Why downloadable music & movies are not comparable

[Blu-Ray Buckeye]

To all the people who say that downloads is a great model for buying music and therefore it will be for movies as well...

Your thoughts are misguided. Here's why music and movies are different animals regarding downloading:

1) Seeing trumps hearing: People download music despite the imperfect quality because people are visual creatures moreso than audio. Some people are audiophiles, but seeing the difference is a bigger deal than hearing it. It's just true.

2) Portability for music doesn't compromise quality as greatly as it does for movies: Music downloads are important because listening to music while on the go is far more critical & viable than watching a movie on the go on a tiny screen. People want their iPod for jogging, at the gym or while working or whatever. The consumer gets close to the same quality as the CD. However for movies the "on-to-go" experience is infinitely inferior.

3) People download hit singles... can they download individual movies scenes for a quarter?: Music downloads have taken off because people like to buy the singles for pop so they can avoid buying the full crappy CD. This is a nonfactor for movies where you obviously buy the entire thing. All these geniuses greatly underestimate this effect. I think it's a driving force in downloaded music.

4) Disposable content: Downloadable music is meant to be fairly disposable. You can pick up the latest big hit pop garbage single for under a buck and when you're sick of it who cares... it was meant to be disposable anyway. The same is not true of movies that people buy.

5) Infrastructure: The hardware & S/W backbone to even make mainstream HD movie downloading viable is at least 10+ years away, and that's being kind. I don't need to go into details on this.

[hardcore_canadian]

Rampant Piracy! Make Things EVEN easier!

[miokti]

downloaded music... specially MP3, are missing so much of their analog counterparts... a fresh LP has exponentially higher quality than and digital version of a song... the only reason why digital downloads of songs is so popular is because of portability and "sharing" which is frowned upon.

here's the thing... i listen to my ipod when i'm walking, working, jogging, etc. It is just background music in my life... This is not the case for movies. When I watch movies, I get my food ready, my drink, i fluff my couch pillows and I watch with my whole attention.

[yagami]

I have Road Runner Broadband which I think is fast, but not the fastest. I decided to download Bringing Down The House on my 360 and it took about 4 HOURS!!! to get to about 50% when me and my girl gave up and went to sleep. We did get to watch it the next day but the PQ was not even close to HD-DVD, let alone Blu-ray, and it did not even have a 5.1 track. I think the dl was about 4.5 gigs. If this is what HD downloads is going to be like, it will be no comp for Blu.

[Sylin]

You're spot-on with this, Buck-eye.

I've been following the development of downloadable media for many years, both audio and video, and have written articles on the subject as well.

It's so funny to hear naysayers rip on Blu-ray and HD-DVD by saying, "Next year, we'll all be downloading our movies anyways, so who wants to buy physical media anymore?"

The truth is that for any delivery method to succeed (whether it be physical or digital) you must have the proper packaging that allows it to be transferred safely, quickly, and cheaply. You cannot have just 1 or 2 of those 3 factors and expect it to succeed in the mass market. Imagine if every time UPS delivered something to your door, you only got 70% of your box, or it took 8 days to deliver something "overnight", or the box was so big it wouldn't fit through your doorway.

These are the problems plaguing movie downloads. Some cable services are starting to offer HD downloads, as well as Xbox Live, but just because it says "HD" doesn't mean the content isn't rife with artifacts, compression and a crappy audio track. I'm sorry, but if I want to watch a movie in hi-def, it damn well better be the highest quality PQ and AQ available. Anything else is an insult to me and the money I spent on my HDTV.

Nevermind the ridiculous time it takes to download said movie. Imagine trying to download 300 in 1080p with an HD audio track? It would take the average user 3-5 DAYS to complete it. My time is more valuable than that. (Music downloads succeed because it's near-instant gratification and loads of impulse buys. Not possible with movies. At the 36 hour mark, I'd be having some serious buyer's remorse!)

Then answer the question of where you would store it, because at those transfer speeds, no one is gonna want to download the same movie twice. If you had a 1.5 TB storage device, you could only have a library of around 30-50 movies, which it took you a collective 4-6 months of non-stop downloading to get. Do you think the average household has a Dell Blade or an Apple Xserve with a 2TB RAID just lying around? And if a drive fails... yikes.

Do I think downloaded media will eventually overtake physical media? Of course. But I (1) think that time is still at least a decade away, and (2) believe that physical media won't be 100% replaced, it'll just be less common. We've had streaming media online for over 10 years now, and it really hasn't improved at the same pace as other technologies, despite its prevalence.

[Kayne314]

Absolutely excellent post! Very well thought out. I totally agree, HD Downloads will not work in the near future.

I would like to also bring up the idea of Video on Demand services. I believe M$ is proposing a pay-per-play option in which no download is actually initiated. You merely view the content streamed to your computer or TV. Or for an extra fee M$ deactivates the DRM software so you can record it. Although this is probably a better idea than downloads, it still wont work.

Here's why. People like to own their media. A pay-per-play may be great for rentals, but that is about it. Current Pay-per-play or VOD does not have the quality of even a DVD, let alone Blu-Ray. Even with existing VOD services, the video is plagued with artifacts, terrible audio, ect...

They will never be able to stream content like special features, director's commentary, deleted scenes, picture-in-picture, and all of the other goddies we have with disk based media.

Bandwidth will still be a limiting factor. Even with current VOD services, the access is spotty at best. If too many people request the same video at the same time, it will not engage. You just get an error message. Now imagine if this VOD service replaces physical media. The moment the big new release is made available 10,000,000 people all try to access it at the same time. System crash = No movie.

This sort of VOD service might be a good alternative to rentals... in 10 years, but will NEVER replace physical media.

Again... Excellent post. Thank-you.

[statikcat]

Good post. Also, to really gain quality OVER dvd you need large HD files like on HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. I dont understand how a 4-8gb HD file can be a logical leap over DVD.

Originally Posted by miokti

the only reason why digital downloads of songs is so popular is because of portability and "sharing" which is frowned upon.

Well the portability is big for me. I have not listened to a cd of mine in over a year.. and not much in general in many years. What I like about mp3 is that I can have all my music in one spot. In my car I can scan 20,000 songs and not hassle with cds, etc. It is more about convenience than portability and sharing for me though.

[Maxell]

I totally agree.

But also many of the people that say hd video downloads will take over are hddvd fans that wont go blu but know hddvd is on its way out.

[sowecrazy]

yeah i think the space will be the main factor on why downloaded media won't pick up, what is the size of an average hd movie 25gb - 50gb let alone the extras that woundlnt be included, every one would need TBs of storage and thats just not standard. when i USED to have a 360 i had downloaded some movies in hd which took about a day to download , the PQ was horrible and ur luckey if u get a 5.1 DD sound track. Blu-ray all the way!

[tek]

Agree with all the great points. I've been a bit annoyed hearing about how digital download is what it is all about. Yea, in 10 or so years it will be the standard but until then let it be blu.

[Zipzap713]

Here is my two reasons at to why downloads will not replace hard copies for a long time.

1. Internet can only provide so much speed without you having to pay for it. The free dialup would take maybe two, three, or maybe four weeks to download the 25-50 gb movie. And that is without people shutting off their DVR, PC, etc. Highspeed internet isn't govermently standard yet, but even downloading 1gb on highspeed internet can take 10-15 minutes. Not everyone is willing to wait two or more hours for the highquality version of their movie to download.

2. Storage. Many people like to own alot of movies. And if they are HD movies, then 25-50 gb per movie will really build up quickly. You would need approx. a 5tb hard drive to store 100 movies in their highest quality. And no computer looks to have that as a standard within the next 5+ years. Also, what would you do if your harddrive crashed? Your several hundred $worth would be screwed.

My opinion is that downloads will never truly replace hard copys, but may be used as a alternative but not a mainstream use for a long time.

[zerohour]

Wouldn't priracy be through the roof if we had downloadable movies?

[EVERYONE LIES]

As far as music goes, downloads are for casual music listeners not die hard music fans. Remastered CD's blow LP's away. Listen to Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" or any Dylan albums from the 60's.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ray Buckeye

1) Seeing trumps hearing: People download music despite the imperfect quality because people are visual creatures moreso than audio. Some people are audiophiles, but seeing the difference is a bigger deal than hearing it. It's just true.

First of all, Joe Public isn't particularly quality conscious in audio or video. Sure, he can see the difference between NTSC and HD, but as for 1080p vs 1080i, that's less of an issue for him. The danger is that, as soon as the technology exists to support downloads of movies in 1080i or 720p, it could hurt the adoption of an optical format like blu-ray unless it is far more entrenched than it is now.

2) Portability for music doesn't compromise quality as greatly as it does for movies: Music downloads are important because listening to music while on the go is far more critical & viable than watching a movie on the go on a tiny screen. People want their iPod for jogging, at the gym or while working or whatever. The consumer gets close to the same quality as the CD. However for movies the "on-to-go" experience is infinitely inferior.

That's a good point, but consumers are increasingly accustomed to downloading content of interest to them and if we're not careful it will happen with movies, just like it did for music.

3) People download hit singles... can they download individual movies scenes for a quarter?: Music downloads have taken off because people like to buy the singles for pop so they can avoid buying the full crappy CD. This is a nonfactor for movies where you obviously buy the entire thing. All these geniuses greatly underestimate this effect. I think it's a driving force in downloaded music.

No doubt technology needs to change and improve to support downloadable HD movies. But companies like Microsoft and Cisco are throwing a lot of cash around to try to make this happen in the near future. Technology is not static.

4) Disposable content: Downloadable music is meant to be fairly disposable. You can pick up the latest big hit pop garbage single for under a buck and when you're sick of it who cares... it was meant to be disposable anyway. The same is not true of movies that people buy.

But this is the direction software availability is headed in our society. I don't know exactly what model for HD video companies like MS and Apple have kicked around. Maybe you download a movie for free and it stores itself on your hard drive and each time you want to watch it, you pay a fee. This model will be pushed HARD by some content providers and studios. I don't want that, but if we're not careful, that's what we could end up with.

5) Infrastructure: The hardware & S/W backbone to even make mainstream HD movie downloading viable is at least 10+ years away, and that's being kind. I don't need to go into details on this.

That is probably true, unless compression schemes get a lot better. Let's just hope that Blu-ray reall takes off by the time the industry can support HD video downloads.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by EVERYONE LIES

Remastered CD's blow LP's away. Listen to Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" or any Dylan albums from the 60's.

Couldn't disagree more. The average LP in my collection makes the average remastered CD (often "remastered" just means an untalented engineer boosts the treble and bass) sound like a brittle shell of a recording.

[camper]

Originally Posted by Gremal

First of all, Joe Public isn't particularly quality conscious in audio or video. Sure, he can see the difference between NTSC and HD, but as for 1080p vs 1080i, that's less of an issue for him. The danger is that, as soon as the technology exists to support downloads of movies in 1080i or 720p, it could hurt the adoption of an optical format like blu-ray unless it is far more entrenched than it is now.

I completely disagree. My father got a Sony Grand Wega a few years ago, and it played at 1080i/720p. Just three days ago, he replaced it with a Sony BR4 at 1080p, and he saw the difference immediately. He's 64, eyesight isn't the best, and while he may not really care what the numbers mean, if the quality was equal to or less than what he used to have he would notice.

You forget that HDTV's are taking hold, and HD programming is growing at a very rapid rate. Joe Public is buying HDTV's to watch football in HD, impressed with Planet Earth on Discovery HD, hooked on Prime Time shows in HD, and now you're going to tell argue that they're going to be happy downloading a movie to watch in SD quality when everything else is quickly moving into high def?

I think you're trying to imply that Joe Public will happily take whatever gets thrown their way and call it wonderful, when that is clearly not the case.

For digital downloads to even have a chance to succeed, they need to be as good or better than the bleading edge format. The infrastructure required for HD downloads can't support the dying format now (Standard Def), and certainly won't be able to support it in 2 years. By that time, Blu Ray will have taken hold in the DVD market, Standard Def shows will be fewer, and HD content will still be growing.

Optical media will not stagnate while companies try and figure out how to deliver digital downloads. Cable and satellite providers will not put everything on hold to play a game of 'wait and see'. Blu Ray will not call it a day instead of trying to mainstream 100 gig quad-layer discs to pack better quality movies onto.

"Joe Public" might not be comprised of techies and geeks, but they are not stupid or gullible, and will not be willing to buy into less than they can have now at a slightly lower price simply because downloading 'sounds cool'.

Want proof? Go into any electronics store and ask the shoppers why they aren't willing to buy a Standard Def TV for cheaper than they HDTV they're looking at. You can even do that at the shopping mecca for 'Joe Public' - Walmart - and get the same reply: They want a better quality picture.

~Camper

[upnorthsox]

First of all, Joe Public isn't particularly quality conscious in audio or video. Sure, he can see the difference between NTSC and HD, but as for 1080p vs 1080i, that's less of an issue for him. The danger is that, as soon as the technology exists to support downloads of movies in 1080i or 720p, it could hurt the adoption of an optical format like blu-ray unless it is far more entrenched than it is now.

Wow couldn't disagree more, if there's one thing about Joe Public right now it's that the vast majority has been watching video since before most could walk. Joe Public is well aware of what quality video is when he sees it. The only problem is that when he goes into one of the big box stores and sees that 640p looped recording split 50 ways and distorted to all heck he's wondering why he needs to spend $1500 for an upgrade that looks as bad/worse than what he has now, but then he turns the corner and there's that 50" with the dedicated Blu-Ray player showing Happy Feet and he's simply blown away(and break out the charge card).

As to audio, I would again say that the current majority of Joe Public knows what quality audio is when they hear it but it's hard to present it to them in a big box environment. It's usually happens in private settings and I can tell from personal experience that I could stand there and trumpet all the techy stuff at my command but when I put on and they can listen to the first 25 minutes of Saving Private Ryan in my home theatre I have to say no more.

I don't believe that DD will ever get past a niche rental market status even with resolutions in the 640/720p range but that higher resolution threat to the rental market may be enough to push the video stores into far greater adoption of Blu-Rays which is good for everyone. Remember, DVD didn't beat out VHS until it surpassed it at the video store and that along with video stores selling their surplus media for discount is what brought down DVD prices.

[FF750]

I couldn't agree with this post more. It simply boggles my mind at all these "experts" saying downloads will make Blu-ray obsolete soon when all those reasons cited regarding download speed vs. PQ, storage space, DRM issues, and infrastructure are all valid points.

My favorite point is what another poster said - people like to own their media. I love the idea of having a Blu-ray on my shelf that I can watch over and over again if I wanted to. I might be willing to do a download in the same way as I might rent a DVD or BD but if I end up liking the movie then I'll end up buying the disc for it. That's exactly what happened after I used Netflix's "Watch instantly" feature to view something over the internet. I watched the show and ended up wanting the DVD for my collection.

As others have said maybe in a decade downloads will start to be a viable option - maybe not even then. In the meantime, Blu-ray is a viable and excellent storage medium that's already here NOW.

[TauRus]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ray Buckeye

To all the people who say that downloads is a great model for buying music and therefore it will be for movies as well...

Your thoughts are misguided. Here's why music and movies are different animals regarding downloading:

1) Seeing trumps hearing: People download music despite the imperfect quality because people are visual creatures moreso than audio. Some people are audiophiles, but seeing the difference is a bigger deal than hearing it. It's just true.

2) Portability for music doesn't compromise quality as greatly as it does for movies: Music downloads are important because listening to music while on the go is far more critical & viable than watching a movie on the go on a tiny screen. People want their iPod for jogging, at the gym or while working or whatever. The consumer gets close to the same quality as the CD. However for movies the "on-to-go" experience is infinitely inferior.

3) People download hit singles... can they download individual movies scenes for a quarter?: Music downloads have taken off because people like to buy the singles for pop so they can avoid buying the full crappy CD. This is a nonfactor for movies where you obviously buy the entire thing. All these geniuses greatly underestimate this effect. I think it's a driving force in downloaded music.

4) Disposable content: Downloadable music is meant to be fairly disposable. You can pick up the latest big hit pop garbage single for under a buck and when you're sick of it who cares... it was meant to be disposable anyway. The same is not true of movies that people buy.

5) Infrastructure: The hardware & S/W backbone to even make mainstream HD movie downloading viable is at least 10+ years away, and that's being kind. I don't need to go into details on this.

Excellent points, Buckeye!
In addition to those, there is a storage issue: whereas downloaded music files do not require any dramatic amount of storage space (many people have about all of the downloaded music on a single flash drive), the downloaded movie files, especially if we are talking about HD resolution movies, indeed require serious investment in the storage devices and also complicate the management of those files: you have to store them, to stream them. So we all are being pushed into that race to get higher and higher capacity hard drives, setup servers, upgrade home networks to stream HD without having every second frame dropped, etc.

Besides technical complexity there is another problem: data retention. What if the hard drive where you have you downloaded files stored crashes? There you go - hours of download time, serious money - all down the drain.
So much safer with the packaged media. Even if you have your optical disc scratched - ok, you have a problem with one movie.