Comments on: Digital downloads will be Blu-ray's downfall
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I used to live in New York in 2003 and back then I had 3Mbs for $29.99.
So based on these figures, downloading HD content is not in our near future. Blu-Ray will be around longer than you think.
No way, Jose.
Also, there are benefits to physical disks that you can never get with downloaded movies... I can play a physical disc anywhere I want - computer, home entertainment system, you-name-it... DRM will handily prevent that with downloads.
There are a whole lot of obstacles that downloads will have to overcome before they can even halfway begin to compete with physical media.
/P
in order to read it. Cnet's editors/moderators
are either not reading this comment, and if they do, are choosing to ignore it. Frankly, I don't have the time to click 167 (ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN) times to read each comment. There may be quite a few that are pithy and bang-on target, but I will have to forego that pleasure. Maybe
someone will take the initiative to actually
click-only click 167 times and see how long this exercise takes. And post your comment.
A simple remedy lies in Cnet simply compiling and
putting up all posts on one page, letting readers pick and choose what they want to read. But that,
as the Comcast episode shows, is something that requires a different mindset, which Cnet does not seem to possess.
It's true - who wants to change their media library over and over again to satisfy their library needs. I have recordings of my favorite anime series which I love but it's expensive to go from VHS to DVD - I very much doubt I want to to be from DVD to blu-ray; which is why I keep a working VHS machine and plan to purchase a blu-ray device that will still stay compatible with DVD.
Basically, I'm not against digital downloading but what I am worried about is how do I own a digital download of what I purchased and not have to worry that the licensing scheme will not prevent me from transferring that digital info of my movie to the next gen of storage media; if I bought the whole Star Wars movies pack on digital download, I want to make sure that if I store it on, say, a recordable blu-ray, that if the new tech involved crystals (like in the Superman movies), than I have the right to move that info I have on blu-ray to crystal without having to worry about copyright laws pigeon-holing me to be only able to save my download to only one type of media - what I bought, I should not have to buy again.
Franchises like "Star Wars" and "Transformers" rely heavily on fanbase satisfaction - digital downloading media should be able to cater to those expectation that we can download our favorites without being exploited, or else it will backfire on the movie industry as much it did to the music industry when it tried to heavy hand control their content to make a buck off every download and just confine it to only one form of storage media per license.
This will take another 10 to 20 years or more.
In 1969 when I started in telecom we had just improved communication speed from 110 to 300 baud (bits/sec)the next jump was to 9600 buad then to 56k bps around 1990. Now we have megabit speeds available over cable at reasonable cost in many areas, especially the urban ones. Yesterday Japan launched a satellite designed for economical megabit links. This means in 3 - 5 years all places visible to this satellite and more like it will have megabit communication speeds. What all this boils down to is it has taken roughly 35 years to improve telecom throughput by 4 orders of magnitude. DO you really think it will take 10 years to achieve a factor of 2 improvement now?
What is to prevent people from buying a permanent copy of a downloaded movie and storing it on their own HDD library system?
The oldest working hard disk I have was built in 2003.
--
The latest and greatest music CD player I buy will run any music CD I bought in the past 17 (or so) years.
I sincerely doubt that the latest mobos will actually support a c.1991 RLL 20MB hard disk w/o some really expensive adapter.
/P
music company on the prospect of what it should do with its
distribution centers across the country. One of the findings that
my group came back with was that the world would very soon
be moving to downloading music, and that these large
distribution centers would probably best be used as server
farms to take the lead in this area. Well, the music business
client dismissed the idea out-of-hand, and one of the reasons
for that, at a time of 2GB hard drives, was that they didn't think
people had enough space to store 1,000's of songs on their
computers . . . and they didn't have the bandwidth to download
songs. The only thing that convinced them otherwise was when
it happened. It happened with music and it's happening now
with movies, the only difference is that the movie industry
knows that it's happening because of what happened to the
music industry. The irony here is that this time it's the industry
that knows it's coming and it's the customers who are in denial.
BT offers such a service, think they were first, and I am pretty sure Tiscali are doing the same...
I think that BT's offering doesn't even use any of your bandwidth (not 100% sure of this though),
and from what I gather all the UK tv stations are teaming up to merge their VOD, and then license the content to SetTop box providers,
Oh and as a plus BT's box is also a PVR with a massive HD...
movies then burn them to Blu-ray discs...wait...non HD on a blu-
ray disc? I wasted time and money you say? I'll just buy a Blu-ray
movie then. Long live physical media!
LOL
so Digital downloads will be Blu-ray's downfall (imp...)
Naveed
Http://www.beyondweblogs.com
for archiving. I'm not paying twice.
There is just no way that pristine-quality video, requiring many gigabytes, will be possible without disks in the near future, so they will have a massive market. I'd much rather have a CD then an MP3 and many feel the same way.
The thing is to have Blu-Ray players in homes and disks in rental, for the switch from DVD's to take place. If they can be the dominant disk, they will have a huge market- though yes, digital downloads will cut into it.
2nd I've watched HD movies from both Xbox and Apple TV. The quality is as good if not better then cable. Obviously not better then Blu-ray or HDDVD.
For the convenience I prefer one click from the couch and watching the movie, then going to a brick and mortar store for a rental. It's the wave of the future, and it's here today.
FYI: For a HD movie on Apple TV. I can watch it without skipping or buffering issues in less then a minute. That's with comcast cable in Boston.
digital downloads, but to say Blu-ray will succumb to digital
downloading, that is a stretch. From what I understand, people
that even bother to go for Blu-ray, will go for the quality of the
picture. I even use that judgement when I go see a movie in the
theater (DSP and such). Downloading HD anything over the net
takes 30 seconds from FOREVER, even on a college campus at
Midnight. I get irritated waiting 5 minutes for a 30 second
movie trailer to play on 1080p! Take my father for example,
makes good money, lives in the suburb of a city, and has DSL.
His internet is very slow, reason? He's at the end of the line of
their connection, nothing can be done. I think a lot of people
are going to have these issues. Who wants to wait all day to
download a HD movie, or a movie that isn't even HD? DVD may
end up kicking Blu-Ray's butt simply because they're cheaper.
When I want a new release, I still buy DVD because the price,
and because Blu-Ray is still WAY too expensive. Physical media
will NEVER go away. I for one also don't want to fill up my hard
drives with movies, my itunes already does that :-( When Blu-
Ray drops in price, I"ll be all in.
Problem with downloads are:
1 - the quality (low at this time, possibly improving but, at least the 'streamings' are likely to stay crappy for a long, long time)
2 - the time needed to complete - several hours now if you have good bandwidth
3 - online usage charges - likely to increase if more people jump in
4 - local storage - you will need multi-terabyte disks and no one has them now and then... what do you do when your big disk crashes? You lose them all?
5 - some resistance from people who want to see their fave movies on a shelf, next to their books.
6 - the difficulty of transferring your download or lending it to a friend or borrowing one from a friend - and half of the movies that I watch I get from friends and I let them watch the movies that I buy.
7 - the Big Brother factor. You are going to have the NSA, the Chinese and maybe the Mossad, not to mention your cable of phone company and certainly your Internet service provider keeping track of what you download when and, if you are streaming, correlating that data with what you buy after you watch, whom you call and so on.
The difference between listening to crappy iPod downloads vs. watching movies on a big screen TV is that you listen to crappy, low-fidelity music while driving or waiting in line at the Starbucks, and for a few minutes at a time.
When you watch a movie on a big screen, you are going to sit down for a couple of hours and you SHOULD demand quality. Downloads and streamings should work well for portable video devices with 5-inch screens. It would take quite a while before they can match the quality of disk-based media.
Considering the points above, Blu-ray's successor is going to be some memory card delivery media, possibly something that you stick right into your TV set. Expect to see them on the mass market in 7-10 years.
Anyone who can't see the difference between a high quality, disk-delivered HD movie and a DVD or some 'upconverted' or some low-quality streamed or downloaded crap or even the compressed-to-death HD movies you can watch on the Dish is either semi-blind, dishonest or simply mindlessly parroting someone else's talking points.
Ownership - There are movies that consumers just want to own, either to watch whenever they get in the mood, or because it just needs to be on the shelf. Its a visceral thing that .com evangelists never get.
Gifts - box sets make good gifts, downloads don't.
I've seen the top quality downloads - and on a 60" screen - I'll take blu-ray everytime. It's not even a close race.
how about we concentrate on getting everyone a super duper high-speed internet for a measly 1cent a day first before jumping on this insane idea of downoading a SD quality tv clip. Oh yeah I wont even entertain the thought of 1080p HD clips :P
the new commerce. Shopping on line will put brick and mortar
stores out of business. Shop for underwear in your underwear...
and so, and so on.
And yet Wal-Mart, Federated (Macy's, Lord & Taylor's, Neiman
Marcus, etc.) Dillards, and Target are still doing very well.
Then 5 years ago. Digital downloads will put record stores out of
business. We will buy all our music from iTunes. Well iTunes
sells out 20% the music that Best Buy and Wal-mart sells. And
Apple is the only one who seems to be making a profit.
Companies are shuting down it's music download service. Even
Wal-mart could not make a go out of it.
Then there were eBooks and eReaders, audiobooks. They were
all going to put Libraries and book stores out of business. The
New York Times just published a report that Libraries are more
popular now than they were 20 years ago.
And now we get this. Digital video downloads have been around
for a couple of years now. MovieBeam, MovieLink and CinemaNow bankrupt. Movie download services are closing. Not
opening.
Just wait until you rent Cars for the 19th time for your 6 year
old. At $5.99 you are going to wish you have bought the disc.
In this particular case: we do have the technology that allows delivers significantly better quality video and there seems to be a market for it.
The advice you get? Well... stick with the old technology, go for some technology that delivers an inferior product and... wait for pie in the sky, any day now.
Totally amazing. :)))
every comment supports her lack of knowledge on this subject.
1) Blu-ray looks far superior to anything you can watch at home
short of the actual film.
2) You can rent Blu-ray discs from Netflix or Blockbuster as most
people are accustomed to doing.
3) No download, standard DVD or PPV comes even close to Blu-
ray quality, the difference is night and day to an average viewer.
4) Adult habits are currently to buy or rent, not download.
Downloading is most popular in the younger demographic with
less money. It gained popularity primarily due to the incentive of
getting music for free.
5) 1080p cannot currently be broadcast due to bandwidth. This
won't change for many years. Look how long it took just to get
HD off the ground! When 1080p can be downloaded many years
from now, how long do you think that download will take?
Hey Erica Ogg, go take a look at Blu-ray first and check your
facts.
And you can't say it's just that my eyes are bad, 'cause I'm not old enough for that yet - I'm only 17.
I have been able to compare them running upconverted with the same movies in true HD.
They compare quite favorably. I definately would not say "they don't even come close"
- Digital Downloads...
- by vc73 February 23, 2008 9:23 AM PST
- I am a very skeptical regarding digital downloads. With a physical disc, I can watch the movie when i want and more importantly, where I want. If i go to my sister's house, i can take the disk with me and watch it there. Yes there are ways to transport digital downloads, but none are as convincing and convenient as a physical media.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 6 pages (236 Comments)As well, the phsyical disk has a shelf life around 30 to 50 years. But a digital download on a hard drive will only last as long as the hard drive is functioning. Imagine storing all your favourite movies on a hard drive and it fails. What happens then? If a Blu-ray disk fails i can always purchase that one disk, but will the movie studios guarantee a replacement for all the movies lost on a dead hard drive? These drives, especially commercial drives, will fail; they are mechanical devices with a 5 to 10 year shelf life.
Lastly, with this new revelation of ISP's "controlling" downloads (listen up Comcast), the download process is very irregular and inconsistant. We are still dealing with broadband penetration in the marketplace and now we have to worry about network neutrality. Capping or preventing downloads will derail any attempt to fully realize digital movie downloads.
On top of their network management, consumers have to deal with hard download caps. With a supposedly unlimited internet account, i have a hard cap of 50 gigabytes per month. Two to three high definition movies would surpass this target easily, and i would be left with a very large penality for exceeding the capped amount. I could probably buy at least 2 Blu-ray movies with the money paid for the penalty.
There will always be many customers that want a tangible item. This gives them more options than would a digitable download equivalent (not the least of which is reselling discs to buy new discs; a business that is thriving with both movies and games)
Until such time as these issues are resolved or improved, digital downloads will only slowly increase and adoption, will be much slower than even Blu-ray.