Last physical format war?

[Damon Payne]

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/featu...ing-261290.php

This picture is funny, at least.

[dialog_gvf]

Wow, that's pretty cool. I'm guessing that is a real painting with the various banners modified.

The question of the "last physical war" would all depend on whether HD is the end of the road for resolution improvement.

I can guarantee that if someone wanted a physical format to exist, they can define resolutions and bit-rates that will always make downloads impractical for the mass market.

Looking back to CES 2007, LG demonstrated a 100GB Blu-ray disc and proposed it could be used for a 4Kx2K format. If people exclaim that 15GB downloads are impractical, I would guess they'd think 100-200GB downloads would be lunacy.

And considering the current piracy issues, there is something to be said about making the data impractical to download.

Gary

[Damon Payne]

I happen to agree, considering how many days/weeks it would take to download high bitrate content, and then what about storage? When its faster to wait days for netflix to mail you a disc than download, that should tell you something.

[HDViewer]

Nice photoshop work. The Microsoft banner is a hoot, albeit presumptuous.

If by "last physical format" you mean the last optical format war then this would be true as it has been stated that blu-ray will be the last optical technology and the next storage format will be micro-holograms embedded in plastic cubes or whatever they are...

Looking back to CES 2007, LG demonstrated a 100GB Blu-ray disc and proposed it could be used for a 4Kx2K format. If people exclaim that 15GB downloads are impractical, I would guess they'd think 100-200GB downloads would be lunacy.

Movie downloads have been discussed years ago. This is nothing new, in fact, Disney tried it unsuccessfully as well. Download speeds in the U.S. are pathetic compared to bitrates in Japan and some of the rest of the world. Give me a 25mbps d/l anyday but it won't happen here anytime soon and the thing stopping it is the Net Neutrality issue. Until we get faster bitrates, downloading is a waste of time. And after that you have to consider centralizing content, which nobody likes unless you're the one benefiting.

Its looking like portable storage is the way to go.

[jbuttler007]

There will never be an end of any war. Can anyone challenge that statement?

[HDViewer]

Originally Posted by jbuttler007

There will never be an end of any war. Can anyone challenge that statement?

What kind of statement is this? It's almost like you are baiting for a specific response.

If 2 competing technologies were fighting in a war and one was declared obsolete, the superior technology would be victorious or survive. The superior technology would indeed win that war. Thus ending that war.

Let's try to keep the discussion to the subject at hand.

[DrinkMore]

Best comment on that page. Sums it up nicely!





L. M. Lloyd says:

I just don't know how anyone who puts more than a couple minutes of thought into it can be gullible enough to buy the currently hip idea that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are going to be the last physical formats ever.

Yes, I know it is a popular talking point, but it also happens to be an insane, and rather idiotic one. Downloadable content has its uses, and its place, but it is never going to completely replace physical media. People like having something to hold and take home when they spend their money. They like having a shelf full of titles to show off and thumb through. People want that physical media, and no amount of hip Business 2.0 techno-utopianism is going to change that.

Just look at the publishing world for proof of this. People could spend the rest of their lives reading nothing but web pages, but they still go to the store and buy physical books. They could buy e-texts that they read on their phone or PDA, that has been an option for years now, but most of them go and buy the actual book, because they want to hold the physical product in their hands, and put it up on the shelf when they are done so that people can see they read it.

Hell, people still buy vinyl records! The physical format isn't going anywhere. There is a reason that Apple, Microsoft, Unbox, and all the others are still trailing Netflix, and that is because everyone but the hardcore geeks would rather slip a disk in a player and watch it, than wait for a title to download to their computer, then share it over their network, then stream it to a set top box, then watch it on their TV before it times out. If you like a physical disk, you can take it over to a friend's house and watch it with them, you can loan it to someone who wants to see it, you can watch it again two days later with the whole family without worrying about it expiring, and you can stick it on a shelf and forget about it for years then come back to it without wondering if you properly backed it up when you bought your new computer.

No, there will be plenty of other formats after Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Eventually online distribution will find its niche, and the "everything has to be online and downloadable" fad will die down, and people will just feel silly for ever thinking that downloadable content would kill off physical media.

[NARMAK]

You guys ever consider that optical disk formats and digital storage like HDDs go hand in hand.

When you want to back up most of your stuff, it was done on disk and now it is done to external HDDs but people still try to store on disks. DL speeds are nowhere near fast enough to easily deliver HD movies, DVDs can now be DL in hours and HD movies practically would take ages, speed would eventually catch up but what then, we'll probably end up with an even higher resolution on blu-ray or the next optical format they create like those terabyte disks they're thinking of creating.

[Trebar]

There will never be an end to media wars. Companies will see sales drop and come out with a new product to generate more interest. 3D movies, digital theaters, IMAX are all products of this. TI, the company I work for has a new DLP chip that will go into projectors in about six months that will support 2k x 1k resolution for smaller theaters and will be a lot cheaper than the 2nd generation currently out. It's aimed at spreading the DLP theaters into smaller markets.

Currently TI is working with several film companies including Disney and Lucasfilm to test a new format that will raise the frame rate on future completely digital films to 48 fps and raise the resolution to 3k x 1.5k. With removeable media storage it can be shipped or at T1 speeds the theater would download the films to the computers running the projectors overnight. The specs are still being worked out but it's mostly Lucas that's pushing this...something about not liking the blockiness of text on the current DLP projectors and getting the full capability from the cameras he is working on.

Anyway, that is at least two years out and the technology has yet to be proven to put 4 million + mirrors on a chip yet. However, you can imagine that demand for a home theater with the same capability might be on a few peoples wish list around 2010. At least I hope so for our stocks sake.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by DrinkMore

If you like a physical disk, you can take it over to a friend's house and watch it with them, you can loan it to someone who wants to see it, you can watch it again two days later with the whole family without worrying about it expiring, and you can stick it on a shelf and forget about it for years then come back to it without wondering if you properly backed it up when you bought your new computer.

The thing is, only a lack of vision stops physical copies of downloaded material.

Thinking seems to be one or the other (downloads or purchase discs) for movies. Yet, people burn CDs of their MP3s for the car all the time. The data can move in and out of the digital and physical worlds.

And since it could be downloaded to HDD and unlocked for viewing/burning at 12:00am on release day, getting a physical disc this way means always getting it, not hoping it arrives or is at your local B&M.

The incentive for the studios to offer it would be that each copy could be uniquelly fingerprinted to the buyer. The disc would play on any player, but if the content was illegally uploaded it would be traced back to the original buyer.

Yes, the cost of doing this TODAY would be prohibitive for HD discs. But, you can imagine it would be fairly cheap to implement for DVD now.

$50 dual layer burners. $1 for a printable DL disc. 50 cents for a case. Make it $7.50 for the movie, and you're looking at $9 for a new release on release day. I bet the studios don't make $7.50 a disc now.

Gary