Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Apple seldom misfires; they'll be fine either way.

Yeah tell that to people that have a opinion concerning Apple Arcade.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Yeah tell that to people that have a opinion concerning Apple Arcade.

I said Apple would be fine, not necessarily their "you're holding it wrong" customers. Remember that little debacle?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Ender14

Yeah, I have researched it before. Disc would be my first choice but if the unthinkable happened and they stopped manufacturing discs this is the only option that would offer comparable or better quality. That alone makes it worth considering in my opinion. Much better than compressed, lossy streams for new movies that may not get a disc release.

And Bill mentions in the article the ridiculous price point but pointed to Tesla vehicles as how the pricing could come down to mortal levels over the next few years. Right now I am definitely priced out of owning one and wouldn't have any interest as long as I can still get discs. But if digital does fully replace discs this is the only purchase option for movies I would consider.

I agree that from a virtual media solution it is the only one that compares to physical and the only one I would consider

But I disagree on the rest.

1) Lamborghini's are expensive because they can be, they are going after that market, the same with K it will never be for J6P

2) don't forget it will always be a much more expensive solution compared to physical even if priced similar. let's say B pays the same for a BD copy of Movie M as K that bought a digital copy, B does not need to pay anything for storage, K needs that 100GB drive for that file space, if it fills up the drive (eventually t it always does) K needs to buy more storage space which is not cheap per movie.


3)As long as everything works and all you want is to watch stuff things are awesome, but last time I checked you can't pack up a few films and bring them with you to watch somewhere else, if your machine dies It is a huge pain to rebuild your library,

4) if you buy films on disk that means taking the time to upload the disks and they need to be accessible by the system when you watch them

[Ender14]

Originally Posted by cpr3584

just checked and nothing is missing from my VUDU library. When fandango acquired vudu, the first thing in their email was that all Libraries were safe. I guess that didnt apply to users who got their movies illegally lol

I did the same and nothing is missing from mine either. Of course, the only thing in my account are digital copies I've redeemed so I see no reason they should be removed. But if they were I have the discs, so no loss for me. Just my family members that use it.

[Vilya]

Is it the weekend already? Anthony P is in the house; it must be then!

The smallest and most "affordable" stand alone Kaleidescape device is their Strato S movie player with just 6 TB of storage...and it is a bargain at $6000.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/kaleide...?skuId=6338590

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Yeah tell that to people that have a opinion concerning Apple Arcade.

I did the trial of Apple Arcade. I sent info to my kids about games they would like, I don’t think any of them every tried it at all.

I was excited about LAVA but it was not actually playable.

I also did the trial of news+ and no one liked that one either.

If they give a services bundle it’s because those services are not selling on their own.

I have a year trial of ATV+ and I havenT liked most of what I’ve watched from it. I would not renew it.


Edit by the way the place to see if this crackdown on instawatch affected you is the movies anywhere transaction history. Any lost titles show up as recent transactions. Only people who bought third party codes were affected but some of that was from official looking websites so people had no idea there was any wrongdoing. I have not lost any and my vudu has 864 moves.... I really don’t care if they all go away, I still use my iTunes library to share with my kids.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

When they do go under, and I bet they will as they have come close so many times, their customers will be screwed. They will be left with a bunch of unplayable downloads and the world's most expensive conventional hard drives.

Unless they brake it on purpose (there can always be SW updates) you are wrong.

You can still watch the movies you have purchased and previously DLed to your server even if you don't have an internet connection. So it should work even if they go under. Though if all you have is the digital version you won't be able to purchase and add new movies to your collection.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by bhampton

I did the trial of Apple Arcade. I sent info to my kids about games they would like, I don’t think any of them every tried it at all.

I already had a opinion but saw this article the day before
Apple Canceling Some Apple Arcade Game Contracts to Focus on Hit Games That Will Draw Subscribers - MacRumors 6/30/20

Apple earlier this year ended contracts with multiple game studios and let them know about its new approach to choosing games for the service. Some upcoming games Apple had planned to support didn't have a high enough level of "engagement" as Apple is now looking for games that will "keep users hooked."

So far, no *Apple Arcade* games have become major hits, and there's no word on how well *Apple Arcade* is doing. Some developers have speculated that Apple's strategy change indicates subscriber growth is weaker than expected, and Apple also recently began offering some people a second free trial month, which perhaps suggests that users aren't remaining subscribers for a long enough period of time.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Apple said that its vision has always been to try to "grow and evolve the *Apple Arcade* catalog" and that it has always planned to make changes to the game lineup based on feedback from subscribers.

This feedback hits the mark

The games on Apple arcade are so bland. It's mostly indie garbage. Apple need to get classic games into the mix. They need to get games that people know. Or they need to chase a few of the good developers that actually know how to make a game with good gameplay that is interesting beyond the first attempt and not a tonal piece. They need to get rid of the wistful, emotional, pastel coloured meandering crap that is basically every game on the service.

So you have intel based Macs and Apple can spend $127 million on one Will Smith movie to shore up their Moby Dick the great whale chase Apple TV + experiment but they can't enlist decent game developers. Bah!

PS also checked Vudu, nothing lost at all.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Vudu is removing instawatch titles from unlinked Walmart accounts.

These tended to be sold and traded very cheaply.

I wonder if Alchav had any losses and if the titles he lost were some of the fantastic looking ones

Thanks for caring, but I haven't lost anything in my Vudu Account. Instawatch was a favorite with some Disc Buyers, you would get your Digital Copy as soon as the sale went through. So you would still have the Code to use or sell, which was a very grey area. I might have used it once or twice, but I really didn't like it. My Collection is still all intact......No Problems!

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Is it the weekend already? Anthony P is in the house; it must be then!

with covid-19 who knows what day it is any more

but seriously it is a Holiday here take it as either (or both)
1) Canada day - July 1 1867 a bunch of guys got together signed an agreement 4 provinces came together and Canada was born

2) Moving day (in Quebec) - Many leases expire on July 1 so a lot of people move on this day
a) it is a first of the month
b) it is nice summer weather (nothing worst then moving in February or January where it can be in the -30s and a snow storm)
c) June 24 is also a holiday here in Quebec so you have a bit more free time to pack and move
d) my own little joke, it commemorates when the 4 provinces moved in together and made Canada
e) my oldest sister takes moving day as a personal insult so it is fun to bug her with it

[gotmule]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

I already had a opinion but saw this article the day before
Apple Canceling Some Apple Arcade Game Contracts to Focus on Hit Games That Will Draw Subscribers - MacRumors 6/30/20



This feedback hits the mark


So you have intel based Macs and Apple can spend $127 million on one Will Smith movie to shore up their Moby Dick the great whale chase Apple TV + experiment but they can't enlist decent game developers. Bah!

PS also checked Vudu, nothing lost at all.

Apple is transitioning to their own chips.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53142989

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

You can still watch the movies you have purchased and previously DLed to your server even if you don't have an internet connection. So it should work even if they go under. Though if all you have is the digital version you won't be able to purchase and add new movies to your collection.

Does Kaleidescape state this? If your purchased K server should crash and burn then you would still be SOL because you could not re-download your purchased content.

There was some computer guys that tried several methods to clone the HDD in the Sony FMP-X10 but they never succeeded. I would wager the same thing for the K HDD's.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by gotmule

Apple is transitioning to their own chips.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53142989

Actually there is a lot of misinformation concerning the ARM Mac mini DTK demonstration. Its for developers to test with. They have been running parallel efforts using other processors all the while. They been doing that as far back a Motorola processors, even with Jobs next computer using Next Step was tested on Intel and Motorola.

reference
Apple announces Mac transition to Apple silicon

Apple plans to ship the first Mac with Apple silicon by the end of the year and complete the transition in about two years. Apple will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come, and has exciting new Intel-based Macs in development. The transition to Apple silicon represents the biggest leap ever for the Mac.

The viability of Intel processor platform with business is not something that Apple wants to take chances with. I see nothing wrong with trying to make cheaper computer that could use a MacOS running on ARM to provide a less powerful laptop or desktop. Today they were discussing Unreleased iMac With 10-Core Comet Lake-S Chip and Radeon Pro 5300 GPU Shows Up in Geekbench.

I think Apple learned their lesson going from MOTO CISC to MOTO PPC to Intel CISC. They will not flip all their future for just ARM solutions, not a chance.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Actually there is a lot of misinformation concerning the ARM Mac mini DTK demonstration.

Don't have a need for a mini but I do find the ARM based Raspberry PI 4 interesting.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

Unless they brake it on purpose (there can always be SW updates) you are wrong.

You can still watch the movies you have purchased and previously DLed to your server even if you don't have an internet connection. So it should work even if they go under. Though if all you have is the digital version you won't be able to purchase and add new movies to your collection.

It is my understanding that you must own a proprietary Kaleidescape device in order to both download and play their content. Namely, you must own either a Strato S 6TB "Movie Player", a Strato S 12 TB "Movie Player", or their Terra 40 TB "Movie Server." You can not download their DRM infested content to anything else and be able to play it.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchp...=960&keys=keys

Whether or not content that has already been downloaded to one of the above three devices can be played without Kaleidescape's continued existence I am uncertain, but seeing as all three of these devices use conventional hard drives their lifespans are likely rather short.

Odds are that their customers would not have all of their movies downloaded, either, as it doesn't take long to use up 6 TB, 12 TB, or even 40 TB of storage space when you are talking about 4K disc and blu-ray size files. If Kaleidescape were to close, people would probably have lots of movies that they had purchased, but could not download all at one time due to storage space constraints and these titles would certainly disappear for good.

You can own multiples of their 3 devices, but at $6000, $9000, and $16,500 each respectively, how many devices do their typical customers own? I doubt very many. That $16,500 40 TB model wouldn't even make a dent in a collection the size of mine.

Kaleidescape requires a lot of money and a lot of faith that it will continue to exist and for a company that has teetered on the brink of financial ruin many times, it takes far more faith than I have to spend my money on such a scheme.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Don't have a need for a mini but I do find the ARM based Raspberry PI 4 interesting.

I was wondering about the OS assumed it was Linux, then I see Debian.

Yeah looks like good activity.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Thanks for caring, but I haven't lost anything in my Vudu Account. Instawatch was a favorite with some Disc Buyers, you would get your Digital Copy as soon as the sale went through. So you would still have the Code to use or sell, which was a very grey area. I might have used it once or twice, but I really didn't like it. My Collection is still all intact......No Problems!

There was nothing "grey" about it if a person read the terms governing those digital code inserts that came with their discs. These inserted code sheets explicitly say that they can not be sold or traded without the accompanying disc.

People ignored the terms then as they do now and this very website allows people to traffic in such codes despite the clearly stated prohibitions.

I'm glad that you didn't lose anything; I haven't, either, but I do not recall ever having dabbled in the instawatch stuff.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Does Kaleidescape state this? If your purchased K server should crash and burn then you would still be SOL because you could not re-download your purchased content.

There was some computer guys that tried several methods to clone the HDD in the Sony FMP-X10 but they never succeeded. I would wager the same thing for the K HDD's.

Originally Posted by Vilya

It is my understanding that you must own a proprietary Kaleidescape device in order to both download and play their content. Namely, you must own either a Strato S 6TB "Movie Player", a Strato S 12 TB "Movie Player", or their Terra 40 TB "Movie Server." You can not download their DRM infested content to anything else and be able to play it.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchp...=960&keys=keys

Whether or not content that has already been downloaded to one of the above three devices can be played without Kaleidescape's continued existence I am uncertain, but seeing as all three of these devices use conventional hard drives their lifespans are likely rather short.

Odds are that their customers would not have all of their movies downloaded, either, as it doesn't take long to use up 6 TB, 12 TB, or even 40 TB of storage space when you are talking about 4K disc and blu-ray size files. If Kaleidescape were to close, people would probably have lots of movies that they could not download due to storage space constraints and these titles would certainly disappear for good.

You can own multiples of their 3 devices, but at $6000, $9000, and $16,500 each respectively, how many devices do their typical customers own? I doubt very many. That $16,500 40 TB model wouldn't even make a dent in a collection the size of mine.

Kaleidescape requires a lot of money and a lot of faith that it will continue to exist and for a company that has teetered on the brink of financial ruin many times, it takes far more faith than I have to spend my money on such a scheme.

I know someone that has one and it worked when his internet was down but if you need more https://support.kaleidescape.com/art...g-requirements

If the Internet connection is unavailable for some period of time, the Kaleidescape System will continue to operate, giving you full access to your library, but new updates will not be received until the Internet connection is restored.

As for the rest I fully agree. If they go out of business I am guessing sooner or later you will lose everything (Just not immediately as was assumed), but let's be honest without being able to buy new content it will quickly become a hindrance.

IMHO the only value in K is that you can buy a(n over priced) player, put it in a room at the other end of the house from your collection and watch your movie without needing to go and get the disk from the other end of the house. But if 2years after they close you are in that room will you still have and use that player check if movie K is on K and if not go to an other server/ across the home to get the disk or will you just decide it is not worth it and consolidate to one solution that works.

[JohnAV]

Speaking of K - FIRST LOOK REVIEW KALEIDESCAPE STRATO S – THEATER QUALITY MOVIE DOWNLOAD SYSTEM AND HOME SERVER!

It was the comments below I found interesting compared to K's pitch about their highest picture quality argument with larger file size.

You are not likely to see a difference. Theaters can download movies in DCP format which allows a bit rate up to 250Mbit/sec for 4K while 4K UltraHD Blu Ray maxes out at 128Mbit/sec. Even at 250Mbit/sec, there is so much information in a single frame (1/24th or 1/30th of a second) at 10-bit color depth, that it has to be compressed, which both DCP and 4K Blu Ray masters do. The difference between 4K video compressed to play at 128Mbit/sec and 250Mbit/sec is virtually indistinguishable, and only on close inspection in limited situations.

If Kaleidescape were using DCP files there might be a very slight difference in quality, discernible only to dedicated pixel-peepers. But there is no indication that they are, so chances are your 4K Blu Ray disc is displaying the same quality. And it's a whole lot cheaper than Kaleidescape, even if you get a $1300 premium 4K Blu Ray player, which is a good idea if you want it get the best possible display from your Blu Ray disc.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

There was nothing "grey" about it if a person read the terms governing those digital code inserts that came with their discs.

Grabbed the first title I saw listed (Jaws) here and this what is printed:

CODE MAY BE REDEEMED ONLY BY THE RECIPIENT OF THIS PACKAGE. CODE MAY NOT BE TRANSFERRED OR SOLD SEPARATELY FROM THIS PACKAGE.

Looks very B&W to me, nothing gray about it.