Ten predictions for the HD realm in 2009
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 1st 2009 1:37PM
posted Jan 1st 2009 1:37PM
1) Blu-ray player prices will reach $79 before the year's end.
2) First medium-to-large OLED TV will ship to consumers.
3) SED will still be spinning its wheels.
4) HTPCs will become all but forgotten as media streamers and BD decks gain functionality.
5) Wireless HD will still remain insignificant to the general populace.
6) A consumer-level 2K flat-panel will see development.
7) Mayhem will ensue on or around February 17, 2009.
8) 3D HDTVs will reach critical mass at the consumer level, material will still be tough to acquire.
9) 720p video recording will appear on several cellphones.
10) Blu-ray players will be able to effectively replace HD streamers / HTPCs by having access to networked media, Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly and the entire world of internet-based content.
We can't possibly explain how difficult it was to narrow this down to ten, so do us a favor and mention the predictions we couldn't in comments below. Here's hoping '09 is a banner year for high-def.
What to chicken to make a stab at the price of blu-ray discs at the end of the year ? Lets face it thats where the true cost of blu-ray lies.
New releases, or catalog titles? Everything that's out and $35 right now, will be $15 by the end of 2009. Everything being released at the end of 2009 will debut at $35. This is how it currently is with DVD, so why would it be any different for Blu-ray? I'm speaking of MSRP of course, not considering B&M loss leaders, etc.
How about these?
1) The global economy tanks with alarming severity from Q1 - Q3 of 2009
and stays flat on it's back for the rest of 2009 although by Q4 it looks like - if we are lucky -
we have seen the worst.
At the end of 2009 it is clear that this will be followed up by a horrible 2010, a year of almost no real growth and almost as bad.
2) Contrary to the hopes of the delusional college game console fanboys and flat-out plain fraudsters in the CE retailing industry, the vast bulk of US TV owners switching over to digital TV reception will do so with 'cheap-to-the-point-of-almost-being-free' set-top-boxes and are not conned into buying small HD TV sets in large numbers.
Small HD TV sets they neither really want, need nor can honestly 'see' much HD on anyways.
3) With unemployment up all over the developed world and consumer spending heavily down Blu-ray adoption continues to grow - but at such a slow rate everyone can see it missed the bus long long ago and sits as a small minority niche part of the market.
It can never become 'the next DVD' as it has failed utterly to gain even a marginally majority stake in the mass-market.
Probably (like the Samsung guy said) with about another 4 or 5 yrs left in it.
Happy new year!
Truth Teller, or rather Lie Teller, everyone knows that you are pissed of because your format lost and you are now doing your best to discredit the winning format.
However, trust me, no one cares about the BS you're spewing out on this forum. Obviously you where banned at least twice so, do us all a favor and just get lost...please!
Jonsson
Stop trying to hide behind HD DVD.
Your problem is that you just can't bear it that your beloved format lost too.
The state of the economy guarantees it.
Where are these lies you want to claim I've told, huh?
The economy is tanking.
Set-top box sales are huge - way bigger than the small HD TV sales numbers and are indeed overcoming the lying PR campaign the high def fanboys in retail were depending upon.
Blu-ray is staying minority niche.
All true.
But it really sticks in your craw, eh?
LMAO
Here's the problem with the digital streaming logic. A very large portion US still cannot receive boradband internet without using the painfully slow satellite options that cost in excess of $100 a month. Add to that the fact that in areas where there is broadband most providers will be instituting bandwidth caps in the next few months if they haven't already.
While the bandwidth caps run from 150G to 250G a month, when you start figuring HD content streaming into every day internet use and game downloads people are going to hit that wall extremely quickly (stream a season of any show you want in full HD and you've maxed out your allotment for the month). The costs of exceeding those caps can be quite high, that or the provider completely cripples your connection. When people run into that physical media will begin to climb rapidly, just give it a month or so, people get really bored in Jan. and Feb.
I would just like to point out that Truth Teller made some predictions on the format war in the link to the 2008 predictions one year ago, all saying HDDVD would have many things Blu-ray wouldn't have answers to and would lead to HDDVD victory. And how many of those came true? Zip. Zilch. Zero.
What a telling comment this is. It really sheds light to the rest of your comments. You might just be the most pessimistic person I've ever encountered.
Lie Teller, I'm not hiding behind anything. I'm just telling the facts about you.
THizzle7XU thanks for reminding me of Truth Teller's 2008 prediction comments. How somebody could be so certain and so flat out wrong on just about everything escapes me.
Ben
Unless you're blind and deaf you have to be trying very hard not to hear the economic forecasts of what is about to happen - forecasts being made all over the westernised world, I might add.
Did it just pass you by all the talk of how the coming slump/recession hasn't even got going yet?
(as if what we have seen so far is 'mild'!?)
Did you miss the fact that the crash of 1929 took until 1933 until the public saw the worst effects?
I can understand the barely educated game console fanboy college kids 'not knowing their a$$ from their elbow' on this stuff but I thought you were a little older & wiser than that.
If you think watching Govs all around the globe pushing billions at aspects of this problem isn't cause for some good old honest alarm & "pessimism" then I don't know what is.
When did you last see all the western Govs start to throw tends of billions of $ at a sudden problem?
The fanboys can play games hiding behind HD DVD if they like but that's just avoiding the point.
Ooops.
That sentence should of course have read -
"When did you last see all the western Govs start to throw HUNDREDs of billions of $ at a sudden problem?"
Not tens of billions of $.
Isn't it obvious to you that blu-ray is taking off? I guess not. I truly believe that when 80% of homes are blu-ray equipped, you will probably be saying: 20% of homes aren't going for it so the format is a loser.
HTPC = more than access to hulu, hard drive, networked materials, etc. The idea that a BR player will gain more ground makes sense but until the BR player has PVR abilities, the HTPC offers one stop shopping for DVD/PR movies, stored movies/shows/music, online content AND PVR.
I didn't get that one either, why would I give up my HTPC or people (assuming they had an interest in one) prefer not to get one and go for any of the Blu-ray stand-alones on the market (or soon to appear)?
My HTPC is one of the most versatile media devices in the house - way more capable than any mere Blu-ray stand-alone - and it's fully upgradeable in terms of hardware & softwares.
No Blu-ray stand-alone even comes vaguely close to that.
Weird.
YouFaceTheTick, the PS3 offers all those things, at least in Europe where a single box will do "DVD/PR movies, stored movies/shows/music, online content AND PVR". All for much less than an HTPC.
The issue for HTPC is not its capabilities but its complexity and price. HTPCs cost too much and require too much configuration/maintenance to compare favourably with consumer electronics. That isn't an insurmountable problem but it instantly rules out mass adoption. There is a gap in the market for someone such as Asus, Dell or Archos to make a HTPC which works out of the box and doesn't cost the earth. Something like Dell's Studio Hybrid but with a built-in tuner and a simple UI.
"HTPCs will become all but forgotten"
HTPCs have been all but forgotten since their creation.
"3D HDTVs will reach critical mass at the consumer level"
Really? Consumers are going to replace their brand-new HDTVs in the middle of a recession?
No one is going to buy a 3D TV when there is no content for it. It's a chicken and egg situation. Even if content appeared you'd need at least a brand new BD player, receiver or some other device to actually play it.
4 and 10 are the same ...
How about THIS prediction: Engadget.com and its clones/competitors will become backward looking, historical sites about the heady days when geeks like me could actually afford to pay for the gadgets touted on their pages. The depression of 2008 guarantees this outcome at the very least, and quite possibly the demise of all of the gadget sites as people are more concerned with food and shelter rather than finding gadgetry like HTPCs, BR players, BR discs and the rest. It's fun to read about, but I ain't buying squat for the foreseeable future unless I hit the freakin' lotto.
Did I miss something? Are people waiting in the streets for soup or something like the 30's?
Unless you have actually lost your job, this is a great time to buy stuff with all the prices falling.
1) Only in Black Friday deals.
2) Agreed, but pricey.
3) Yep.
4) Ha!, how can that be with people still bitchin' about Profile 2.0?
5) Most likely.
6) What took so long?
7) Absolutely (and I will be LMAO!!!).
8) Yep.
9) Yep.
10) "Cocaine's a hellava drug". Still a huge problem with available bandwidth at an affordable price in the U.S. Plus you can't beat the flexibility of a HTPC.
11) HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
"A consumer-level 2K flat-panel will see development."
As in 2048 x 1080? Am I missing something? A consumer has no need for that as 1.85 content is already run in a 1920x1080 package and 2.35 is run at 2048x878, are we giving people a wider screen for a few lines of resolution they can't even see anyway (that's what the surveys say.)?
I had that exact thought. I wonder if they meant to write "4K." If so, they're delusional. I don't expect to see a consumer-targeted display above 1080p (discounting front projection, of course) for many, many years... if ever. Why would anyone buy such a thing?
Currently we are using 1k screens (1080)
2k & 4k screens are 2160 and 4320 lines... Vertial not horizontal.
As in 1920x2160. Although the width will change as well. I can not remember to what currently.
Now with the prediction and the economy doing as it is. I DOUBT that we will have affordable consumer level flat screens doing 2k.
2k & 4k projectors are still $10,000 and up!
Besides that.. there isnt' anything out there that you can actually watch in 2k!
2K Projectors are not 2160 lines of vertical resolution, they are 1080, the res on a 2K projector is 2048 x 1080, a 4K is 4096 x 2160. Sony's 4 actually is using 4 2K panels wedged together.
#4 RE: HTPCs. I'm sort of on the fence about that one...but there is still home for the HD HTPC. The Asus HDMI sound card was a colossal disappointment but if the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD soundcard can play Blu-ray audio with no downsampling, and play Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream without downsampling and can do 24p video playback, I think that HTPCs are probably a solid choice.
+1
Anyone else see the new PS3 commercial. Forget the blu ray, it's all about the online/streaming movies now.
That post about Sony giving up the PS3 trojan horse with blu ray probably wasn't too far off. At least they're still trying to boost sales by giving you other options if you're sour on the blu.
I think I'll hit the streaming netflix up soon. I'm about fed up with my HX16 (hp laptop). It's got a sweet 1080p 16 inch screen and blu ray player, but for the life of me I can't get it to output over the HDMI to my HDTV. Tried turning of the lappie monitor and everything (supposedly only 1 output at a time allowed). I'm a fairly techie person, but if hurdles like this are stumping me, blu is gonna be dead in the water if they don't change their ways a bit to adapt to the buyer/marketplace.
Number 10 should read: Internet streaming/download devices will begin to include blu-ray players for single-box access to all HD media.
My predictions for 2009:
- HD DVD will make a massive comeback as Warner issues a Mea Culpa and puts the knife into Blu-ray.
- Toshiba will then make a Blu-ray player.
- The government, panicking about the up-coming ATSC switch over, will announce it will subsidize giant, 60", 1080p TVs instead of just converter boxes.
- Hollywood will deal with the decline of DVD/etc sales by creating good movies people actually want to watch.
- Engadget HD will publish a negative review of something made by Sony.
- Someone will release a new, non-clear-out, Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player capable of playing every Blu-ray disc ever made without the need for firmware updates, for under $100.
Ok, that last one is just a /little/ far fetched...
Sweet, mayhem on my birthday!
And HTPCs aren't going away.
No doubt, most of us nerds don't have the money for this stuff anymore. Blu-Ray will only grow by 5% this year, if it is VERY lucky. Layoffs will reach epic levels at many companies this year, including the company I work for.
Mayhem! At 23, my future children will not know what it's like to try to tune in a fuzzy TV signal with rabbit ears....
They will just know about digital break-ups and artifacts that can actually make TV unwatchable, as opposed to just snowy.
We're disconnecting our Directv until next football season so my son may not know rabbit ears but we have an antenna on our roof and that's how we'll get our HDTV during non-football months. Hopefully the NFL will eventually offer the chance to get Sunday Ticket without getting Directv as i'd gladly pay for HD football games and avoid pay-tv/
You simply can't underestimate the HTPCs, sure they're not for everyone but it's kinda joke that standalone Blu-ray players could eventually match the HTPCs in terms of functionality. Gaming, rich web-browsing experience, LOTS of content (mostly free online), DVR functionality are some unique features I can't think of BD players to acquire anytime soon.
Long.Live.HTPCs.
I see a big boom in blu ray sales
What else are people going to do other than watch glorious HD Movies / Play games on a PS3 when they have lost their jobs ?
I predict:
Blu ray sales of day and date releases will account for over 30% on big budget action films by the end of the year....more then double the dark knight percentage.
Better said... by end of 2009 there will be a movie whose blu ray sales account or more then 30% of total sales
I would be really impressed to see a name brand Blu-Ray player support the mkv file container and all the codecs people use inside of mkvs. I can see them jumping on the older divx/mp3 avis, but few outside of Popcorn Hour support the next generation of distributed media codecs, and as such, a device like a Popcorn Hour or even a machine that's as flexible as a HTPC which has a superior DVR and wider file format support will studder along in 2009.