Will BR and HDDVD never take off due to downloads?

[baccusboy]

I just saw my first XVID download. No, it's not full-resolution 1080p. It isn't even 720p. It's a bit lower than that. I pipe it out of my computer via VGA into my 42" LCD TV, and it looks pretty darned good. The laptop sizes it perfectly, and it plays cleanly. No, it's not HD, but it looks better than a regular DVD. The audio is 5.1 (not the best out there, but still sounds very good). More than acceptable, and it filled out my entire screen (no black bars) Total size: under a few gig (half the size of a DVD).

Yeah, I know, I know you... it's not in high definition. Better quality is available by Bluray... but at what cost to the consumer?

Downloading of movies (and paying for them) has never been something I was interested in. I just head out and rent them. But for now, it's impossible for me to even rent Bluray (I live in Korea). I can buy a few titles (mostly imported) but they are expensive.

Korea has launched this:

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...703300031.html

I hear the quality is pretty good (I am anxious to see it for myself). The movies are coming out soon after they hit the theater (it says).

I have no idea what the cost is. Probably not a lot. Currently, there are pay services in Korea to download movies for as low as $1 per movie -- in an XVID-type format -- and they download in under 10 minutes.

This all makes me wonder.... will Bluray get a chance to really grab ahold of the consumer market? Will consumers be able to live with DVDs long enough (and because BR and HDDVD are too expensive to bother upgrading) until downloading takes over?

I'm curious about your thoughts? The average consumer is not always interested in the best quality... VHS beat Beta...

The XVID honestly looked good enough for me, and I was a TV producer. What will the average consumer choose, if they are faced with high BR and/or HDDVD costs for too long? Will downloading do an end-run around these formats? Will Apple TV, or a MS-compatible equivalent become hot before prices come down enough on BR/HDDVD to interest the average consumer?

It's already happening here... (possibly, if it looks good)

[HDJK]

You are not alone with this assumption. George Lucas has been saying it for quite some time now: optical media will be replaced by downloads. And Microsoft seems to think along the same lines. If you have watched the HD Rant thread and some of the threads over at AVS it becomes pretty clear that M$ is not in it for HD-DVD but mainly for VC1 and how much compression can they get away with.
Personally I don't think blu-ray will be that much of a niche product. Look at how many discs of CR have been sold in the first 2 weeks: 100k. That's pretty impressive. A lot of people still like to actually hold something in their hands, something they can take with them to friends if it has to be. So while there are certainly a lot of people that will choose convenience over the best quality possible (blu-ray) there will always be people who demand a real product. Heck, there are still people buying (and hence producing) Vinyl LPs.

btw, are you Korean or do you just live there? I was born over there but grew up in Switzerland

[blitz6speed]

Considering that most movie buyers like to collect movies, the fact that broadband is still nowhere near any decent penetration, and the fact that nowhere near enough HDTV's have been sold, ONTOP of the fact that you need your PC connected to your TV running the proper res and all that fun stuff that 90% of people out there wouldnt figure out if their lives depended on it, no, i do not forsee this as an issue what so ever. Maybe in 5-10 years, and if even then.

[baccusboy]

I am an American living in Korea.

Yeah, Korea is sort of a "testing ground" for the world. Broadband internet speeds have been in something like 80 to 90 percent of homes for over 5 years. We kind of laugh at things like the Apple IPhone, which isn't even 3g. We're moving into 3.5g and beyond here. It's easy to do, because the country is so small, and not so much infrastructure needs to be built to support the phones over a wide area.

Koreans have been watching full satellite TV programs, and movies on their mobile phones for almost two years now. It's all live at over 15fps (pretty good). We can even watch the satellite stuff when riding the subway. I think my girlfriend gets over 20 channels live.

The Samsung phones the US gets are often phones we had one or two years prior.

You can't even buy bluray here, unless it's imported from Japan. I don't know why. It might have something to do with our proximity to Japan, and Korea's insane attempts to control imports and pricing. They'd probably want to mark it up over $200 more than what it'd cost in Japan. XBox360 has been around for a while, and selling at the Youngsan Electronics Market. I think it has a growing following. The prices on that are not outrageous now, though.

[buckshot]

i'm one of those people who still needs a physical product. I buy cds and vinyl still. the only albums i've ever downloaded are ones that I could only find imported for 2x the usual cost. I haven't bought any movies online for download and the only tv shows i've downloaded I did because the dvds weren't out yet.

i'll keep my BD, cds, and vinyl.

[ZX-VETTE]

Originally Posted by buckshot

i'm one of those people who still needs a physical product. I buy cds and vinyl still. the only albums i've ever downloaded are ones that I could only find imported for 2x the usual cost. I haven't bought any movies online for download and the only tv shows i've downloaded I did because the dvds weren't out yet.

i'll keep my BD, cds, and vinyl.

I agree. The majority of people still like the experience of going to a store and actually picking up a physical product.

[pbnbcr]

Originally Posted by buckshot

i'm one of those people who still needs a physical product. I buy cds and vinyl still. the only albums i've ever downloaded are ones that I could only find imported for 2x the usual cost. I haven't bought any movies online for download and the only tv shows i've downloaded I did because the dvds weren't out yet.

i'll keep my BD, cds, and vinyl.

I think this is one of the reasons that BluRay will take off (I'd argue it already has). I, too, am one of those people who like to have a tangible product. I think there are still enough people out there, as well, who don't really want to mess with a computer but still want a good picture (I know, I know, there are few of those people left, but I still see them every week). I do think, however, that whenever BluRay reaches its end in some years down the road, then optical will be done and downloads will be in. This next generation is all about the downloads.

[WriteSimply]

There is nothing wrong with downloads so long as the hardware is easy to use, can be connected to your primary video display, and the high-speed internet infrastructure is available to 90% of the country.

Right now in most countries, even in the US, all three points are not up and running.


fuad

[ra1024]

I think the download service will take off but only for rentals. My newphew has a 360 and he says the movies start right away so there's no waiting to start watching and he hasn't had any problems with the stream stopping during playback.

Now that would be great for movie night at home but there's no way I would rather dl and save a film to my hd for a purchase. There's too much convenience you would have to sacrifice to go that route.

For a new technology to take off, it generally has to make things better for the masses to adopt it and change their ways. There is really no benefit to the dl service for people to make that choice. Dvds were a big improvement in quality over vhs, there was no rewinding, you could jump to points in the movie, you could freeze the picture without distortion, etc.. Once you used one, you never wanted to go back.

With movie downloads, you lose a lot of flexibility and I see no advantage that makes people want to use them in place of media. Now for rentals, there is a huge advantage since you don't have to drive or wait for the mail to come and there's no real downside. That's why I think the dl's will change the rental market but have no effect on the media market.

[HDJK]

Originally Posted by ra1024

With movie downloads, you lose a lot of flexibility and I see no advantage that makes people want to use them in place of media. Now for rentals, there is a huge advantage since you don't have to drive or wait for the mail to come and there's no real downside. That's why I think the dl's will change the rental market but have no effect on the media market.

I agree 100%

[The Big Blue]

How many Barnes and Nobels & Borders did you guys drive by on your way to work this morning?

[Jaren613]

Someone with hundreds of movies on their HDD will have it crash on them and then what?

[Solar Driftwood]

It's clear that legal downloads will continue to rise, but I'm sure that there will still be a large market for people who like to have a physical product. Additionally, however clever the compression algorithms are, I cannot see the time coming when it's possible to download an HD quality movie quickly.

I for one can't be bothered to download anything, so the day that everything goes over to a download-only delivery system is the day I'll decide to stick with what I have collected over the years.

[ProvenFlipper]

If anything, Downloads will become the niche market and optical media will still continue to florish.

There is still a sizeable amount of people that only surf the web and type documents on their computer, and would never even dream of d/l a movie to watch.

I still love turning around and seeing my collection of over 110 BD movies behind me. I wouldn't give up optical media for a d/l unless I was forced to. In order for me to even think about a d/l, it would have to be equal to, if not better than the BDs I currently enjoy.

That means AVC streams upwards of 20-30mbps, LPCM sound and a shorter download than the drive to the store to pick up the movie.

Then we run into the issue of what if my HDD crashes? Or if I want to take a movie to a friends house? What if I want to sell the movie when I'm done with it? I would probably only use d/ls for rentals.

[Chris Gerhard]

I don't know what is going to happen, but I continually read that downloads will be the lion's share of the market in a few years. I can't get the hang of downloading and just don't do it and don't have a PC connected to an HD display. I like the little shiny discs, whether CD, DVD-V, SACD, DVD-A, Blu-ray or HD DVD. I don't want to change to downloading to a hard drive, unless it is simple and safe with easy backup and recovery if I have a drive fail. I just don't get any of it yet.

Chris

[jorg]

Originally Posted by baccusboy

I just saw my first XVID download. No, it's not full-resolution 1080p. It isn't even 720p. It's a bit lower than that. I pipe it out of my computer via VGA into my 42" LCD TV, and it looks pretty darned good. The laptop sizes it perfectly, and it plays cleanly. No, it's not HD, but it looks better than a regular DVD. The audio is 5.1 (not the best out there, but still sounds very good). More than acceptable, and it filled out my entire screen (no black bars) Total size: under a few gig (half the size of a DVD).

Yeah, I know, I know you... it's not in high definition. Better quality is available by Bluray... but at what cost to the consumer?

Downloading of movies (and paying for them) has never been something I was interested in. I just head out and rent them. But for now, it's impossible for me to even rent Bluray (I live in Korea). I can buy a few titles (mostly imported) but they are expensive.

Korea has launched this:

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...703300031.html

I hear the quality is pretty good (I am anxious to see it for myself). The movies are coming out soon after they hit the theater (it says).

I have no idea what the cost is. Probably not a lot. Currently, there are pay services in Korea to download movies for as low as $1 per movie -- in an XVID-type format -- and they download in under 10 minutes.

This all makes me wonder.... will Bluray get a chance to really grab ahold of the consumer market? Will consumers be able to live with DVDs long enough (and because BR and HDDVD are too expensive to bother upgrading) until downloading takes over?

I'm curious about your thoughts? The average consumer is not always interested in the best quality... VHS beat Beta...

The XVID honestly looked good enough for me, and I was a TV producer. What will the average consumer choose, if they are faced with high BR and/or HDDVD costs for too long? Will downloading do an end-run around these formats? Will Apple TV, or a MS-compatible equivalent become hot before prices come down enough on BR/HDDVD to interest the average consumer?

It's already happening here... (possibly, if it looks good)

xvid i like to to stay away from becuase of what is says on there site and what it dose"Xvid removes information from video that is not important for human perception in order to achieve very high compression rates " kinda defeats the purpose of HD but is very handy for just watching the video but yes that is the problem with north amercia its so spread out and yes it is true Korea's cell phones are 2 years ahead

[AlexKx]

Jaren613 nailed it on the head. When everything crashes...and at some point most things will. You will be willing to loose everything that you have on film?! What the hell?! HELL NO! THAT'S why it is VITAL to have it in physical form so that you do not erase it or loose it in some way by accident. That's why they have it so that you can't accidentally record on discs anyway! This knowledge and information MUST get out to the media and masses so that people can be more accepting of Blu-Ray and not be mislead that it just won't be the next format. I would never dream of keeping anything on my hardrive as back-up that I seriously wanted for the long term. I would probably burn it or print it out whatever. So it's NOT just the "monkey with a shiney object" thing there is actual logic to it! Especially when the packaging will also have information about what all is contained in it and whatever artwork as well...I can't wait. Especially for the music industry to get going with this...

[Blu Tiger]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

Considering that most movie buyers like to collect movies...

Exactly, a download movie isn't really tangible. I like owning an actual movie disc in a case. Then you actually have something to show for your money. I'd stop collecting if the only way to purchase movies was by downloading them.

[KenThompson]

I had over 1200 songs on my last computer and it went bye bye. I paid. on average .99 per song. So thats a fair bit of green. Should have just bought the cds,I'd still have my music. I did not replace the music btw. Thats why I want the disc in my hands and not on a hard drive.

[GasCat]

Those who rent will like downloads, those who buy will not.