14 DAY TRIAL // THX, one of Lucasfilm's spin-off companies claimed earlier this week that the Blu-Ray high-definition standard arrived too late on the HD media market. Despite the fact that Sony's format was announced as the victor in the HD standards war, THX claimed that it will soon fall into oblivion because of the new storage technologies.
"Personally, I think it's too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies become available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?" said Laurie Fincham, director of research and development for the THX division of Lucasfilm.
According to Fincham, the Blu-Ray standard is also endangered by the significant data transfer rate boost delivered by worldwide Internet service providers. He claimed that another spinning storage format is neither desirable, nor useful to anyone.
However, THX official rushed to issue an official statement to show their support towards the new king on the high-definition market. The company also qualified Fincham's allegations as a misinterpretation of the real facts.
"Neither THX nor Mr. Fincham have ever stated that 'Blu ray has no chance' or is on the demise. Quite the contrary, THX is dedicated to supporting Blu-ray with many new technologies, certification programs and other initiatives. Mr. Fincham was simply discussing the future of movies on downloads, optical discs and other emerging media," said Graham McKenna, senior manager of global public relations at THX.
The Blu-Ray format is still inaccessible to the vast majority of computer users. The Blu-Ray optical readers are still expensive, as well as the newest Blu-Ray movie titles. More than that, most of the users don't match the minimum hardware requirements to allow them to fully enjoy the high-definition multimedia experience. Users would rather rely on DVD media or Internet downloads than on a rare and expensive high-definition format.