Are we headed towards a low-quality video/audio standard in movie/TV rentals? - Page 2

I don't think we are headed for a lower quality standard, but I agree with the views expressed about internet bandwidth being a key factor in enabling higher quality streams. I pay $70 per month for high bandwidth internet and I think this is far too expensive.

1080p/5.1 streaming solutions were hard to find a year ago but are now fairly common. The biggest difference between 1080p/5.1 movie streams and Bluray is actually in the audio (although the video certainly isn't perfect). I'm a MOG streamer as well.

From what provider do you have 120 mbps service?

The content providers won't provide it until there are enough people with the bandwidth to make it worth their effort. . .which won't be anytime soon.

But the masses doesn't care about quality.

The issue of providers and how the masses don't care are separate issues. It's not a cost thing... Sort of.

Providers complain about how much it costs to maintain and improve their infrastructure to further validate what they can charge and thus add to their coffers. With no regulation this will never change. It's a very capitalistic structure and if you could get more money for the services you provide to your employer, clients etc you would as well.

Now people like me and prob most of you don't really care about that. We want the best and will begrudgingly pay for it. Them making it cheaper won't make a substantial change in how many people use it.

I point to the recent Netflix fiasco to prove this point. Netflix recently bumped prices in the US by 60%. That was what for most users? $5-$20? Not alot of money. Still pretty decent value.

In the next 3 days Netflix saw 800,000 canceled subscriptions over the cost of a single blueray.

It's not about quality for the masses. It's not even about convenience. It looks to be more about entitlement and value.

From our point of view here in Canada ( were we pay more than the US for things like bandwidth and cell service) the average American seems to feel they should not have to pay over cost for anything. It's weird, a society based on capitalism that's choked at how much the true capitalists make.

Now if true HD streaming was free then we would see a greater demand for it. But since it's costs more we won't. How much more for true HD the average person is willing to pay is unknown. We (people like us on these sites) will gladly pay for it. Alot of us are waiting for the next great innovation and will toss our HTPCs and AVRs away to make room for it when it comes. Do I get an 'Amen'! We can say "sure the average person would pay $5/month more for 25mbps!" But we see value in it. If there's no perceived value then would you spend that $5 for anything more than bragging rights? Where are you downloading from to need that?

Unless its free or preferably cheaper than the current option the average American won't. Not because it's better. Not because it's the new standard. But because they feel they are entitled to having it for free and won't support a company that made billions last year that is charging for it and because they see no value in it.

It boils down to value. Unless a person sees value in it they won't pay a dime more for it. If there is no value then it should be free or cheaper. Torrents are a great example. Quality sucks even when it's not a cam yet look at how many people dl them? I do, but if I enjoy the movie I'll grab the blueray as soon as it is released. If I don't like the movie it's deleted never to be seen again. My wife doesn't understand that as she see's no value in quality. As long as its not blurry or garbled (basically as long as its 480p) it's good enough and thus no extra money should be spent on it. But I lover her cause she is happy letting me spend to get better. 8D

So until its free we won't see it in common usage.

In my opinion anyways. No insults intended just say'in what I'm seeing.

The business modus operandi is market driven only. The masses has a lot of inertia and it isn't easy to start it but once it gets any momentum it is equaly difficult to stop.

I would say that the vast majority of HDTV sold aren't used for HD content exclusively if any at all. Plenty have them hooked to a regular cable box or dvd player and watch the SD feeds zoomed or stretched.

Those are the customer base for streaming media.

We at AVS are a select few. I'm sorry to say, but we don't represent the vast majority of the population. Beside us, who takes even the time to calibrate their TV instead of leaving it in torch mode?

Same for audio. I know plenty who just took their AVR out of the box, hook it up and never once ran the speaker setup or calibration.

And even I used to tweak everything and spend more hours trying to calibrate everything to their optimal values than to watch movies. Now I care less about all of it. Maybe I'm getting old, but I prefer to enjoy my media instead of making a job out of it.

In the end, availability of content is king.

And then some of us actually watch the content instead of being hung up on the process...

I think your viewing habits are rather unique. Most people do not sit 5' away from their 55" TV (you can actually move back a couple feet and still fully resolve 1080p), and most people are not that particular

It'd be like saying that because I've seen IMAX, I can never sit through a movie in a regular theater.

Similarly, I can certainly tell a difference between a Bluray and Netflix stream, but that does not mean that the Netflix stream is unwatchable. Netflix is actually perfectly nice on my 60" Kuro and I can absolutely enjoy a good streaming movie.

But, different people, different strokes. It's good that we have the choice of streaming, as well as the choice of Bluray.

On the other hand, it's too bad that the broadband monopolies have such a firm hold on Congress, and are allowed to screw the US consumer.

I don't think streaming is going to take over but it will be yet another option for us to get our video to us in the home or mobile. You don't mention downloads as part of this future?? They are going to be pushed heavily in 2012 with the full rollout of Ultraviolet in qtr 1 after CES. Also physical media still owns video as most people still get their home video fix from optical media.

There are many many people who do not want tethered Internet movie watching and the studios will cater to that market however big or small that might be in the future.

How much does that service run per month? The closest I could find on their web site was 100Mbdown/10Mbup @ $369/month.

Could you post a link? All I can find is this:
http://business.comcast.com/smb/services/Internet/plans

Which is significantly more expensive than $150/month.

My goodness... while this speed sounds nice to have... what in the world do you need 100Mb/s+ internet speeds for?

Do you actually use this for business or only personal use?

I have a 30Mb/s up and down fiber connection at my home but it only costs me $58 a month. Granted, I live in a great area for ISP competition... the local electric company provides Fiber to the premises, Comcast Cable, and AT&T U-Verse... all compete on price where I live.

Jesus, 199$ for their 105Mbps pack? Here in Romania (since it was mentioned in the thread by Zon, 2 internet thumbs up for you sir, for mentioning my ****** country lol). My ISP just introduced 120Mbps fiber for 26$ a month, including the "medium" TV Pack. If you add HD channels + HBO, you may end up at around 35$ per month.

Anyway, getting back to the original question. The same way we have cheap cars and luxury cars, the same way we have cheap AV equipment and expensive AV equipment, the same way we`ll have content. People who want quality buy Blu Ray, who don`t care about quality stream from Netflix. Why is it so hard to grasp the ideea that these 2 can coexist ? The same way Audio CDs have have coexisted with mp3s for 10 years. Blu Ray is doing just fine, every quarterly report i`ve read around sale suggest that sales for equipment and media on BD are rising, despite Netflix/Amazon/iTunes streaming services.

Just take a look at this recent one : http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7742
And quote

And here`s another one : http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7734

I'd like to see some numbers, but I suspect the number of movie views on HBO/Showtime/Stars/TCM/HDNM etc or VOD from cable or satellite boxes dwarfs the number of movie views using optical media.

I don`t think you`ll find such numbers, but as an ideea, Star Wars, which costs 79$ for the set, so rather expensive for most people, sold over 1 milion BR disks in the first week of release : http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7407 . Avatar was even better, i think it was 1.8 milion Blu Ray disks in the first week.

HBO has 28 million subscribers, Showtime and Stars around 20 million each. And each of those actually provides 8 channels or more. If those subscribers watch only 2 movies each week (probably pretty conservative number), that's nearly 140 million views each week. They may have sold a million Star Wars, but most of the time those are simply sitting on the shelf. And that doesn't count things like TCM which most cable/satellite subscribers get.

I think 2 movies each week is wildly optimistic. The single biggest complaint I hear about cable or satellite TV is cost vs. use. It costs too much for how much they use it - but they don't see an alternative. These are co-workers, acquaintances, and friends - all people who are not in the enthusiast camp (if you're on AVSForum, you are an enthusiast - most likely).

As for quality - I won't buy a CD unless I know of the label and/or production team involved. I've run across too many interviews where the producers master the CD's with streaming/mobile/compressed audio in mind. They don't take the time to master the CD for the music any more because the general buying public doesn't care.

I am also one of those who is ok with less than BR quality, most of the time. Granted, thoughtfully produced and mastered BR looks awesome, but I also think quality 1080i and 720p look good. I compress all my BR (some exceptions) down to an average of 12k. Yes, I do see a difference - but not enough of one to justify 35gb vs. 12gb.

~Whip

If they were sold, they can`t be sitting on the store shelf . If those were numbers regarding the amount of shipped disks to retailers, yeah, you could say that, but those numbers were actually sales.

And yeah, i also have a HBO HD/Comedy subscription, the only thing i ever watched was True Blood / Game of Thrones / The Borgias , and most of the people i know watch Tv Shows on them, not movies. Most people have cable because they watch news & tv shows, movies are the 3rd thing because they are years late when they are released on cable. Old movies are probably the most viewed stuff on them, because you can`t find them in shops anymore, so cable is the next best thing.

12-15 Mbps is acceptable even by AVS standards, but most streaming services go around 3-4Mpbs, that`s DVD bitrate (albeit the PQ is oviously better than a DVD because of the more efficient h.264 codec (vs MPEG2 on DVDs) and higher rez (720p or 1080p). And the sound is still craptastic Dolby Digital with very low bitrates. If it was at least DTS 1500Kbps with a 12-15Mpbs video stream, even a lot of people on AVS would be satisfied. And then there is the issue of 7.1 , a lot of people here have 7.1 setups, so you actually need DTS-ES to benefit from all the channels.

No by your standards. I see zero reasons to compress a perfectly good bluray just to store it, make no sence at all. I could see it if hard drive were priced like they were 15 years ago.

That's why there are some exceptions to what gets compressed. If the original BR impresses me that much (only a couple have so far), then I'll keep it as is.


All things being relative...

6 years ago, I wouldn't have had 500GB worth of storage. I have 10TB now and am planning for an upgrade that will happen about 9 months from now. That's 9 months of recorded TV and movie acquisitions. My budget will be in the 3 figures range (not including the decimal point ) - so unless I can pick up xTB drives for prices much lower than we saw even this past year (best price I paid was about $75 for a 2TB drive) - yes, it's worth compressing BR for storage reasons.

I'm the only one who cares in my house about that last 5% of color/sound/performance and my wife indulges my habit. But I realized I would rather compromise on the size of my media server storage array and have $ left for other things - and I still come away with a better experience than I've ever had at the movie theater (except maybe the I-Max at our museum, which is quite nice - but I still can't have a beer there ).

Even with the compromises - I don't consider it low quality video or audio.

~Whip

I guess the difference is I could care less about keeping recored TV show......Only movies for me.

I don't think that's quite true. A more accurate statement would be that the masses aren't willing to pay the premium (in terms of money and time/effort) for the best quality.

I subscribe to Netflix and am fine with watching certain movies in their lower-quality HD or even upscaled SD. I know my kids (2 and 3 years old) don't care when they're watching Barney.

I only buy certain movies on BR... usually those with visuals worth watching in full HD (mostly sci-fi)... because those are the ones that make watching HD worth it. I don't need to see Will Farrell looking like a goofball in HD.

Wow, so much negativity!

I don't honestly think much has changed, other than an explosion in the number of ways that we can consume media (audio or video). There isn't a one size-fits-all answer.

If I am consuming content while away from home on portable devices, I am willing to accept that quality may not be what I would experience sitting at home in my living room. If I can only afford a low end television, it's not real important to me whether or not movies are delivered in BR full bandwidth video. If my kids are sitting at home watching cartoons, it doesn't matter to them if it's BR quality or VHS.

Just like in every hobby, there is a spectrum of requirements. Most of the people in this forum fall into the high end of the 80/20 rule. I don't think high end AV is in danger. If nothing else, capitalism will prevent that because we represent a highly profitable market segment.

5 years ago, streaming rentals barely existed. The technology is still maturing and it will get significantly better. For awhile yet, we will need to stay with physical media for the best quality.

The end may come sooner then we think

CD-format to be abandoned