fundamental flaw in downloads as replacement of physical media

[blu2]

Originally Posted by zor

There are about a dozen reasons why downloads will not work. But here's one that I can expand on that people often talk about. Hard drive crashes. Digitally storing all one's movies on a single hard drive (or, for the most part, an array), introduces a single point of failure for your entire movie collection. You could have a backup hard drive assuming any DRM would allow it, but even then you would just be having two single points of failure. Whereas, with BDs -- say you have a collection of 100 films -- if a failure occurs, it will be for a single disc, 99% of your collection will be safe and you just need to repurchase that single movie.

There's lots of ways around this problem.

When you purchase a download, the provider allows you to re-download the same title again as needed, e.g. in the event of a failed drive, etc. I've purchased online music where the provider allows you to re-download the same song for example. As another example, Sony allows you to re-download a game you've previously purchased via the playstation network.

Ultimately purchased movies could also be on a network drive (VOD-like). Watch a movie from your cable provider HD-VOD and "purchase" the right to watch it as many more times as you like.

Why debate downloads? Blu Ray is not going anywhere and can co-exist with the download market. They are not mutually exclusive.

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by blu2

There's lots of ways around this problem.

When you purchase a download, the provider allows you to re-download the same title again as needed, e.g. in the event of a failed drive, etc. I've purchased online music where the provider allows you to re-download the same song for example. As another example, Sony allows you to re-download a game you've previously purchased via the playstation network.
Ultimately purchased movies could also be on a network drive (VOD-like). Watch a movie from your cable provider HD-VOD and "purchase" the right to watch it as many more times as you like.

Why debate downloads? Blu Ray is not going anywhere and can co-exist with the download market. They are not mutually exclusive.

iTunes doesn't.

[blu2]

Originally Posted by atomik kinder

iTunes doesn't.

But they could. Hence not a fundamental flaw.

There's lots of things wrong with how downloads are commonly implemented today - not all of them are technical barriers, just poor/immature implementations.

[zor]

Even allowing for redownloads does not eliminate fundamental flaw. First, I don't think any company will allow for unlimited redownloads. Second, even if they do, what happens if that company goes out of business! Third, even if they don't go out of business and somehow you just know they won't, what if your account gets hacked -- that is also a single point of failure. Instead of having it rest with a hd crash, it now rests with the security of your account. So at best it just adds one additional single pt of failure and with a backup (assuming you can make one) another additional one, for three total. All three could fail. Whereas with physical media, it is not possible for even 10% of a 400 movie collection to arbitrarily fail. For theft, you can get insurance whereas that doesn't exist for stolen/compromised accounts!

[Barnum]

Originally Posted by zor

Even allowing for redownloads does not eliminate fundamental flaw. First, I don't think any company will allow for unlimited redownloads. Second, even if they do, what happens if that company goes out of business! Third, even if they don't go out of business and somehow you just know they won't, what if your account gets hacked -- that is also a single point of failure. Instead of having it rest with a hd crash, it now rests with the security of your account. So at best it just adds one additional single pt of failure and with a backup (assuming you can make one) another additional one, for three total. All three could fail. Whereas with physical media, it is not possible for even 10% of a 400 movie collection to arbitrarily fail. For theft, you can get insurance whereas that doesn't exist for stolen/compromised accounts!

What about the dvd that you bought and is now out of print. You can't just run to store and buy it since it is out of print. Not a great comparison but still realistic.