Did you even bother to look at www.portomedia.com and the people involved with it?

2GB USB flash drives - means one rental at a time.

2 minute download times(about 4-5 minutes per user to choose there movie and such). Hmmm, sounds like longs would be a problem, if this became popular. Wouldnt renting from one of those "Old Fashioned" unmanned DVD kiosks be quicker?

$4.00 DVD quality rentals?(isnt netflix cheaper, and it doesnt require a new box)

Set top box dedicated to rentals(isnt netflix cheaper, and it doesnt require a new box)....

Yeah, IMO, that doesnt sound convinient enough to take down optical media. But if thats convinience for you.. go ahead and pick up one of those boxes when they are ready for sale in the states.

At what point does rewriteable flashcards more convinient than these multitude of options that are already available.
1. Go tell netflix that they can reduce their postage rates by 80% and let me know what they say.

2. Go tell walmart, bestbuy, blockbuster, etc that movies now take up 1/4th the space on their shelves, and cost 1/10th the amount to ship. Also let them know that the players they sell will be returned/damaged during shipping 80% less because they're more reliable due to not having any moving parts.

You're starting to lose me here bud. You wouldn't transport a memory card any more than you'd transport an optical disc. Why would a kiosk or rental store renting out flash card movies need some kind of "dedicated line"? They would get restocked just like any other rental store/dvd vending machine. And nobody said you have to keep your movies in your pocket.

I'm trying to figure out what you're arguing here... It seems we're going back and forth between you doing flash memory vs optical discs, and/or physical media vs downloads.

In answer to your question, here's the timeline I see:
now - 5 years: Blu-ray takes over, flash card readers begin to be seen on any new piece of CE involving a display (especially the TVs themselves).
6+ years: Readers are in place for the most part, media is now ultra cheap and begins to take over optical disc formats.

just my $0.02.

1) How are they going to get a Huge library of 25GB HD movies without a dedicated line. If it can only hold 30-40 movies, they already have DVD Kiosks at Shoppers food warehouse for that.

2) THe arguement is that its not more convinient that either Optical media or Downloads. Flash kiosks are just a compromise of convinience and baggage from both Optical media and Downloads.

3) Security. The players will have to be made with the intent of supporting rental flash media.

Set top box dedicated to rentals(isnt netflix cheaper, and it doesnt require a new box)....
yeah, just requires you to sit at your computer to watch the movie ;)

1) How are they going to get a Huge library of 25GB HD movies without a dedicated line. If it can only hold 30-40 movies, they already have DVD Kiosks at Shoppers food warehouse for that.
The cards are about 1" square by 1mm... they could fit a hell of a lot more than 30-40 of them in a vending machine...

2) THe arguement is that its not more convinient that either Optical media or Downloads. Flash kiosks are just a compromise of convinience and baggage from both Optical media and Downloads.

3) Security. The players will have to be made with the intent of supporting rental flash media.
I don't understand why you keep differentiating optical media from flash memory. They have exactly the same possibilities, with the exception of one being much smaller and more reliable. Name me something that is currently done with optical media that cannot be done with flash memory instead. Or name me a downfall of flash media that does not apply to optical media, with a given that several years in the future flash memory will be even more dirt cheap than it is now.

1. Go tell netflix that they can reduce their postage rates by 80% and let me know what they say.

2. Go tell walmart, bestbuy, blockbuster, etc that movies now take up 1/4th the space on their shelves, and cost 1/10th the amount to ship. Also let them know that the players they sell will be returned/damaged during shipping 80% less because they're more reliable due to not having any moving parts.

1) VOD
2) Thats too true... Too TRUE! Great idea!!!! Now ask them why customers dont come in to buy movies and browse around the store on Tuesdays.... oh right because they went to the kioske at Baskin robins.

The cards are about 1" square by 1mm... they could fit a hell of a lot more than 30-40 of them in a vending machine...


I don't understand why you keep differentiating optical media from flash memory. They have exactly the same possibilities, with the exception of one being much smaller and more reliable. Name me something that is currently done with optical media that cannot be done with flash memory instead. Or name me a downfall of flash media that does not apply to optical media, with a given that several years in the future flash memory will be even more dirt cheap than it is now.

So its not rewriting these now? They are just rental ROM cards? Arent 25GB+ SD cards more expensive to produce than 25GB Discs?

yeah, just requires you to sit at your computer to watch the movie ;)

thats why they have discs.

In any event, how much would netflix save anyway? They now have to pay for these Manned kiosks, and probably have to partner with a hardware manufacturer to produce dedicated boxes. That company will probably want a piece of netfixes overall revenue as well. Then they have to pay for local techs to service the machines and rental space in XYZ store(or give them a part of your revenue as well)

Dude you're not even making sense now... why on earth would netflix want VOD to take hold when 99% of their business is shipping physical media direct to the consumer? Newsflash: J6P does not have a computer hooked up to his TV.

Just let the word kiosk disappear from your vocabulary please. Do me a favor and look at it this way:

Go into best buy right now. Look at the shelf. Now envision every DVD/BD/etc case on that shelf shrink to the size of a matchbook. If you cannot see the economic possibilities in that, then I'm done w/this thread. Hell I'm probably done with it anyways. It's futile to argue with people who think we'll have a gagillion megabits to every home that watches movies next year.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the "too late" aspect of watching "I, Robot" for other future takes on the fine city I live..

No one is saying it is "too late" to enjoy "I Robot" and many other fine bluray offerings. What is being discussed is whether it is "too late" for bluray to supplant DVD in the same fashion that DVD supplanted video tape.


BTW, I live in what I like to think is a pretty trendy, upwardly mobile part of Chicago (Wicker Park). I have yet to see a DVD kiosk at the supermarkets, coffee shops, gas stations, etc. I frequent. If people with disposable incomes and/or tech-savvy kids in this area are not demanding kiosks, then there are a lot of infrastructure questions to be answered before I see one sporting HD content on every corner.

Conversely...
I have yet to see a Bluray at the supermarkets, coffee shops, gas stations, etc. I frequent. If people with disposable incomes and/or tech-savvy kids in this area are not demanding Blueray, then there are a lot of infrastructure questions to be answered

Dude you're not even making sense now... why on earth would netflix want VOD to take hold when 99% of their business is shipping physical media direct to the consumer? Newsflash: J6P does not have a computer hooked up to his TV.

Just let the word kiosk disappear from your vocabulary please. Do me a favor and look at it this way:

Go into best buy right now. Look at the shelf. Now envision every DVD/BD/etc case on that shelf shrink to the size of a matchbook. If you cannot see the economic possibilities in that, then I'm done w/this thread. Hell I'm probably done with it anyways. It's futile to argue with people who think we'll have a gagillion megabits to every home that watches movies next year.

Wait. So are these meant for rentals or for sales in store? I thought you guys already huddled together and agreed that downloading in stores was a bad idea.

If you would have read the original article, this threads links and thought about your responses it would have been obvious to you what the conversation is about.

It was explained that way by the THX dude, the link to portomedia said the same thing and most other posters have settled on rental as the viable alternative.


Are these downloads? or are they just a different form of ROM? How many times is the story going to change?

So whats your current Vision of Flash based downloading? Or is downloading totally off the books?

A card that limits you, that you have to carry with you and download/upload(depending on whose vision you are looking at)... with the same or less PQ? No.?"
A card is limiting because it is small and reuseable, and a disc isn't because it is big and not reuseable?



3) So now these kiosks are manned? Nice. "Excuse me Starbucks bartender, when you are done with those 30 people in line, can you look at this kiosk?"
When I go to the camera store down the street from where I work, I walk in with my flash memory in my shirt pocket, insert it in the developing machine, choose which prints I want, print them out and print out a receipt, all while the clerks there go about their regular business. Then I say "Excuse me Mr. Camera sales guy, here is my money for the prints I made" He takes my money and I am out the door. Nice. And easy. Is this a manned kiosk?

Tqlla, do you live or work in a city bigger than Bug Tussle?

Are these downloads? or are they just a different form of ROM? How many times is the story going to change?

So whats your current Vision of Flash based downloading? Or is downloading totally off the books?It's a quickly re-writable form of ROM, likely with DRM in place. The kiosk idea would be networked and need to download a master file onto it's internal storage once, then replicate to flash media with DRM in place. The DRM could be dynamic, depending on what you want to pay for. Pay for a lifetime copy, or have it expire after 72 hours from the write. there are so many possibilities, I'm surprised there isn't something more concrete in the works. All it really needs is a player, some standards, and DRM agreements with the studios. Maybe the problem is that there isn't as much profit in the idea for the developer because the actual medium isn't proprietary with inflated and fixed pricing.


3) So now these kiosks are manned? Nice. "Excuse me Starbucks bartender, when you are done with those 30 people in line, can you look at this kiosk?"So I guess you haven't seen the new Ipod vending machines that have been in development?

Conversely...
I have yet to see a Bluray at the supermarkets, coffee shops, gas stations, etc. I frequent. If people with disposable incomes and/or tech-savvy kids in this area are not demanding Blueray, then there are a lot of infrastructure questions to be answered

I'm not arguing whether a flash-based rom will one day replace optical. It likely will, if its shown to be cheaper to mass produce, "press" and distribute. But your statement makes no sense. No demand for blu-ray rental/purchases does not result in demand for flash-based rom rental/purchases. My argument in terms of the model that is reliant on kiosks, booths, etc., needs more infrastructure and people changing their ideas on rental of movies then either (a) the current rental model or (b) going into blockbuster, best buy, wal-mart and buying something. Especially if its a model that requires someone stepping up to a kiosk and wanting a movie from 1955. Yes, the potential catalog is much larger for a model built on pulling content from a central server. But the kiosk at that point will have to call upon high-speed connections to do it. Which is sorely lacking at the moment. Right now, its physically shipping a square "disk" vs. a shiny circle.

I think its great that people are looking forward to these new modes of delivery, but there has to be more than just "X company has this kiosk." People are referencing flash-media kiosks and iPod vending machines. I'm not obstinate enough to say that those won't get popular. But my personal experience is that if a well-off part of town in a major American city isn't jumping all over it, well how will J6P in Podunkville see it in 3 years?

No demand for blu-ray rental/purchases does not result in demand for flash-based rom rental/purchases. ?

I'm not saying it does. I'm saying that before bluray really takes off, something else will have come along to steal it's thunder.

Especially if its a model that requires someone stepping up to a kiosk and wanting a movie from 1955. Yes, the potential catalog is much larger for a model built on pulling content from a central server. But the kiosk at that point will have to call upon high-speed connections to do it.
You order that 1955 movie online at your office and walk over to pick it up at lunch.


But my personal experience is that if a major American city in a well-off part of town isn't jumping all over it, well how will J6P in Podunkville see it in 3 years?

I am in Seattle. I can assure you that Seattle isn't jumping all over bluray. But everybody is jumping all over Ipods and the like.

It's a quickly re-writable form of ROM, likely with DRM in place. The kiosk idea would be networked and need to download a master file onto it's internal storage once, then replicate to flash media with DRM in place. The DRM could be dynamic, depending on what you want to pay for. Pay for a lifetime copy, or have it expire after 72 hours from the write. there are so many possibilities, I'm surprised there isn't something more concrete in the works. All it really needs is a player, some standards, and DRM agreements with the studios. Maybe the problem is that there isn't as much profit in the idea for the developer because the actual medium isn't proprietary with inflated and fixed pricing.

So I guess you haven't seen the new Ipod vending machines that have been in development?

The easy fix is to make the card proprietary.

A card is limiting because it is small and reuseable, and a disc isn't because it is big and not reuseable?




When I go to the camera store down the street from where I work, I walk in with my flash memory in my shirt pocket, insert it in the developing machine, choose which prints I want, print them out and print out a receipt, all while the clerks there go about their regular business. Then I say "Excuse me Mr. Camera sales guy, here is my money for the prints I made" He takes my money and I am out the door. Nice. And easy. Is this a manned kiosk?

Tqlla, do you live or work in a city bigger than Bug Tussle?

Yeah... I dont know how to tell you this.... Thats a Photo shop dedicated to selling cameras and developing film. Thats a little different than the corner 7-11 or Starbucks. If an automated photo printing machine failed at 7-11, do you think they could fix it for you?

Supposidly thats a big advantage of these Kiosks. They can be everywhere... so you dont have to go to stores with areas dedicated to movies. (such as best buy, Blockbuster, wal mart)

Now in your "Vision" a tech is going to have to be there to monitor the kiosks at Starbucks? Or is your vision back at best buy/wal mart/ blockbuster?

I'm not saying it does. I'm saying that before bluray really takes off, something else will have come along to steal it's thunder.

You order that 1955 movie online at your office and walk over to pick it up at lunch.

I am in Seattle. I can assure you that Seattle isn't jumping all over bluray. But everybody is jumping all over Ipods and the like.

So exactly where are these kiosks? And is each kiosk going to have an operator to help you when your download failed or you receive a bad card?

How well are these techs trained? Are they cheap labor? And since these kiosks dont need high speed internet access... are studios going to be okay with a machine that has a large library of movies in the box, that can write copies of those movies?

Seattle not jumping over blu ray huh? Have you been to the local best buy to see if they are able to keep the more popular players in stock. Like the S300 and the Panasonic DMP-BD30K.

I was just at a store Wednesday in fairlakes Virginia, where they had 4 Sony S300s arrive that day. The guy there said it would sell out by the end of the day. Checked online right now... sold out.

Since people in Seattle are not clamoring for blu ray, surely stores must be overstocked with them. Lets check for the DMP-BD30K
unavailable Bellevue WA 457 120th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA
unavailable Lynnwood WA 19225 Alderwood Mall Pkwy, Lynnwood, WA
unavailable Tukwila WA 17364 Southcenter Pkwy, Tukwila, WA
unavailable Silverdale WA 9551 Ridgetop Blvd Nw, Silverdale, WA
unavailable Everett WA 1130 Se Everett Mall Way, Everett, WA

Hmmm, weird well surely sony players are readily available. Sony BDP-S300
unavailable Bellevue WA 457 120th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA
unavailable Lynnwood WA 19225 Alderwood Mall Pkwy, Lynnwood, WA
unavailable Tukwila WA 17364 Southcenter Pkwy, Tukwila, WA
unavailable Silverdale WA 9551 Ridgetop Blvd Nw, Silverdale, WA
unavailable Everett WA 1130 Se Everett Mall Way, Everett, WA
unavailable Seattle-northgate WA 330 NE Northgate Way, Seattle, WA

Well lets see how Circuit City looks for the S300.
Bellevue Crossroads Out of stock Notify me when available
South Center pick up at this store
Lynnwood Out of stock Notify me when available
Silverdale Out of stock Notify me when available
Everett Mall Out of stock Notify me when available
Tacoma Mall Out of stock Notify me when available
Puyallup pick up at this store
Olympia Out of stock Notify me when available
Bellingham Out of stock Notify me when available

Maybe you need to learn more about your fellow seattolians.:p

I was just at a store Wednesday in fairlakes Virginia, where they had 4 Sony S300s arrive that day. The guy there said it would sell out by the end of the day. Checked online right now... sold out.

OK at that rate thats 1200 per year in fairlakes virginia.


Since people in Seattle are not clamoring for blu ray, surely stores must be overstocked with them. Lets check for the DMP-BD30K



Contradiction please. If no stock sent to Seattle then none available perhaps



unavailable Bellevue WA 457 120th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA
unavailable Lynnwood WA 19225 Alderwood Mall Pkwy, Lynnwood, WA
unavailable Tukwila WA 17364 Southcenter Pkwy, Tukwila, WA
unavailable Silverdale WA 9551 Ridgetop Blvd Nw, Silverdale, WA
unavailable Everett WA 1130 Se Everett Mall Way, Everett, WA

Hmmm, weird well surely sony players are readily available. Sony BDP-S300
unavailable Bellevue WA 457 120th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA
unavailable Lynnwood WA 19225 Alderwood Mall Pkwy, Lynnwood, WA
unavailable Tukwila WA 17364 Southcenter Pkwy, Tukwila, WA
unavailable Silverdale WA 9551 Ridgetop Blvd Nw, Silverdale, WA
unavailable Everett WA 1130 Se Everett Mall Way, Everett, WA
unavailable Seattle-northgate WA 330 NE Northgate Way, Seattle, WA

Well lets see how Circuit City looks for the S300.
Bellevue Crossroads Out of stock Notify me when available
South Center pick up at this store
Lynnwood Out of stock Notify me when available
Silverdale Out of stock Notify me when available
Everett Mall Out of stock Notify me when available
Tacoma Mall Out of stock Notify me when available
Puyallup pick up at this store
Olympia Out of stock Notify me when available
Bellingham Out of stock Notify me when available

Maybe you need to learn more about your fellow seattolians.:p

Long time acquaintance with Seattlites. Maybe you need to learn that Bellingham, Olympia, Puyallup,Tacoma, Everett, Silverdale, Lynnwood and belleuve are not in Seattle.

The technology and format is there, it just needs to be standardized and developed. Ideas are the root to any great force to make an impact in human living. I'm sure in the 70's the thought of a Microwave was a giant pipe dream but today they are in more homes than television sets. I agree, it is a few years off, but I don't see any urgency on Blu-Ray's part to attempt to take hold of mainstream american consumers other than the PS3 and the BDA telling people that George Bush Jr. wants you to spend your economy stimulas check on a Blu-Ray player.

The BDA needs to get the studios to support the idea of Blu-Ray being the next dominant format and to add incentives including making it affordable and priced competitively to SD-DVD. Am I asking them to subsidize it's adoption? You are darn right I am. They seemed to subsidize plenty in the battle with HD-DVD. Now that that competition is gone I think they are crazy to think people are going to run out and buy $400 Blu-Ray players and $30 discs for their 27" - 50" 720p televisions when the average consumer is hard pressed to tell a difference between 448kbps and 640kbps audio and 1080p downscaled to 720p and 480p upscaled on a decent budget upconverting SD-DVD player. All the while saving themselves from replacing their huge libraries that have amassed over the years. Blu-Ray is like a sports team with a small window of opportunity to win the big game. I don't see them making the moves to win it. The longer they wait, the more likely someone will come along and develop some of these "pipe dreams" and the increased benefits they have over a prssed physical disc.

Sure, it's just random discussion of undeveloped ideas at this point. But the amout of dismissal of those ideas in this thread is crazy. What I am seeing here is the same closed minded mentality that would have said that minidisc would be the next big audio format and digital music downloads would never have a chance. This is the same closed minded thinking that instead of a company like Sony partnering with Napster (in it's heyday) and taking advantage of the huge following they had acquired, worked to destroy it thus handing money and marketshare over to companies like Apple that doesn't think such pipe dreams aren't woth following and taking advantage of.
Maybe the thread title should be changed from "It's too late for Bluray" to "It's really too early for anything else."
Shiny round discs rule for cost and convenience...simple. This applies to BD as well as sd dvd.
BD will be gobbled up by those who want the best in video quality, all others will buy sd dvd or dvr and say it looks close to BD.

Contradiction please. If no stock sent to Seattle then none available perhaps



Long time acquaintance with Seattlites. Maybe you need to learn that Bellingham, Olympia, Puyallup,Tacoma, Everett, Silverdale, Lynnwood and belleuve are not in Seattle.

Hmmm, Seattle best buy is OOS on the most popular BD models.... and so are the ones in the surrounding areas.

Best buy must not be shipping to seattle... yeah.... thats the ticket. And no way people from Seattle are driving "All the way to Bellevue" for these players... NO WAY!:rolleyes:

I am in Seattle. I can assure you that Seattle isn't jumping all over bluray. But everybody is jumping all over Ipods and the like.

Ipod popularity is based on people enjoying music "on-the-go." I have an iPod Touch I use for my daily commuter rail travels. I use it at the gym. I don't care that its compressed mp3 or AAC encodes with much poorer sound quality because I can cram thousands of songs onto it for whatever mood I'm in at the moment. If I want a song via the iTunes store I can wi-fi it up in a Starbucks, takes me a couple mins to pull one down. Music is different (via downloads to a SSD) - at its current sizes and "poorer" encodes, the few mins you wait for a song is basically instant gratification. I've done that plenty of times, sitting in a coffee shop with friends and a song comes up that I buy for 99 cents or we talk about some old song from our youth. Time to buy it for convenience to listen. Movies, not being watched "on-the-go" do not require that immediacy for your avg J6P.

Which goes back to the point, flash rom as blu-ray replacement, perhaps. Download flash, not anytime soon. Maybe if I'm out shopping for the day I can send a message to this future service to start sending the file to my media server (which I don't have, but guess I'll have to buy) so I can watch it when I get home. Or I could just swing by Blockbuster and rent it or Best Buy and buy it. The THX scientist stating that 3-4 movies in your pocket as a plus doesn't work for me. On a 3" iPod Touch screen I don't care if its hi-def. At that size everything looks "sharp."

The thing of it is, if something comes along to steal blu-ray's thunder, oh well. In the interim, I'm getting hi-def content and not waiting for the next great thing. For instance, someone is contemplating buying an HDTV (lcd or plasma). OLED is "coming" to steal the thunder. Wait?

Hmmm, Seattle best buy is OOS on the most popular BD models.... and so are the ones in the surrounding areas.


Hmmmm. Are you saying that the most popular BD models aren't even available in Seattle? Is that supposed to be a good thing?

Which goes back to the point, flash rom as blu-ray replacement, perhaps.

Sounds like you are coming around.

Or I could just swing by Blockbuster and rent it or Best Buy and buy it?

I have seen this phrase many times now, as if this is the height of convenience. I don't want to drive to a blockbuster or best buy and I don't consider it convenient at all. I would rate the retail ambiance of a blockbuster as antiseptic, at best; the BB I would rate mildly unpleasant. Now if that experience could be circumvented, that I would find convenient.

The THX scientist stating that 3-4 movies in your pocket as a plus doesn't work for me. He mentioned the 128 GB card, which would hold that many movies, so maybe thats where the number comes from. Maybe he commutes by train or ferry, has a car with TV in back for the kids, lake cabin etc.


The thing of it is, if something comes along to steal blu-ray's thunder, oh well. In the interim, I'm getting hi-def content and not waiting for the next great thing.

The thing of it is, a lot of people are waiting for some thunder out of Bluray.

Downloads are where we're gonna end up. We're moving in that direction right now. It's just a mater of time. It WILL happen.

The only real limiting factor is bandwidth.

The length of time it takes for movie downloads to become the primary method for home viewing is wholly dependant on how long it takes ISPs to roll-out faster speeds.

Right now, with 8 mb/s downloads as the fastest average downstream speed in the US, who wants to wait over 11 hours to get your 40 GB HD movie? That's certainly not something I want.

But in Hong Kong right now, that same download takes just 5 minutes! In Japan and Korea, you can download that 40 GB movie in less than an hour. Right now.

Hong Kong has symmetrical GB Ethernet available which sells for the equivalent of around $215 US a month. In Japan and Korea, you can get 100 MB for around $30-40 US per month.

And here we are in the US with our paltry 6-8 mb/s! Ghastly! The US is a cultural backwater. A Third-World Nation!

It won't stay that way long. Verizon is building out its FIOS. Comcast is moving to DOCSIS 3.0. Lots of good things are happening in the bandwidth world.

The latest buzz is that Comcast will be rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 this coming year (in select markets), with speeds in the 30-50 mb/s range. Verizon will match that, of course, as will Qwest and AT&T and all the others.

That’s nowhere near what they’ve got in Asia, but it’s a start and it gets us farther down the road to where we need to be. How long till we get those GB speeds they already have in Hong Kong? Hopefully less than 10 years. Probably not more.

Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and the others know this. They’re already positioning themselves for the new market. I read a speech given by the President of Blockbuster where he predicted downloads coming into their own right with the next five years.

It’s just a matter of time.

Video downloads will predominate as soon as they’re as easy and convenient and cheap as conventional rentals/sales. You go browse online through Blockbuster’s catalog (or Netflix), select the movie you want to watch, click “buy”, then go pop some popcorn. You come back and watch it on your HDTV.

So how much bandwidth do we need for it to take off?

I would think the time limit for a download would be somewhere in the range of 10-15 minutes for people to widely accept it (everyone wants immediate gratification – it can’t take as much time as going to the store, or it won’t work).

That may be implemented by offering SD downloads initially (at say 6-8 GB each). SD video looks pretty awful good, and 8 GB only takes 22 minutes to download at 100 mb/s. That’s close to being workable.

How am I gonna watch ‘em?

Easy! The movies will be delivered to your “entertainment multi-media” device. Current PS3 and X-Box 360 devices have this capability already (although not enough storage to really work). NextGen consoles will have much larger storage capacity and will be able to fully implement movie downloads.

It’s just a matter of time.

...It’s just a matter of time.

Yeah... a long time. Going by everything you just wrote.

With streaming, you don't need the whole movie to start watching it. We only need enough speed to get the whole movie within the movie's runtime, plus some reasonable up-front buffer time. It is totally unnecessary to download the entire movie in 15 minutes. You only need enough of the movie to start watching it without interruption after 15 minutes. This is how it's done with Vudu and XBLive, and there's no reason you can't use this technique at Blu-ray quality.

With streaming, you don't need the whole movie to start watching it. We only need enough speed to get the whole movie within the movie's runtime, plus some reasonable up-front buffer time. It is totally unnecessary to download the entire movie in 15 minutes. You only need enough of the movie to start watching it without interruption after 15 minutes. This is how it's done with Vudu and XBLive, and there's no reason you can't use this technique at Blu-ray quality.

I don't know why people don't understand this. It's like they've never watched a video on the internet or Youtube and seen it start playing before it's downloaded.:confused:

Yeah... a long time. Going by everything you just wrote.

Probably more than 5 years but less than 10. That's my guess. And that ain't very long at all.

I see movies online as the "killer app" everyone's been waiting for for the internet.

Yeah, you guys are right about the movie starting as soon as it's done buffering - that could make it possible to do with less bandwidth.

Me, I don't rent movies - I buy them, and for that, I stll tend to think of the sale as complete when the download finishes (like downloadable software). But your way makes more sense from a marketing standpoint.

Anybody notice how flash camcorders are all the rage? The new Canon HF10 got a pretty good review here...
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-Vixia-HF10-Camcorder-Review-34711

Maybe people won't have to buy a flash player for the movie they got at the kiosk, they will just use their camcorder.

Of course, Rutgar, for you there is the Hitachi blu-ray camcorder. It's not carried at many places, and no one seems to have reviewed it or bought it, but price is coming down dramatically.

With streaming, you don't need the whole movie to start watching it. We only need enough speed to get the whole movie within the movie's runtime, plus some reasonable up-front buffer time. It is totally unnecessary to download the entire movie in 15 minutes. You only need enough of the movie to start watching it without interruption after 15 minutes. This is how it's done with Vudu and XBLive, and there's no reason you can't use this technique at Blu-ray quality.

THat's still very significant bandwidth. For argument's sake, we'll say that it's a 2 hour movie at 20 Mbits/second ABR.

If my calcs are correct, you need about 7/8 of that speed to only buffer 15 minutes and watch without exceeding the buffer space. That would be ~15 Mbits/second.

Now, if you buffer an hour, you still need to sustain something like 1/2 that rate or 10 Mbits/second to make it to the end of the 2 hour movie without running out of buffer.

Cheers,

THat's still very significant bandwidth. For argument's sake, we'll say that it's a 2 hour movie at 20 Mbits/second ABR.

If my calcs are correct, you need about 7/8 of that speed to only buffer 15 minutes and watch without exceeding the buffer space. That would be ~15 Mbits/second.

Now, if you buffer an hour, you still need to sustain something like 1/2 that rate or 10 Mbits/second to make it to the end of the 2 hour movie without running out of buffer.

Cheers,

It gets a little bit more complicated than that since all movies are not exactly constant bit rate. If the last part of the movie is a thrilling action scene taking a lot more bit rate then you only have to catch up by the end and your calc would be correct. But if there is a huge hump in total bits toward the beginning then you need more buffering time. For this reason I've even suggested showing the credits at the beginning, at a low bit rate. Or any other lower bit rate material like previews or something to keep the viewer occupied.

If it wasn't so annoying then showing static FBI warnings in 23 languages would be just perfect. ;)

- Tom

Of course, Rutgar, for you there is the Hitachi blu-ray camcorder. It's not carried at many places, and no one seems to have reviewed it or bought it, but price is coming down dramatically.

Just to be clear. I'm not 'pro Blu-ray' on anything and everything. D/L, VOD, Flash Drives, etc. All have their places. But in the current state of home video, BD is currently the king as far as PQ, availability, and most importantly, studio support. The price is still a little high compared to standard DVD, but that should get better as the dust settles from the format war.

As far as streaming video goes, judging from my current experiences of 'freezing, stalls, and stutters' when watching streaming videos on my PC, I would say it also has a long way to go as well. But this could be due more to the current state of the internet's infrastructure, than the streaming technology itself.

Just to be clear. I'm not 'pro Blu-ray' on anything and everything.
Me too!
But in the current state of home video, BD is currently the king as far as PQ, availability, and most importantly, studio support.
PQ definitely goes to bluray.
Availability goes to DVD
Studio support goes to DVD

The king is still DVD. If you want to be the man, you have to beat the man.

The price is still a little high compared to standard DVD, but that should get better as the dust settles from the format war.. That is what the studios and the mfgs don't want.

Me too!

PQ definitely goes to bluray.
Availability goes to DVD
Studio support goes to DVD

The king is still DVD. If you want to be the man, you have to beat the man.

That is what the studios and the mfgs don't want.

Wow! Talk about changing horses mid-stream! No one is talking about standard DVD. We are talking about BD vs. Memory Sticks, D/L, etc. Try paying attention.

Wow! Talk about changing horses mid-stream! No one is talking about standard DVD. We are talking about BD vs. Memory Sticks, D/L, etc. Try paying attention.

He just stated a simple fact and pointed out a few hurdles/reasons why BD won't be King.

Downloads are where we're gonna end up. We're moving in that direction right now. It's just a mater of time. It WILL happen.

The only real limiting factor is bandwidth.

The length of time it takes for movie downloads to become the primary method for home viewing is wholly dependant on how long it takes ISPs to roll-out faster speeds.

Right now, with 8 mb/s downloads as the fastest average downstream speed in the US, who wants to wait over 11 hours to get your 40 GB HD movie? That's certainly not something I want.

But in Hong Kong right now, that same download takes just 5 minutes! In Japan and Korea, you can download that 40 GB movie in less than an hour. Right now.

Hong Kong has symmetrical GB Ethernet available which sells for the equivalent of around $215 US a month. In Japan and Korea, you can get 100 MB for around $30-40 US per month.

And here we are in the US with our paltry 6-8 mb/s! Ghastly! The US is a cultural backwater. A Third-World Nation!

It won't stay that way long. Verizon is building out its FIOS. Comcast is moving to DOCSIS 3.0. Lots of good things are happening in the bandwidth world.

The latest buzz is that Comcast will be rolling out DOCSIS 3.0 this coming year (in select markets), with speeds in the 30-50 mb/s range. Verizon will match that, of course, as will Qwest and AT&T and all the others.

That’s nowhere near what they’ve got in Asia, but it’s a start and it gets us farther down the road to where we need to be. How long till we get those GB speeds they already have in Hong Kong? Hopefully less than 10 years. Probably not more.

Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and the others know this. They’re already positioning themselves for the new market. I read a speech given by the President of Blockbuster where he predicted downloads coming into their own right with the next five years.

It’s just a matter of time.

Video downloads will predominate as soon as they’re as easy and convenient and cheap as conventional rentals/sales. You go browse online through Blockbuster’s catalog (or Netflix), select the movie you want to watch, click “buy”, then go pop some popcorn. You come back and watch it on your HDTV.

So how much bandwidth do we need for it to take off?

I would think the time limit for a download would be somewhere in the range of 10-15 minutes for people to widely accept it (everyone wants immediate gratification – it can’t take as much time as going to the store, or it won’t work).

That may be implemented by offering SD downloads initially (at say 6-8 GB each). SD video looks pretty awful good, and 8 GB only takes 22 minutes to download at 100 mb/s. That’s close to being workable.

How am I gonna watch ‘em?

Easy! The movies will be delivered to your “entertainment multi-media” device. Current PS3 and X-Box 360 devices have this capability already (although not enough storage to really work). NextGen consoles will have much larger storage capacity and will be able to fully implement movie downloads.

It’s just a matter of time.


The US being called third world is not something that makes me feel good, hey but at least we still have cool.:(

Art

Yeah... a long time. Going by everything you just wrote.Nope.

Actually things are changing very rapidly. From the news thread (and elsewhere).

Here is where fiber to the home is...

At the end of December 2007, Verizon had passed about 9.3 million homes and businesses in parts of 17 states.

· Verizon expects to continue passing some 3 million premises annually through 2010, when the company expects to have passed about 18 million homes, or over half the homes it serves.

Nearly 3 million homes (http://telephonyonline.com/broadband/news/ftth-sold-us-homes-0408/)are connected to fiber, and 770,500 of those (or 26%) were added in the last six months, according to RVA.

Here is where Comcast is with Docsis 3.0...

Comcast, which has 13.2 million Internet customers, plans to offer wideband to 20% of the 49 million homes in its service areas this year and 100% by the middle of 2010, Bowling says.

Customers will be able to download Internet data at a rate of up to 50 megabits per second and upload at 5 Mbps.

Here is where Cox is...

Cox also has Docsis 3.0 on its agenda, and it appears that its channel bonding strategy will synch up with its decision to expand system bandwidth across the board. (See Cox Makes 1 GHz Moves .)

The MSO plans to do some limited deployments of Docsis 3.0 in the second half of 2008, giving it the ability to add capacity at costs lower than what's afforded by earlier versions of the platform.

Time Warner...

Time Warner Cable is expected to begin deploying DOCSIS 3.0 later this month, according to a report released today by New Paradigm Resources Group.

Nothing like some old fashioned competition to get things moving quickly, eh?

He just stated a simple fact and pointed out a few hurdles/reasons why BD won't be King.

Maybe, but that's a completely different discussion than the one we're having here. Try reading the title of the thread.

Wow! Talk about changing horses mid-stream! No one is talking about standard DVD. We are talking about BD vs. Memory Sticks, D/L, etc. Try paying attention.

Sorry, not changing horses midstream for me, I have mentioned it in previous posts in this thread.

Yes, look at the title. "...it's too late for blu-ray". Too late for blu-ray to do what? He is not saying it is too late for blu-ray to exist, obviously it does, nor is he saying that it is too late for blu-ray to sell lots of copies of hidef movies, which it is.

He is saying it is too late for blu-ray to supplant DVD as the dominant means by which we view movies. By the time bluray sales surpass DVD sales (if that ever happens), sales of downloads will already be greater.

Sorry, not changing horses midstream for me, I have mentioned it in previous posts in this thread.

Yes, look at the title. "...it's too late for blu-ray". Too late for blu-ray to do what? He is not saying it is too late for blu-ray to exist, obviously it does, nor is he saying that it is too late for blu-ray to sell lots of copies of hidef movies, which it is.

He is saying it is too late for blu-ray to supplant DVD as the dominant means by which we view movies. By the time bluray sales surpass DVD sales (if that ever happens), sales of downloads will already be greater.

And that still remains to be seen.

And that still remains to be seen.

True, but it is that persons opinion. I hate to hear it because I don't want things to be so slow with BD that it might come to pass.

Art

The bandwith problem will be moot very soon. IBM,SONY, and TOSHIBA have been working on this problem. This chip is ready to go. the server have existed for years ( first as a mainframe now as blade machines).

IBM Streams HD Video at 3Mbps
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1019713

I personally couldn't imagine why I would want to carry movies around in my wallet. :confused: I don't have room for the crap in there right now. Beside why don't we all wait until they have telepathy figured out then we don't needd to carry any thing and the screen can be as big as you can imagine.

Exactly.And why not a TV in my pocket?;)

If you have been to your local bar in the last few years more than likely you have seen a fancy new jukebox. There are no longer records in it rather simply one large hard drive. It connects to the Internet so if for some reason the song you wish to play isn't being stored locally it will offer to instantly download it for you (if you are willing to pay extra).

Apple TV sells for $225 now with wireless-N, USB port and will output 1080p. It's not perfect but it shows what can be done down the road especially if any volume at all occurs.

If you want to watch a movie either download it yourself and watch it real-time (if your Internet connection is fast enough) or download it for viewing later. If you don't like downloading visit your grocery store with your thumb drive and come back with any movie you can imagine.

Since most of the world rents that's that however for the few who actually want to purchase their movies just plug an external drive into Apple TV's replacement and you are good to go.

Yeah... a long time. Going by everything you just wrote.

pfft I can watch DVD quality movies from Netflix right now. Eventually that will be thousands of movies at my fingertips for 15 bucks a month.

DOCSIS 3.0 will really push the envelope as it will allow cable providers to push 30,50 or 100+Mbps to the home.

And that still remains to be seen.

2007 Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sold about 6 million movies combined. Apples movie download service shipped about 8 million. It is already happening.

If you follow the news thread at the top of this forum. They are predicting the download industry to be about 5 billion dollars in the next couple of years. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were about 270 million last year. There is a very strong possibility that downloads take a large chunk of market from Blu-Ray once it gets to a price point that it can replace DVD.

bye, bye blue ray...

:p

2007 Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sold about 6 million movies combined. Apples movie download service shipped about 8 million. It is already happening.


90% of those movies apple "shipped" are off itunes to be played 320x240 on the ipod. Not really analogous...

90% of those movies apple "shipped" are off itunes to be played 320x240 on the ipod. Not really analogous...
What about these numbers? Back from November '07...

More Consumers Are Watching TV Broadcasts Online Thanks to Higher Streaming Quality (http://www.movenetworks.com/news-releases/more-consumers-are-watching-tv-broadcasts-online-thanks-to-higher-streaming-quality)

The following statistics focus on Move’s customers only:

The number of consumers viewing entire episodes online has dramatically increased as Move is gaining more than 100,000 new unique viewers every 24 hours.

A Move-enabled user’s average viewing time is 50 minutes (much higher than other industry estimates, which have placed average video viewing times across the Internet closer to 2.7 minutes).

Viewers have watched more than 15 million hours of Move-enabled near-HD or HD premium video content online in October alone.

Already in November, more than twice the number of viewers watched long form video online than watched in the entire month of August.

Move has streamed more than 50 million hours of television this year. This one is interesting:

Viewers have watched more than 15 million hours of Move-enabled near-HD or HD premium video content online in October alone. That's Move Networks alone. With 9 million discs sold since inception in the US - how many million hours per month are spent watching blu-ray?

It costs networks more money to stream online, they generate less ad revenue, their viewership is lower, what isn't there to love?

It costs networks more money to stream online, they generate less ad revenue, their viewership is lower, what isn't there to love?

And what does that have to do with his article? Networks have had ad revenue pressure since the first TiVo shipped and allowed people to

A. Not watch it live
B. Skip the commercials
C. Ease of use compared to VCR.

They will figure it out by putting the ad's directly into the shows. But that topic has little relevance on the fact people are watching a shatload of content online already. And Ill be surprised if the TCO for streaming is much more than the manufacturing and distribution process Blu-Ray.

Take a look at your local Block Buster. How much do you think it costs them to lease there space, pay employees, or ship video's to there store.
Block Buster could set up 10 or 15 kiosks easily for the price of one store and save a ton on labor costs. The Kiosks wouldn't even need a super fast internet connection because Block Buster could start uploading movies weeks before thier release date. Also the players should be dirt cheap to make because they require no moving parts or lasers and could fit in your hand.

Right now the gas station our family owns has a DVD kiosk thats connected to the internet. The machine automatically downloads the latest movie trailers and displays them on a screen. Another great thing is you can rent or buy the DVD's andif you keep a rental over 7 days the movie is yours. Also you can check what movies the machine has on-line.

We don't own the machine but get payed for the space each month and get free rentals:D.

I think kiosks that write to memory stix or thumb drives are going to be the future. Along with some other type of holographic disk. It makes sense, because it takes up very little real estate floor space. Every grocery store could have one. Just like atm machines. Its comming. Just a matter of when. I see this as more of a rental market.

Netflix has changed the landscape of home media for ever. Anything that can take up less space and require less employees or physical stores(blockbuster) is going to make it happen.

Consumers want choice. We have bd for the high end people who demand the best pic and audio quality and downloads and vod and everything else for people who don't have to have the BEST.

I see this as a plus. The more options the better. The studios know this. The more options the more likely they will get to more consumers watching their movies.

Say you have a family of 5 making $35K a year. I highly doubt they are going to be the ones buying a $400 machine and buying BD's. They are likely to spend the least amount as possible. That is why $5 dvd's sell so well at walmart. They figure heck it cost $4 to rent at bb or just $1 more and I own it.

I think kiosks that write to memory stix or thumb drives are going to be the future. Along with some other type of holographic disk. It makes sense, because it takes up very little real estate floor space. Every grocery store could have one. Just like atm machines. Its comming. Just a matter of when. I see this as more of a rental market.

Netflix has changed the landscape of home media for ever. Anything that can take up less space and require less employees or physical stores(blockbuster) is going to make it happen.

Consumers want choice. We have bd for the high end people who demand the best pic and audio quality and downloads and vod and everything else for people who don't have to have the BEST.

I see this as a plus. The more options the better. The studios know this. The more options the more likely they will get to more consumers watching their movies.

Say you have a family of 5 making $35K a year. I highly doubt they are going to be the ones buying a $400 machine and buying BD's. They are likely to spend the least amount as possible. That is why $5 dvd's sell so well at walmart. They figure heck it cost $4 to rent at bb or just $1 more and I own it.


Why go to a Kiosk when you can download the file from the comfort of your couch with an Apple TV or similar product? In my opinion... the format war is over... Video Downloads have won. Now its just a battle to see which one wins... Apple, Microsoft, Vudu, Comcast, etc....

I think kiosks that write to memory stix or thumb drives are going to be the future. Along with some other type of holographic disk. It makes sense, because it takes up very little real estate floor space. Every grocery store could have one. Just like atm machines. Its comming. Just a matter of when. I see this as more of a rental market.

Netflix has changed the landscape of home media for ever. Anything that can take up less space and require less employees or physical stores(blockbuster) is going to make it happen.

Consumers want choice. We have bd for the high end people who demand the best pic and audio quality and downloads and vod and everything else for people who don't have to have the BEST.

I see this as a plus. The more options the better. The studios know this. The more options the more likely they will get to more consumers watching their movies.

Say you have a family of 5 making $35K a year. I highly doubt they are going to be the ones buying a $400 machine and buying BD's. They are likely to spend the least amount as possible. That is why $5 dvd's sell so well at walmart. They figure heck it cost $4 to rent at bb or just $1 more and I own it.

I agree. The option that is most convenient and least expensive for the consumer, will have the largest share of the market though.

Here I am on my way over to the store to load my movie onto my memory stick.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/MollerXM4-02.jpg

I was just reading thru this thread from the beginning, so sorry for dragging this out.. but this made me laugh out loud.

No doubt, Popular Science predicted these decades ago, and by now everyone would be driving one. I give them more credibility than a 'chief scientist' at THX. While I'm discounting moving to a completely different format than optical, it's not going to happen that quick. A lot of valid points as to why have already been pointed out and I'm still back a bit in this thread. However, if you think it's going to make it cheaper for the consumer, pass it over here. Logical and profitable often are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and the latter is always the one that wins in my experience.

Why go to a Kiosk when you can download the file from the comfort of your couch with an Apple TV or similar product? In my opinion... the format war is over... Video Downloads have won. Now its just a battle to see which one wins... Apple, Microsoft, Vudu, Comcast, etc....
I don't think so... The silver disc isn't going anywhere soon. The DRM restrictions on video downloads are just that - RESTRICTIONS. Restrictions when you can watch it. How long you have to watch it. Where you can watch it - you can't really take it anywhere (unless you're a 2" iPod fan). Let's face it. It's forever intrinsically bound to your HTPC, Vudu box, or whatever! How portable is that? Can't take it to the lake house. Can't take it in the van for the kids. You get the picture... Sure you could possibly stream it around your house, but just how realistic is that for the masses? Restrictions? You bet. And plenty of them. Not until we have access to light-speed bandwidth will video downloads ever make a dent in the typical movie watching public's habits. And that's still a long way off. As some else said and I paraphrase, "A $5 disc at WM is the best deal going".

Going off topic...
I have to agree, I have lived and learned. But I have some valid points to my decision making with HD DVD. Back in the summer of 2005 my 56" RPCRT 480i TV packed it in. I was looking for a replacement at the time without breaking the bank, I bought a 65" 1080i RPCRT HDTV. My 1999 DVD player only supported 480i via component. Therefore in the fall of 2005 I was searching for a up-converting DVD player and I was starting to read about Blu-Ray & HD DVD. Blu-Ray had the better specs like today but on release day Spring 2006 HD DVD had the least problems and completed specs, top it off it is a superb up-converting player which was my main reason to replace my aging DVD player. HD DVD gave a taste of HDM that got me hooked on the media.

Here we are 2 years later and BD still has profile changes and BDM lacking in features and 50GB media still showing no advantage to HDM. HD is gone but I still consider it a better format. I have no regrets with HDM I have a lot of great flicks with a HD player that does excellent DVD up-converting. I plan to continue with another HD format and if Flash turns out to be better, so be it.

...Angelo


HD is gone? You are aware that over 20 million americans do not know anything about Digital Television at all yet do you? That and over half of america still doesnt have anything HD related, I think its a little early to say HD is gone.

You did notice that HD DVD players have been wiped out too didnt you?

*looks below @ your signature*

HD is hardly gone, its just getting started, It is taking some time but the reason simply being that most who dont have HD either havent heard of it, or see no reason to upgrade their equipment to HD.

HD will last longer than the few years it has I assure you of that.

HD is gone? You are aware that over 20 million americans do not know anything about Digital Television at all yet do you? That and over half of america still doesnt have anything HD related, I think its a little early to say HD is gone.

You did notice that HD DVD players have been wiped out too didnt you?

*looks below @ your signature*

HD is hardly gone, its just getting started, It is taking some time but the reason simply being that most who dont have HD either havent heard of it, or see no reason to upgrade their equipment to HD.

HD will last longer than the few years it has I assure you of that.

If you check the context of his message, he meant to say that HD DVD is gone. It was a typo, that's all.

To all those calling this guy an "idiot" ... that is is both immature and presenting evidence of your own limited cranial capacity ;)

Things change and evolve, as much as many here don't want to hear it. Calling an informed insider an "idiot" doesnt' change realityi.

In my opinion, 3 things stand in the way of adoption for any new format.

The first is technology.

The second is infrastructure

The third is training.
thing is that bluray faces all three as well. sony can't press the discs that great, noone has bluray players and customers need to be trained/told why paying 10x more for a player and 2x more for said discs is in their best interest

:D

Just to keep an old thread going and tweak tqlla - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gb9cKh-qXm7lARevuO1ZlVeAY3QgD90UQ6300.

At my local best buy the cd isles is still twice the size of the movie isles.

It's about 50/50 here in the Cleveland area stores. It used to be about 80% CD. For me, I don't show there anyways (prices too high) so I wouldn't care if they stopped selling CDs altogether. :) Stores like BB and CC are only good for clearance sales.

On the OP, I'm surprised so many are quick to call the guy an idiot. I know quite a few people in their 20s who have sold off their entire CD collections and now just keep the content saved on their PCs. The reasons they have (space) are likely to be the same for movies also. I don't want to see an era of downloads - I like physical media - but the masses don't think the same as the 'collector' crowd and many collectors refuse to believe that.

This is the 'generation' of movie media that I'm buying like there's no tomorrow. I just get that gut feeling that it's possibly the last we'll see.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/videos/ces-2003/ces-2003-thx/ces-2003-thx-index.html

THX have got to be joking about car audio the background noise level is the worst!!!!! Is THX now taking the piss with THX car audio!

What’s next THX bubble bath?:rolleyes::D
THX toothpaste
THX milk
THX red meat
THX cheap telephone calls
THX energy saving light bulbs

They should stick with cinema and home cinema ONLY!!!!!!

It's about 50/50 here in the Cleveland area stores. It used to be about 80% CD. For me, I don't show there anyways (prices too high) so I wouldn't care if they stopped selling CDs altogether. :) Stores like BB and CC are only good for clearance sales.

On the OP, I'm surprised so many are quick to call the guy an idiot. I know quite a few people in their 20s who have sold off their entire CD collections and now just keep the content saved on their PCs. The reasons they have (space) are likely to be the same for movies also. I don't want to see an era of downloads - I like physical media - but the masses don't think the same as the 'collector' crowd and many collectors refuse to believe that.

This is the 'generation' of movie media that I'm buying like there's no tomorrow. I just get that gut feeling that it's possibly the last we'll see.


I fall into that crowd. I will admit movies were never a big thing. I probably own about 50 DVDs and 30 HD-DVDs. But since I filled out my HD-DVD collection all of my movies are coming off my HDTivo and stored on a server in my laundry room. I have about 50 movies now in a 30 SD and 20 HD split. Though from now on I am strictly recording and saving HD movies.At the rate I am going my collection should double by the end of the year which means of all the movies I own, over 50% of them wont be on a physical media like a DVD or HD-DVD\Blu-Ray.

Future formats? Are you guy's kidding? What in the world is the matter with all of you? I bought a BD from Circuit City one day (early adoption) and the cashier scanned the disc at $35. She picked up the phone and called her manager to the cash register. I asked why and she replied: "My register is broken." When the manager arrived, he told her there was nothing wrong. She said there must be, it keeps scanning $35. He told her, "Maybe it's a two disc set or something." I told both of them that it was a high resolution format requiring a special player and a HDTV that accepted a 1080P input. She looked at me and said, "You must be rich or something. I wouldn't pay $35 for a DVD player, let alone a movie." Let us all not forget the age old creed of audio-video: People buy value and not quality. AVS Forum and other forum members, as well as audio-videophiles are a different breed. I know many well-off people who buy their DVD's from bootleggers for five bucks. I actually saw one of these movies and I'm quit sure the movie was shot on a movie camera from inside a movie theater! Joe six-pack doesn't have a clue what CODEC's or scaling means. The industry can sell anything as long as it is cheap. 65% of PS3 owner's do not know the unit plays Blu-ray movies. 75% of PS3 owner's don't have a TV that accepts a 1080P signal. An estimated ten million homes in The U.S. will be without TV next February. 50% of the population can't tell the difference between a HD and a SD program. The brands that we write about are like a foriegn language to the average person. Music server's, streaming, etc. If you gave the layman a A/V dictionary, it would make very little difference. DVD-A and SACD's didn't fly because no one in DoDropIN, USA was willing to spend the money for the disc, let alone the player's. It will not matter how well audio and video evolves, the masses will not buy it unless the movies are under twenty bucks and the players are under a hundred bucks....period! One look at the music industry tells it all.

Future formats? Are you guy's kidding? What in the world is the matter with all of you? I bought a BD from Circuit City one day (early adoption) and the cashier scanned the disc at $35. She picked up the phone and called her manager to the cash register. I asked why and she replied: "My register is broken." When the manager arrived, he told her there was nothing wrong. She said there must be, it keeps scanning $35. He told her, "Maybe it's a two disc set or something." I told both of them that it was a high resolution format requiring a special player and a HDTV that accepted a 1080P input. She looked at me and said, "You must be rich or something. I wouldn't pay $35 for a DVD player, let alone a movie." Let us all not forget the age old creed of audio-video: People buy value and not quality. AVS Forum and other forum members, as well as audio-videophiles are a different breed. I know many well-off people who buy their DVD's from bootleggers for five bucks. I actually saw one of these movies and I'm quit sure the movie was shot on a movie camera from inside a movie theater! Joe six-pack doesn't have a clue what CODEC's or scaling means. The industry can sell anything as long as it is cheap. 65% of PS3 owner's do not know the unit plays Blu-ray movies. 75% of PS3 owner's don't have a TV that accepts a 1080P signal. An estimated ten million homes in The U.S. will be without TV next February. 50% of the population can't tell the difference between a HD and a SD program. The brands that we write about are like a foriegn language to the average person. Music server's, streaming, etc. If you gave the layman a A/V dictionary, it would make very little difference. DVD-A and SACD's didn't fly because no one in DoDropIN, USA was willing to spend the money for the disc, let alone the player's. It will not matter how well audio and video evolves, the masses will not buy it unless the movies are under twenty bucks and the players are under a hundred bucks....period! One look at the music industry tells it all.

QFT!

I agree with one of the previous posters regarding the restrictions of DRM on digital media. That is THE major pitfall of digital downloads. When you no longer have complete control over when and where you can watch your media, do you really own it?

I believe that digital downloads will be the future. Maybe not in the near future, but at some point. I simply believe that at the moment people enjoy a physical item in their hands after a purchase. More so than 1's and 0's. It has taken some time for the consumer market to adjust to the idea of mp3's and digital downloads but I see people moving in that direction very soon.

I agree with one of the previous posters regarding the restrictions of DRM on digital media. That is THE major pitfall of digital downloads. When you no longer have complete control over when and where you can watch your media, do you really own it?

I believe that digital downloads will be the future. Maybe not in the near future, but at some point. I simply believe that at the moment people enjoy a physical item in their hands after a purchase. More so than 1's and 0's. It has taken some time for the consumer market to adjust to the idea of mp3's and digital downloads but I see people moving in that direction very soon.My 2 cents is that when I can have an unlimited selection of downloads and I can pay a flat fee per month for that availability (and I think that is coming sooner rather than later-VuDu, Apple TV, Netflix). I will never again buy a movie as long as it is at least DVD quality or better. Blu-Ray discs (and players) need to come down in price fast to become established-especially the discs. They are not so much better than standard DVD's that are unconverted with the best upconversion to merit the price difference IMHO.

Right now, I can stream 5-6 HD movies from Apple TV for the price of one blu-ray disc. And I am one that has Escients full of 1200 DVDs and 1200 CD's as well as having HD-DVD and PS3 players. I just think the blu-ray discs are FAR too high for what you get (but I have bought some).

I also have a collection of about 750+ DVDs, but own no Blu-Rays. I've only had my PS3 a few weeks though, but can't see buying any, since I may have watched 20 of my DVDs more than once (and maybe 6 of them more than twice). I don't really have the desire to own a bunch of discs anymore that will sit around collecting dust and taking up space (I don't get any personal satisfaction from looking at that shelf either).

I'm pretty sure, at least for me, that my Netflix account coupled with the Watch Now service (Roku or PS3 or XBOX360 streaming) or maybe AppleTV will be sufficient for my needs.
Now I might consider buying a BR if they'd release a portable player for my car...but even then it would only be "kids" movies, and even then, I'd have to justify the cost of a new player, the more expensive BR disc, and would probably just end up getting the SD anyways.

I also have a collection of about 750+ DVDs, but own no Blu-Rays. I've only had my PS3 a few weeks though, but can't see buying any, since I may have watched 20 of my DVDs more than once (and maybe 6 of them more than twice). I don't really have the desire to own a bunch of discs anymore that will sit around collecting dust and taking up space (I don't get any personal satisfaction from looking at that shelf either).

I'm pretty sure, at least for me, that my Netflix account coupled with the Watch Now service (Roku or PS3 or XBOX360 streaming) or maybe AppleTV will be sufficient for my needs.
Now I might consider buying a BR if they'd release a portable player for my car...but even then it would only be "kids" movies, and even then, I'd have to justify the cost of a new player, the more expensive BR disc, and would probably just end up getting the SD anyways.

I have a huge collection on DVD on my home media server, I can't justify getting rid of that for a format that does not offer the flexibility of DVD.

Sloburn
awesome post!

Personally, I want nothing to do with drm restricted data that sits on a box or a memory stick that may go bad. I want the physical disk if I'm buying. I don't buy a lot of Blu ray disks, but I Netflix them all the time. The ones I do buy are the ones I think I'll watch 5-10 times in my life. The whole streamed/download thing will be very big eventually, but for purchase? I don't buy that. People are already into the disk thing now, and are not going to get into complicated drm encrusted data scenarios. The whole thing hinges on Blu ray home and car players becoming a low priced commodity. Sony needs to hurry up and make that happen.

Sloburn
awesome post!

Personally, I want nothing to do with drm restricted data that sits on a box or a memory stick that may go bad. I want the physical disk if I'm buying. I don't buy a lot of Blu ray disks, but I Netflix them all the time. The ones I do buy are the ones I think I'll watch 5-10 times in my life. The whole streamed/download thing will be very big eventually, but for purchase? I don't buy that. People are already into the disk thing now, and are not going to get into complicated drm encrusted data scenarios. The whole thing hinges on Blu ray home and car players becoming a low priced commodity. Sony needs to hurry up and make that happen.

As it stands.

1. Blu Ray has very strong (restricted) copy protection as well. You can't copy a Blu Ray movie into any other device.

2. Optical disks can get damaged just like any other storage device.

3. You have far more flexibility with a digital copy than with a Blu Ray disk.

As a Optical disk format, Blu Ray has the MOST restrictive copy protection of any media available and is currently the least portable of any media as well!

As it stands.

1. Blu Ray has very strong (restricted) copy protection as well. You can't copy a Blu Ray movie into any other device.

2. Optical disks can get damaged just like any other storage device.

3. You have far more flexibility with a digital copy than with a Blu Ray disk.

As a Optical disk format, Blu Ray has the MOST restrictive copy protection of any media available and is currently the least portable of any media as well!

Well 1 is not true. You most certainly can copy for backup purposes Blu-Ray and a HD-DVDs ( I don't think we can discuss this topic on AVS )

2 is true

3 is a non-issue since you can copy BD.

av.pallino
As a Optical disk format, Blu Ray has the MOST restrictive copy protection of any media available and is currently the least portable of any media as well!
That's not really my point, though.
Joe Blow is not going to deal with the technicalities of portable data media. The average person is just not interested in any learning curve with their media. They have disks, they like disks, they are not going to buy en mass large quantities of invisible data that will have basically the same restrictions (you know it will!) as Blu Ray.
When it gets to the point when you can pay for a monthly service to watch anything you want, when you want with high quality, then the disk will no longer be as important.

How long did it take Netflix to move 100K Rokus?

On demand services like this, with the option to purchase the d/l will clearly be the format of the future. My bet is five years max for the Blu-Ray to be obsolete, which is about how long cassettes were the dominant music format and how does history view them?

I love my Roku Netflix box, but it's not where I'd want to store any purchases! Will there be a way to back up or redownload purchases to a new box if my current box dies? How about adding disk space? Will it be with proprietary drm controlled drives? You bet it will.. With the current obsession with drm by hollywood et al, is there really hope for these issues to be resolved in 5 years with all of the competing players?

Hicks
With all due respect, cassettes is not the best comparison - they were recordable portable media with no drm. The music business just HAD to kill them off. Very similar in fact to flash media.

But even if blu ray does become the main disk format dvd players and disks will be around for many many years, as would blu ray when it's replaced in I'd guess 7-10 years.... (if it does become "the" player)

DRM is the big ugly invisible gorilla in the room. I doubt hollywood will have its back broken as fast as the record labels.

Hey I'm not saying I don't want a GB Internet connection and to watch any TV or movies I want, when I want, I just think we'll be waiting a long time for that nirvana.

Heh I guess the stupidity of Hollywood is the variable I didn't consider. :D

Hopefully they will sort out compatability and storage issues because I have a hard time believing that mainstream users will shell out the cash that they are asking for BDs.

Either the prices need to come down, which means they lose margin, or they deliver a product with pratically no production costs for cheaper and give users a reasonable amount of freedom with the files to make them more attractive. Seems like a no brainer to me.