Blu-Ray Will Be Dead In 10 Years

Blu-Ray, king of HD video, winner of the "format wars" versus HD-DVD, is dying a slow, painful death. It, along with its predecessor, DVD, are on their way to the great trash pile of history. Even 3D won't save it. Here's why:

Slow Performance
It sometimes takes well over a minute before I see anything on my screen when I put in a Blu-Ray disc. The player makes all kinds of groaning and buzzing noises, my screen flashes between black and dark grey, and there's a little animated doo-dad in the bottom right corner of the screen that is supposedly telling me that something is going on. Is something going on? From all the groans, whirs and buzzes, I sure hope so. New players advertise faster start-up times. "Under 1 Minute!" they say, like that's progress. My Blu-Ray player also seems to need a LOT of updates from the manufacturer. I have to download and install a new firmware about once a month - a process that can take up to 15 minutes.

Forced Advertising
Movie studios LOVE to advertise their other titles and upcoming movies, so they make you sit through all these trailers before you ever get to the menu. Some studios even DISABLE THE MENU FUNCTION on your player to make sure you sit through all this crap, forcing me to press the "next chapter" button on my remote furiously in an attempt to get to the actual movie. This one "feature" is enough to make me NOT PURCHASE any more movies on disc. I didn't pay for advertising; I paid for a feature film. It's the same reason I almost never go to the movie theater any more. After paying $9.00 to get in and then bending over at the concession stand, I'm forced to watch a fucking VISA commercial in between movie trailers. WTF?

Competition
Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon & iTunes, and PPV services from cable and satellite operators mean I can watch my movies on my big screen TV right away with NO previews and NO forced ads. Don't have to wait for my Blu-Ray player to think about reading a disc, don't have to worry about cleaning it or protecting it from scratches, and I don't have to return it to wherever I rented it from. I can start watching it on my computer and finish watching it on my television. I can watch it on my iPhone, iPad, iPod or Android device, which means I can watch it virtually anywhere.

Of course, there are some movies that I want to keep copies of - movies that I know I'll watch repeatedly, or movies with historical or personal significance. For those few, I'll purchase the Blu-Ray discs and put up with the annoyance. For the rest of the thousands of movies out there, I'll stick to a streaming or PPV service.

A Chance At Redemption
The movie studios have an opportunity to save Blu-Ray, and they already know what they have to do. 3D ain't it. 3D is a nice gimmick, but we don't see 3D players and 3D televisions flying off the shelves because they're too expensive. Add to that the inconvenience of having to wear the stupid glasses, and I conclude that 3D isn't ready for the mass market.

The People Want Control
What the studios need to do is to give the people control of their movie viewing experience. Putting trailers on a disc is stupid. Who wants to be forced to watch a trailer for "Gigli" every time they put in a movie? Now imagine watching that movie 10 years from now and being forced to watch that trailer AGAIN!

Ditch the trailers and forced ads, dump the super high-tech menus that take forever to load, and give the people control. Get the player manufacturers to get off their butts and release players that will get me to the main menu in under 10 seconds. Don't tell me it can't be done, because if you can do it with DVD, you can do it with Blu-Ray. Lots of bright engineers and programmers out there.

Add special features that simply aren't available via streaming services or on PPV. You're actually pretty good at doing this already, but go the extra mile: Give me the option to watch Han Solo shoot first, like he is supposed to. Give me the option to watch the movie with the alternate ending seamlessly integrated into the feature presentation. Give me the option to stream the movie from the player to any television in the house, or directly to my iPad.

There. I just told you how to save Blu-Ray. Will you do it? No. You'll still want control over the viewing experience. You'll still listen to the idiots who tell you that in order to increase sales and profits, you have to put advertising ahead of content. Because you really don't care about the people who purchase your movies, do you? No, you only care about their money, and how to separate them from it. It's been nice knowing you, Blu-Ray. Okay, not really.