Wow, this is cheaper than I rip my own HD collections.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/ces-videogiants.html

"The movies are delivered in the DRM-ed WMV format on Seagate hard drives; as of today, $159 will get you ten movies, but the company plans to offer a la carte movie downloads within the next couple of months."

Is this a Mark Cuban endeavor? Any one remember him popping in a couple years ago to ask opinions on distribution mechanism for HD videos.

How much do you wanna bet that with Verizon FIOS (or the promises from Comcast..), you can stream an HD movie in realtime in the not too distant future, making this model moot?

At his CES keynote speech Tuesday, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts promised 100 Megabit cable internet by 2009 and Project Infinity, an endlessly adaptable smorgasbord of on-demand choice.

Wow, 100Mbps. Figuring current pricing, that would only cost you about $450/month.

Chris

Back in January I had sent an email asking for more information from Video Giants about this. I was sent a reply that someone would call me around a specific time and if that was fine. I replied that the date and time was fine. After that I never heard from anyone so I crossed them off my list and instead spent money on some VUDU boxes.

Back in January I had sent an email asking for more information from Video Giants about this. I was sent a reply that someone would call me around a specific time and if that was fine. I replied that the date and time was fine. After that I never heard from anyone so I crossed them off my list and instead spent money on some VUDU boxes.



They are still working on their launch. Hopefully sooner than later.;)

From TV Week

Giant Steps: Scott Bahneman
By Danny King

The player: Scott Bahneman, co-founder and chief executive officer of MusicGiants.

The play: Mr. Bahneman, who co-founded high-definition music distributor MusicGiants in 2004, branched out into HD movie distribution through its VideoGiants service in January by reaching a deal with Viacom unit Paramount Home Entertainment. VideoGiants distributes super-high-definition versions of some of Paramount’s films to high-end videophiles through servers, hard drives and downloads. Mr. Bahneman hopes to reach agreements with “one or two” more of the major studios by September and eventually triple the company’s annual revenue with the film service.

The pitch: VideoGiants appeals to the high-end home entertainment customer by distributing digital versions of movies whose files are two to three times the size of those found on a typical Blu-ray disc. Many of the films are distributed through media servers made by companies such as Niveus Media and Aspen Media Products; those servers fetch between $2,000 and $10,000. “Blu-ray’s fine up to a 60-inch screen, but when you get to 100 inches, it’s going to start to artifact,” says Mr. Bahneman. “This is premium fuel for high-performance gear.”

The challenges: VideoGiants’ limited selection and high pricetag has limited its distribution primarily to custom home-entertainment installers, although Mr. Bahneman looks to make the product available at broader electronics retailers such as Best Buy. Once downloads of VideoGiants’ movies become more widespread, its pricing will be substantially higher than other HD downloads, with some titles costing as much as $40.

Backstory: Mr. Bahneman, 46, co-founded MusicGiants after two decades in the credit card processing industry, where he was a partner in a company that specialized in processing electronic drafts of signed credit slips that was eventually acquired by U.S. Bank. “We looked at media as the next logical thing that was going to go from a physically distributed good to an electronic one,” says Mr. Bahneman, who grew up in Minnesota and North Dakota and graduated from University of North Dakota.

Wow, 100Mbps. Figuring current pricing, that would only cost you about $450/month.

Chris

I pay $90 a month for the 50mbs down/20mbs ups tier.

FIOS already tested a 100 Mbit service in Quincy, MA (and another location) last year using existing technology. They are rolling out new technology that will quadruple IP pipe bandwidth. As Aaron notes, the 50/30 service is $90, which was probably the cost for 30/5 last year. I can imagine a 100 down service being $90 next year.

How much do you wanna bet that with Verizon FIOS ... you can stream an HD movie in realtime in the not too distant future, making this model moot?
You already can stream a movie in realtime over FiOS 20Mbps. Yes, even 1080p movies.

You already can stream a movie in realtime over FiOS 20Mbps. Yes, even 1080p movies.

1080p at 20Mbps?

No thanks.

1080p what?

1080p24 is a lot lower bandwidth than 1080p60. What real original source for 1080p60 anyway? Special high speed video cams? Instead 1080p30 seems more likely for video based content.

1080p24 with efficient video codecs like VC-1 and a simple stereo AC3 audio track can fit in 20 Mbps. Require more compressionist effort than when using BD's 36 Mbps bandwidth max? Yep likely.