Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[SpaceDog]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

like Valve's Steam does with PC gaming vs the needs of the many.

You are a bad person. That's what it said. And we weren't even testing for that....

[Doctorossi]

Uh oh, guys... were pushing Jeff dangerously close to 'Apple-Is-Evil-and-It's-All-Their-Fault'-land again. Time to back down a little.

[HeavyHitter]

Jeff,

Any likelyhood of Star Trek: The Motion Picture getting re-released next year as "remastered" or as "Director's Cut" to coincide with the next movie? I ask as I am considering ordering the current UK version since the movie is not sold individually in the U.S. and I'm not interesting in purchasing the movie boxset. On the other hand, I will wait it out if something seemingly will be released next year. Thanks.

[Jeff Kleist]

I would say there's a good possibility of that.

[cjamescook]

Originally Posted by SpaceDog

... eventually flash memory is going to be cheap enough with a high enough capacity that the home storage issue won't be part of the concern. ...

I would not bet the farm on that one yet. Flash memory has some hard semiconductor physics limits that it must overcome much sooner than later if it wants to continue to grow in capacity. Geometry shrinks that gave us faster and denser processor chips do not necessarily apply here.

[nathan_393]

All this talk about the death of Blu-ray - did anybody here read this week's sales chart? A quarter of disc-based film media was purchased on Blu! That's incredible.

Really, it only boosts Jeff and Bill's claims that the format will be here for a while. It's actually quite comforting.

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by nathan_393

All this talk about the death of Blu-ray - did anybody here read this week's sales chart? A quarter of disc-based film media was purchased on Blu! That's incredible.

Really, it only boosts Jeff and Bill's claims that the format will be here for a while. It's actually quite comforting.

Yeah, but I see that 7 out of the top 12 best selling BR titles were Hairy Potter movies. Is that good for the format?

[Jeff Kleist]

Yes, because it means there's a lot of new Blu-ray owners who are upgrading catalog titles.

People upgrading their catalog titles is a very good thing for Blu

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The big problem is that the cost of delivery is only going to go up and up, as the government is unlikely to enforce net neutrality the way they should. Bandwidth caps are only going down, and it's going to be a disaster

I agree that caps are going to go down (in a way) for now but eventualy they will move up. Iremeber when it was 56k dial up the same thing happened, some hogs where using it too much so the ISPs started putting more limits. What people tend to forget is that the net from an ISP perspective is like a highway, too many people on it and it jams up and it causes traffic and then the people get road rage. It costs a lot to build more infrastructure so taht people can go the speed limit and it is easier to try and stop the people causing the problem then asking everyone to pay a lot more. Once more infrastructure exists then restrictions can be decreased.

Do you really think Comcast is going to allow NBC/Universal content on there, or do anything other than escalate their bandwidth war with Netflix when the current contract expires, especially in light of losing Hulu? Hells no. Netflix is the biggest threat they have to their core business and they want it dead.

don't know about that, but I agree in part, they (like every other studio) will demand more $$$$$ I already got into fights with Netflix fanboys because DL is cheap, they don't want to realize that , like a crack dealer, the first step is getting people hooked, the next step is charging.

The big picture on streaming is that there's a big war coming, and it's going to get very messy and annoying for probably a good 5 years before they settle down. Netflix will merge with someone big, count on it, and that someone big may even be Amazon to give them huge purchasing power. Whatever happens, I doubt it's going to be nearly as fun, or as quickly resolved when the guns stop firing as the format war, because there's far too many players and probably half a dozen sides that are going to be in that picture.

agree. My guess winner will be the “BD” equivalent of this war and not an “iTunes”. I don’t mean movies of BD quality or iTunes quality, but like BD a format made mostly by the involved participants (like the BDA) that is co-owned instead of an individual companies solution (like iTunes that is owned by apple) but my guess is that this war is probably several years away.

[Jeff Kleist]

agree. My guess winner will be the “BD” equivalent of this war and not an “iTunes”. I don’t mean movies of BD quality or iTunes quality, but like BD a format made mostly by the involved participants (like the BDA) that is co-owned instead of an individual companies solution (like iTunes that is owned by apple) but my guess is that this war is probably several years away.

UltraViolet is that Blu-Ray. It's owned by pretty much everyone in the business who isn't Disney and Apple, including many retail outlets.

I'm fully confident that they will cancel contracts with iTunes if necessary to choke them out and get them to fall into line. Apple thought they were buying Disney by selling them Pixar. They were wrong. Disney's just invested a pile of money in their own system that people need to justify spending, so they won't fall into line until more critical mass is achieved.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by jdc115

I think netflix raised the compression due to Canada starting to charge for bandwidth usage so they are trying to help those that stream in Canada.

close, nothing has changed in Canada, but because of a recent debate it brought some things to the forefront. The CRTC (kind of like the FCC) mandated years ago that network owners had to share the network with third party ISPs for "competition" and fixed the price as a % of their price. Living around Montreal the Telco is Bell, and cableco is Videotron I can use Bells phone network or Videotrons but use an other ISP. Years ago most network owners started using caps, but since the price was fixed for ISPs many did not (while others just had higher caps). This year the CRTC decided that caps should apply in the same way if I use the net provider or TPISP, and the net provider could charge the customer for going beyond the cap. But the government decided to send the CRTC back to the drawing board. So technically nothing has changed. But it also brought to the forefront the different network providers packages and their caps. For example with Bells basic high speed account the cap is at 25GB and has been that way for years. Now if you have a higher speed account then you have a higher cap as well but if someone is watching 2GB/h then that cap can be hit real fast and then you have extra expenses.

At some point the bandwidth will catch up but in places like the US that have a large area to cover, it may take a will.

agree, now imagine here in Canada which is bigger and the population is a small fraction of the US. (on the other hand we did do better on the Netflix report then you guys )

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

Why do people want movies at the compression levels Netflix uses? I don't know, but they do seem to.

afew yes, but if most people where happy with it then this would not be blu-ray.com but netflix.com Obviously streaming media is no where near as large as physical media or BD and it si not growing anywhere near as fast as BD.

Your analogy doesn't really work because while the cost of goods (the price of lumber to build a house) is tied to inflation, the quantity of lumber required to build the same house is not. And that's all I'm talking about. In 2015, the bit-budget required to compress Jurassic Park to Netflix levels will be the same (or, if anything, less, as compression schemes become more efficient) as it is today. Meanwhile, network infrastructure will keep lowering the per-bit price of that bandwidth for each customer.

I get what you are saying but you are missing my point. Many movies came out on DVD, right? the same movies are now on BD? the BD needs a lot more even if a movie is in AVC now and so it uses a more efficient codec. Why do you assume that if caps are gone, BW is higher that the guy watching Netflix @ .3GB/h will still find it acceptable instead of wanting 2GB/h (to use what Netflix offers now) or 4GB/h or 20GB/h to be closer to BD levels?

Netflix and what people accept as acceptable today is driven by the tech available today, the two are not independent.

[Jeff Kleist]

I will also say that the marketshare for Tron is VERY good for Blu-ray, and even better, very good for Tron 3

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by SpaceDog

My preference is going to be optical media for the forseeable future.

agree, honestly I don't have anything against DL I just want quality, If one day DL offers me better quality then what physical media has to offer then I will switch to DL. The same way I said good bye and good riddance to VHS and to DVD I will say to BD when its time comes because all that it is is a means to an end.

However, the rate of data storage increase does not prohibit the idea of a large format flash drive - or a bank of them. I don't think it will be soon and I don't think it will initially be cheap - but there will come a time.

bank maybe not but they get expensive. For single drives that would be extremely far away if ever.

While my collection is not accurately reflected here - I don't update it very often, and I frequently lose track of what I've added here and what I have not

I just meant like my collection, it is way off since I can't be bothered to enter it and there is someone else that only enters his steal books. My point was simply that if someone has 10 movies or 100 movies this is much more feasible then 1000 or 2000 movies.

You have to understand that I'm not arguing against blu-ray. Blu-ray is my prefered format - and I want to be able to engage in blu-ray purchasing versus any download/cloud/intangible format for as long as I possibly can.

I don't see it as BD related. In an other thread, I had the same discussion with Mr.P, he has a Kaleidascape with two Raid systems and a total of around 20 2TB drives, If the films are BD quality that is DL over the internet or directly taken off of the BDs the numbers don't change. It gets very big and very expensive very fast if you are a movie collector that buys every movie you want to watch instead of renting and on something more or less useless (at least in my opinion)


for me the issue with the original post was that it looked unreasonable. What I mean is that for a large collector, like I said before, 50TB or 100TB might be needed, let's even say 20TB or 10TB to be more reasonable. WE are very far from a solution like that being available and reasonably price Last year Foremay EC188 M-series model-V came out at 2TB SSD and it is more expensive then most peoples "HT's"

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

afew yes, but if most people where happy with it then this would not be blu-ray.com but netflix.com

You speak as if netflix.com weren't right next door. If you can escape the bounds of blu-ray.com for a minute, I think you'll find that more than "a few" people are pleased with offerings of the like of Netflix's.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

Why do you assume that if caps are gone, BW is higher that the guy watching Netflix @ .3GB/h will still find it acceptable instead of wanting 2GB/h (to use what Netflix offers now) or 4GB/h or 20GB/h to be closer to BD levels?

For the same reason he finds it acceptable today, while I do not. By and large, he does not discriminate as you or I do. Often, I would contend, he is none the wiser. For, in order to demand improvement, one must first be able to identify that improvement or, at the very least, profess an interest in experiencing that improvement. As much as it pains me to acknowledge, for many people, Netflix/iTunes/pick-your-streaming-service is "good enough" or even "perfect".

Furthermore, even if you are correct and the Netflix customer suddenly decides that presentation quality is paramount, my point still stands. At whichever quality level you draw the line, the amount of bits required to present a movie at that level is either constant or decreasing with time, while the amount of bits available over which to present it is increasing with time. Until humans find a way to increase their own audio-visual acuity, these capacity requirements will always come in absolute quantities.

Generally speaking, can you download 'a song' today faster than you could ten years ago? Yes. The same is true for 'a movie'. At any given quality level, it's a finite thing.

[MerrickG]

So Jeff,

I noticed your comment about Steam.

Do you think Steam is a BAD thing? I love steam because its DRM that doesnt feel like DRM.

More companies out there would be VERY wise to adopt Steam as its content protection.

PC gamers love it and they dont feel like they are being treated like criminals for legitamely owning the title.

As for faster internet. I have a 20Mbps connection in my house and that often doesn't feel fast enough to stream.

So yeah, streaming has a LONG way to go.

[Jeff Kleist]

Steam as a technology is not bad

Steam as the overlord of PC gaming, holding the entire industry by the balls is

Its also bad for the consumer when they refuse to provide basic service like phone support, and there are countless stories of them locking accounts which then make your games useless. My friend was stupid and used his paypal on his brothers account to buy a $5 game. Even after pp contacted Steam, it has been 6mo and they still refuse to unlock it. How is that right? Why should one lose the ability to play ones games over a billing error? Why should I have to spend 2 weeks fighting with their slow ass email support to play a game I paid for?

Valve should turn Steam over to a private company owned by everyone that will establish a proper support structure and just take a royalty.

Fat chance. It's how they can spend 8 years making mediocre junk and have people worship them for it

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Yes, because it means there's a lot of new Blu-ray owners who are upgrading catalog titles.

People upgrading their catalog titles is a very good thing for Blu

Another thing to consider is whether or not the most popular titles, in general, are selling well on BD. I think having Potter movies do well on BD qualifies as evidence for that.

[Jeff Kleist]

Those lucky individuals living in the LA area should run, not walk to buy tickets to one of the greatest rock bands on Earth. Given that they typically sell out 75,000 seat stadiums in seconds, this is a fantastic chance to see them in a comparably intimate venue. There's SanFran and Vancouver dates planned, but no New York yet

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/2C...1&minorcatid=1

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Fat chance. It's how they can spend 8 years making mediocre junk and have people worship them for it

Wow. Tell us how you REALLY feel!! I wasn't aware that people were having those kinds of problems with Steam. Whenever I wanted to purchase a game on steam for someone else, I would just buy it as a gift option.

As for mediocre junk, I actually don't completely disagree with you on this. I loved Half Life 2, but I never understood why it was considered the "best game ever" in so many circles when I had played other FPS that I enjoyed more and thought were better. In terms of cinematic quality, Uncharted and Mass Effect have both FAR surpassed HL2.

Its also weird how Valve has COMPLETELY flip-flopped on the PS3/360 preference. They now praise the PS3 and trash the 360. Hell even the 360 version of Portal 2 was graphically gimped compared to the PS3

See for yourself