No ceasefire in DVD format battle

[dialog_gvf]

No ceasefire in DVD format battle

Microsoft has sold more than 175,000 and says that they sold out as quickly as they were made.

Toshiba has said that it plans to sell more than 1.8m HD-DVD players in 2007.

Mr Majidimehr predicted that the lifespan of both formats would also be less than the current DVD format.

It has lasted 10 years with great success but Mr Majidimehr said the technology would be superseded by developments in online delivery of hi-def content.

Four delusions and a funeral.

Gary

[Chris Beveridge]

I have zero interest in online delivery. I rather like my packaging, booklets and associated toys that come with many anime releases. And the chipboard boxes too...

[theknub]

online delivery is great and all in theory but there are several problems. the most pressing to me is internet speed. no one has an internet connection fast enough to download a movie in a reasonable amount of time. kids on sunday: i want to watch cars! parents: ok, but not until wednesday, we have to download it. after that, throw in all the collectibles like chris mentioned and the pride we all take in showing off our collection. i have a friend who nicknamed me netflix, and i take it with a sense of pride

[Deane Johnson]

Internet download of movies seems like a terrible idea to me. How would it work?

I have 1700 titles in my library at the present time. I watch a movie almost every night. I pick what I'm in the mood for, watching some 3 or more times, some only once.

If I download it, how do I save it? Put it on a hard drive? Let's see, 1700+ movies and growing. I could leave the car outside and have a giant hard drive sitting in the middle of the garage.

What do I have to pay for the movie? Is that for one viewing, or more. Aren't downloaded movies easily pirated? Or are we going to download them into a special device that allows for 1 viewing and then it evaporates?

Download times of a standard DVD would be unacceptable, do they get more acceptable with High Def? I think not.

This all sounds related to DIVX to me and we know how that went over.

I think it's a dream of Microsoft that they somehow intend to cash in on. If Microsoft is involved, I'll pass.

[KenThompson]

I will always buy the movies. Like the packaging ,labels, the extras . Once you download your movies where do you keep them. Hard drives would fill up quickly and if you rip it to a dvd your right back to where we are now. So whats the point.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Chris Beveridge

I have zero interest in online delivery. I rather like my packaging, booklets and associated toys that come with many anime releases. And the chipboard boxes too...

There's a lot of people that feel as you and I do: When I pay money for something, I like to have something to show for it...literally.


https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...9952#post39952

^^ You can see the rest of my thoughts there.

[Blubaru]

When did M$$ sell 170k? More like 40k

M$$ couldn’t sell 170k in their wildest dreams.

[goodstuff]

Exactly. Didn't HD-DVD's own press release state 175,000 TOTAL units sold (including the 360 add-on and standalones)?

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by goodstuff

Exactly. Didn't HD-DVD's own press release state 175,000 TOTAL units sold (including the 360 add-on and standalones)?

That is what it says.

Gary

[MrVandelay]

Originally Posted by theknub

online delivery is great and all in theory but there are several problems. the most pressing to me is internet speed. no one has an internet connection fast enough to download a movie in a reasonable amount of time.

Actually Online Delivery of movies is quite possible when "internet 2" becomes available to main stream public. It has been out for about 10 years, but is limited to Higher education institutions and corporations (Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc..) for research.

The current speed records for Internet 2, is 2.98 terabytes of data across 30,000 kilometers of network over 45 minutes at an average rate of 8.80 gigabits per second. I think you could quite easily download your DVDs

see: http://www.internet2.edu/

[theknub]

Originally Posted by MrVandelay

Actually Online Delivery of movies is quite possible when "internet 2" becomes available to main stream public. It has been out for about 10 years, but is limited to Higher education institutions and corporations (Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc..) for research.

The current speed records for Internet 2, is 2.98 terabytes of data across 30,000 kilometers of network over 45 minutes at an average rate of 8.80 gigabits per second. I think you could quite easily download your DVDs

see: http://www.internet2.edu/

so when will that be in your typical home?

we'd be looking at what, ten years before mainstream? and even then it will be another five before "everyone" has access.

think about it, it is ten+ years now since DSL came out and you still see people PC commercials for dial up.

[MrVandelay]

Originally Posted by theknub

think about it, it is ten+ years now since DSL came out and you still see people PC commercials for dial up.

What can I say, they are late bloomers? I do think that the days for holding physical media in our grubby little hands is numbered, this includes Movies. look at what MP3s have done for music, and with the upcoming MP4, even more data can be stored. Side note: MP3s were developed years and years ago, but was shelved until hardware specs caught up. It might be away off, but it eventually will happen.

[theknub]

i certainly hope not. as has been discussed ad nauseum, we all like collecting our movies and displaying them. take that away from us, and there is a possibility that we'll stop buying movies.

[Shadowself]

For the sake of arguement assume...
You have PLENTY of storage in your home storage network (personal NAS or SAN).
You don't mind NOT having the physical media or the inserts or such.
You don't mind NOT having any of the "extras" that come with most movies these days.
The average data rate for the for the video and sound is 22 Mbps (including a great PQ for video and a great AQ for audio).
The average movie length in you "library" is (or will be) two hours.
That the movie can start playing as soon as it has buffered enough to complete playing before it is completed downloading.

How long do you have to wait to buffer?
(Some VERY QUICK "back of the envelope" calculations... precision not guaranteed, but you'll get the idea.)
If your home connection throughput is (Mbps)... then you need to wait (minutes)
1 ... 115
2 ... 110
3 ... 104
4 ... 99
5 ... 93
6 ... 88
7 ... 82
8 ... 77
9 ... 71
10 ... 66
11 ... 60
etc.

For most of us it takes well under an hour to go to the brick and morter store to get the physical disk (and all the other nicities it has with it).

Until average download speeds exceed 11 Mbps or so then I don't see downloading movies replacing buying Blu-ray disks.

And remember, even if your home line is rated at 10 Mbps you rarely get that full bandwidth for two or more hours continuously. You might only average 5 Mbps over those two hours which would significantly increase that buffering time. Also your buffering has to take into account this variability while it continues to download as you are watching it so you have to buffer more than the absolute minimum (or risk having the movie stop during a critical scene!).

Bottom line: I don't see online downloading replacing Blu-ray for the average household for at least 10 years or more.

[digital.view]

Originally Posted by Shadowself

Bottom line: I don't see online downloading replacing Blu-ray for the average household for at least 10 years or more.

Yep. There's also the issue of ownership. People like to own their collections. I really don't want digital downloads to become another PPV or stored on some set-top box -- untouchable.

No. I want to own my mpg4 vids and move them around on my computer. Just like mp3. I know the industry has got it in their heads that movies are to be protected like nuclear secrets. But I'm sorry. That has to end.

I'd gladly pay small fees to own my own digital collection. As long as it's mine after I pay for it and I get some fair use freedom. But as soon as the clamps come down and they force me to pay over and over. Nope! That's when I turn to the streets and revolt!

I agree w/you on the ten year time span. We're not ready for large movie downloads. Not yet. I still prefer owning a copy in my hand.

[Nismobeach]

In terms of privacy and online free speech, I wouldn't touch INET2 with a ten foot pole, but that's another topic entirely....

In theory online delivery COULD work, but for it to be successful both INET speed and HDD capacity would need to significantly increase for HD content. Basically multi gigabit INET and multi TB hard drives.

[Blue]

In Australia one the countries largest ISP's, Bigpond is already into the DVD delivery business. Yep you order your DVD on line and wait for the download into the letterbox at your front door via snail mail. In the distant future we may feel happy with all data being kept floating around the ether, but for the foreseeable future one bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. Can someone tell Microsoft they are too late, Google already owns the Internet.