Guys, guys... c'mon, pull the arrows out already, ok?
This thread is an amazing example of how, with one commonly-observed set of events, different people can draw completely different conclusions. I guess that's human nature and all, but...
Alright, let me tackle this.
Standard Def. vs. High Def.:
I have to start here, because this is the basis for everything else discussed up-thread, and in my post here. The entire basis for high-def, fundamentally beginning here in the U.S. and then traveling around the world, as it is generally presented or assumed to be, is a
lie. High-Def
does not exist in any way, shape or form because of consumer or even entertainment industry demand. Period. It exists because the BROADCAST industry -- and nobody else -- wanted a way to hold onto the frequency spectrum they had, and were forced by the FCC, beginning back in the late 80s, to come up with a justification for it.
I'm not trying to say that high-def isn't a worthy successor -- at least, as the standards have come to be refined now -- to standard-def analog NTSC / PAL / SECAM, because it certainly is, but only insofar as I might qualify it as being "on a purely technical basis".
The reason you still don't see a mega-fold adoption and absolute market saturation of HD paraphernalia is because this is NOT a from-the-ground-up kind of thing. This is NOT even another iPod-like phenomena. And when you add in the latter-day intellectual property and DRM efforts which have been, effectively, grafted onto this "great new technology", it should come as no surprise there's plenty of folk out there who are balking at it.
I, for one, own nothing that's high-def (except, naturally, my computer equipment), do not subscribe to even ANALOG full tv service, and don't even personally own a television set. There's nothing on that I want to watch, NOW. Why the heck would I want to spend a bunch of money (which I can't justify) on equipment to show me a higher-def version of content that I ALREADY DON'T WANT TO SEE ?!?!?!?!?!?!? (But, admittedly, I can only speak for myself on that point.)
Blu-Ray, DVD and the Floppy Analogy:
Actually, I can't help what the rest of what you said, SPG is actually very astute to make this observation. Why is that, you might ask? Well...
- At the time floppy drives were still in meaningful common use, computers were in no way considered to be substitutes for televisions, VCRs, (heck, even DVD players), stereo systems, etc. So trying to say there was no "entertainment content" on floppy, or merely arguing against them on the basis of speed, reliability and capacity is a straw-man argument at best.
- Floppy discs were NOT superseded by CD-ROMs. They were superseded by SyQuest and then by ZIP drives, both of which were a darn sight faster, more reliable and held vastly greater storage capacity. Magnetic media as a WHOLE was ultimately REPLACED by CD-ROMs.
- To this day, the most common distribution of computer data is NOT on DVD, but still on the hard-working 700MB CD-ROM.
- It's worth noting that, even in light of the popularity of CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and now even DVD-R and DVD-RW, there is an ENORMOUS market in the modern equivalent of the floppy, the USB flash-media drive. The cost per megabyte is far higher on them than it is on optical media, yet they came into existence largely after lower-cost optical media, and despite that are in many areas actually dominating the storage market.
Blu-Ray's "Window of Opportunity":
While I think it may be a touch naïve of SPG to think Sony would, in any sense, let Blu-Ray go by the wayside (trust me, as a former Sony employee, I can tell you first hand you simply have no idea how Sony's going to fight to keep Blu-Ray from failing, nor how far they may be willing to go to save themselves from another loss-of-face embarassment such as the failures Connect, MiniDisc, their line-up of proprietary, ATRAC-using portable media players, eVilla, oh, the list just goes on and on...). However, what SPG says is correct: there is a window of opportunity for adoption, and it certainly will be interesting to see if Sony is actually successful this time.
Tell you one thing, tho... and you folks may laugh at this, but I'm being utterly serious: the porn industry is very seriously not happy about Blu-Ray winning the fight, so don't think for a moment there aren't some very deep pockets out there to produce yet another contender for high-def-friendly content distribution.
Besides, do you folks honestly believe companies out there like having to pay licensing fees to companies such as Sony for the privilege of "just using" their media to distribute whatever it is they're distributing? Imagine having to pay a royalty to the John Q. Doe Asphalt company, or to Ford / Honda / Chevy / etc. every time you wanted to drive somewhere on an asphalt road, and in someone's vehicle. But anyhow, I digress...
Apple Support for HD Content Creation / Editing:
Apple has been wise to sit this one out and wait for something to settle out as a so-called "standard". And I still, myself, think of Blu-Ray as being a "standard", so-called because it is not in any sense officially sanctioned by any independent authority out there, or by the defacto standard of public adoption and usage. Imagine if Apple decided to jump into this and had picked HD-DVD instead? It'd be like PCI-X all over again, only worse this time because the Mac community would (legitimately) bitch about how we'd been marginalized (again).
So, come on!
