Download or buy a disc?

[greekjgg]

Originally Posted by Slec

Itunes is popular for songs but this is a different animal. The bandwidth necessary for movies is 1000x larger than that of a single song, even with only basic sound applied (and that's STANDARD definition). There are larger infrastructure issues that would need to be addressed. Sometimes its logic, not hatred of a format type that drives reason....

I remember a time when it took half a day to download just one song!! Wasn't all that long ago either.

Remember, who would have thought 10 yrs ago all of our home pictures would be stored on our pc too?

[shatta]

i will continue to buy dics unless internet service is free at 1gbs ,,, can download a movie with it extras for less that $20..a refund if my computer sticks and my internet connection get cut off durin download/ snow storm etc..,,my computer got a remote,,a hard drive with the capacity of the total amount of bd disc i was planning to buy---and who would know etc etc etc

[greekjgg]

Originally Posted by Titan

That's one of the biggest draws to buying online, being able to buy just one song from a CD. That's also why video downloads cannot be directly compared to music downloads, it's ONE movie on a disc. Even you buy the CD when you like every song on it.

This will encourage more movie rentals then anything, but think of it like this for those that worry about backups. Your only limited by storage. At some point it will be a few dollars for a terabyte of space.

I pay $5 a month for unlimited backup through carbonite. I backup all my pics and all my music.

Heck, even SOny is getting into downloads with downloaded games!!

It's all media that is moving to the digital format!!

[Luis_A51]

Originally Posted by greekjgg

You guys who are against downloads crack me up!!

With the success of itunes, why would you think that this wouldn't be the next step for movies?

Yes, it's a better quality if you own the cd, but $.99 for one song versus $12.99 for a CD that has 2 songs that are listenable at best?

I buy CD's when its an artist that I'm interested in, otherwise I just dl the song from itunes.

The MAJORITY of people will NOT care that the quality isn't the same as blu!! Heck, MOST WON"T EVEN NOTICE.

Both will be an option just as CD's are still an option in retailers today.

There are vast differences between a CD and HDM. For starters songs are very small. And the quality doesnt matter much because you listen to them on an Ipod. Plus people like the ability to pick and choose individual songs from cds, since most cds only have a few good songs.

High def movies are supposed to be exactly that, high def. If "quality didnt matter" people would be fine with DVD (and thus things like PPV or VOD or PVR). These have been around for years, but people have shown that the lack of convenience/quality compared to dvd has made their impact minimal.

Like others have pointed out, downloadable HD content would be several times larger in file size than SD content. And to stream would require much larger bandwith. The internet is already close to its maximum at its current state, and without massive (and extremely expensive) overhauls to the infrastructure, HD downloads wont even be possible (on the scale expected by download proponents) . ALso the storage required for all these HD movies would be tremendous. Theres a reason why most VOD companies have extremely limited selections.

Many people still dont have high speed internet. Many people with "high speed" internet have terrible actual speeds. Theres also the very simple fact that people like showing off DVD collections, or lending them out to friends.

HD downloads will be around, but only in their current state (HD VOD etc). They didnt kill off DVD, and they wont kill off HDM.

[greekjgg]

Originally Posted by Luis_A51

Theres also the very simple fact that people like showing off DVD collections, or lending them out to friends.

People used to have photo albums on their book shelves too to show off their family, now we show our pictures on our pc. I would think family pics are more important than a "movie box"?

Online HD wasn't ready in time to impact dvds and it still won't be maximized for a few years but it's arrogant to think that eventually this won't be the way we rent and buy movies in the future. EVERY other type of media has gone online!!

[Gio]

BUY i only have 2 tb of hard drive space on my PC
and right now i have 85 BLU-Rays
ive ripped a BLU RAY to my hard drive for kicks eliminated all the BS (previews extras etc) and averaged about 25gb (19.2 for punisher)
but lets stay at 25gb X 85 movies = 2,125gb
average person has around 160gb of hard drive space
so what are you suppose to do watch once and delete, that would be like watching a BLU-Ray once and throwing it in the garbage

[The Don]

Originally Posted by greekjgg

I remember a time when it took half a day to download just one song!! Wasn't all that long ago either.

Remember, who would have thought 10 yrs ago all of our home pictures would be stored on our pc too?

yeah I remember the task it was just streaming stuff off the internet...

nowadays I cry when it buffers once...

[FruityOatyBar]

I'm all for digital downloads and I will be one of the first to jump on that bandwagon. BD can stay around as the premium technology for movies and I will buy movies on BD that I love so much that I simply must have the best presentation. I'd be happy with digital copies of most movies.

Personally, I'm much more in favor of digital rentals than owning digital files. Even better would be streaming of movies I've purchaed from a suplier. Why muck up my drive with the fiels? Just stream them them from the provider whenever I want to watch it.

The less physical media the better.

[greekjgg]

Originally Posted by Gio

BUY i only have 2 tb of hard drive space on my PC
and right now i have 85 BLU-Rays
ive ripped a BLU RAY to my hard drive for kicks eliminated all the BS (previews extras etc) and averaged about 25gb (19.2 for punisher)
but lets stay at 25gb X 85 movies = 2,125gb
average person has around 160gb of hard drive space
so what are you suppose to do watch once and delete, that would be like watching a BLU-Ray once and throwing it in the garbage

DUDE!!

Obviously there is some forsite to my predictions. I'm saying over the next 5 yrs, you will see downloadable hi def media compete with brick & mortar.

Heck, think back 5 yrs ago how much it cost for 2 tb's of storage? Now it's cheap, storage just keeps getting cheaper. Compression only gets better!!! WIll there be purists? SURE! THere are still people who play their records today and that will be some of you regarding hi def media, but the MASSES will adopt hi def downloads when they work out the kinks.

[Sonny]

I would rather be DEAD then try & have 381 Down loaded Blu-ray's on 'MULTIPLE' firkin Hard Drive's Oh ya........& M$ SUX!!!

[greekjgg]

Originally Posted by Sonny

I would rather be DEAD then try & have 381 Down loaded Blu-ray's on 'MULTIPLE' firkin Hard Drive's Oh ya........& M$ SUX!!!

The way of the future is personal home media servers. All your music, pics, movies will be on one server and can be accessed from anywhere in the home or world for that matter.

The rich people are already doing this in their homes now, the price just needs to continue to fall.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by photorebel

...
Assuming you can record the downloads, does anyone think it will hurt Blu-Ray in the future?
I would have to think the studios would not like this...download..and record, for $3.99 (approximate price)
....

Incredibly, MP3 did hurt the sale of CD's. However, songs are only several megabytes in size, not 4 to 9 GB like DVD, nor 30 to 50 gigabytes as with current HDM. Not to mention they were free - at first.

Ultimately, I think the compression and/or resolution used for downloading of movies will probably be half assed and not up to even HD DVD standards.

It's a loaded question to ask on this site. We OBVIOUSLY prefer the hard media. Do you really think the studios want to leave the security of BD+ to open up the possibility of pirating all over again?

In time with the right tools and know how, any lock can be defeated - including BD+. But why open the flood gates and invite the trout to swim upstream?

[AxlVanHagar]

The day I can no longer walk into a store and purcahse a CD or a BD/DVD will be the day I cease to be a consumer of those products. I want something tangible that sits upon my shelf until I'm ready to use it. Even now with downloads and such they always recomend you make a back up copy of it. If I'm still going to wind up with my download backed up onto some sort of storage device wether it be a disc or otherwise why download it at all?

Also isn't there some sort of a statistic regarding high speen internet access? Something like 60 % of people don't have it? I'm sure I've read that somewhere.

I don't download now nor do I see myself doing it anywhere in the forseeable future.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by greekjgg

The way of the future is personal home media servers. All your music, pics, movies will be on one server and can be accessed from anywhere in the home or world for that matter.

The rich people are already doing this in their homes now, the price just needs to continue to fall.

I'm not rich. My wife & I just dont have any kids . Like you said its all about the price , but I still dont want any part of DDL's maybe in a decade or so I will be up for it . Servers go down they crash etc etc etc

[tron3]

Originally Posted by AxlVanHagar

...

Also isn't there some sort of a statistic regarding high speen internet access? Something like 60 % of people don't have it? I'm sure I've read that somewhere. ....

Define "high speed". I bought into the 640k Verizon DSL. Though it seems to have a lost a lot of "steam" I'm not crying compared to what I tried to get done with dial-up.

It doesn't matter if God snapped his fingers and gave everyone one gigabit lines tomorrow. The traffic congestion would be the same. Because as you give more bandwidth, people use it, and tend to stuff it a little harder than they did under the slower bandwidth.

Downloading of movies will be a timeconsuming process for a long time to come. Streaming of HD media is another problem because can the host maintain many multiple HD streams simultaneously?

The red dragon needs to be slain this year, so that the Microsoft younglings sucking at the teet do not grow.

[Sonny]

Even with all the stuff I've got I dont have a computer at home , well my Ps3's & Broad Band work just fine for stuff like this & email crap, but now im eyeballing the new Mac's with BD drive/burner in them

[greekjgg]

Originally Posted by Sonny

Even with all the stuff I've got I dont have a computer at home

Sonny, it makes a lot of sense now why you don't support downloads!!!

[AxlVanHagar]

Originally Posted by tron3

The red dragon needs to be slain this year, so that the Microsoft younglings sucking at the teet do not grow.

LMAO! That quote is a keeper! I don't think you'll need to worry howver, all signs point to '08 being a Happy Blu Year! *tosses confetti*

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by greekjgg

Sonny, it makes a lot of sense now why you don't support downloads!!!

I had a sweet Panasonic lap-top the "Tough book 30" its name describes it to a 'T'

[Maxell]

I am so tired of the "downloads will take over media" crap that gets tossed around, especially with high-def. It hasn't happened with lower bandwidth music, and it's not going to take over video media anytime in the next decade or two.