Is Online Delivery Acceptable for Home Theater Use? - Page 5

How is it any other than a political issue? It's the same in the US, just not as bad. It's a matter of the government not regulating enough and/or promoting competition. There is no technical reason why people in Canada can't have fast, unlimited connections like many other places in the world.

I can't even count the number of shows that have moved over to Arri Alexa, you know, the cinema camera used to shoot Skyfall, The Avengers, Life of Pi, Hugo, and Zero Dark Thirty (just to name a few). It is very much a cinema camera.

A few television shows shot on Alexa: NCIS - LA, Hell on Wheels, The Vampire Diaries, Once Upon A Time, Grimm, Person of Interest, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Homeland, Modern Family, Boardwalk Empire...need I go on? And yes, a lot of these are shot at 24fps.

Has anyone compared the quality of purchasing HD digital movies from Amazon versus Vudu and iTunes?

NTSC video cameras are no longer used in the HD world, HD cameras are all ATSC, not NTSC. NTSC is limited to 480p only

No technical reason?

How about the fact that we have about one-tenth your population spread over a larger area? It's far more economical providing bandwidth in high-density areas than low-density areas. The US averages about 88 people per square mile. Canada has 8. Even if you choose to ignore the northern 3/4 of our country completely, you still have a density that's about one quarter that of the US. Compound that with the fact that the associated equipment is more expensive in Canada, and further compound that by the fact that the underground work in ALL of the country has to either be done during a shortened season or at a much higher cost.

Like many, I live in the country, and have no cables of any sort connected to my house except for power. Some homes also have telephone connections, but there is still no high-speed availability unless your distance to DSL equipment is within a mile or so, which eliminates the vast majority. My internet is a wireless shot to a town about five miles away. I have the 8 Mb/sec as a peak, and normally much lower.

Like I stated earlier, BiggAW, your comment on "political reason" is laughable at best please have your facts line up before commenting on my country. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like you think the world revolves around USA. None of my US friends think that way, by the way.

This is the first time I get to say this. As a US citizen (lol) don't let the comments of one person talking politics or whatever else was said, sway your opinion of others here David. We don't all think inside the box. It seems this thread has brought out the best and worst in some of us. You seem like a good guy, and if I keep buttering you up I was hoping you'd send me some of that good Molson golden you have up here not the knock off version we get down here

I am from semi-rural WI and my max is 24Mbps, but actually get max of about 16-18Mbps.. that's actually the top-tier around here.. and I would imagine many other parts of the U.S.

I have been to different areas of Canada on fishing trips, about a dozen times- and have seen how remote some areas are. I think you speak the truth.

Bandwidth will get better, but it's going to take a LONG time to catch up with the average area... for many- too long. I know of several areas that were lucky to have a phone line with one phone at the main desk. No internet, no cable, no cell-service even at resorts catering to visitors. I can't imagine streaming netflix in most any place I've been to in Canada.

For sure I don't think that way about US people in general. Quite a number of my clients are from the US and in my many years I'm at AVS I only encounter one or two people who thinks USA is the centre of the universe.

PS: no need to butter me up REAL Molson for anybody from anywhere in the world who visits me! (I don't think shipping food over the border is allowable, unfortunately).

Glad to hear that. Every time I have a Molson it just ticks me off that the ones in your frig are better lol. Seriously though have a good day!

Yes, but there are far fewer cities, with far fewer people in each city, and a much greater distance between these population centers.

Sort of my thinking on that as well Fat Dave. A farmer in the middle of nowhere in the u.s. is still likely within 10 miles of a town, whereas someone in the middle of nowhere in Canada could be at a much further distance. I remember talking to the owners of one of the resorts I visited once and them telling us about kids taking their four wheelers to school and schoolbuses taking 3 hours to get to the end of their routes. You don't really have that here. And I fully realize that Canada's cities are impressive, actually in many regards. Excellent cities, schools, healthcare, and people too. All that without having a government that is buried in debt like us. If it wasn't for a couple poor past decisions and OWI's to show for them, I would seriously consider to move there. I would expect your cities, suburbs, and towns to have excellent internet options, areas surrounding them to have good options, with lowering levels of service as you get away from those cities, at some dropping off service altogether. It's much the same here, only you can't find many areas where you far enough from all the cities for it to drop off altogether. Rural areas are not as good as the cities, and some better then others... but most are still well within 15 miles of a town, and an hour or two's drive of a major city. Not to mention the water. You guys have a lot of remote areas, often fly in only. We just don't have much of that. I believe the numbers are accurate- with a similar percentage of people living in cities compared to living in rural areas.. but your rural areas are just a lot bigger and more difficult to get to. Even when areas are similar distances, here they are separated by farm fields AND only the northernmost states have to stop utility and construction in the winter. In Canada, most rural areas (from my experience) are heavily wooded, virgin forests (or "the bush" as I've heard locals refer to it). over rocks and between lakes AND buried in snow half the year. I love Canada, but can certainly see how there could be challenges in offering reliable internet to some areas in ways that economically are feasible. eh?

Ok. I guess not much of the stuff I watch is shot on 24p. I don't usually watch fiction content (unless you count some reality shows with their pseudo-scripting...).

The US also has people in rural areas who are underserved. The US in the 1950's had a project for rural telephone service to become universal, but we don't have the political will to do the same for 1gbps internet... or even 1mbps internet in some places. There is no technical reason you can't serve rural customers with fiber as long as they have power poles to run it on (and if they don't have power poles, they are off the grid, so satellite is the only option anyways).

I in no way think that the US is the center of the universe. The US is severely lacking in broadband deployment and broadband policy, and I certainly don't mean to say that we have a good system, merely one that is slightly less messed up than Canada's. We have many of the same fundamental problems of the telcos running our government and the government being too weak to stand up against monopolistic practices, caps, overages, etc, etc.

^^This. In fact, Canada, depending on how you look at it, has less suburban sprawl due to policies that promote the growth of healthy cities, unlike the US, where we built the Eisenhower highway system, and then proceeded to embrace strongly pro-home-purchase policies as a way to grow wealth, and the cultural notion of the suburb, and then left our cities to rot, with many of them (with the exception of some of the bigger ones like NYC, Boston, and LA) still rotting today.

According to Ron Williams, a consultant to the TV and movie industry, episodic TV (mostly dramas with ongoing story lines) are shot at 24p, while sitcoms, news, sports, etc. are mostly shot at 1080/60i or 720/60p. He reports that CBS is talking about shooting at 1080/60p, but no one is doing that yet. You're correct that no TV content is broadcast at 24fps.

That explains why I very rarely see it. Most of the stuff I watch is either news/talk shows, or shot on cheap, rugged cameras.

I was planning to sell all my Blu-Rays and go digital when we got a Mac. That all came to a screeching halt when I watched Fight Club and The Grey in 1080p HD from the iTunes Store. The lack of grain and details was a downer. The compressed audio was also a downer. I am going to stick to Blu-Rays for now.

I rented "Skyfall" from iTunes earlier today and it did look pretty good. Maybe because it was shot digitally.

Funny nobody has mentioned the Kaleidescape Download Store yet. The HD downloads are identical to the BD, with exact same video and audio, even all the extras. It's purchase to download, so you can watch as many times as you like and build a collection. Cost per movie is similar to buying the BD. Yes the Kaleidescape hardware is expensive (they call it software wrapped in tin), but prices have come down and will continue to do so.

Of course they need to bring more studios on board to widen the appeal, but I am confident they will do so. For HT enthusiasts it is the best possible solution.

Yeah, their whole system is ridiculous, and has no bearing on the future of anything, as it's way too expensive to get even mass adoption among people on this forum, much less actual mass adoption.

I agree, one can't easily dismiss Kaleidescape. Price is not in discussion here, only quality. And the only download service that equals blu-ray is Kaleidescape.

Plus the cost of telco infrastructure is much higher in Canada than in the US. heck, the cost of everything is much higher in Canada. My 1,700 sq ft townhome in the outskirt of Toronto is approx US$550,000 and that's about a60-minute drive from downtown

Scott, do you have any info on how they are going to broadcast 1080/60p? I thought the max capability for broadcast is 1080/60i?

I agree, the selection is truly lacking. However, being a Canadian, I'm used to lack-of-content as our Netflix places such as RedBox' selections are laughable.

I agree, the selection is truly lacking. However, being a Canadian, I'm used to lack-of-content as our Netflix places such as RedBox' selections are laughable.