I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?

It's complete nonsense. I would not like to know the price per film if they were delivered on 64GB Flash memory sticks/cards instead of optical discs.

FUD friday!

If I have learned one thing... never believe a salesperson. I am not saying he is lying... just misinformed and it is really sad. Alot of them that I have talked to in the last 6 months still think HD DVD is the format that one and some don't even realize that BD players can play DVDs.

Think about this....some random salesman has insider information that nobody else has heard of? Well, I certainly would take it with 1.5 million grains of salt*


* consult your doctor before consuming massive amounts of salt.

I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?
It may happen eventually, not yet though. If and when it does happen, if blockbuster allowed you to rent an HD movie on an SD card with 32 gig on it, presumably with windows DRM copy control and time limits, then you could stick the SD card in your PS3 USB SD card reader, and watch the movie in HD on your PS3. The PS3 really is future proofed.....

Well have heard that a cardbased system is in the works, but that its gonna replace BD isnt the same thing.

Or when such a system will arrive.

I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?

Eventually, but it is years off. They are starting to sell music as mp3's like that. Movies it will take larger capacity chips, that are much cheaper to manufacture, compared to todays cost, before this becomes feasible.

As far as that universal DVD player goes, it is not going to play bluray unless it's a blu ray player. Which it is not. The cheapest bluray players are last years models which are hovering around $230. scratch that, looks like the price on those is moving up. get a panasonic dmp-bd35, it's $299 and profile 2.0

The cheapest bluray players are last years models which are hovering around $230. scratch that, looks like the price on those is moving up. get a panasonic dmp-bd35, it's $299 and profile 2.0

Or, you could just get the Samsung BD-P1500 (which is profile 2.0 now) for $214 and get the matrix box set for free.

Finally, a BD player that makes sense to buy over a PS3.

A DL Blu Ray disc costs how much to make, $3-$5 maybe? Disc retails for $30.

A 32GB SD card costs around $15-$30 to make. Card w/movie would retail for $90. Now you could download it at a kiosk onto your own card, but I would think that the price would be around $25.

Not going to happen anytime soon.

For the record the cheapest BD players are now < $200 and will hit $150 on black Friday.

I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?

Buying a Toshiba and asking about BD compatibility may have been his opening to pile it on.:D

Actually, the sales clerk wasn't entirely wrong. Blu-ray IS due to be replaced. In about ten-fifteen years (maybe less, who knows). All things change. But anytime soon? Hardly.

John

The truth is Blu-Ray sales are growing rapidly and DVD sales have stagnated. While DVD is clearly still the biggest kid on the block, I believe Blu-Ray, downloads, and VOD will slowly chip away at it. All of the major studios and CE's (minus Toshiba of course) are supporting Blu-Ray. I think this will be a big year for the young format and you will really see growth over the next 3 years. In short. The salesman is either uninformed or is a Blu-Ray hater (or both). It clearly is here to stay. I just picked up my second player (a Samsung 1500) which is a 2.0 player. Picked it up for $214 (and it comes with The Ultimate Matrix on BD) and I have a coworker that wants to buy The Ultimate Matrix for $74 off me. Which means I was able to get the player for $140 even. A good upscaling DVD player costs that much..

It might happen sooner than we think. Much sooner.

Camcorders are now shooting straight to an internal drive or a memory card already bypassing the (HD) media disc.

Significant gains in memory technology are on the horizon dwarfing blu ray capacity and read write speed.

2 billion (?) sunk in development and production cost ,50 million (?) br discs (games + movies) sold (over 2 years).
Cost so far per disc between 25..40 usd based on these rough estimates.



Now how expensive where these memory cards?

The salesmen was simply saying what he thought was needed to make the sale and there is no evidence that pre-recorded video is going to be sold on flash memory. 32 GB of flash memory from the cheapest companies cost about $70 for CompactFlash and about $130 for SDHC. That compares to replication costs of $1.75 or less for 25 GB Blu-ray discs and $2.55 or less for 50 GB Blu-ray discs from Pacific Disc (http://www.pacificdisc.com/PricingBluRay.html).

Protomedia (http://www.portomedia.com/) among others has proposed local downloading of movies to flash media or cards of some type, and the general consensus is this or somehing like it will eventually be the movie medium of choice. I would expect the state of the economy will slow that down a bit, however, so don't look for it at the local Walgreen's any time soon.

Protomedia (http://www.portomedia.com/) among others has proposed local downloading of movies to flash media or cards of some type, and the general consensus is this or somehing like it will eventually be the movie medium of choice. I would expect the state of the economy will slow that down a bit, however, so don't look for it at the local Walgreen's any time soon.
I agree that for rentals, this will be the future but I bet we'll need a special player to play the SD/movie so the DRM copy control can't be hacked or read by a PC.

Imagine going to the rental store and always having a copy of the new release or any title. Or being able to download it to an SD. Of course, downloading on a PC will probably require special root kit SW and DRM copy control. :)

Movies being sold in a flash memory format?
What a strange thing.

A flash memory card is so small it wouldn't even have enough space the for film's title to be printed on it (not to mention the copyright statements we see in small prints around any DVD). All titles will be nearly faceless OR 99% of it will be package (LOL!!) so it can have any appeal for consumers. And one more thing... how easy it is to lose a tiny piece of plastic that's smaller that the tip of your index finger.

The only good thing is that if they make it big enough (turning the intzi-bintzi flash card into a bona-fide cartridge), old Atari2600 and 8-Track lovers will again have reasons to smile. :p

PRICELESS!

Honestly, if it's gonna be so small to the point that it does not look like a movie (or a $20 worth of a movie look), they'd better forget about it and go VOD all the way and forget about physical media.

Not right now, but as mentioned before, I think that some of these were set up in Ireland for SD movies.

With production quantities increasing, SD time memory will become the way to go. Just as long as I can get ones that are like the current BDs (full film, sound track, extras etc) and ones where I can go to a store and DL a rental copy, I don't see why not.

There could be two types. One where you can't record over it and one where you can. I'm sure DRM will figure in a real big way, but I'm also sure that this will be *cough* got round *cough*.

Imainge the room saving for 200 of these blighters instead of 200 BD or DVD cases.

The point about the copyright stuff is valid though. It would have to be assumed that the CR stuff is played without fail.

And the PS3 is pretty much already there with USB ports and the like....

I already have one of the SD HC camcorder, digital cameras and LCD RP TV. I'd like to get rid of our one remaining CRT and then I'd be done with last centuries tech ! :D

Seggers

not HD yet, but available
http://www.amazon.com/Disney-Mix-Max-Clip-Caribbean/dp/B000WQVVVE/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1224338504&sr=8-5

I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?

Everything gets replaced eventually, but I think conventional wisdom suggests it will not be another flavor of physical media. While I think the speed of online downloads replacing physical media is generally overestimated, the long-term trend seems fairly obvious.

Unfortunately, these days, the number of people who don't know what they're talking about seems to significanty outnumber those who do.

Buy into BluRay and enjoy the best consumer video format we've ever had.

I agree. Just thinking about how such a kiosk system would work makes me think it's not very likely. Either the kiosk has all the available films stored in it, or it would have to download the film in the background then store it on the card.

I think Hollywood would have a hard time accepting the first approach, as it would put all their content at risk of being stolen. I suspect if the right people had the physicial kiosk under their control they'd be able to break whatever encryption was being used to store the content or trick it into offloading the material in some manner. If the material was downloaded on demand, each kiosk would have to have an incredibly high-speed backend pipe, probably over fiber, which would be dauntingly expensive to deploy on a widespread basis.

I think we're much more likely to see content delivered directly to the endusers over the Internet than a kiosk scheme like this one. Unlike the kiosk model, the users themselves bear a portion of the transport costs.

It won't happen for years, so don't worry much about it now...

I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?
Why don't you just go back and ask him what he meant and than give us report.:)

it's a lot cheaper to stamp a plastic disc than to make a flash memory chip. If it'll be replaced by anything, it'll be direct distribution via the internet, or another optical format.

it's a lot cheaper to stamp a plastic disc than to make a flash memory chip. If it'll be replaced by anything, it'll be direct distribution via the internet, or another optical format.

There has been an announced but perpetual seeming vaporware 30 GB holographic HVD card from Optware for 3-4 years now. Maybe the saleman had just heard about that.

Though I don't think it has even made the news now for a year or more.

- Tom

While I don't believe movies on sd cards are anywhere near, why is everyone expecting it would need to be on a "32 GB card", if it was so? :p I'd expect that if it really was "about to drop", they would be squeezing movies onto 4-8 GB cards, which could be quite feasible where we are now, no? It shouldn't be that different from what you get in a VoD or download scenario.

I'm trying to figure out if this is a Toshiba-sponsored FUD thread or not. I hope the mods are checking the IPs of some posters to see what domain they are posting from.

I'm trying to figure out if this is a Toshiba-sponsored FUD thread or not. I hope the mods are checking the IPs of some posters to see what domain they are posting from.

Sure looks that way.

While I don't believe movies on sd cards are anywhere near, why is everyone expecting it would need to be on a "32 GB card", if it was so? :p I'd expect that if it really was "about to drop", they would be squeezing movies onto 4-8 GB cards, which could be quite feasible where we are now, no? It shouldn't be that different from what you get in a VoD or download scenario.

8GB SD cards or USB flash drives seem to be going for about $16 now. At that price and with the current trends it would seem it would still take 3-5 years before it is cost effective to distribute movies on them, except for the possible reusability factor for rentals. For rentals it would be feasible today except for copy protection issues.

- Tom

I was buying a new universal DVD player yesterday, [a Toshiba XD-E500] and asked about Blu-Ray compatibility when the salesman said it is due to be replaced by a card-like system, similar to an SD card. Has anyone heard of this or is it silly stuff by an uninformed salesman?

If he was privy to this kind of insider info, he wouldn't be a salesman - but rather an Executive.

I'm trying to figure out if this is a Toshiba-sponsored FUD thread or not. I hope the mods are checking the IPs of some posters to see what domain they are posting from.

You must not be wearing your tinfoil hat today. :D

Keep in mind that a flash card would be used over and over, so the initial outlay for a 30 GB card, which would probably be subsidized, and so would not be a deal killer, IMO. What would make it work is if the download allowed one copy to a HDD. So the consumer would download the movie in a few minutes and move it to his home media PC for permanent storage/playback. If Hollywood can make money with that approach they will support it, even if it kills Blu-Ray, which many studios still don't like because of the higher costs of manufacturing and distribution, not to mention it requires consumers to first buy a BD player. But without studio support the flash download approach won't fly - it won't even get off the ground.

There's a 0.00001% chance the salespeep was well-read, referring to DECE and the role retailers could possibly play in content transference to buyers in that alternate reality ecosystem. After all, Best Buy is a founding member of DECE.

Still, DECE is years away from a substantive launch, and it smacks a wee bit of Coral (RIP), so it's probably doomed to die on the vine.

Your sales guy wasn't named Mitch Singer, was he? ;)

media sellthrough with solid state devices --- this reminds me of atari and those giant holes in the desert to bury the unsold game cartridges. The flash themselves can go down in price, conceptually, it could go to $5 for 32GB if you give it 5yrs, but it would be difficult to drive flash media to the same true manufacturing costs as any mature optical media.

32GB flash would be very difficult to get below $5, certainly $2 is unreachable except as inventory clearance, no fab would run flash wafers to make $2 flash and no memory vendor is willing to make them, but we'll easily see sub 50c/unit BD-rom before 2012.

It would be inconceivable to have per piece BD manufacturing costs (outside of licensing costs such as aacs) to be significantly higher than DVD 5 yrs from now, and that's a price point 32GB flash is unlikely to hit.

Keep in mind that a flash card would be used over and over, so the initial outlay for a 30 GB card, which would probably be subsidized, and so would not be a deal killer, IMO. What would make it work is if the download allowed one copy to a HDD. So the consumer would download the movie in a few minutes and move it to his home media PC for permanent storage/playback. If Hollywood can make money with that approach they will support it, even if it kills Blu-Ray, which many studios still don't like because of the higher costs of manufacturing and distribution, not to mention it requires consumers to first buy a BD player. But without studio support the flash download approach won't fly - it won't even get off the ground.

With flash based media wont you have to purchase a player to connect to your TV to play them? Why is this any different than purchasing a BD player?

With flash based media wont you have to purchase a player to connect to your TV to play them? Why is this any different than purchasing a BD player?

Just about every PC, Mac, Laptop, PS3 and 360 would be capable of playing flash based media. Heck, I already play video from usb/flash media on my PS3.

Just about every PC, Mac, Laptop, PS3 and 360 would be capable of playing flash based media. Heck, I already play video from usb/flash media on my PS3.

And you didn't pay for that PS3?

What if you don't own any of those or if they are not hooked up to your TV? Is it a Buy a movie on SD and get a PS3 for free deal :D

And with all the DRM/Rootkit those card will be laden with I bet you won't want/ be able to use them on your PC or Mac or you won't want to.

not HD yet, but available
http://www.amazon.com/Disney-Mix-Max-Clip-Caribbean/dp/B000WQVVVE/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1224338504&sr=8-5

Yea, movies on flash cards. Soon 64Gig flash chips will be here and HD will be possible.

.

Finally, a BD player that makes sense to buy over a PS3.

DAMN that PS3, with it's evil . . . goodness. wait, what?
:rolleyes:

media sellthrough with solid state devices --- this reminds me of atari and those giant holes in the desert to bury the unsold game cartridges. The flash themselves can go down in price, conceptually, it could go to $5 for 32GB if you give it 5yrs, but it would be difficult to drive flash media to the same true manufacturing costs as any mature optical media.

32GB flash would be very difficult to get below $5, certainly $2 is unreachable except as inventory clearance, no fab would run flash wafers to make $2 flash and no memory vendor is willing to make them, but we'll easily see sub 50c/unit BD-rom before 2012.

It would be inconceivable to have per piece BD manufacturing costs (outside of licensing costs such as aacs) to be significantly higher than DVD 5 yrs from now, and that's a price point 32GB flash is unlikely to hit.

I don't believe there is a SINGLE technical advantage of a spinning disk based based over a solid state storage like SD card.

So we're talking cost. Wasn't this and isn't this the same argument being applied for DVD v. Blu Ray?

Even single use SD or flash memory cards would be superior in every way to a spinning disk based system.

DAMN that PS3, with it's evil . . . goodness. wait, what?
:rolleyes:

Way to get all defensive.

Some of us don't want to spend $400 movie machine that's fully functional with the spec. At the same time, all the alternatives were near enough to $400 to not make sense to buy over the PS3 (and then we are back to the not wanting to spend $400 on a movie machine again.)

Now that we have $200 Profile 2.0 players, that's no longer an issue. The PS3 is a fine blu-ray machine and a good console, but not everyone wants to pay for both at this point in time. I'd much rather spend half of the PS3 price on a player that is just as functional with blu-ray discs and spend the other $200 towards building my software library rather than gaming features that I don't want at this point in time.

Really though, it's a funny thing for sony. Had they dropped the PS3 price to about $300, I would have not only had a blu-ray player sooner, I would now own a PS3. But that $400 price point was just enough to make other blu-ray players not attractive (until now) and to keep the PS3 a little too expensive for my tastes. Now that I actually own a blu-ray player, a lot of the drive to purchase a PS3 has gone away so I'm just going to wait to buy one until it goes though several hardware revs and all the good games drop in price.

Comparative pricing/features is a funny thing. A $500 PS3 would have had me buy a standalone much sooner than now and a cheaper PS3 would have had me buy a PS3 before now. As it was, the price was just in the wrong zone for either purchase until now.

USB memory sticks work very well right now with newer TV's having a USB memory stick or SDHC card playing capability or with the acquisition of a totally silent, easy to use, Network Media Tank (NMT) ~$215, like the Popcorn Hour A110. And the A110 will do 1080p24 video (AVC or VC-1).

If you only have a USB connection those SD card to USB adapters only cost ~$5.

Like Alex says we just need an economically viable distribution mechanism (deployed kiosks?) before the *orrents get too popular.

New Format War:

BD vs VaporWare

I'll pass on this one.;)

usb ver 3.0 incoming to a theater near you.

i think its a possible thing but not in the near future.

usb ver 3.0 incoming to a theater near you.

i think its a possible thing but not in the near future.

I think movies on chip is inevitable, just not economical real soon. I've already got ab 8GB micro-SDHC card in my phone I use for carrying around a few Tai Chi training videos. Storage is becoming more or less free.

But not this year, not for HD.

- Tom

I am sure video on chips will be here soon, but I think the real future is media servers/players.

We already have tens of millions of 360s and PS3s that can act as clients. You will have a choice of playing HD video from disc, usb flash drive, your home media server, or streamed from various Internet sources. For the end-user, accessing them will be almost the same. The only difference will be the physical media (BDs and flash drives) may not be listed in your library and you have to get up and walk around to find them.

I think over time people will get used to their media players working like an ipod or even their cable service. They will look up a movie on a playlist (or program guide), read about its ratings and who stars in it, and then play it. Some people will still "host" most of there videos, but many will opt for the services.

I am sure video on chips will be here soon, but I think the real future is media servers/players.


What's maddening is we should already be there. The tech is here and mature. Every bit of media we consume in the home should be centralized at a server of some point and sent over an IP network to whatever device you want to use to watch it.

We live in an age where we have wireless bandwidth in a home more than ample enough to stream the same bitrate of a blu-ray movie, 1TB hard drives can be had for under $200, and hardware accelerated playback of HD content is literally available for a few bucks worth of silicon. Yet, why is it that I have to have a multitude of boxes connected to every TV in my home where I want to view all my available media, some of which are so outdated as to be laughable (lets hear it for my 120gb hard drive in my cable company DVR.)

Not only is the fact that we aren't there yet frustrating, it's damn near impossible for someone to make a setup like that on their own without losing functionality or running afoul of some broad reaching copyright laws.

more than ample enough to stream the same bitrate of a blu-ray movie
I don't know anyone with a 5 megabyte/second downstream speed in their home...

I don't know anyone with a 5 megabyte/second downstream speed in their home...

INSIDE the home. There's no reason why we should have to handle these discs more than a single time, to upload them to a media server after purchase. I'm not talking about streaming over the internet. I'm talking about streaming from a home media server.

Another detractor from FLASH is it is that it's NOT :)
Flash is SLOW, so don't expect get a HD movie "downloaded" anytime soon. I use it for my music also and it works well, but even then when I loose a chip and have to copy everything back over it take a LONG while.

There is fast solid state memory that could work, but its not cheap. Here is something that could live up to the name FLASH and work well as a BD replacement, but it's a bit much for my wallet. :rolleyes:

SAMSUNG MCBQE32G5MPP-0VA00 2.5" 32GB SATA II Internal Solid state disk (SSD) - OEM $299.00

I don't know anyone with a 5 megabyte/second downstream speed in their home...

After the analog switch off there is a potential of over 100mb per second
download speeds over the cable network.

For 80 euro/month I can get 120mbs downstream 10mbs upstream connection already.

Critcal for blu ray wil be pc industry and next generation game console.

Imagine a next gen game console with pre loaded games on large memory card. Note that memory will be much cheaper to produce if only read access is required.

If br discs are 'bypassed' by memory card technology it will be in deep trouble.
As far as I can tell br isn't doing much in the personal computer industry so far. Rewriteable br discs are far to expensive and slow in comparison to an external HDD for backup purposes these days.

If br discs are 'bypassed' by memory card technology it will be in deep trouble.
As far as I can tell br isn't doing much in the personal computer industry so far. Rewriteable br discs are far to expensive and slow in comparison to an external HDD for backup purposes these days.

Not necessarily. If in the future memory cards became that much cheaper to produce than BD optical, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a future BD profile which defined Blu-ray video application (part3) on memory card. That would allow BD players (with card readers or USB) to firmware upgrade themselves to play BD movies off of a card also. The format of the movie is the same, just the source from which it is stored on is different.

With the proper DRM in place, there is not a whole lot that ties BD video application spec to the optical format it is currently distributed on.

After the analog switch off there is a potential of over 100mb per second
download speeds over the cable network.


Until the cable providers are willing to give analog subscribers free cable boxes the analog switch off is nothing more than just an OTA switch off.

I agree that cable companies need to follow suit, but don't expect them to make 'digital' cable the standard for everyone even though they could probably quickly make the revenue up with the additional services that they could provide.

Until the cable providers are willing to give analog subscribers free cable boxes the analog switch off is nothing more than just an OTA switch off.

I agree that cable companies need to follow suit, but don't expect them to make 'digital' cable the standard for everyone even though they could probably quickly make the revenue up with the additional services that they could provide.

What makes you think that they would be handing out those boxes for free?

You won't get 100% digital on cable, but their legal requirement begins and ends at the locals in analog (at least until 2 years after the OTA shutoff.) So, you are talking about the removal of all but a half dozen or so analog stations. The march has already begun with places like Comcast Chicago dropping the majority of their analog stations, making only 15-20 or so available on analog.

This is vitally necessary for cable if they want to continue to compete with other services like FIOS (which I can easily get a 30/30 Mbs connection today if I wanted.)

I would agree with just about every thing said here except for one thing. The studios bot music and movie have only one talent at which they absolutely supreme. That is shooting them selves in the foot.

If they were to dial down the greed by 10% they could probably enjoy a 30% increase in profits. But their mind set just will not allow it no matter what.

http://www.contentagenda.com/blog/1500000150/post/600035260.html

What's maddening is we should already be there. The tech is here and mature. Every bit of media we consume in the home should be centralized at a server of some point and sent over an IP network to whatever device you want to use to watch it.

We live in an age where we have wireless bandwidth in a home more than ample enough to stream the same bitrate of a blu-ray movie, 1TB hard drives can be had for under $200, and hardware accelerated playback of HD content is literally available for a few bucks worth of silicon. Yet, why is it that I have to have a multitude of boxes connected to every TV in my home where I want to view all my available media, some of which are so outdated as to be laughable (lets hear it for my 120gb hard drive in my cable company DVR.)

Not only is the fact that we aren't there yet frustrating, it's damn near impossible for someone to make a setup like that on their own without losing functionality or running afoul of some broad reaching copyright laws.

A friend brought over a movie the other night that was in HD and on a 8 GB flash drive. We watched it on my PS3 and it looked very, very good. He has tons of movies like LotRs in HD that he can just copy quickly from his media server to a flash drive...but I am sure he is "running afoul of some broad reaching copyright laws."

If they were to dial down the greed by 10% they could probably enjoy a 30% increase in profits.

Interesting math.

I don't believe there is a SINGLE technical advantage of a spinning disk based based over a solid state storage like SD card.

So we're talking cost. Wasn't this and isn't this the same argument being applied for DVD v. Blu Ray?

Even single use SD or flash memory cards would be superior in every way to a spinning disk based system.

1. a write once solid state is what atari used (rom cartridges), once built, unsold cartridges cannot be recycled --- this is why they had to get a backhoe in the mojave and bury the hundreds of thousands of unsold cartridges. This doesn't apply to a flash media.

2. SD and SDHC throughput on wr are not consistent. Class 4 SDHC for example only guarantees a 4MByte/s = 32Mbps write speed. Class 6 SDHC guarantees 6MByte/s = 48Mbps. 2X BD-RE otoh gives 72Mbps write speed. BD-ROM movies run at 1.5x and gives 54Mbps. Burners today are supporting 4x media and that is 144Mbps (= 19Mbyte/s).

3. On rd speed though, latest flash is usually faster and it would take 6x-8X BD-R media to outperform the fastest SDHC on read speed. Presumably there will be faster SDHC and faster BD media down the road.

example of benchmarks on SD cards.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2094715,00.asp

The reason why selling content via solid state devices can't compete against shiny disks? Cost. A DVD costs pennies to press. BD costs $1-$1.50.

32GB SDHC cannot be made to go down to < $2 in the next 5 yrs, while 5 yrs from now, BD-rom will cost << 50c to manufacture.

However, if you mean download, then once the equipment is in place, the flash media can be reused, but then we run against the DRM issues with placing media on flash, and it's not quite solved satisfactorily for the stakeholders --- at least not to the point that the content can leave the PC on a portable media and be allowed to play on a second device.


But... The equipment to download (if not PCs) is still a large infrastructure effort. It has to piggyback on other STB, PVR devices, and the cable/satellite guys are not anxious to help out their iptv competitors, which means north america is largely going to be PC/console or perhaps retail for this to play out. This funding climate will hurt iptv vendors a lot more than packaged media vendors.
---
correction : it was in new mexico, covered in cement slabs, and it was millions of ET cartridges.

If we ignore cost for a second.

Panasonic P2 technology is interesting. In the way that it raids 4 SD cards in one container.

It comes up to 640mbs in transferrate. And uses PCMCIA form factor (makes the card easier to hold.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2_(storage_media)

If we ignore cost for a second.

Panasonic P2 technology is interesting. In the way that it raids 4 SD cards in one container.

It comes up to 640mbs in transferrate. And uses PCMCIA form factor (makes the card easier to hold.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2_(storage_media)

There are faster interfaces. Apparently rumors of usb3.0 are in the works, but seeing how long SD took to establish itself, it's going to be a while yet. In the meantime, there's likely millions of the 4GB and larger SD cards floating around, all with very slow write times.

Some SSD's with sata interface can go faster by putting in multiple banks multiple flash chips, but once you go beyond a single flash chip, your chances of going lower cost become zero. These SSDs use up to 10 or 16 flash chips all configured in parallel to increase their performance.

(There's actually a good reason why the SDHC based camcorders don't have a 24Mbps ultra-fine setting, a lot of existing cards can't be written that fast.)

I am sure that if the industry (studios) decide the download-to-flash business model is the way to go they will ensure a suitable SS memory device and player are made available to consumers at a reasonable price, so all these discussions about cost, capacity, and read/write speed are moot, IMO.

I am sure that if the industry (studios) decide the download-to-flash business model is the way to go they will ensure a suitable SS memory device and player are made available to consumers at a reasonable price, so all these discussions about cost, capacity, and read/write speed are moot, IMO.Oh, please. The studios will decide? They can't do that if the flash memory industry is failing (http://www.twice.com/article/CA6608758.html):Micron said earlier in the month that it would discontinue flash-memory manufacturing at its plant, in Boise, Idaho, and slash its global workforce by 15 percent over the next two years.

Micron manufactures NAND flash memory in Boise through a joint venture with Intel.

“The combination of declining customer demand and product oversupply in the marketplace has driven selling prices for NAND flash memory significantly below manufacturing costs,” the company said in a statement announcing the move.

Micron owns Lexar Media. According to a spokesperson, Lexar will not be impacted by the closure of the Boise fab.

Roughly 85 percent of the demand for NAND flash comes from consumers, said Nam Hyung Kim, Director and Chief Analyst, iSuppli. Consumer spending has been lagging, which has hurt demand for NAND products “badly,” Kim said.
Or how about the fact that the biggest companies behind flash memory are publicly attacking each other over how bad the market is (http://www.reuters.com/article/innovationNews/idUSTRE49L04N20081022):"Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a hurried renegotiation of your relationship with Toshiba and major job losses across your organization all point to a considerable increase in your risk profile and a material deterioration in value, both on a stand-alone basis as well as to Samsung," Samsung CEO Lee Yoon-woo wrote to SanDisk management in a letter disclosed on Wednesday.

"As a result of these developments, we are no longer interested in acquiring SanDisk at $26 a share."
"Samsung probably has decided that as the memory chip market continues to weaken, the kind of price SanDisk was asking wasn't what they were willing to go along with," said Kim Young-june, an analyst at KTB Investment.

Any other fairy tales regarding this "flash memory movies" fantasy world you want to try and sell us?

Boy, anytime anyone tries to start a topic that somewhere, somehow might affect adoption or growth of blu-ray, they get attacked and shouted down. Seems to be the same 5 or 6 people are so afraid to allow discussion it makes me wonder what purpose they are doing here anyway. Jeez, can't you either offer constructive opinions or even better, skip the topic. It's amazing that whatever the topic, I know I will see comments by that group. Their job must be to read everything printed in these forums just so they can try to "correct" the OP. I know this response will probably get reported by someone in that group and it will probably get deleted. I hope not as I am just venting my frustration over what is happening in these threads. Sorry if I offend anyone but this forum is to allow civil discussion about the present and future of home theater.

As for the topic, I think it will be at least 10 years before another method of getting our movie fix as a collector. Unless they figure out a system to make the DRM uncrackable. If it can be put on a flash card with unbreakable copy protection, someone will figure out an economical way to make it happen and soon. In any case, there may be something on the horizon we are not aware of that makes current disc base media obsolete. Someone in a lab or in a garage working hard figuring out a way he can be the next Bill Gates.

As for what I really want. I want those plastic looking square discs they have on Star Trek. No moving parts and they can survive in open space, very hot climates, and very cold environments. Probably worked on by an alien on some far away back woods planet sweat shop for less than a credit each.:D

Oh, please, stop playing the victim. The same people who have had an agenda (the poster I responded to has a history of this) are posting the same baseless arguments, and yet when those pie-in-the-sky and fact-free posts are rebutted with hard numbers and facts, that's a problem?

This is the AV Science forum. If using facts and figures isn't science and making stuff up out of whole cloth is, then we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

Oh please...enough