Microsoft never backed HD DVD, all about digital distribution...

[MooglePorn]

From Kotaku:

The horse that we're fundamentally backing is the one that says the future of entertainment content is online digital distribution. I would argue that we backed the right horse... If we're sitting here in 12 or 18 months time, we'll be saying 'why were people even thinking about a disc format when it's really about digital distribution?' Our strategy's been developed for the last six or seven years, and ever since we launched the platform it [online content] has been our big, big, big bet.

Just for those still wondering what MS was up to.

[Shadowman82]

Typical Microsoft . Unfortunatly for them and they obviously won't admit it they weren't able to draw out the war long enough to weaken HD on disc (now Blu-ray) enough for them to have a better chance when they do launch HD movies as downloads .

[esc]

I've had a problem with Microsoft's heavy belief in digital download for as long as they have been promoting it. People like to have that physical little disc or tape in their hand and be able to say "I own this". Rather than having a little black box sitting on top of their TV with 500 movies on it, people want that medium that they can put in a player... for whatever reason.

I think that the spinning disc is going to be around long after Blu Ray is dead and we've moved onto whatever 4000P format is 20 years away.

[MooglePorn]

Originally Posted by esc

I've had a problem with Microsoft's heavy belief in digital download for as long as they have been promoting it. People like to have that physical little disc or tape in their hand and be able to say "I own this". Rather than having a little black box sitting on top of their TV with 500 movies on it, people want that medium that they can put in a player... for whatever reason.

I think that's changing though... I myself have moved on, I buy all my PC games through Steam, a download service, and all my music through either iTunes or Amazon music.

Movies are all that's left.

More to the point, I'm still in college and the vast majority of young people I talk to agree with me.

[Ruined]

A few things.

1) After seeing the final outcome and insider information about HD DVD, its obvious Microsoft only played a supporting role in HD DVD. They were not willing to sit at the studio bargaining table nor were they willing to aggressively promote their HD DVD addon at a loss to them. They did run some advertisements the first XMAS the HDAO was available, but after that date little was done. Even in terms of price they were extremely conservative, dropping the drive a whopping $20 over its lifetime before the war was over.

2) I do think MS was behind HD DVD and would have liked it to win, as it would give them full participation in all aspects of the home formats. However they did not seem confident enough in physical media to get behind it fully, instead reserving their big guns for downloads.

3) Finally, I think some perceive downloads wrong - thinking that you won't want to own 500 movies on a set-top hard drive. Once we get some quality set-top boxes in, I don't think you will need to worry about buying that many movies anymore. A good STB should have IMDB-like info available for all your movies in easy to browse format w/ cover art sortable by genre, etc. If you want to watch a movie, it costs you $5. While there might be 10 or even 20 movies you might want to watch more than 5 times that would justify buying them, that is a far stretch from 500. I have a shitload of DVDs and I must say most of them I haven't watch more than 1-3 times max. If I had rented those, I would have saved a shitload of money. We don't rent now because its nice to have the library to browse through... But if you can have that same library without owning the movie at your fingertips with the covers, actor info, etc, whats the big difference? And before you say long download time, its quite obvious that will be gone in the next couple of years also:
Internet: Comcast Unleashes Super-Fast Web Speeds, by Rachel Cericola - Electronic House Product News

[Astrakan]

Originally Posted by Ruined

I don't think you will need to worry about buying that many movies anymore... If you want to watch a movie, it costs you $5. While there might be 10 or even 20 movies you might want to watch more than 5 times that would justify buying them, that is a far stretch from 500... We don't rent now because its nice to have the library to browse through...

I both agree and disagree.

When the kind of service you envision comes into existance, I'll be first in line for it. However, there's something to be said about the collector's aspect of buying lots of movies.

I'd honestly say for me the reasons for owning as many movies as I do is split 50/50 between the convenience of having access to a large collection at any time, and the fun of simply owning a large collection and all the collector's activities (cataloguing, organizing, ec.) that comes with it.

I'm suspecting the collector's aspect only comes into play for a minority of movie consumers though, and won't have much of an impact regarding the studio's business decisions.

KM

[Damian]

The biggest problem with owning the black box that stores your 500 movie collection is, at some point it will fail.
Not might fail, IT WILL FAIL. They all fail, always and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The regular user who's to scared to buy a computer isn't going to plug an external firewire drive into that box and back it up on a regular basis. They want their stuff to be at their fingertips all the time.
Moog, you may have hard drives full of the digital media but since you're not an "average user" you probably keep backups of the media and games you've purchased. (at least I hope you do)
We've been on DirectTV for just over a year now and have already gone through two different HDTV/DVR boxes. Both times losing dozens of unwatched shows and movies.
Until they get it right, I want a disc in my hand that I can stick on a shelf and not worry about anything happening to it unless I do something myself.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damian

The biggest problem with owning the black box that stores your 500 movie collection is, at some point it will fail.
Not might fail, IT WILL FAIL. They all fail, always and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The regular user who's to scared to buy a computer isn't going to plug an external firewire drive into that box and back it up on a regular basis. They want their stuff to be at their fingertips all the time.
Moog, you may have hard drives full of the digital media but since you're not an "average user" you probably keep backups of the media and games you've purchased. (at least I hope you do)
We've been on DirectTV for just over a year now and have already gone through two different HDTV/DVR boxes. Both times losing dozens of unwatched shows and movies.
Until they get it right, I want a disc in my hand that I can stick on a shelf and not worry about anything happening to it unless I do something myself.

Again, if the model turns into a rental model which is the most likely scenario, then it does not matter if the drive fails as you only have temporary info on it anyway.

On top of that, even if a buy model is in place the good download services keep track of your purchase history and if your drive fails you are able to restore/redownload movies that you have bought on your new drive. Think of it like Steam for movies. If your computer's hard drive dies, do you lose everything you've bought on Steam? Of course not. The redownload process is similar to how movie download services like Xbox Live Marketplace work.

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Again, if the model turns into a rental model which is the most likely scenario, then it does not matter if the drive fails as you only have temporary info on it anyway.

On top of that, even if a buy model is in place the good download services keep track of your purchase history and if your drive fails you are able to restore/redownload movies that you have bought on your new drive. Think of it like Steam for movies. If your computer's hard drive dies, do you lose everything you've bought on Steam? Of course not. The redownload process is similar to how movie download services like Xbox Live Marketplace work.

Neat.
So you only have to re-download gigabytes worth of information every time a hard drive dies. It's great that it's available to re-download, it's not at all time-efficient or convenient.

What would you rather do, wait for a 25GB HD movie to download, or go to the shelf and grab the movie?

[biglyle]

Microsoft is dreaming. Down loads for movies becoming mainstream is 10 years off at least, with 15 being a strong possibilty, if it ever happens at all.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damian

Neat.
So you only have to re-download gigabytes worth of information every time a hard drive dies. It's great that it's available to re-download, it's not at all time-efficient or convenient.

What would you rather do, wait for a 25GB HD movie to download, or go to the shelf and grab the movie?

Well, first of all HD downloads are not 25GB. We are talking 4gb - 7gb per movie. That would take around 10-15 minutes to re-download in full on the new DOCSIS3.0 networks being rolled out this year. Most HD downloads are 720p/DD5.1, which while not as sharp as Blu-ray is still plenty nice looking for a rental IMO. If compressed right artifacts are minimal even though resolution is not as fine. And, "every time a hard drive dies" is a rare occurance, not something you do every day.

While the grab the movie off the shelf may seem more convenient, in my opinion clicking the remote a few times is more convenient than having to go to the store to buy/rent a movie, take a disc out of a box, put the disc in the player, wait for it to load, take it out after you are done, and then if you rented it drive to blockbuster to return it. With downloads a few remote clicks and you are minutes away from HD goodness. Also, the "wife" factor with having less clutter (no shelves full of boxes) will likely make downloads a nice J6P option in time.

Now it might not necessarily be an internet download service like Xbox Live Marketplace or any one service that takes the whole market. VOD on cable companies is also another form of downloads that will likely rise in popularity as the idea of driving to the movie store to rent a movie becomes an ancient idea. Heck, Netflix was able to cut into Blockbuster significantly and even that is much more of a hassle than downloads. And, this year Netflix in a joint venture with LG will be releasing a download CE box... LG has even stated they may incorporate the Netflix download service into future Blu-ray players.

[littlebib]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Well, first of all HD downloads are not 25GB. We are talking 4gb - 7gb per movie. That would take around 10-15 minutes to re-download in full on the new DOCSIS3.0 networks being rolled out this year.

And how many people will have the new network? I'm sitting on 3Mb DSL which works great for my needs. How many years before the new networks are as affordable as DSL as that's the only way I'd switch.

[Damian]

That would take around 10-15 minutes to re-download in full on the new DOCSIS3.0 networks being rolled out this year.

Wow, I'll be fifteen minutes into my movie right when the opening credits are rolling on your downloaded version.

Sure, downloaded rentals will have a market. But ONLY for those who subscribe to broadband. And for the most part only the best broadband services are available to those in metropolis areas. Everybody else will still be running to Movie Gallery to rent, or Walmart to buy.

Remember, just because the latest and greatest in broadband technology is available to you, that doesn't mean it's available to everybody.

[No6PackJoe]

Originally Posted by Ruined

A few things.
3) Finally, I think some perceive downloads wrong - thinking that you won't want to own 500 movies on a set-top hard drive. Once we get some quality set-top boxes in, I don't think you will need to worry about buying that many movies anymore. A good STB should have IMDB-like info available for all your movies in easy to browse format w/ cover art sortable by genre, etc. If you want to watch a movie, it costs you $5. While there might be 10 or even 20 movies you might want to watch more than 5 times that would justify buying them, that is a far stretch from 500. I have a shitload of DVDs and I must say most of them I haven't watch more than 1-3 times max. If I had rented those, I would have saved a shitload of money. We don't rent now because its nice to have the library to browse through... But if you can have that same library without owning the movie at your fingertips with the covers, actor info, etc, whats the big difference? And before you say long download time, its quite obvious that will be gone in the next couple of years also:
Internet: Comcast Unleashes Super-Fast Web Speeds, by Rachel Cericola - Electronic House Product News

I do like the idea of downloading movies I'm not sure I would watch more than once, (I too have shitloads I've only watched once or twice ), but I also want it to be the best presentation possible. The Apple TV would be appealing if it was a true 1080p presentation instead of 720p unconverted to 1080p.

I'm trying to change my buying habits, since changing to Blu-Ray, I still have that collector mentality but I'm working on it, I just keep reminding myself about how much I spent on DVDs.

[No6PackJoe]

Originally Posted by Damian

Wow, I'll be fifteen minutes into my movie right when the opening credits are rolling on your downloaded version.

It starts playing before the whole movie is downloaded, so you might wait 5min.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by No6PackJoe

I do like the idea of downloading movies I'm not sure I would watch more than once, (I too have shitloads I've only watched once or twice ), but I also want it to be the best presentation possible. The Apple TV would be appealing if it was a true 1080p presentation instead of 720p unconverted to 1080p.

I think the target filesize for HD downloads will likely be 4-7GB/each, at least for now. At that size, you can either have video encoded at 720p with little to no artifacting, or at 1080p with a lot of artifacting. Lower resolution with less artifacting is a better choice, IMO. 1080p without artifacts would be 8-15GB with much higher peak rates as well (killing streaming possibilities), which is unrealistic ATM.

In other words, I think you are doing a disservice for asking for "True 1080p" because by demanding this you will get an overall crappier picture due to artifacting, even though it might be higher resolution. 720p w/o artifacts upconverted to 1080p is a much more feasible choice and will have better picture quality for downloads in the end IMO.

[aintnosin]

Originally Posted by MooglePorn

More to the point, I'm still in college and the vast majority of young people I talk to agree with me.

I don't think college students are a valid barometer, especially those who live in dorms and pay nothing for a big fat pipe to the internets. Their tune on downloads probably change on lot when they get out of school and realize that they have to pay a pretty penny for a lot less bandwidth than they had in school.

The biggest obstacle to downloads as a non-niche market for distribution is the simple fact that a wired home entertainment center is not the norm and probably won't be for years (among normal people, not us). The CE companies have been pretty slow in rolling out connected media players (and most of the downloading is still done by the computer, requiring networking skills the average person doesn't possess). Most of these gadgets come from game consoles and networking companies like D-link or Linksys. It will be a while before such devices are sufficiently ubiquitous to be a major thread to physical media.

Blu-ray's biggest advantage is that it continues a familiar paradigm. People are used to getting movies this way. To capitalize on this, I think Blu-ray needs to position itself as simply the next generation of DVD players. Once the prices come down far enough, people looking to replace an old player need to think of Blu-ray as the logical next step.

Maybe downloads are the future (or maybe the people who think so are the same people who thought flash RAM would have replaced hard drives five years ago.

[ganthc]

Originally Posted by Ruined

I think the target filesize for HD downloads will likely be 4-7GB/each, at least for now. At that size, you can either have video encoded at 720p with little to no artifacting, or at 1080p with a lot of artifacting. Lower resolution with less artifacting is a better choice, IMO. 1080p without artifacts would be 8-15GB with much higher peak rates as well (killing streaming possibilities), which is unrealistic ATM.

In other words, I think you are doing a disservice for asking for "True 1080p" because by demanding this you will get an overall crappier picture due to artifacting, even though it might be higher resolution. 720p w/o artifacts upconverted to 1080p is a much more feasible choice and will have better picture quality for downloads in the end IMO.

Or you can eliminate the need to compromise on quality and just keep HDM on disc going. It's a proven and successful media format, and it is available right now. I think prices will fall on bd players/media than we'll see a viable setup for downloads or flashdrives of HD content within the next 5 years.

[limacharliewhiskey]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Well, first of all HD downloads are not 25GB. We are talking 4gb - 7gb per movie.

That doesn't sound right. Otherwise, you can fit a full HD movie on a SD DVD disc. Where are you getting this unrealistic info? Sounds very inaccurate to me, or your math is all screwed up.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by limacharliewhiskey

That doesn't sound right. Otherwise, you can fit a full HD movie on a SD DVD disc. Where are you getting this unrealistic info? Sounds very inaccurate to me, or your math is all screwed up.

Heh, I am correct and my math is not screwed up. On XBOX Live Marketplace most of the HD movies are in the ~5GB range. The reason they are so small is because they use the VC-1 codec, which is around twice as efficient as DVD's MPEG2 codec. Meaning, you can accomplish with VC-1 the same resolution using half the space of DVD's MPEG2.

In fact, there actually were SD DVDs with HD video on them, such as disc 2 of Terminator 2: Extreme Edition. This title's disc 2 was encoded in an early version of the VC-1 codec also, using the WMVHD format - which was not playable in a DVD player but worked on computers. Terminator 2 Extreme Edition WMVHD @ 1080p using VC-1 took up a little less than 7GB. The DVD version (disc1) of the set took up space in the same ballpark but was only at 480p since it used the much less efficient MPEG2.

So, as long as the content encoder uses VC-1 or AVC, 4-5gb 720p HD movies without significant artifacting are easy to crank out.

Originally Posted by ganthc

Or you can eliminate the need to compromise on quality and just keep HDM on disc going. It's a proven and successful media format, and it is available right now. I think prices will fall on bd players/media than we'll see a viable setup for downloads or flashdrives of HD content within the next 5 years.

We'll see how it goes over the next 5 years. But it is interesting to see that the vast majority of BD-capable players (PS3) are also capable of digital movie downloads, which according to Sony they are in the process of rolling out. Then of course you have the 10 million+ XBOX 360 userbase which is capable of digital movie downloads, the Netflix/LG download box, Vudu, and AppleTV all in the HD digital movie download business... Amazon Unbox currently offers SD movie downloads to Tivo customers, which may move to HD in the future. LG has also stated they may be adding Netflix movie download capabilities to their BD players for enhanced functionality. Of course cable company giants and Verizon's FIOS will be pushing HD movie downloads via their own Video On Demand services as well.

Plus, arguably the most popular BD standalone players (Panasonic BD30, Panasonic BD50) both have SDHC flash drives right on the front with support for AVCHD format HD video playback (1080p @ up to 25mbps bandwidth, up to 64gb-128gb storage) ... Toshiba is also hugely invested in flash as well as Samsung & Panasonic so these companies I'm sure wouldn't mind an HD flash format. An AVCHD/SDHC-based flash format could easily handle the majority of HD DVD encodes out there with no quality loss.

It will be quite the competition for J6P's HD-dollar, that is for sure.

[Astrakan]

Originally Posted by limacharliewhiskey

That doesn't sound right. Otherwise, you can fit a full HD movie on a SD DVD disc. Where are you getting this unrealistic info? Sounds very inaccurate to me, or your math is all screwed up.

720p movies are 4-5 GB on Xbox Live.

It's true that that's not as good as Blu-ray, and that they only come with regular ole 5.1 sound, but it's still HD movies. I mentioned elsewhere that I rented The Brave One last week and even blown up quite a bit it looked pretty good.

edit: or what Ruined said...

KM

[MooglePorn]

Ruined is doing a fine job making my arguements for me, but I did want to say: I'm not saying digital downloads will kill DVD, I'm more saying BD won't reach DVD levels because most people are waiting for better convienence and portability, not higher visual quality. Same thing with MP3 vs. CDs... Ruined has said this before.

It might take 5 or 10 years for a great download service to come into play, but in the meantime I don't see people giving up DVD for some other disc format.

[Wirehed]

Originally Posted by MooglePorn

It might take 5 or 10 years for a great download service to come into play, but in the meantime I don't see people giving up DVD for some other disc format.

Actually there was a great download service; it was called "Napster."

Just looking at the numbers of people using it --and that was well before broadband was as widely established, it would have easily taken a large bite out of movie distribution had it gone in that direction, and it would have.


Like Moogle and Ruined (and others) have stated, quality will take a back seat to convenience for a majority of people.