HDM Vs HD Downloads

[john_nemesh]

Downloads are the future....NOT the present.

Currently only ONE provider is offering HD content with any consistancy, and that is Xbox Live Marketplace. Currently restricted to renting movies only, and space is so limited on the Xbox you wouldnt want to keep a large library anyway. Download times are generally very long with most people waiting up to 4 hours or longer to play the movie they downloaded. There are no "extras" or behind the scenes goodies to be had, and lastly, the picture and sound quality can not remotely compare to what Blu-Ray and even HD-DVD have to offer at up to 10 times the filesize!

If downloads are going to work, they need to be DRM free, copyable to ANY machine or device, which would also allow for backup or archiving. Especially important is the ability to store the movie on a server, then playback on any media device on the network. They need to be high quality, 30-50GB downloads...impractical now, but in 5 years you should be able to stream this stuff on a normal internet connection. They also should be burnable to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray STANDARD formats for easy playback on existing equipment.

I have no doubt that this is the way of the future, but with the backwards viewpoints of most studios, we will not see an implementation like this for some time to come.

Netflix at one point stated that the most efficient data delivery network in place for shuffling around 8GB of data was a DVD via the US Postal Service. The same holds true today for the 50GB discs, given the current state of our internet infrastructure.

While some people will gladly wait 5-10 years for all of this crud to sort itself out, I would like to OWN a physical copy of my favorite movies, in STUDIO MASTER quality with LOSSLESS audio. Right now, the best way to do this is buy a Blu-Ray disc. I will worry about the rest when I am in my 40s!

[hellmonkey]

DLing movies leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like licking a horses butt. y the hell would i want to DL a movie of poop quailty when i can go to blockbuster, rent, watch, return it, and get back home long before the DL even finishes.

im going to get some steak to make me feel better. maybe bacon wrapped.

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by john_nemesh

Downloads are the future....NOT the present.....
While some people will gladly wait 5-10 years for all of this crud to sort itself out, I would like to OWN a physical copy of my favorite movies, in STUDIO MASTER quality with LOSSLESS audio. Right now, the best way to do this is buy a Blu-Ray disc. I will worry about the rest when I am in my 40s!

It will take more than ten years for the technical infrastructure that would allow for high-def downloads to be available in every city, town, or village in every continent of the world (including Antarctica). Satellite transmission would help for sure, but still we're looking at a whole generation (30+years) from now at the very least.

[NJMetsFan]

I prefer the actual physical HDM. It makes it harder to take a movie to a friends house to watch. I won't have any restrictions on the playback of the movie that I want to watch. Just my 2 cents.

[cartier]

The whole download factor aside, what about storage. People will need servers in their home to accommodate the average families movie collection in HD. Then there is the whole portability issue. People like owning media and having portability.

[love blu or go home!]

Well like it or not downloading HD movies is coming, They could price it right there is no box, no art, no disc, no shipping, no middle man. And yes you would have to by a server that has some kind of raid, but so what I've had a raid array for about a year now with 600 movies on it. I'm sure there will be a movie server in over 10 million homes with in the next ten years.

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by love blu or go home!

I'm sure there will be a movie server in over 10 million homes with in the next ten years.

At those numbers, it will be a niche-market only.

[maximiza]

Are we really thinking reality? To have a have raid 50 server you would need a beefy power supplly and cooling for the room it is stored in. Do you know what the energy bill would be? Al Gore would have nightmares at the large size carbon footprint!!!

[w_tanoto]

HDM all the way. I would take HD DVD (even HD VMD) over HD download anytime.

[love blu or go home!]

Originally Posted by Kristin Simard

At those numbers, it will be a niche-market only.

You mean like blu-ray or hd dvd?

[statikcat]

Originally Posted by cartier

The whole download factor aside, what about storage. People will need servers in their home to accommodate the average families movie collection in HD. Then there is the whole portability issue. People like owning media and having portability.

Not only storage for the movies.. but a lot of people will want to back up all of their files as well. So double the space..

More importantly the average user is not going to want to setup some home media server to stream to their player (xbox, ps3, etc). That is not the easiest thing to do. Obviously internal drives on players will not be large enough for many movies.

You may be surprised that an 8gb HD video is not that bad looking. It does not look as good as a 25gb Blu-ray video (most are NOT 50gb as people are saying) but with the right technology it can be somewhat close. Especially if encoded to 8gb from the master and not an already compressed HD version. Anyway, I don't want 8gb videos to be the mainstream... but there are a number of 8gb movies I would buy for cheap that are not worth the $ on HDM.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by hellmonkey

DLing movies leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like licking a horses butt.

Quote of the day!

[love blu or go home!]

Originally Posted by maximiza

Are we really thinking reality? To have a have raid 50 server you would need a beefy power supplly and cooling for the room it is stored in. Do you know what the energy bill would be? Al Gore would have nightmares at the large size carbon footprint!!!

You mean the same al gore who has a 20 room mansion? The same al gore who's home consumes more energy in ONE month then the average American household in an entire year, that al gore? Yeah I'm sure he would have a nightmare if he saw my 600w raid array... LOL

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by love blu or go home!

You mean like blu-ray or hd dvd?

...in ten years?

[love blu or go home!]

Originally Posted by Kristin Simard

...in ten years?

what? no I mean now blu-ray and hd dvd are a niche-market just like dvd was a niche-market 10 years ago...

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by love blu or go home!

what? no I mean now blu-ray and hd dvd are a niche-market just like dvd was a niche-market 10 years ago...

What I mean is in ten years I think HDM will be beyond a test-market stage that it's in now (i.e testmarket until the format war is over). If downloads then are where HDM is now, then HDM will likely be the standard for a generation.

Beyond that, who knows? 30 years ago the subject for speculation was analog CRT televisions with 5000 scan lines, not digital LCD HDTVs, though the LCD technology was in its infancy (as was digital technology).

For now and in the near future, I think consumers will prefer hard media. I don't want to pay a corporation to download the same damn film every time move to a new location. (No, I don't want to pack a server everywhere I travel, either). I don't even see the necessity of being online if I want to view a film. Just put a disc into the player. Perhaps you could punch in a security code once you have "bought" a download and that could enable you to download in the next country you visit. But what an ordeal, not to mention the potential for abuse. Sure, you could burn-to-disc, but then why not buy a pre-recorded disc outright?

That's just IMO.

[partridge]

Just because a think-tank group of MS cronies say that downloads are the future does not mean that it will happen.

WE will decide how the future of movies, etc, unfolds. If we continue to buy physical discs then the studios will keep selling them, regardless of what MS would prefer them to do. Look at it this way; MS make NO money from sales of HD-DVD discs, but the DO make money every time someone downloads something from their Xbox marketplace. So is it any wonder they are predicting downloading as the future..? They are hardly likely to say "yeah, this download stuff is just a fad, discs are where it's at" No way! They want as many people as they can con to download content but never truly own it. It's precisely how they like to push their software; you licence it, you don't own it. So the money keeps rolling in.

Sony will eventually offer something similar on PS3, but even when they do I won't stop buying discs, or are Sony and MS going to release multi terrabyte hard drives to permanently store all these movies on, with a guaranteed replacement if the drive/console breaks? Can you imagine replacing a collection of 100 downloaded HD movies!!!! lol. This is just another MS wish list item. Some people will use it, but the masses will never be interested because it's not instant.

Now if they can set up a video on demand system, then maybe that will take off, but downloads? Nah.

Give me a disc I can hold in my hand any day! A disc isn't likely to fail for no apparent reason, but a hard drive... yikes!

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by partridge

Just because a think-tank group of MS cronies say that downloads are the future does not mean that it will happen.

WE will decide how the future of movies, etc, unfolds. If we continue to buy physical discs then the studios will keep selling them, regardless of what MS would prefer them to do. Look at it this way; MS make NO money from sales of HD-DVD discs, but the DO make money every time someone downloads something from their Xbox marketplace. So is it any wonder they are predicting downloading as the future..? They are hardly likely to say "yeah, this download stuff is just a fad, discs are where it's at" No way! They want as many people as they can con to download content but never truly own it. It's precisely how they like to push their software; you licence it, you don't own it. So the money keeps rolling in.

Sony will eventually offer something similar on PS3, but even when they do I won't stop buying discs, or are Sony and MS going to release multi terrabyte hard drives to permanently store all these movies on, with a guaranteed replacement if the drive/console breaks? Can you imagine replacing a collection of 100 downloaded HD movies!!!! lol. This is just another MS wish list item. Some people will use it, but the masses will never be interested because it's not instant.

Now if they can set up a video on demand system, then maybe that will take off, but downloads? Nah.

Give me a disc I can hold in my hand any day! A disc isn't likely to fail for no apparent reason, but a hard drive... yikes!

I still buy books. Who wants to download every time you want to read a novel or poetry. Downloads are great for reference, but not for literature. Likewise for films, IMO. (Sure, you could download a book and print-to-hardcopy, but that limits the design, construction and format of the book. It would be like the Burger King of publishing. I don't eat at Burger King or MacDonalds.)

[love blu or go home!]

Originally Posted by Kristin Simard

What I mean is in ten years I think HDM will be beyond a test-market stage that it's in now (i.e testmarket until the format war is over). If downloads then are where HDM is now, then HDM will likely be the standard for a generation.

Beyond that, who knows? 30 years ago the subject for speculation was analog CRT televisions with 5000 scan lines, not digital LCD HDTVs, though the LCD technology was in its infancy (as was digital technology).

For now and in the near future, I think consumers will prefer hard media. I don't want to pay a corporation to download the same damn film every time move to a new location. (No, I don't want to pack a server everywhere I travel, either). I don't even see the necessity of being online if I want to view a film. Just put a disc into the player. Perhaps you could punch in a security code once you have "bought" a download and that could enable you to download in the next country you visit. But what an ordeal, not to mention the potential for abuse. Sure, you could burn-to-disc, but then why not buy a pre-recorded disc outright?

That's just IMO.

Well you have some valid points, but your argument on being portable discs are not. I have a movie server at home and when I'm away all I need is a internet connection and I have access to all my movies, I want to see you pack 100's of disc when you go away. Now as time goes on and someday when I have a holographic hard drive on my laptop with 1PB of storage I will be able to store 15,000 blu-ray films on it with room to spare but by then I'm sure my grandkids will be like this looks like shit grandpa this blu-ray video is so blurry! sorry I rambled at the end. All I'm saying is downloadable movie are in our future like it or not.

[MotionBlurr]

I rather have something physical to hold in my collection. Songs are only 5 mins long so I don'tmind having 1000s of those on my hard drive. But a 2 hour movie is worth having on a disc with box art.