie downloading is done directly on the computer for less than $15. And to be able to easily watch it on your standard or high definition TV, you will buy an itv from Apple, a Zune or an equivalent for a few hundred dollars.

2. Consumer’s real interest is in user-friendliness and social acceptance
Consumers do not have a strong interest in high definition movies. In fact, most of us just can’t see the difference between DVD resolution and Blu-ray or HD DVD resolution. The ease of use of the downloading method combined with a strong social acceptance opens the path for movie downloading. Teenagers are in the driving seat and they said that music downloading is cool. They will probably say the same thing for movies. We must not forget that movie downloading has been there for a long time. We are just getting a legal option and a better quality.

3. Availability of movies
Movie availability could be a lot better for downloading compared to Blu-ray or HD DVD because the downloading format is a lot simpler and cheaper for movie studios. They don’t have investments to make in new cases and booklets. They don’t have to carry additional inventories as well. With a simple conversion of their dvd files, they can make their movies available for downloading. Music downloading took many years before we saw a real market. But that was only because it took years to music production companies to accept that the consumers wanted that kind of services. We don’t think that it will be the same with movies. In fact, with the announcement by Disney of the availability of 15 of their movies on itunes, it is already a good indication that movie studios are going to follow that path. Cars and Pirates were delayed in Blu-ray but are already vailable for download!

4. Downloading killed the CD. Why would it be different for DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD?
All audiophiles will tell you, the CD is not the best audio quality. You must invest in SACD to get a good digital sound. But SACD has never been able to grab the market. In fact, most of the consumers don’t even know the existence of that format. SACD Discs are also very rare. Consumers choose music download, which is not even the quality of the CD! For young people downloading the music is a better choice then going for sound quality. Why would it be different for movies and videos?

5. High speed internet is a higher priory than HDTV
High speed internet is gaining market shares everyday. This is a key point, because as soon as high speed internet is available for people, movie and music downloading are the first things they want to do on the internet. It’s true, a lot of people don’t have access to internet or to a decent connection, but those consumers are certainly not buying an HDTV to watch Blu-ray or HD DVD as well.
Websites like Youtube.com opened the path for online videos. Before Youtube, Internet was not seen as a video media. Now things are different and we expect videos and movies from the internet.

In conclusion, Blu-ray and HD DVD will survive, but they will be for real hard movie fans. This is a lot smaller market. We also believe that there is a decent market for Blu-ray in data storage. But this will be the subject of another article.

The last question we can ask is: When are we going to be able to download a Blu-ray or HD DVD movie?

Stephane Dion cumulates 15 years of experience in technolgy development and writes about emerging consumer technologies. Find other articles on Blu-ray, HD DVD and Zune

Author: Stephane Dion
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Cellphone news

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 4:50 am and is filed under Blu-ray. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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