I could make digital downloads work.

[jsteinhauer]

You need to have the right model. An you can't rely on streaming. Streaming will never work. AND, I won't argue that it could replace optical media. Some individuals get too much satisfaction from the activity of visiting the movie section of the store or the rental shop. That part of human nature can't be eliminated. For instance, Amazon.com is highly successful, but millions still enjoy a Saturday afternoon at the mall, socializing, trying on clothes and shoes and having lunch.

There are some important features of a successful model.

First, you have to allow the end use to make a single hard copy, if so desired. You would otherwise have to have a tremendous amount of storage with full reliability. One of the media servers in the recent Home Theater issue does automatic backups if a drive fails. This is an option.

Second, it's got to be full 1080p/24 with lossless audio. And before you get all in a bunch about how it would take many hours to download the whole thing, there is a way to make this okay. Like I said, for those who want to go to the store, buy a disk, take it home and play it, this won't satisfy your needs. But for those who order them from Amazon, it will.

The release of Movie A for home viewing is announced three months in advance, and goes on sale for preorder. If you want it on the release date, it's going to cost a premium, like it does now. The provider than has three months to stream the content to your hardware, in the background, off peak, whatever, in a slow or piecemeal way, with the guarantee that it will be available for play on the release date. Bandwidth is no longer an issue with this model.

If you buy a catalog title, since there is lower demand, it shouldn't take as long to download, say two days (in the offpeak hours). Similar amount of time as it takes to have one shipped.

It could also include options to download only 2.0 audio, 5.1 audio, 720p video, for lower prices or faster rates, to match your equipment.

Why won't this work?

[Sussudio]

OP, i'm completely not intending this to come off as rude or demeaning just stating my .02, but this is a bluray forum and discussions about why something else will (likely not) replace it or what's coming after it are generally frowned upon. bluray is what's here and what's now and that's that. as for taking 2 days to download a movie equal to shipping time for ordering a tangible copy, keep in mind not everyone orders online. a great many people, likely the majority, buy in stores where they can have a tangible copy of the movie immediately.

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by Sussudio

OP, i'm completely not intending this to come off as rude or demeaning just stating my .02, but this is a bluray forum and discussions about why something else will (likely not) replace it or what's coming after it are generally frowned upon. bluray is what's here and what's now and that's that. as for taking 2 days to download a movie equal to shipping time for ordering a tangible copy, keep in mind not everyone orders online. a great many people, likely the majority, buy in stores where they can have a tangible copy of the movie immediately.

You clearly didn't read my post.

Mods, I apologize for putting the thread in the wrong forum. That point I concede. Move it please.

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

You clearly didn't read my post.

Mods, I apologize for putting the thread in the wrong forum. That point I concede. Move it please.

i may have misinterpreted it, i'm going to reread it now.

edit: read it again. are you trying to explain how DD could work alongside bluray (i took note that you're not trying to argue DD over bluray)? i'm not 100% understanding your point, sry

[Sonny]

That sounds good in theory, but so did SUC to Toshiba... & allll day long downloads. If you'd rather DL your films than have a Blu copy, that's your 'biz'. The members on this site enjoy BD. It sounds like you should be using those big thinking skills working for apple/M$....

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

You need to have the right model. An you can't rely on streaming. Streaming will never work. AND, I won't argue that it could replace optical media. Some individuals get too much satisfaction from the activity of visiting the movie section of the store or the rental shop. That part of human nature can't be eliminated. For instance, Amazon.com is highly successful, but millions still enjoy a Saturday afternoon at the mall, socializing, trying on clothes and shoes and having lunch.

There are some important features of a successful model.

First, you have to allow the end use to make a single hard copy, if so desired. You would otherwise have to have a tremendous amount of storage with full reliability. One of the media servers in the recent Home Theater issue does automatic backups if a drive fails. This is an option.

Second, it's got to be full 1080p/24 with lossless audio. And before you get all in a bunch about how it would take many hours to download the whole thing, there is a way to make this okay. Like I said, for those who want to go to the store, buy a disk, take it home and play it, this won't satisfy your needs. But for those who order them from Amazon, it will.

The release of Movie A for home viewing is announced three months in advance, and goes on sale for preorder. If you want it on the release date, it's going to cost a premium, like it does now. The provider than has three months to stream the content to your hardware, in the background, off peak, whatever, in a slow or piecemeal way, with the guarantee that it will be available for play on the release date. Bandwidth is no longer an issue with this model.

If you buy a catalog title, since there is lower demand, it shouldn't take as long to download, say two days (in the offpeak hours). Similar amount of time as it takes to have one shipped.

It could also include options to download only 2.0 audio, 5.1 audio, 720p video, for lower prices or faster rates, to match your equipment.

Why won't this work?

What if you decide, like you can do at Amazon, the last minute that you don't want to purchase the movie? It already downloaded to your machine, would you be able to reject it? I know once you start a movie On Demand on cable, you are stuck and you get charged.

Another thing I think most people are missing that for in order for this to really work, you need ONE system. Movies from VUDU don't work on Apple TV and movies from Apple won't work on VUDU. Can you use anything other than Unbox, or whatever it is to download movies from Amazon? Somehow I see this as all too complicated and once you go with one system, you will have no choice in who you buy your movies from. So it VUDU has something cheaper, can you price match on Apple TV? If you want to get the best price on your movie, you are going to want to shop around just like we all do now. Somehow, for just the not being able to shop around argument, I don't think downloads will ever become that popular.

[Forrestandjen07]

Originally Posted by Sussudio

OP, i'm completely not intending this to come off as rude or demeaning just stating my .02, but this is a bluray forum and discussions about why something else will (likely not) replace it or what's coming after it are generally frowned upon. \.

Thinking nothing well likley not replace blu ray is kind of silly

just my .02

[katharsis]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

You need to have the right model. An you can't rely on streaming. Streaming will never work. AND, I won't argue that it could replace optical media. Some individuals get too much satisfaction from the activity of visiting the movie section of the store or the rental shop. That part of human nature can't be eliminated. For instance, Amazon.com is highly successful, but millions still enjoy a Saturday afternoon at the mall, socializing, trying on clothes and shoes and having lunch.

There are some important features of a successful model.

First, you have to allow the end use to make a single hard copy, if so desired. You would otherwise have to have a tremendous amount of storage with full reliability. One of the media servers in the recent Home Theater issue does automatic backups if a drive fails. This is an option.

Second, it's got to be full 1080p/24 with lossless audio. And before you get all in a bunch about how it would take many hours to download the whole thing, there is a way to make this okay. Like I said, for those who want to go to the store, buy a disk, take it home and play it, this won't satisfy your needs. But for those who order them from Amazon, it will.

The release of Movie A for home viewing is announced three months in advance, and goes on sale for preorder. If you want it on the release date, it's going to cost a premium, like it does now. The provider than has three months to stream the content to your hardware, in the background, off peak, whatever, in a slow or piecemeal way, with the guarantee that it will be available for play on the release date. Bandwidth is no longer an issue with this model.

If you buy a catalog title, since there is lower demand, it shouldn't take as long to download, say two days (in the offpeak hours). Similar amount of time as it takes to have one shipped.

It could also include options to download only 2.0 audio, 5.1 audio, 720p video, for lower prices or faster rates, to match your equipment.

Why won't this work?

I just got a Roku player for netflix yesterday and this thing streams in 720p with 5.1 audio. Picture quality is excellent (for what it is). I tried a few TV shows and 2 movies, load time was 20sec for the tv shows and about a minute for the movies. I have a 8MB/1MB cable line. You can also set it to regular 16:9 or full screen streams. So I don't see a problem there.

The whole thing with VOD is that it is just a rental. If you would offer a hardcopy or the digital download to keep, this will definitely be more expensive, as the studio wants to make more money on it.

Then the whole download it first thing... I don't think too many people would want to wait, a day or two for a movie to finish. I might be in the mood to watch a certain movie right there and then, but when it finished downloading, I might not want to watch it any longer.

There are ways to get this downloaded a lot faster, if they can implement some kind of P2P system, where not only the company providing the VOD service is uploading to you alone, but where other users who want to watch the same movie are uploading/downloading/sharing with each other at the same time. This will speed things up a whole lot (see torrents).

Just my 2c...

[katharsis]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

You need to have the right model. An you can't rely on streaming. Streaming will never work. AND, I won't argue that it could replace optical media. Some individuals get too much satisfaction from the activity of visiting the movie section of the store or the rental shop. That part of human nature can't be eliminated. For instance, Amazon.com is highly successful, but millions still enjoy a Saturday afternoon at the mall, socializing, trying on clothes and shoes and having lunch.

There are some important features of a successful model.

First, you have to allow the end use to make a single hard copy, if so desired. You would otherwise have to have a tremendous amount of storage with full reliability. One of the media servers in the recent Home Theater issue does automatic backups if a drive fails. This is an option.

Second, it's got to be full 1080p/24 with lossless audio. And before you get all in a bunch about how it would take many hours to download the whole thing, there is a way to make this okay. Like I said, for those who want to go to the store, buy a disk, take it home and play it, this won't satisfy your needs. But for those who order them from Amazon, it will.

The release of Movie A for home viewing is announced three months in advance, and goes on sale for preorder. If you want it on the release date, it's going to cost a premium, like it does now. The provider than has three months to stream the content to your hardware, in the background, off peak, whatever, in a slow or piecemeal way, with the guarantee that it will be available for play on the release date. Bandwidth is no longer an issue with this model.

If you buy a catalog title, since there is lower demand, it shouldn't take as long to download, say two days (in the offpeak hours). Similar amount of time as it takes to have one shipped.

It could also include options to download only 2.0 audio, 5.1 audio, 720p video, for lower prices or faster rates, to match your equipment.

Why won't this work?

I just got a Roku player for netflix yesterday and this thing streams in 720p with 5.1 audio. Picture quality is excellent (for what it is). I tried a few TV shows and 2 movies, load time was 20sec for the tv shows and about a minute for the movies. I have a 8MB/1MB cable line. You can also set it to regular 16:9 or full screen streams. So I don't see a problem there.

The whole thing with VOD is that it is just a rental. If you would offer a hardcopy or the digital download to keep, this will definitely be more expensive, as the studio wants to make more money on it.

Then the whole download it first thing... I don't think too many people would want to wait, a day or two for a movie to finish. I might be in the mood to watch a certain movie right there and then, but when it finished downloading, I might not want to watch it any longer.

There are ways to get this downloaded a lot faster, if they can implement some kind of P2P system, where not only the company providing the VOD service is uploading to you alone, but where other users who want to watch the same movie are uploading/downloading/sharing with each other at the same time. This will speed things up significantly (see torrents).

Just my 2c...

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by katharsis

There are ways to get this downloaded a lot faster, if they can implement some kind of P2P system, where not only the company providing the VOD service is uploading to you alone, but where other users who want to watch the same movie are uploading/downloading/sharing with each other at the same time. This will speed things up significantly (see torrents).

Just my 2c...

There is one of them doing a P2P system already, I forget which one it was, there was a thread about it a while ago. They promise that it won't affect your internet capabilities that it adjusts based on use, but P2P is still a "bad word" amongst ISPs, and has a good chance of being throttled down by them.

[jsteinhauer]

It is something that would have be targeted mainly to the Rent by Mail and mail order purchase crowd, where waiting two days (or weeks for preorders) is the norm. It could be done in two ways. Cheaper without a license to make a hard copy (rent), more expensive with one (buy). Cheaper with an expiration date, more expensive with a further-out date, or no expiration. It doesn't even have to be via internet, it could be via satellite.

Just don't be so confident, that if appropriately marketed and modelled, this couldn't work profitably in a segment of the home cinema market.

How about a rent to own? A new release is ready to play, on the same date as the optical media release, on whatever hardware comes into play. After you watch it, you have the option of buying, for an appropriate cost, a license to burn a copy to an optical disk or save it on your hard drive. The cost would be cheaper of couse, than buying a new BD at the store, because so many steps are eliminated. This would be perfect for my viewing habits.

[Anthony P]

The issue is this, if it is not streaming then DL to watch later has no benefit over renting or buying from a B&M. If it is streaming then it needs to start real fast and so quality is impossible.

Yes, like you say with pre-orders someone could DL a month in advance and that could help with congestion (but if 10M people get the latest movie then that is still an extremely large amount of data). But are people that forward thinking? and you can't force everyone to start it a month (or more) earlier.

[Anthony P]

There is one of them doing a P2P system already, I forget which one it was, there was a thread about it a while ago. They promise that it won't affect your internet capabilities that it adjusts based on use, but P2P is still a "bad word" amongst ISPs, and has a good chance of being throttled down by them.

vudu

[jw]

i like the idea of having the 'hard' copy, I have had a Hard drive fail and lose tons of music(years ago in the days of Napster) so I i know how losing info sucks. I would never be a supporter for just that reason, especially for something I had to pay for. To date, I have never had a dvd or bluray disc fail (that wasnt damaged or scratched)

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

The issue is this, if it is not streaming then DL to watch later has no benefit over renting or buying from a B&M. If it is streaming then it needs to start real fast and so quality is impossible.

Yes, like you say with pre-orders someone could DL a month in advance and that could help with congestion (but if 10M people get the latest movie then that is still an extremely large amount of data). But are people that forward thinking? and you can't force everyone to start it a month (or more) earlier.

No benefit? You're Crazy!

Saves production costs and shipping costs. If you don't order in advance, go to the store and buy a copy for a higher price, if they still have it on the shelf.

[Anthony P]

Saves production costs and shipping costs. If you don't order in advance, go to the store and buy a copy for a higher price, if they still have it on the shelf.

I buy most of my movies in B&M, all you need to do is know where to buy. As for production and shipping, these don't benefit the consumer. The consumer is the one taht needs to buy. Then again who knows what benefits there are. Yes there is no shipping (well know the consumer pays it because he needs super expensive high speed broadband), but there needs to be server farms and the provider needs a hell of a lot of BW. You are just off setting costs when you look at all of them.