Speculation of next viable format?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by DavidCantu

That's exactly my point. We're not going to be able to play these downloaded movies on any player we want...they're going to be made usable on only 1 device...and if that device dies, there go all of your movies. Most of us have hefty collections...imagine having to download that much material, then redownload it if (1) the device dies, and (2) companies are even willing to let people re-download previously-purchased content.

Just imagine downloading all of your movies the second, third, or fourth time around...and having to get new "keys" to unlock them all over again.

With physical media, we can take a disk and play it in any player that we want to---in our kitchen, living room, bedroom, vehicle, friend's house, etc. With a digital file, you're stuck in one place!

Well, there are solutions to a lot of your issues here. A proper download service should offer ability to redownload movies that you have purchased, or allow you to send in your broken device to be refurbished and your content restored. The current popular downloads services such as vudu and XBOX Live Marketplace do this. Sometime there are caveats, like on XBLA needing to be online to watch your content the 2nd, 3rd, and nth times you redownload it - but odds are if you setup your device properly this won't be an issue as it will have always-on internet access.

Second, the digital file stuck in one place thing is also conquered by methods of streaming and user accounts. The Windows architecture allows this through Windows Media Extenders... Other devices I'm sure will follow suit. So while your digital file will be only on one device, that device if the service is made well should be able to stream its content to all the TVs in the house that have receivers. On XBL you can even log onto your Live account on a friends 360 and watch your bought movies at his house so long as you remain logged into the service there. After you log out, the download on his 360 will become locked.

So there are easy solutions that already exist, its just a matter of implementing them well.

[biglyle]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Yeah, movie companies are going to have to learn the hard way, through declining sales... Just as the record companies have. DRM hurts the paying consumer more than the pirate, and as a result of DRM you will both lose sales and on top of that still have your content pirated.

Comparing the music industry and movies is like comparing apples and oranges.

Originally Posted by Ruined

People are willing to buy into electronic delivery. But not when its DRM'd to death. I bought more MP3s in the first month of Amazon MP3 Store being available than I did in the entire lifetime of iTunes & Zune Marketplace to date. Granted, Amazon does use individual watermarking in their MP3s in case they want to track if an account has been massively pirating MP3s. But that is far better than DRM crap. Still, I like Microsoft's new Zune offering the best - MP3, and no DRM or watermarking. However, it looks like most studios still want to stick to DRM'd files with Zune Marketplace (surprise surprise).

You keep saying "people", yet I dont see any large group of people anywhere who give a shit. A small group on the internet, yes. The general public, no way in hell. Most people have no idea what DRM is, what it does, or how how it works. Most of them I assume also dont care. They buy or rent a movie, they watch it. Simple as that. Just because something bothers you, doesnt mean the general public feels the same way.

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by biglyle

You keep saying "people", yet I dont see any large group of people anywhere who give a shit. A small group on the internet, yes. The general public, no way in hell. Most people have no idea what DRM is, what it does, or how how it works. Most of them I assume also dont care. They buy or rent a movie, they watch it. Simple as that. Just because something bothers you, doesnt mean the general public feels the same way.

Yep... Most people buy something, play it on the device it's intended for, then put it on a shelf. With downloads most people buy an iTunes album, play it on iTunes and their iPod, and never even know DRM is attached or what it is.

Techies love to bitch about these things and act like consumer revolts are going on, but they aren't... people don't give a shit. For all the complaints about Blu-Ray DRM the format still won, because it sold more, because people don't care about DRM, they care about marketing campaigns.

[DavidCantu]

I just don't see all of these different movie studios playing nicely with one another (we just got out of a format war LOL) what would make anybody think that setting something like this up will be a viable solution anytime soon? Just take a look at Apple, Microsoft--then Sony, Paramount, etc. and then you're going to have places like WalMart, Target, Amazon, NetFlix, etc. that are going to also be in the game...how in the world are all of them going to work together??? They're all going to have different rules and different ways of how they are going to handle their content. I see a DRM nightmare in the making...

I won't even get into the fact that most people still use dial-up internet service....they're the majority. If anybody thinks that us "techies" are going to keep downloading services afloat...

Originally Posted by Ruined

Well, there are solutions to a lot of your issues here. A proper download service should offer ability to redownload movies that you have purchased, or allow you to send in your broken device to be refurbished and your content restored. The current popular downloads services such as vudu and XBOX Live Marketplace do this. Sometime there are caveats, like on XBLA needing to be online to watch your content the 2nd, 3rd, and nth times you redownload it - but odds are if you setup your device properly this won't be an issue as it will have always-on internet access.

Second, the digital file stuck in one place thing is also conquered by methods of streaming and user accounts. The Windows architecture allows this through Windows Media Extenders... Other devices I'm sure will follow suit. So while your digital file will be only on one device, that device if the service is made well should be able to stream its content to all the TVs in the house that have receivers. On XBL you can even log onto your Live account on a friends 360 and watch your bought movies at his house so long as you remain logged into the service there. After you log out, the download on his 360 will become locked.

So there are easy solutions that already exist, its just a matter of implementing them well.

[sub780lime]

While it would take considerable more bandwidth, I would think active streaming of media would be more likely then full downloads of movies at one time. If the quality can be ensured, the movie could be buffered and download while it plays so that when you have finished watching it, you have it on your system. Or never put it on a system, you could purchase it and it would know you purchased it and whenever you want to watch it you just go on, select it, and it streams for you.

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by sub780lime

While it would take considerable more bandwidth, I would think active streaming of media would be more likely then full downloads of movies at one time. If the quality can be ensured, the movie could be buffered and download while it plays so that when you have finished watching it, you have it on your system. Or never put it on a system, you could purchase it and it would know you purchased it and whenever you want to watch it you just go on, select it, and it streams for you.

This already exists of course, on-demand has HD programming.

[dvdrcha]

Originally Posted by DavidCantu

I won't even get into the fact that most people still use dial-up internet service....they're the majority.

You gotta be kidding me? I don't know a single soul who still uses dial-up, most people are using some sort of broadband, cable or dsl, either through their phone company or their cable company.

[Ruined]

Or sat if you live in the boonies. I agree, I don't know anyone with dialup... Even both of my grandparents are broadband-enabled.

[biglyle]

Originally Posted by dvdrcha

You gotta be kidding me? I don't know a single soul who still uses dial-up, most people are using some sort of broadband, cable or dsl, either through their phone company or their cable company.

I will look for the link, but high speed internet usage is about 35% nation wide, compared to 65% dial up. I just read this a day or two ago, and could not believe it myself.

[No6PackJoe]

Originally Posted by ganthc

I've always considered this somewhat dangerous, because if there was some apocalypse, and energy couldn't be provided the way it is now...how would we retrieve our information? I still think that there should be a hard copy of our information stored somewhere. Just in case of emergencies.

This made me think of Gekko, the kid with the record on a stick in Beyond Thunderdome.

[No6PackJoe]

Originally Posted by biglyle

I will look for the link, but high speed internet usage is about 35% nation wide, compared to 65% dial up. I just read this a day or two ago, and could not believe it myself.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0604/

I think you may have reversed the numbers.

[Shadowman82]

Even if the majority of internet users had high speed it would still take way too long to download movies with quality comparable to Blu-ray or HD-DVD for that matter for such downloads to be a viable alternative to Blu-ray .

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

Even if the majority of internet users had high speed it would still take way too long to download movies with quality comparable to Blu-ray or HD-DVD for that matter for such downloads to be a viable alternative to Blu-ray .

You're making the mistake of assuming anywhere near most people care about quality on the level of a Blu Ray disc. As I said before, much like MP3 being "good enough" so is 720p and 5.1 surround, which on Xbox Live makes a movie about 3 or 4 gig.

[Shadowman82]

Maybe but I question wether the quality difference between that and SD DVD would be enough for people to care . And even if it was with current broadband download speeds 4GB still takes too long to be convenient .

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

Maybe but I question wether the quality difference between that and SD DVD would be enough for people to care . And even if it was with current broadband download speeds 4GB still takes too long to be convenient .

I think they'll care if it's attached to a download service, which people seem to like. As for 4GB, people do it all the time on Xbox Live, and on Steam...

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

Even if the majority of internet users had high speed it would still take way too long to download movies with quality comparable to Blu-ray or HD-DVD for that matter for such downloads to be a viable alternative to Blu-ray .

Yeah, I bet people wouldn't watch cable/sat HDTV either which comes nowhere near BD/HD DVD in quality...

Functionality > Quality with mass market consumer formats. Always has been, always will be.

[Shadowman82]

True HDTV on Satellite or Cable does look terrible and people don't complain . Still I think a 4GB file takes too long to download to be convenient . I mean MP3s take less than a minute but those are just a few MB in size .

I don't know what kind of speed the X-Box Live service has but it's not like most people use that to download stuff .

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

True HDTV on Satellite or Cable does look terrible and people don't complain . Still I think a 4GB file takes too long to download to be convenient . I mean MP3s take less than a minute but those are just a few MB in size .

I don't know what kind of speed the X-Box Live service has but it's not like most people use that to download stuff .

A lot of people use Xbox Live to download movies, they keep expanding the service because of demand. iTunes now offers full movie downloads, Apple even sells a set-top box for that purpose. Netflix is offering online movie rentals in addition to DVDs... the future is here man, it's just building from the ground up. Compression technology will get better, download speeds more precise...

We're not talking months, we're talking years, maybe even decades, but non-physical media is undoubtedly the future, to say otherwise is to simply be in the midst of cultural lag.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

True HDTV on Satellite or Cable does look terrible and people don't complain . Still I think a 4GB file takes too long to download to be convenient . I mean MP3s take less than a minute but those are just a few MB in size .

Yes, but even a 4GB file can be ready to start streaming in a matter of minutes. That's really the key, and is the technique a lot of current download services like XBLM and Vudu use - they download the whole file to your hard drive, but it only takes 30min-1hr before the file is ready to start playing thanks to streaming.

And while 4GB is big now, in a couple years it will be nowhere near as large sounding with competing broadband techs paving the way for much faster D/L speeds.

[EM3]

So where will all this downloaded material be kept?

This may be the future but the other day I had a thumb drive fail on me and lost several forms and it took quite a while to get them all back. Man ripping songs to the computer is a pain for the IPod and the thought of doing it a second time isn't appealing.

[Astrakan]

Originally Posted by EM3

So where will all this downloaded material be kept?

This may be the future but the other day I had a thumb drive fail on me and lost several forms and it took quite a while to get them all back. Man ripping songs to the computer is a pain for the IPod and the thought of doing it a second time isn't appealing.

This is why you should do backups. It's not expensive and it's not time consuming, so I don't see why people are so reluctant to do regular backups.

For my laptop I've got a 250 GB external drive I got for $150 onto which I do a complete backup every month, and it's large enough that I can keep a couple of complete backups in case one should fail on me.

For my media server I'm using a 1 TB external drive which ran me $300, and I keep a mirror of the media server on it which gets updated once every couple of months, as I don't deem that data as important.

HDD space really isn't an issue, as it's dirt cheap these days and is getting cheaper every day.

KM

[Hayrab]

Originally Posted by MooglePorn

A lot of people use Xbox Live to download movies, they keep expanding the service because of demand. iTunes now offers full movie downloads, Apple even sells a set-top box for that purpose. Netflix is offering online movie rentals in addition to DVDs... the future is here man, it's just building from the ground up. Compression technology will get better, download speeds more precise...

We're not talking months, we're talking years, maybe even decades, but non-physical media is undoubtedly the future, to say otherwise is to simply be in the midst of cultural lag.

Finally someone who puts it in perspective. Digital downloads WILL be the future, but it won't be anytime soon.

[Hayrab]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Yes, but even a 4GB file can be ready to start streaming in a matter of minutes. That's really the key, and is the technique a lot of current download services like XBLM and Vudu use - they download the whole file to your hard drive, but it only takes 30min-1hr before the file is ready to start playing thanks to streaming.

And while 4GB is big now, in a couple years it will be nowhere near as large sounding with competing broadband techs paving the way for much faster D/L speeds.

DSL and Cable speeds haven't increased much if you really look at it. When I got Comcast in 1998 the speed was 6mbit down/128kbit/up now its 8mbit down/768up.

Now if FIOS can get rolled out everywhere that will help but we are going to need 20mbit connections etc... to make digital downloads a integrated way of life. I can also forsee ISP's struggling with all of the increased demand once this is commonplace. They are already trying to ban people who use the service too much, with downloading movies they are going to have ALOT of users using the system ALOT more.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by EM3

So where will all this downloaded material be kept?

This may be the future but the other day I had a thumb drive fail on me and lost several forms and it took quite a while to get them all back. Man ripping songs to the computer is a pain for the IPod and the thought of doing it a second time isn't appealing.

Yes, but again the popular download services allow you to redownload the content if your hard drive crashes (XBLA), or they allow you to send in your device for repair and automatically load the new device with all your old purchased stuff (Vudu).

And I'm sure as things go on we will start to see high-end download boxes with RAID 1 to preserve data even if one of the HD crashes.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by Hayrab

DSL and Cable speeds haven't increased much if you really look at it. When I got Comcast in 1998 the speed was 6mbit down/128kbit/up now its 8mbit down/768up.

I have Comcast cable modem Internet access and the other day I got 22Mbps download speed from Speedtest.net. A friend of mine (also with Comast cable Internet access), the last I checked, was getting close to 24Mbps download speeds when I was barely getting 10-12MBps.

Peace...