Tech News: What’s coming soon, what will go away and who is here to stay?
Going away: HD DVD
With HD DVD half dead, is Blue-ray here to stay?
Don’t purchase blue-ray burner for your PC yet. The Blue-ray business is decreasing. Many (including Bill Gates) thinks that this is probably going to be the last disc-based format we’ll see. Video on demand, cable, DirecTV, pay per view etc will continue to hold Blue-ray hostage.
Here to stay: HD Video
How about streaming HD Video?
Although HD video is increasingly available online, HD video uses roughly five times the bandwidth of standard definition, which means it’s five times more expensive to deliver. Lack of quick broadband connections means that HD Video is still largely limited to downloadable rather than streaming video. So that’s not the big news either. But it will continue its steady grow.
Coming Soon: 3 D Technology
3D TV Then?
Possibilities of multi-angle DVD and high-definition DVD’s are explored by a lot of different companies that right now have interesting 3D TV technology. But as long as you have to put on a pair of glasses it will not become standard. That’s not something people want to do all the time. There are however, several systems that are supposedly going to show 3D without glasses. In fact, an iPhone application enables you to shoot in 3D and watch it on an iPhone without glasses. It’s also obvious that Hollywood is moving in 3D direction. New technology providers just need to perfect it without using glasses and 3D will probably be the biggest new technology at least in PC TV and Video as well as in PC’s video games.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Sony bets on 3D TV
Sony (SNE), which has failed at most of its new initiatives over the last two years, needs something to work. Its PS3 has sold poorly. Prices for its digital cameras and television screens are under pressure from firms in Korea and China. Its new e-reader is competing in a market which includes Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle which is a well-marketed leader, endorsed by Oprah.
Sony has decided that its next best chance to recover its financial performance and reputation for inventiveness is 3D TV. The question is whether anyone wants it.
The 3D products operates that way that older 3D cinema does, giving the viewer the illusion of watching content as if it were in the same room. The technology has several drawbacks, none of which can be easily overcome.
The first problem with 3D TV is that there is no single technology standard. This means that the industry could go through multi-year format wars the way the video cassette and HD TV and DVD markets did. These battles are costly and there is no guarantee that the technology Sony is backing, called “active shutter,” will prevail.
The other major problem is that 3D video cameras are expensive and it is not clear how many content providers will make the investment. Film studios may be willing to gamble that 3D will bring them more customers. TV production firms and TV news and sports operations may believe otherwise.
According to the FT, Sony “plans not only to sell 3D Bravia television sets, but to make Sony’s Vaio laptop computers, PlayStation 3 games consoles and Blu-ray disc players compatible with the technology.”
It is not so long ago that Microsoft (MSFT) and Intel (INTC) wanted to build the living room of the future filled with complex entertainment devices that would network game consoles with TVs and PCs so that the user could have one-stop access to all of them. The companies found out, after investing tens of millions of dollars, that people like their living rooms just they way they were. Sony may find out the hard way that “2D” video is just fine.
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This text was published on today’s MSN…but Microsoft is wrong about that !
Some people may still like black and white photos, some even oil on canvas but 99 % of today people are buying new digital cameras! 3D TV / Movies / gaming / porn are just a matter of time! Then it will come motion and voice control, hologram. That’s physics.