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

[Jeff Kleist]

None of us think Blu-ray is going anywhere any time soon

[Blu-man08]

Hey Jeff, Bill, et al,

Any idea when we may get an announcement about what special features will be included in the Star Wars Saga BD set?

Thanx in advance.

[Jeff Kleist]

Comic-Con

[Blu-man08]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Comic-Con

That long...? Thanx again, Jeff.

[Slim Jim]

Jeff do you think that they will release the DC of Scream when the 4th one comes out on Blu-ray?

[Jeff Kleist]

All the Scream movies are coming. What form who knows

I'm quaking in my boots what Echo Bridge is going to do to the Prophecy when they finally get around to it

[radagast]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Hi, this is to any of the team. Do you think Bluray will last a long time? I love the format and am tired of reading about digital downloads making it obselete. Just wondered what you guys thought, thanks.

I'm tired of reading that too, and everytime I see an article like that, I respond to it and keep repeating the same things these pillocks never seem to think about:

1) I have yet to see any compression scheme used for downloads that doesn't produce artifacts from the severe compression used.

2) If everyone uses downloads, where is the bandwidth going to come from? Providers are already wanting to limit how much downloading can be done by customers. Do you think that will change if everyone downloads HD movies? That is especially a concern if the quality of the downloads goes up.

3) Where is everyone going to store their movies? Are they just going to keep buying more and more external hard drives?

The whole idea is ridiculous.

I suspect that most people bleating about HD downloads are bitter hd-dvd fanboys who still haven't gotten over their inferior format being euthanized.

[SpaceDog]

Originally Posted by radagast

I'm tired of reading that too, and everytime I see an article like that, I respond to it and keep repeating the same things these pillocks never seem to think about:

1) I have yet to see any compression scheme used for downloads that doesn't produce artifacts from the severe compression used.

2) If everyone uses downloads, where is the bandwidth going to come from? Providers are already wanting to limit how much downloading can be done by customers. Do you think that will change if everyone downloads HD movies? That is especially a concern if the quality of the downloads go up.

3) Where is everyone going to store their movies? Are they just going to keep buying more and more external hard drives?

The whole idea is ridiculous.

I suspect that most people bleating about HD downloads are bitter hd-dvd fanboys who still haven't gotten over their inferior format being euthanized.

While I largely agree with you - and I think the doomsayers are completely ridiculous - 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.

That said, I'm not comfortable with digital only/download only. As long as there is a physical option available, I'll be getting that.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

None of us think Blu-ray is going anywhere any time soon

Good to here, thanks guys.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by SpaceDog

While I largely agree with you - and I think the doomsayers are completely ridiculous - 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.

It also won't be part of the concern when it's not part of the equation (ie. before long, local storage will not be the access methodology).

[SpaceDog]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

It also won't be part of the concern when it's not part of the equation (ie. before long, local storage will not be the access methodology).

Unfortunately that gets back to the bandwidth issue. You are starting to see a variant on "the cloud" which is being positioned as "your local cloud".
http://iomega.com/about/prreleases/2...nal-cloud.html

...And it still doesn't get around the issue that I like boxes with movies in them and pretty cover art to keep on the wall.

[Steedeel]

Hi Radagast, good to hear you feel the same way! however, Hd downloads are not my only concern, some people seem to think regular dvd quality (not even that in my opinion) downloads could win the day because people could have loads of films stored on their hard drives and available instantly. This view confuses me because surely everyone is moving over to HD screens and would notice the difference on a screen size of 32 inches and above. This idea is somewhere along the lines of what happened to music with the inferior quality of mp3 winning the day due to convenience.

This scenario would be disastrous, but i believe there enough of us out there to keep bluray going for many years. Even when/if the day does arrive for Bluray, while the download brigade look for their latest film using some kind of interface on their hard disk and watching the latest pixelated crap fest, i will pick a bluray off my shelf (one of hundreds) and sit back and enjoy my vast library safe in the knowledge that the film has been preserved beautifully and will look great on my future setup. (oh and two bluray players just in case one packs up)

[SpaceDog]

There are plenty of people who think Netflix "HD" looks "as good as blu-ray". Now these people are not like you and I who know better - but for a ton of people CHEAP and CONVENIENT rule over QUALITY. The Walmartization of America, as it were.

I still think that even if everybody embraced the diminished quality "HD" Netflix streaming as their main access to films - you'd still run into bandwidth caps. ISPs do not like Netflix now - Imagine when the volume increases exponentially.

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by SpaceDog

I still think that even if everybody embraced the diminished quality "HD" Netflix streaming as their main access to films - you'd still run into bandwidth caps. ISPs do not like Netflix now - Imagine when the volume increases exponentially.

True, but network capacity/bandwidth are not standing still. Speeds will increase in the future, while the requirements of Netflix-level compression will not.

[Steedeel]

They should go to specsavers!

True Blu2!

[fitprod]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

All the Scream movies are coming. What form who knows

I'm quaking in my boots what Echo Bridge is going to do to the Prophecy when they finally get around to it

The Scream movies are coming again? The disc just got release three weeks ago with most of their supplements intact. (No extended cut on Scream, but it was only edited on video for the home video release... And I guess the supplements from the 4th disc are missing.)

As for Echo Bridge's release of Prophecy... Don't even bother thinking about it, you know it's going to be crap.

At least with Mill Creek, it looks like Disney is giving them semi-decent masters.

The idiots in charge of the Echo Bridge/Miramax deal wouldn't know decent if it hit them over the head.

fitprod

[Jeff Kleist]

The Scream movies are coming again? The disc just got release three weeks ago with most of their supplements intact. (No extended cut on Scream, but it was only edited on video for the home video release... And I guess the supplements from the 4th disc are missing.)

Well, amend that to "did come" then I'm not a fan so I didn't really track it.

As for Echo Bridge's release of Prophecy... Don't even bother thinking about it, you know it's going to be crap.

Well, they're pretty much going to use whatever is lying around. The good news is that Disney had actually done a new HD master of the movies within the last 5 years or so, so it might not be as horrible as other output. Anything is better at this point than the non-anamorphic laserdisc rehash from an over 15 year old master that the DVD is

At least with Mill Creek, it looks like Disney is giving them semi-decent masters.

There's a lot of Anchor Bay refugees over at Mill Creek. It may be a bargain label, but the people behind it are good.

It's really too bad that Shout Factory didn't get the Miramax genre library, they would have done great things

[Jeff Kleist]

I'd like to wish everyone a happy SkyNet revised (Sarah Connor Chronicles) activation day, and hope we'll all enjoy the fireworks come Judgement Day on Thursday

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I'd like to wish everyone a happy SkyNet revised (Sarah Connor Chronicles) activation day, and hope we'll all enjoy the fireworks come Judgement Day on Thursday

I appreciate good hints of good things to come!

[mark antony]

Hi Jeff, did you see my question ^ about millennium?