The bias against Blu-ray has turned into bias against HDM...

[S2K1]

I personally don't see discs going away anytime soon. Hard drives fail, bandwidth not enough, and backups are put on another hard drive that could fail. But here is MSN Money's take on the format war.

"The Blu-ray and HD-DVD folks can bicker all they want about whose next-generation format is going to win. Comcast and other companies are laying plans now that could make that battle irrelevant.

Comcast today announced "Project Infinity," a grandiose name for a plan to make 1,000 high-def movies and TV shows available each month by the end of this year. By 2009, Comcast wants to offer 6,000 movies on demand -- half in HD.

Comcast will also begin rolling out ultra-high-speed Internet that allegedly allows you to download a high-def copy of a movie like "Batman Begins" in four minutes. I say "allegedly" because downloads in real life never seem to happen as fast as promised.

Comcast has much to do before Project Infinity materializes. The company only has 300 videos in its current on-demand service and hasn't even begun approaching TV networks or movie studios about its new plans. But the company is smartly getting the technology in place first.

Netflix is also lining up on-demand offerings, and announced a deal with LG to develop a set-top box that will stream movies over the Internet to high-def TVs. Although the last thing we need is yet another set-top box, this idea has potential and could end the DVD-by-mail system that Netflix pioneered.

Microsoft has lined up with the HD-DVD camp, but Bill Gates recently said he thinks digital downloads are going to eclipse the Blu-ray/HD-DVD war. "I think the real competitor in the long run is digital download," he told Reuters. "Just like in music, it's going to be the biggest of the three."

The company is quickly expanding its library of high-definition video on demand through its Xbox Live online service.

Consumer electronics experts think that next-generation DVD is a "temporary format" anyway, according to the WSJ, that will only last until a superior technology takes root. They agree that online movie distribution will dominate in the future.

So the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps can go ahead and shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the allegiance of movie studios. Many consumers are wisely sitting out this war, waiting for the dust to settle before buying a high-def player. And in the end, they may find both formats unnecessary."

[Jeff®]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=30537

[Neo65]

Nothing lasts forever. Even life itself is a temporary condition.

[Corrupteddragon]

Eventually things will go the way of downloads because people are stupid. I prefer to have physical media in my hand, but Joe Schmoe wants ease and convenience.

[oldmike]

rember what the MS in MSN stands for and see this for what it is FUD

[mystiksuicide]

Like anybody cares what MSN thinks. Everyone knows they're a mouth piece for Microcrap.

[Innerloop]

I've had access to Comcast on-demand movies in HD for a while now, but rarely if ever watched any.

The selection of movies is pretty crappy, especially the free ones, its not stuff that are the "Crown jewels" of anyones collection. And of course there are no extras, the video quality is clearly well below broadcast standards (even though its technically HD still).

The only time I will start to get excited about on-demand HD movies is when the bandwidth available to deliver them EXCEEDS that of the physical media so they actually look BETTER than what I can get on a piece of plastic.

There was a time when cable-delivered movies were the best option out there, and I (like others) was desperate for a way to time-shift them to store them (witness D-VHS or RCA DTC-100 boxes with hacked ports, etc.). But that was all just until we had a decent high-bandwidth physical media.

Now that we do, cable/downloads are just playing catch-up. But there may come a time when they are willing to do 1920p downloads or something that may actually become interesting. But squeezing the movies further and further (yet still calling them HD) so they can fix more crap that isn't even interesting airing for free on TBD-HD isn't going to win ME over.

[cartier]

Sucks if you pay for it then ditch your content provider in favor of a different one. I don't think Comcast would let you take the movies you paid for to Verizon FiOS and vice versa.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by Corrupteddragon

Eventually things will go the way of downloads because people are stupid. I prefer to have physical media in my hand, but Joe Schmoe wants ease and convenience.

This is typical of MSN, since M$ is pushing downloads. It is funny how DD are now in the limelight, just after Blu-ray is considered a unanimous winner.

[jq71586]

I do believe they said they would have a certain number of channels broadcasting in HD by the end of 2007.

Guess what? They fell short.

[bryaaaant]

Yeah, from MSN Money. Propaganda anyone?

In my opinion, there are two types of movie consumers. One who rents and one who buys to collect. Which one do you think will conform to downloads?

[PLASMA-1080P-FULLHD]

Originally Posted by oldmike

rember what the MS in MSN stands for and see this for what it is FUD

+1 They just want download..lol

[pitabun]

DUDE THIS IS MSN, Its owned by Microsoft.

[spe]

http://ces.cnet.com/8301-13855_1-9845372-67.html

I, happy owner of a failed Seagate hard-drive, left my .02.
http://ces.cnet.com/8601-13855_1-984...=296859#296859

Heh.

Spe.

[RC-Bruin]

As popular as iTunes, the last time I checked CDs were still selling. The sound quality is still better on a CD.

All this HD Movie download stuff is at least 10yrs away. I can just see you're watching in a middle of movie and the router fails.

[The Don]

this article isn't at all biased...

you people are just paranoid!

[alain turgeon]

Read what Bill Gates says about this.
http://www.news.com/Its-all-about-so...ml?tag=st.next

[ikbradley]

Downloading will never take off - at least in terms of what studios envision it as. The studios will dip their toes only to realize that pirating HD downloadables will reduce their income streams to nothing. If that happens, watch the studios pull out. The code will be cracked within days.

What interest would a studio have in downloading. It certainly hasn't helped the music industry.

[cap213]

Originally Posted by ikbradley

Downloading will never take off - at least in terms of what studios envision it as. The studios will dip their toes only to realize that pirating HD downloadables will reduce their income streams to nothing. If that happens, watch the studios pull out. The code will be cracked within days.

I thought I heard a news report on the radio, and read an article in the paper recently saying that the Internet was not as "infinite" as people thought it was, and because of this bandwidth would become more expensive. So how could DD become popular if movies are gonna be, at least, 25 gigs.

[eat_me_cool]

Downloads will help phase out SD-DVD, people will watch poor quality downloads as a rental and buy Blu-ray to keep.

This is what Panasonic or Pioneer was saying today, can't find the link