HDM Vs HD Downloads

[love blu or go home!]

Originally Posted by MotionBlurr

I rather have something physical to hold in my collection. Songs are only 5 mins long so I don'tmind having 1000s of those on my hard drive. But a 2 hour movie is worth having on a disc with box art.

Why? I have over 1000 DVD at home and I hate them they sit in three big storage cabinets. I have to keep them in alphabetical order or else I can't find the movie I want to watch and then I have to keep a log file of people who borrow movies. Then I have to make sure people being back then movie and then it being a disc it can get scratched... No for me I love my movie server.

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by love blu or go home!

Well you have some valid points, but your argument on being portable discs are not. I have a movie server at home and when I'm away all I need is a internet connection and I have access to all my movies, I want to see you pack 100's of disc when you go away. Now as time goes on and someday when I have a holographic hard drive on my laptop with 1PB of storage I will be able to store 15,000 blu-ray films on it with room to spare but by then I'm sure my grandkids will be like this looks like shit grandpa this blu-ray video is so blurry! sorry I rambled at the end. All I'm saying is downloadable movie are in our future like it or not.

So when you are away you must have internet access and you must download again.

Holographic hard drives are not of this generation. I think downloading films will be around (everyone already does this with YouTube) but I doubt that it will replace HDM for at least a generation, if ever.

[love blu or go home!]

Originally Posted by Kristin Simard

So when you are away you must have internet access and you must download again.

Holographic hard drives are not of this generation. I think downloading films will be around (everyone already does this with YouTube) but I doubt that it will replace HDM for at least a generation, if ever.

Yes I must have internet access, everything has a downside. Me I need a internet connection, you need a suitcase full of discs. also I don't download when I'm on the road I stream them in real time. Now if your saying a generation is what 10 years then I would have to agree with you downloadable HD movies will happen in the next ten years.

[Terjyn]

You don't need a suitcase full of discs. You just need a few. Learn to plan ahead.

I've still seen zero compelling reason why downloads would replace physical media and not just replace rentals.

Stories about traveling with thousands of movies available because you can re-download them are not remotely impressing me.

[Kristin Simard]

Originally Posted by love blu or go home!

I don't download when I'm on the road I stream them in real time.

OK, this answers the argument. I assume you are currently talking about streaming DVD quality signals. Streaming has not replaced DM.

In the future it will be streaming HD. Streaming will not replace HDM.

No, I don't travel with suitcases full of DVD's/Blu-rays. I can usually rent wherever I go. Only my favorites & most obscure titles, and duplicate copies thereof come with me (I often buy 2 or 3 copies of my fav's). And not in cases, they are in a box about as thick as 3 VHS cassettes but not as long.

I must also add that my "travel" has meant moving about, living in places for 6 months to two years at a time, not just touring. Though I do have a home base, I can't imagine tapping into a home server for a full 6-months to two years especially if I have let the house out during that time. But that's just me.

[Kirsty_Mc]

I can see how appealing downloads may appear to be for travellers. Load the movies onto your hard drive and while you're away play them back without having to carry any discs around with you.

Nice Idea... Wont work!!! The downloads will be chock full of DRM like Microsofts WMV format.

So You'll download your Movie, set up your laptop in your hotel room and before playing you'll have to connect to the internet. OK (maybe) if you're in the same country, but if you're abroad it will see that the ISP you are routed by is foreign to the location where it was downloaded. So you'll have to pay again, or if a different distributor releases where you are now, you'll have to download it again.

Then again the download could be locked to a specific IP address combination, so it wouldn't work away from home... even worse. Maybe like Windows it will key on the hardware, so if you make any hardware change, you'll have to relicence (for a fee???).

Sounds fanciful.... Not at all. It has already happened. Terminator 2 was released on a WMV-HD disc in the US and had to connect to the internet for a licence. OK if you were on a US server, but in the UK it would not play. Initially people used proxy servers, but Microsoft blocked these leaving the title useless anywhere but the USA

Wonder why there is an Ethernet port on HD-DVD players??? If it had become dominant I suspect that this nasty little piece of technology would be implemented fairly quickly.

Another reason for HD-DVD to Die