HD Streaming Anything Close to Blu-ray? No.

Here is a link to the full report:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/ele...really-hd.html

Nice post. Yeah, I have watched a few HD movies on cable either through the networks or on demand, and they don't look nearly as good. And this is on my 36" HDTV. So, I can definitely see those with larger setups being very annoyed by the reduced quality.

We may never see DNL's match the PQ of BD. It will take alot of bandwidth to get the bit rate as high.

The issue is . . . who cares?

ANSWER: Videophiles - a very small % of the total marketplace.

They can barely get the dvd quality and as such everybody except the teenage youtube fan does care. Hell if they could at least feed their customer something on par to broadcast tv without disolving in a pixelated mess when there is a lot of action then it could be barely adequate but you may not even get that. DL content is a crapshoot.

So why are people still buying 720P and 768P HDTV's?


I believe HD OTA is almost 18 Mbps. Which IP is offerring that kind of speed for $40 a month?

720p > youtube quality.
Lots of people here are using 720p pj or tv and you can bet your house that they can tell the difference between broadcast, dvd and BR.


I was talking cable and sat. you know those recompress feed that still look better than DL content.

And when i'm talking about dl content i'm not talking about those high quality rip you get on pirate bay or other site. I'm talking about those streamed content that barely makes the cut.

I tried the Amazom onDemand and the PQ is not even close to SD DVD.
An no, I don't have a 500 eleventy billion connection. I have a 1.5mb connection like most J6P have.
Even Netflix recommends 3mb.

Not everyone can afford $40-60 +TAX a month for a fast broadband connection.

I figured most people will give these streaming services a try but the horrible PQ at average bandwidth of 3mb or less probably deters them from trying again & they go back to DVD/blu-ray rentals/purchases.

Even the PQ/connection for Netflix on the LG Blu-ray player was found unacceptable in Home Theatre Magazine.

Until everyone gets 10-20mb connections at a reasonable cost(below $20-30), I don't see streaming taking off of quite a while.

But you did not mention their Vudu comments:

Heck even when I use Amazon Unbox, I always choose the download option rather than stream. We need more deployment of things like Ben Waggoner's streaming technology to make streaming decent quality.

http://www.smoothhd.com/

At 1.5mb, downloading is very slow then playing back the video requires you to basically shutdown virus protection & other high usage processor/memory tasks to free up memory & processing power on the PC.
I can go to HWV or BB in 5 minutes and get the DVD or blu-ray, pop it my player and call it a day.

btw:
I received a leaflet in my phone bill that I can upgrade to 7mb for $7 extra.
I looked into it and it's not available in my area!
I live in Seattle and I currently can't get anything faster than 1.5mb from my DSL provider, Qwest.

It's very simple.. it's just a matter of time and it won't be too long. 2-3 years for streaming. Full downloads even sooner as HDX is damn close to BD from what I experience.

How many rounds did Sony have? what about Pioneer?

What about the growth in streaming sites like Joost and Hulu. I posted in another thread, but Hulu and Joost combine for 5M users per month and had a growth of over 1800%. But will that be reported. Of course not because no one cares about streaming!

If Vudu fails it will be because they targeted the videophile market, not the mainstream. The PS3 failed because Sony assumed resolution was king. It isn't. Content is! Folks like apple know that.

It doesn't matter how good a format is if studios hold back content or price the content too high.

+1

I think a download/streaming hybrid device and service could solve many problems and would be very valuable to consumers. Imagine a device that worked with your Netflix queue to download HDX quality videos to the device and hold "X" number of titles based on your plan.

If you had a 3 at a time package, you would have 3 titles on the device. When you watch one and delete it, the device immediately starts to download the next title so you always have at least "x-1" titles ready to watch in high quality with faster turn around and more convenience than physical discs. I would personally pay MORE for this service than I would for a comparable 3 at a time disc package from Netflix.

Even if the price was the same, Netflix would still save money on shipping, loss, etc from physical media.

Now imagine if this was also a built-in feature of one or more next gen game consoles..... (drool).

The point is that you may wish to limit the conversation to streaming, but there are fairly simple ways to increase the convenience of the all you can eat offerings from Netflix and get the quality advantages of downloading.... and in a way that is very seamless for the consumer.

Eh? Samsung, LG, Microsoft, Netflix themselves, TVs with embedded Netflix etc etc.. even PS3 has it through PlayOn that people are using massively on PS3 not to mention every PC capable of watching Netflix. Not sure what you are referring to when you are talking about just on Microsoft console?

Microsoft has exclusive console rights, at least for this generation. I think Sony was confident that Blu-ray playback was the main content feature it would need. I doubt they will make the same mistake next generation and will at least try to break the exclusive right to Netflix (if not try for exclusive rights themselves).

The BD Forum should rest assured that the internet will never get any faster, compression codecs will never become more efficient, and the quality of streaming HD will never get any better. Accordingly, internet distribution will never threaten BD as a medium of media distribution.

Several studies done by the nation's top scientologist have proven that the internet is a dead technology, and in the future there is zero chance that it will be able to compete with technologies that exist today. The internet is a niche technology, isn't likely to catch on or improve, and so BD is all but guarenteed to be the superiour technology of the future.

The End

So how is the Apple TV doing these days? Does Apple even give numbers on it? Oh, and when did the PS3 fail?

It's understandable that some people would rather have ease of use over quality. The problem is there are too many players in the game at the moment. I would never dream of buying to "own" from a download/streaming company because chances are they will not be around 5 years from now.

It's better to have blu-ray (or even dead HD DVD). You can still play those movies if you have a player and the disc... what are you going to do in 5 yrs if Amazon and Apple call it quits, or if Hulu doesn't make the money it promised its investors? If you have one of those tvs with built in download services, or a bunch of equipment (apple tv, roku, etc) You'll now have obsolete equipment that you cant do anything with. The format war is nothing compared to what we're going to see if download services begin offering exclusive content... it will be a nightmare.

Once those wars are through, and bandwidth has increased, better compression, etc, then I'll be ready to move to downloading. Until then blu-ray is big enough to satisfy me, and won't be dying any time soon.

I still think its a bit funny people actually think the vod/download services are going to win trying to SELL you content to own.

What VOD/streaming can offer IMO is something better than the download to own market. I understand some people are die hard owners but I think the vod/streaming market is what will take over for physical media and not download to own. To me VOD/streaming has always been about reinventing the way we watch movies and not trying to replicate the way its been done for decades (and was done that way because of technical limitations).

Nobody is really offering a download to own option for hd movies.... its all streaming or 24hr rentals while people are trying to figure out how to best make money off VOD/streaming. And personally netflix is the clear run away winner so far in that space (even though their service has some very big flaws).

Not to take things TOO off topic, but I think that pre-cached downloads that use the Netflix model would be HUUUUUGE!!

Imagine having 3-4 titles ready to watch in high quality HD (think Vudu HDX) that are sitting on a local device based on a managed queue. When you are done with a title, your next choice starts downloading in the background. Think the Netflix model without snail mail.

Are you serious?

Check out the Download forum. There is tons of info you can use to educate yourself, including links to the Netflix earnings call where their CEO cites streaming as THE driver of their record growth last quarter, and how they expect to break that record again due to streaming driving new subscribers and reducing shipping costs.

The only way "owning" will be taken out of the equation is if all streaming/download services offer a netflix style approach.. pay a fixed monthly fee, download all you want. This would work, but the problem is, the market for new rentals is so much bigger than the market for old rentals. What this means is offering a flat monthly fee would most likely not include "new" movies because they can make so much more if they were to charge per viewing. Of course they could always have something like a fixed fee for unlimited catalog + 3 "new" per month.

The problem with the unlimited download is this: your catalog titles never get noticed... Unless you use the same approach as DVD where you bring out a few new "catalog" titles each week. This of course can be another problem because what is the motivation for a studio to bring catalogs if they dont benefit directly? This means the download services would have to treat them as "new" in the sense that they are pay per view. Now if you own a "catalog" subscription, you wont be able to see it for a fixed time unless you pay... but if you wait it will be "free"...

There's lots of ways to play around with this, but people enjoy "owning" stuff....

The 360 and its 28 million users discovered that they could watch netflix on their big tv starting at only $9 a month... of course they were going to get new customers. Until then it cost $4-5 a movie rental on the 360, so this was a bargain.

Imagine if the PS3 didnt have blu-ray playback at first (assume it sold the same amount)... Now imagine if one day sony announced that the 20 million people who own a PS3 can now play back blu-ray movies on their consoles. Do you think there may be a surge in sales equivalent or greater than what netflix experienced?

Comments from Netflix Co-Founder and CEO (Reed Hastings).









http://seekingalpha.com/article/1166...all-transcript

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1114772

If you had read all the Neflix stuff you would understand that they are already discussing a streaming only plan. I would guess they are not going to do that until they increase the library of available titles. With only 12,000 titles, an online only offering would not make sense yet (just like a BD only plan would not make sense).

If you had read the Netflix stuff, you would also realize that they know exactly how many people signed up directly because of the streaming capabilities of 3rd party hardware. They won't release that info as streaming is a strategic piece of their growth and substainability.

I am a Netflix subscriber. I am sure I have contacted them in the past, but don't recall why (probably to inform them of a damaged disc).

Netflix has been steadfast in proclaiming that streaming is THE reason for their unexpected and record breaking growth. They have also been steadfast in stating that they believe it brings both cost savings and competitive advantage. All of this (and more) is posted in the Video Download section for anyone who wishes to be informed on the topic.