14 DAY TRIAL // Blu-ray has had a love-hate relationship with the world, so to speak, and this affair continues as the chief executive officer of a certain set-top box maker has gone on record in regard to the future of the optical media.
Roku, the company who first launched a media box capable of streaming Netflix and other online videos to TVs, doesn't think Blu-ray disks have much longer to live.
In fact, he believes Blu-ray Disks will disappear over the next four years, and not just because of how stubborn DVDs have proven to be.
Roku's CEO Anthony Wood, during an event in San Francisco, California, bluntly said he didn’t believe Blu-ray players would be used four years from then.
That Blu-ray disks in general will largely become unused is a logical outcome of such a scenario. True, BD will still be used for marketing console games and the like, but the size of that market segment cannot compare to that of the digital film distribution market.
That said, Roku will include a Blu-ray player in its streaming platform at some point, but doesn't expect the feature to make a world of difference.
“Will people use Blu-ray players in four years? I don’t think so,” Roku CEO Anthony Wood stated.
But here is where we have to mention that Blu-ray is not the only medium expected to suffer a slow death. In fact, set-top boxes themselves might disappear too.
Roku hopes its devices will outlive Blu-ray, but even if that happens, the same fate could befall it not long after, all because of Smart TVs.
TV sets with built-in Internet connection and widgets have been gaining a lot of ground. If they become mainstream, there won't be any sort of need for STBs or media players.
What's more, Mini PCs that turn common HDTVs into Smart TVs have proven very popular with the common man.