Blu-ray State of the Union. Are you switching to streaming media? (1 Viewer)

[rsmithjr]

There was most certainly a format war between DIVX and DVD. DIVX was announced in 1997, the year that DVD was supposed to be introduced as the next-generation video format. It introduced uncertainty to the mix a year before it was released. Many people held off DVD player purchases to see how DIVX played out.
DIVX Gold, the unlimited play DIVX disc, was a direct competitor to DVD.
Disney released Alice in Wonderland to DIVX before it released any title to DVD. (When I complained about this on my web site, Disney PR had the audacity to tell me that it was a lesser title. That was not the point--they supported DIVX before they supported DVD.)
That's a format war. Never forget.

Your point is well taken in general.
However, Disney introduced Mary Poppins to DVD before they supported Divx; I still have the disk. There was one other title, I have forgotten the name. It was said at the time that Disney had been disappointed by the sales of Mary Poppins and decided that the Divx approach was more in tune with their approach.

 

[Ejanss]

Your point is well taken in general.
However, Disney introduced Mary Poppins to DVD before they supported Divx; I still have the disk. There was one other title, I have forgotten the name.

(Nightmare Before Christmas, think it was.)

It was said at the time that Disney had been disappointed by the sales of Mary Poppins and decided that the Divx approach was more in tune with their approach.

A very convenient excuse, considering the release was bare-bones, niche-market, and few people were buying DVD's during the days of the format war. (Rather like Warner claiming "Nobody wants classics anyway!" after nobody bought Casablanca on HDDVD.)
When they were forced to accept defeat and release DVD's, think the operative term was "grudging" for Disney to give up the PPV business model in which customers would have to pay and pay well for the privilege of classic-vault Disney in their homes.
Their first postwar animated DVD's were "Limited Editions", literally up-dumped versions of their LD releases at $39.99 (highway robbery even then), and so bare-bones that "Character artwork on disk" was actually listed as an extra on the cover. Some customers returned their disks as "defective" when they couldn't find the artwork, and were told it was the picture on the label. ("On disk", get it?) But clueless folk returned the disks for refunds anyway, and when the pro-DVD community heard about it, the sarcasm was just too perfect not to join in on to ram the backhanded slant down the company's throat.
One very public firing later, we got the Fantasia and Toy Story boxes, and Disney now simply loved DVD. Up to that point, however, the term "Kicking and screaming" did certainly apply.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I've watched some movies streamed through Netflix and downloaded from Amazon and the PS store. The quality ranged from "crap" to "ok". I believe the perception of the quality could have been better on a smaller 40"-50" TV sitting 2 or more screen widths away, but that's not how I prefer to view movies at home. But even on my relatively small 60" monitor sitting 1.5-2 screen widths away the quality was generally only acceptable for casual "throwaway" viewing.
I can only imagine how this would have looked on a 10-12 foot wide projection screen at 1-1.5 screen widths away, which is what I see my home theater evolving to in the next year or two. Blu-ray can be great, but there is still room for improvement, and I am eagerly anticipating the improvements in detail and color resolution coming with 4K BD.
I'm just not interested in getting "DVD quality" now or "almost as good as BD" quality by streaming and downloads a few years from now. My interest is in better than current BD quality a few years from now (via 4K BD).
Now, if they actually manage to deliver TRUE BD, or better, quality via streaming or downloads at some point in the future, I have no reason to shun that as an option for delivery. But I think it'll be quite a while before that's a reality. I prefer the idea of owing something I can hold in my hand, but I'm ok with supplementing that with a downloaded library as long as I can watch it as easily as a physical disc and play around with favorite scenes, etc... without any "pay per view" concerns. I think it's even less likely that streaming will be able to provide that. Download maybe, but not streaming.
That being said, I'm fine with current downloads and streaming for catching an episode of a show I missed or checking out an occasional rental of something I'm curious about when I'm too lazy to go rent a disc, but for "real viewing" it's got to be BD (or better) quality.

 

[Jason_V]

Originally Posted by Ejanss /t/322642/blu-ray-state-of-the-union-are-you-switching-to-streaming-media/120#post_3973092
Their first postwar animated DVD's were "Limited Editions", literally up-dumped versions of their LD releases at $39.99 (highway robbery even then), and so bare-bones that "Character artwork on disk" was actually listed as an extra on the cover. Some customers returned their disks as "defective" when they couldn't find the artwork, and were told it was the picture on the label. ("On disk", get it?) But clueless folk returned the disks for refunds anyway, and when the pro-DVD community heard about it, the sarcasm was just too perfect not to join in on to ram the backhanded slant down the company's throat.

They rolled out the Limited Editions very slowly. Looking at the insert inside my Hercules, Pinocchio was out, followed by Mulan, 101 Dalmatians and Hercules on November 9, Peter Pan, Lion King II and Lady and the Tramp November 23 with Little Mermaid and Jungle Book on December 7.

I loved the "full character artwork on disc" listed under special features on the box. Right alongside The Making of Hercules, French and Spanish language tracks, DD 5.1 Audio, THX and 1.66:1 AR.

Good times...

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Disney's first animated release was on DIVX.
Their first Disney animated release on DVD was Pinocchio. Some copies were pressed incorrectly and had the Pinocchio label, but the movie was Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt. (I still have a copy.)

 

[Mark-P]

Unlike the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD war, DIVX vs. DVD was different because there was no such thing as a plain DIVX player. DIVX was an add-on feature to DVD players. You could either buy a plain old DVD player which of course would not play DIVX discs, or else buy a DIVX DVD player which would play both.

 

[Kevin Collins]

However Microsoft has definitely put its weight behind the movement by choosing to incorporate a cloud-based "Microsoft Account" login/synch system in the upcoming Windows 8.

How is that any different than your AppleID login for an iPod Touch or iPad. It's as much of a cloud based services as Microsoft. FWIW, the backup mechanism is stored in blob storage on both AWS and Azure....

 

[Douglas Monce]

I've watched some movies streamed through Netflix and downloaded from Amazon and the PS store. The quality ranged from "crap" to "ok". I believe the perception of the quality could have been better on a smaller 40"-50" TV sitting 2 or more screen widths away, but that's not how I prefer to view movies at home. But even on my relatively small 60" monitor sitting 1.5-2 screen widths away the quality was generally only acceptable for casual "throwaway" viewing.
I can only imagine how this would have looked on a 10-12 foot wide projection screen at 1-1.5 screen widths away, which is what I see my home theater evolving to in the next year or two. Blu-ray can be great, but there is still room for improvement, and I am eagerly anticipating the improvements in detail and color resolution coming with 4K BD.
I'm just not interested in getting "DVD quality" now or "almost as good as BD" quality by streaming and downloads a few years from now. My interest is in better than current BD quality a few years from now (via 4K BD).
Now, if they actually manage to deliver TRUE BD, or better, quality via streaming or downloads at some point in the future, I have no reason to shun that as an option for delivery. But I think it'll be quite a while before that's a reality. I prefer the idea of owing something I can hold in my hand, but I'm ok with supplementing that with a downloaded library as long as I can watch it as easily as a physical disc and play around with favorite scenes, etc... without any "pay per view" concerns. I think it's even less likely that streaming will be able to provide that. Download maybe, but not streaming.
That being said, I'm fine with current downloads and streaming for catching an episode of a show I missed or checking out an occasional rental of something I'm curious about when I'm too lazy to go rent a disc, but for "real viewing" it's got to be BD (or better) quality.

The streaming I get from Netflix is at least as good as broadcast HD. (for HD sources of course) In most cases better than broadcast. Add to that its actually 1080p where broadcast is 1080i.
I never said that the quality was as good as blu-ray, but for casual viewing, it is really excellent. I've been watching the original Mission Impossible show in HD on Netflix. Looks far better than I've ever seen it before. Its also unlikely to get a blu-ray release.
Doug