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No. Charles Hansen predicted dire consequences for Blu-ray. Time will prove him right

Posted by Ray98@Walmart on February 19, 2008 at 04:44:03:
Charles Hansen of Ayre has always been spot on predicting market trends. Heâ€™s a damn good engineer too. Thatâ€™s why I have always trusted his predictions.

Here's what will happen:

"...If it were up to Sony and Panasonic (and Ole Lund Christensen???), we would have a new format every 3 years so that they could keep people on an endless upgrade cycle and keep selling new hardware..."

Thatâ€™s right, in 2010, we will have a new Pure-ray disc(amazing new lasers that ultilize all the seven colours of the rainbow) or Plural-ray disc (implying combination of myriad different coloured lasers) ! The format developers for this single-coloured laser Blu-ray format ain't going to recoup their money spent on R&D. As to which name would be used on the next new generation discs, the horizon is still very cloudy inside my crystal ball, so while waiting for the cocaine induced purple haze to clear, let's examine his other predictions first.

"...But the software industry (movie studios) are raking in money hand over fist with standard DVDs. There are 60,000,000 stand alone DVD players in the US alone. The biggest growth market for DVD is yet to come in developing countries (China, India, et cetera). These markets don't give a fig about high definition video...."

He's highly, definitely right. All the DVD marketing & film company guys I spoke to in those 2 countries universally claim that the reasons why DVD got off its butt in their markets is due to pirated DVDs that brought the prices down, so that even the shirtless, poor Chinese and Indian farmers can afford to buy the discs. Blu-ray disc code is unbreakable, so these poor Chinese or Indian farmers ainâ€™t never gonna get their hands on High Definition video. DVD is more than good enough for these peasants.

"...How long do you think it will be before there are even 10,000 Blu-Ray players at $4,000 a pop? Two years? Three years? How much money can a movie studio make selling Blu-Ray discs to 10,000 potential customers?..."

So what he underestimated Blu-ray potential sales a little bit? Sales figures are for sissies like Dewy. Film companies like Paramount and (to a lesser known fact) Warner, actually are making money, not by selling Blu-ray discs or HD-DVD discs, but by getting under-the-table money (in the millions) from Toshiba and Sony respectively. (why else did you think Warner defected to Blu-ray and defecated on HD-DVD???) So when that money ran out, the high moral Warner Brothers will go back into HD-DVDs.

And Hansen may yet be proven right again for his next statement.

"...The reality is that there won't be strong market penetration in the US for *any* new format until the price drops below $200 for a player. (That's exactly what happened for DVD.) But that would erase the entire reason for even making Blu-Ray players. Once the players become a commodity, the Japanese cannot compete against the Chinese. Then they'll try and sell you Purple-Ray..."

Yes. It's going to be called Purple-Ray! You heard it here first.

"...Blu-Ray ain't gonna fly for consumer electronics. Computers, yes. There the demand for a removeable recording format that can store 50 GB is huge. It's just not practical to back up a 100 GB hard drive onto DVDs..."

No wonder Sony cap the HDD on their PS3 at 80GB only. They must have hired Hansen as their consultant! Heâ€™s got a first hand look at the impending disaster waiting to happen.

Look out for the worldâ€™s first Purple-ray disc player from Ayre. Hurray! Itâ€™ll be the first time heâ€™s well ahead of other manufacturers. Racerguy and I will be the first in line to buy one.