Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Do you have a source? The infrastructure that would be required to be in place to support the entire US is no where near where it would need to be. Let's not forget there are still a lot of countries which don't and won't have the infrastructure in place thus they'll still need to have physical copies available. The end of this decade isn't very far away.

Are you serious!? We have 9 years and 9 months left until the decade ends. Compare todays tech to 2001, tell me there isn't room for another giant leap in the next 10 years.

I

Originally Posted by rdodolak

Having a capability like Kaleidescape is a cool idea but it's still way to expensive for the average person although this type of capability may become more standard and less costly as time goes on. Yes, I'd admit having your physical copies stored digitally is nice and convenient but I do think there is still a place for physical copies atleast for decades to come.

Not true at all. I'm buying a MediaHub this week that plays EVERY single file format imaginable (for videos, music, and photos), while also having many internet apps. It costs $200, I'm going to add a 2TB internal drive for $80. That's far more economical than a lot of blu-ray player on the market.

[ZoetMB]

Blu-ray probably will be the last physical media format for video (in spite of some people pushing for a higher-definition 4K format). But having said that, Blu-ray is just getting started. And as long as it's not declining, it will be around.

So there's no reason to rush and stock up on titles now for the "big hits", but if you're a collector of non-mainstream movies, that's another story, because if they don't sell well (and Blu-ray is still very much a hit-driven business), they will go out-of-print once the current edition is depleted.

Also, due to the tragedy in Japan, there may be a shortage of Blu-ray blanks once the replication plants run out of current inventory. So you could see a slowdown in the number of new titles released or shorter runs for each title until this situation is rectified.

In any case, Blu-ray has a greater chance of still being around in ten years than Best Buy does, although BB has announced a new, smaller-store strategy.

As for titles, J&R, an independent retailer in NYC, stocks about 4200 Blu-ray titles (and 61,000 DVD titles.) Barnes & Noble lists 4800 Blu-rays (and 66,000 DVD titles.) Amazon lists 12,500 Blu-ray titles (and 471,000 DVD titles), although I'm sure there's lots of redundancy and unavailable titles in there.

So there are plenty of places to get titles from aside from Best Buy, which IMO, is an inferior retailer providing virtually no value-add to the consumer whatsoever.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

Are you serious!? We have 9 years and 9 months left until the decade ends. Compare todays tech to 2001, tell me there isn't room for another giant leap in the next 10 years.

Upgrading existing infrastructure is not only extremely expensive but very time consuming. The US currently doesn't have the high speed bandwidth in place to support the majority of the population.

If it was really that easy you'd already see existing services such as cable companies upgrading all of their infrastructure with fiber optics by now. Nor will you find new services such as FIOS or U-verse available all over the country. Simple fact is these services are only available to a fraction of the country at the moment because of the reasons listed above.

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

Not true at all. I'm buying a MediaHub this week that plays EVERY single file format imaginable (for videos, music, and photos), while also having many internet apps. It costs $200, I'm going to add a 2TB internal drive for $80. That's far more economical than a lot of blu-ray player on the market.

I didn't mean to imply that Kaleidescape is the only option for streaming digital copies but it's a very neat and cool turnkey solution. There are plenty of DIY solutions but they're not the quickest or easiest method that will be required by the majority of the populace. If you want a new technology to take off then you'd need to make it as easy as possible ... and most aren't going to repurchase the physical media they currently own as digital copies. The other problem at the moment is how many movies can you fit on a single 2TB drive? Roughly 40 ... that won't cut it and it will be awhile before we see PB, EB, ZB, or YB drives.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

By the end of this decade, it will be gone.

I loved my physical media, but you have to admit...it's pretty cool owning a digital library on one hard drive/device. It's similar to having your entire music library on your iPod.

After buying over 150 blu-rays, I think I'm going to stop (unless it's a must own movie) and just start running everything through a Media Hub.

Since you brought up music, when will digital finally kill off the CD?

[iam1bearcat]

i'm all in for physical media and only physical media (although i do like digital copies), and physical media isn't going anywhere.

• think of how many jobs lost at stores like Best Buys, Targets and Wal-Marts. electronics departments would be barren except for tv's, laptops and other equipment.
  
• and has itunes and digital music (especially illegal downloads) killed off CD's? no. has it killed off CD SALES? yes. but there are still rows of CD's at my local Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart. and it was said YEARS ago that the internet and downloading would kick discs in the dirt. yet... they still make them. same thing will be said for blus / films. and it will take much longer to kill off than CD's.
  
• how many people will actually have access to speeds / download abilities of this caliber? probably not a whole lot. who will want to pay for this ability? not a whole lot. i know tons of people in their 40's and 50's who don't want to pay more than $30 a month for internet and cable and get basic everything. if they go the route of "download all" prices will rise because of bandwidth usage and people will refuse it, or simply will turn away from it.
  
• how many places still don't get a solid CELL PHONE signal? if they can't get that right after how many freakin' years, how quickly will solid internet speeds be for downloading / streaming over the entire world? not likely for a long time, if ever.
  
• i don't trust it. if my laptop or hard drive die, what happens then? then i have nothing. that sounds fun. and i'm not gonna buy a bunch of TB hard drives just to back up, re-back up, and re-re-back up my stuff so i feel secure. i want something ON MY SHELF that i can pick up and hold. not something that just floats around my laptop in a file.

just my thoughts

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

The other problem at the moment is how many movies can you fit on a single 2TB drive? Roughly 20 ... that won't cut it and it will be awhile before we see PB, EB, ZB, or YB drives.

This is how I know you have no idea what you're talking about. A good 1080 rip can range anywhere from 4GBs, to 15GBs. For simplicity, let's say the average 1080p file is 10GBs....that's 200 movies on a 2TB drive.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by Rob71

Since you brought up music, when will digital finally kill off the CD?

CDs are around, but that format is dead. Vinyls are still produced, but that's a niche market.

[AKORIS]

[*]i don't trust it. if my laptop or hard drive die, what happens then? then i have nothing. that sounds fun. and i'm not gonna buy a bunch of TB hard drives just to back up, re-back up, and re-re-back up my stuff so i feel secure. i want something ON MY SHELF that i can pick up and hold. not something that just floats around my laptop in a file.[/LIST]
just my thoughts

[/QUOTE]

I sooo agree with that!! Couldn't have said it better

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

CDs are around, but that format is dead. Vinyls are still produced, but that's a niche market.

Before making comments like this, please do some research.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

[*]i don't trust it. if my laptop or hard drive die, what happens then? then i have nothing. that sounds fun. and i'm not gonna buy a bunch of TB hard drives just to back up, re-back up, and re-re-back up my stuff so i feel secure. i want something ON MY SHELF that i can pick up and hold. not something that just floats around my laptop in a file.[/LIST]

A hard drive is no different than owning a blu-ray. The difference is that (like you said) you can easily clone your drive. A 2TB drive costs $80 right now, storage is only going to get bigger, and prices are only going to go lower. I'd rather pay $80 to back up 200 movies, than spend $20 on one blu-ray.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by Rob71

Before making comments like this, please do some research.

What are you going on about? Where the hell are your sources that say otherwise?

[iam1bearcat]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

This is how I know you have no idea what you're talking about. A good 1080 rip can range anywhere from 4GBs, to 15GBs. For simplicity, let's say the average 1080p file is 10GBs....that's 200 movies on a 2TB drive.

true.

but i just enjoy owning the actual film more than downloading it. i like looking at the artwork, and having a case for it and seeing my collection grow across my shelves as the months pass (for many reasons). it's not so much a hobby for me, but simply what i love. and going up and down the spines of my blus is more enjoyable than scrolling through a file that shows the covers. but that's probably not what everyone likes.

i can't tell you how many times i've bought an album on itunes that comes with a "digital booklet" and while looking through the booklet thought, "i wish i had just bought the damn album on disc. this booklet probably is amazing". so not about to make that mistake with films.

[mywhitenoise]

Originally Posted by iam1bearcat

true.

but i just enjoy owning the actual film more than downloading it. i like looking at the artwork, and having a case for it and seeing my collection grow across my shelves as the months pass (for many reasons). it's not so much a hobby for me, but simply what i love. and going up and down the spines of my blus is more enjoyable than scrolling through a file that shows the covers. but that's probably not what everyone likes.

i can't tell you how many times i've bought an album on itunes that comes with a "digital booklet" and while looking through the booklet thought, "i wish i had just bought the damn album on disc. this booklet probably is amazing". so not about to make that mistake with films.

I feel the same way too. However, there's a lot of new media hubs that make browsing through a library so much more elegant.

Look at the way this media hub organizes your library! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ippnPw-KMbI

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

A hard drive is no different than owning a blu-ray. The difference is that (like you said) you can easily clone your drive. A 2TB drive costs $80 right now, storage is only going to get bigger, and prices are only going to go lower. I'd rather pay $80 to back up 200 movies, than spend $20 on one blu-ray.

That doesn't make any sense. Unless, of course, the movies you have didn't cost you a dime.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

This is how I know you have no idea what you're talking about. A good 1080 rip can range anywhere from 4GBs, to 15GBs. For simplicity, let's say the average 1080p file is 10GBs....that's 200 movies on a 2TB drive.

Believe what you want to believe.

I said roughly to account for the worst case scenario of a 50GB BD disc. That doesn't mean that you can't fit more (or less) than 20 movies on a 2TB drive. Yes, I know not all discs are 50GB. Yes, I'm aware that some use 25GB discs and that movies don't occupy all of the available space. Extras, audio tracks, etc use up a portion of the available space.

If low res quality suits your needs. Where are you getting BD quality in a 4GB file? What are you giving up to go from 25-50GB to 4-10GB? Let me guess, you're d/l a rip of a BD that someone else made available online. If 4-10GB was good enough for BD they wouldn't have settled on the current 25-50GB technology.

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

A hard drive is no different than owning a blu-ray. The difference is that (like you said) you can easily clone your drive. A 2TB drive costs $80 right now, storage is only going to get bigger, and prices are only going to go lower. I'd rather pay $80 to back up 200 movies, than spend $20 on one blu-ray.

You can pay $80 for a hard drive but you still have to pay for those 200 movies. If you're not going to pay $20 for a single BD then would you even buy the digital copy? The studios are still going charge you that same $20 (theoretically) for a digital copy. Unless of course you're downloading those rips off of the internet for free.


Don't get me wrong ... I like that we have digital media as an option. I do think digital media is here to stay and will grow but I don't think it will kill off physical media. Instead it will co-exist with and complement physical media. As with any format or technology, digital media has it's pluses and minuses.

[Rob71]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

What are you going on about? Where the hell are your sources that say otherwise?

The following are a few artists CD Sales vs Their Digital Sales to date as of 12/27/09.

Lady GaGa - 2.3 mil overall :: 430k digitally

Taylor Swift - 5.3 mil overall :: 329k digitally

Jay-Z - 1.5 mil overall :: 300k digitally

Black Eyed Peas - 1.7 mil overall :: 298k digitally

Eminem - 1.7 mil overall :: 268k digitally

John Mayer - 666k overall :: 201k digitally

Kelly Clarkson - 810k overall :: 168k digitally

Pink - 1.5 mil overall :: 136k digitally

Paramore - 391k overall :: 114k digitally

Beyonce - 2.6 mil overall :: 100k digitally

Maxwell - 941k overall :: 88k digitally

Rihanna - 459k overall :: 82k digitally

Susan Boyle - 3 mil overall :: 81k digitally

Alicia Keys - 699k overall :: 73k digitally

Trey Songz - 423k overall :: 71k digitally

50 Cent - 334k overall :: 69k digitally

Justin Bieber - 676k overall :: 63k digitally

Mary J. Blige - 332k overall :: 30k digitally

Mariah Carey - 386k overall :: 41k digitally

Whitney Houston - 903k overall :: 81k digitally

I have no problem thinking that now, one year later the numbers may shift towards digital a bit, but all this doom and gloom talk about the end of physical media is just that. Talk. If a format that is tailor made for digital, music, can't kill off CD's in over a decade, what would be the evidence that physical discs would disappear for video. There is right now no ownership model for digital that even comes close to the ease of ownership of discs. Sorry, but banks of HDD's and Raid setups are not mass market friendly. And as of now, storing your films "in the cloud" sounds good on paper I guess, but before I put one dime into it, I'm going to need to see it in operation. Add to that the dismal broadband access rates in America, let alone the world and I don't see anyone interested in turning a profit not releasing on disc for decades, with an s.

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

By the end of this decade, it will be gone.

I loved my physical media, but you have to admit...it's pretty cool owning a digital library on one hard drive/device. It's similar to having your entire music library on your iPod.

After buying over 150 blu-rays, I think I'm going to stop (unless it's a must own movie) and just start running everything through a Media Hub.

Are people getting dumber or something? I should start storing some of these comments on my harddrive lol, so in 10 years time I can start a new thread to show the people who say such ridiculous things like "By the end of this decade, it will be gone." how wrong they were. How could anyone possibly think that digital will take over physical media in 10 years time. The people who think and say these things are always just thinking about their own backyard (where they live), but seem to forget about the rest of the world. I think anyone who makes such comments needs to do some research about other countries infrastructure before posting.

I live in Sydney Australia, and there is no chance in hell that we will ever be able to fully support digital downloading in 10 years time, 30 maybe, but even then it's kind of a stretch, unless our Government or ISP providers find away to give us ultra fast speeds wirelessly through the air to all area's of Australia, otherwise it just ain't going to happen. We have wireless now (which uses a 3G simcard) and it does the job, but it's not that fast, it's more for convenience so u can use your computer/internet where ever u want.

To get a fast connection u need a cable running into our house, our fastest speed is like America's lowest, and our current bandwidth isn't good enough to able to support a 100% digital downloading society. It's going to take a very long time before Australia gets to that point, new cables will need to be laid Australia wide (some rural area's currently still only have dial up available), that will take 15-20 years for a start and that's if they start today. Besides spending the money on making our network more efficient isn't a priority to our Government atm as the money can be used for better things, the speeds we currently have do just fine for everyday life, improving the nations internet network isn't important enough compared to other things, just so our population can download massive amounts of media. In our current predicament, it's just not possible for digital downloading to go anywhere, physical media is going to be needed for many years to come, I'm talking decades.

We also don't have netflix here either, we have a few companies that offer what netflix does on a lower scale (like our largest phone provider) but streaming or downloading movies from these companies often costs more than hiring or buying movies from stores, so there's no point as they don't offer much benefit. Though even if streaming or downloading was cheap here, I would still choose a physical blu-ray copy of any movie over downloading.

[KrugStillo]

OK let me just start this by saying I'm a collector and I love my movie collection, my poster collection, my collectable toy collection (yeah so what I'm a geek) and my CD collection. I want to turn my spare room into a mock 80's video rental store (the wife loves movies but is not ready for the Video Village yet) so I can browse my collection and get that high we use to get when you would just look at the covers and read the boxes for hours on end. Maybe I'm crazy but I know I'm not the only one who loves this stuff. Anyway on to my real purpose for this post. I have HD cable and a Comcast DVR which I enjoy, it's great for shows but if I unplug my box and move it I can't access my files. They are basically locked and I can't get to them. This is what digital download is heading for. If I lose my cable I lose my recordings. I would love to be able to output my files so I can burn them onto discs but I can't because it just won't let me. I can make lower grade copies with a DVD recorder but that's not full HD with digital sound. That is one of the many reasons I know digital downloading has a long way to go before the masses accept it as a permanent solution. I really don't think physical media will disappear, unless of course there is some crisis regarding the materials it's made of then that's a whole different story.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by danielsan4610

I'm 31 years old and I truly believe that the Blu-ray format will be the final piece of physical media I see in my lifetime.

I'm very old school when it comes to my media. I like a physical product. I want something tangible to look at, hold and have for display. Digital media doesn't excite me and I really don't just don't like the idea of the media I own being hosted on a server somewhere instead of in my possession.

That said, I know we are a dying breed. The majority of consumers don't care about having a physical product and are happy just paying their $1 at Redbox and dropping it off the next night.

So with the ending being nigh, should we stock up on Blu-ray? I have to say that it's really concerning to go into a Best Buy and see only 2 small rows for CDs, 3 for Blu-ray and maybe another 2 or 3 for DVD.

Sure digital technology will get better and broadband speeds will increase but again, I just can't get over having my media streamed to me and me not owning it.

So to end the rant, does anyone else feel this way? I think my goal now is to own every single movie I have ever enjoyed even slightly as a permanant archive on Blu-ray. It may be our last chance.

well for one, like you said CDs are still extremely easy to find and music DL make more sense and have been around for 10 years+. If DL could not kill CD why would anyone assume it can do that with movies any more easily.

I buy BD now because that is what works now, what ever the future holds ids immaterial. There is no use DL now since no one offers DL that compares in any way with BD (quality is not there, ease of use is not there, cost is not better then BD). Ih in the future DL or something else is better then BD, I will switch then to it.

Personaly I think all this DL is the future is a load of BS. Just because it is a simple fact that now and foreseeable future the internet would not be able to handle what is needed for this. Just look at Rob's thread, Netflix just decided to downgrade the quality because too many people are having issues.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by mywhitenoise

By the end of this decade, it will be gone.

hope you enjoy your flying car with it.

I loved my physical media, but you have to admit...it's pretty cool owning a digital library on one hard drive/device. It's similar to having your entire music library on your iPod.

no, because I want my movies all over the place, I want to be able to watch them in my HT or my BR or FR or bring them with me when I am out of my home (like this weekend when I was visiting friends in Toronto or the summer when I go to the cottage by the lake......)