FUTURE SHOCK: Where Is Home Theater Headed? (1 Viewer)

[Ricardo C]

For the foreseeable future, streaming will be hampered by bandwidth caps, both server and client-side. That alone will keep physical media alive for a few more years. I won't give up my Netflix subscription, but I also won't make it my primary content delivery channel because a) Comcast restricts me to 250 GB per month, b) the quality is just not there, and c) I don't get a local copy of the content I can play regardless of internet availability.


When maturing delivery technologies align with updated infrastructure, and streaming can be treated the same way as cable TV (always on, basically), then physical media will decline. But it won't simply die off. If I were to guess, I'd say in ten years optical discs will be what LDs used to be: A niche format for connoisseurs, for those who demand a state-of-the-art presentation. We'll have 4k discs at higher prices and in smaller supply. But we'll have them. People don't spend thousands on home theater equipment just so that their media can be held hostage by companies that may lock you out at any time, and which will take your content with them if they go belly-up. The content providers know it, and so they'll keep making product available, for a price.

To be honest, I relish the hobby going back to being a smaller set of people. I will never give up my Beauty and the Beast CAV laserdisc set. I'm sure I'll feel the same about some bluray. There is some joy about calling up someone and bitching over cables or talking about how to get something calibrated the right way. It sure beats talking to a bunch of potsers at Best Buy who think a $300 HTIB is "super cool"

Amen!

 

[Cinescott]

Originally Posted by Josh Steinberg

the day I was able to get my hands on a copy and watch it, and hear his voice in my head telling me how much he enjoyed seeing it when he was a child -- nothing beats that.

This is so true. My dad's favorite movie of all time was "The Bridge on the River Kwai." He died prior to DVD, so he never really had an option for an affordable way to own it at home. My mom tells me stories of how when they were dating in the 50s, he literally jumped out of his seat and cheered when the bridge is blown up. Now I have a pristine Blu-ray edition of TBOTRK, purchased for around $20. Every time I see the explosion scene, I can see him in his Army uniform, healthy and in his 20s, jumping out of his seat and cheering. Every time. What a great time to love movies.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I don't really feel comfortable judging people for being totally content with watching a movie of their choice on an iPad or laptop screen -- that's not my preferred choice for viewing, but I don't think they're wrong to enjoy the ease and relatively inexpensive cost of doing so.

To a certain extent I can agree with you, personally I can not get into watching anything on my 23" flat panel display on my pc. But that is just my personal preference and I am sure there are people that can sit infront of the pc and for them it is a totally enjoyable exsperience. I can someone see if you are traveling and you have your laptop and you want to stream a movie when you are in a hotel room or something like that. I Just do not get anyone acually wanting to sit there with a Ipad or even a group of people huddled around an Ipad to watch a movie, seriously I do not get it. I have a friend that has a really nice Samsung 47" 1080p HDTV and he just went from Dish Network HD to Verizon Fios. He loves how great the picture looks on HD content but he will not get a bluray player, even though the prices have come down drastically for the players. He would rather run over to the redbox machine and get a movie for $1 and thinks on demand is to much to spend for a movie. I get the entire convience thing, I love technology and have gone from LP's amd cassette tapes to CD's and then Laser Discs and on to DVD's and now Blu-ray HD. I have gone from plain low definition brodcast tv back when it was the ony game in town. If you wanted to see something bad enough you better be infront of your tv at the time that it is set to air! There was no video streaming, no on demand and no dvr recording so you could recording and watch it when ever you can get around to it. I agree that a movie will still be the same as far as it will always have the same story line, same actors and begin the same and end the same. That is as long as they do not re-edit the movie to change the ending it will always be the same regaurdless of if the screen is 12" or 160". While I am not big on listening to mp3's there is something to be said about being able to carry hundreds to thousands of songs with you where ever you go. Back in the 80's you had one choice for portable music and that was a walk man or an oversized portable stereo or getto blaster as many people called them.

I see nothing wrong with choices in how you view or listen to your media. For many years the estabishment wanted a tight control of how people got there movies and music, mainly in the digital era! But now studios are more excepting of digital media and are more willing to keep up with technology to get there product to the consumer. Back when VHS tape was new I remember thinking that this was a good thing and I ended up getting a nice VHS high fi and had a nice intergrated amp and two speakers and a 27" tv. That ended up getting upgraded to a prologic reciever and then to a 5.1 system with a laser disc player. I loved the laser disc player but hated the size of the discs and allways felt they where big and a pain to deal with. So when DVD came out I was all over it and this was the point in time where I actually purchased more movies on video than I ever had in the past. The one thing that still bothered me was most of the dvd titles that where in Dolby Digital where just not good enough in my honest opion. Now we have hd content on over the air broadcast, satellite and on a disc format and even streaming over the internet even though it is not as good quality wise. Unfortunantly there are to many people who are willing to sacrafice quality for having it right now! Now I can not blame them for wanting convience and having access to content when they want to see it or hear it. This is the times we live in but you can understand where this drive to have it where ever you go at anytime at a moments notice! Part of what is going on is how divices are shrinking and becoming cheaper to manufacture and the other part is people in general. Many people want to watch a movie and they simply do not care what it looks like or how it sounds, just as long as they get to watch or listen to what every they want. Today people have gotten used to having what they want at there fingertips and they want it now and to many of them do not want to wait, we have gotten spoiled as a species! Many of us walk into a store and if someone doesn't wait on us right away we get angry, if our pizza is not there fast enough we might complain or not tip even though the pizza is hot, we want everything our way and many of us like to think that we are somehow more important than we really are. People have to have there cell phones with them all the time, people will over schedule themselves and seem to think if they are not constantly doing something they are wasting time. They value how cheaply they can get things at the exspense of quality, it is proven more now than ever when most things are made in countries like Mexico, Malaysia and in recent years China. When we have more disposible income people will break down and get more quality product but right now budgets are tighter and many people are living off part time jobs.

Again I do not not bash anyone for there choices but what I do not want to see happen is for there choice to view things at a low resolution to limit our ability to experience a movie at its best. It would be a huge step backward IMHO if studios stepped back from physical hd media and made most of the content more available on streaming devices. As long as content on physical HD media is not cut back I can care less about what they offer on downloads and streaming services. I personally do not watch movies via streaming Netflix or care to download movies or music. I have Fios Internet 25mb up/down and a 3.1GHz AMD dual core, 4GB of DDR3 1333 memory, SATA hard drive and a EVGA 256bit 1GB DDR5 video card with a 1080p 23" flat pannel. So it is not like I am not capible of recieving content on my pc, I just am not willing to get my content that way. And personally I do not want to go back to watching movies in lossy dolby digital, it is one of the reasons I do not like to get very many on demand movies. The picture is very good but the sound is back to the old dvd quality dolby digital and there is no choice in audio when streaming or viewing with on demand. Personally if it gets to the point where the only choices are small devices hooked up to our home displays and if they only offer small home theater in the box style of product, I will stop buying hardware and software. At this point I do not see it happening but it is also hard to say what direction it will go when more and more people use streaming and downloads on small mobil devices. I do however see it possibly being a situation where you will have a divide of sorts. We could end up with people watching content on ether very small screens and large screen with not much going on in between or god forbid we could see the decline of home theater and large displays. I will always shake my head when I see someone watching a movie on a cell phone or Ipad. Granted it is there choice and if they can actually enjoy watching a movie like that while missing out on picture detail than good for them. But I definantly do not want studios to completly focus on that way of content delivery just because it gives them more control of what is offered and because it is cheaper for them to offer it that way. It would be a travesty for all of us that enjoy watching and listening to our media in the best format possible. We may be a nitch market after all but there are still plenty of us here that want our content offered with the best video and audio the studios can provide. And I hope that the studios see that they can still make money from formats like Bluray and that HD content that is being viewed on over the air channels and cable networks. I will close this with the following, the trend of focusing on the must have it how crowed does concern me and I hope that the fears and concerns voice in this thread do not put an end to quality content any time soon!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Agreed, Dave.


I don't forsee getting fast enough broadband access in the forseeable future to make much use of streaming/downloads myself, but even if I have that, I'd still much rather own content on well-packaged physical media and maybe only use streaming/downloads for rental purposes only. Only thing quality streaming/downloads will do for me is make renting more viable so I feel less need to own as much as I do (or am on pace to do), but it won't really replace physical media for me in cases where I definitely want to own certain titles.


Even w/ the latest UV scheme that's being marketed now (w/ supposedly bit-perfect copies, etc), I'd still much rather buy the well-packaged discs I want to own and then just rip them for playback on UV-certified devices or the like. That's exactly the same thing I do w/ music recordings. And I'm not sure I'd want to own films on tiny media like memory cards either (as some feel might be the future).


And I certainly don't want to see things go backwards from 1080p w/ lossless audio on BD although I don't forsee myself upgrading to a higher res format beyond BD...


_Man_

 

[Chuck Anstey]

While I am concerned that the studios may take total control over 100% of the content and be able to force all consumers to pay every time they want to watch anything, the practical side of me sees that as a way to save money and have increase convenience. There have been numerous discussions about how much money people spent on their DVD collection compared to how many movies were watched more than once and vowed not to repeat the same mistake on Blu. I know even with me rarely paying over $15 for a movie and prefering

 

[Cinescott]

I've often looked at home theater from a cost perspective, but it always breaks down. What I mean is one of the joys gained from the "luxury" of having a film library is re-discovering a gem I may not have watched in years. My collection seems to go through cycles. I may not watch something for months or even years, re-discover it, then see many new things that I never noticed before. This happened a lot with DVD. With Blu-ray being so young and my collection being relatively small, it happens less, but I'm looking forward to adding more titles every month.


Time constraints are always an issue. In the summer, obviously, I do watch less, but there's a certain charm to watching a beloved disc on a hot summer night, too. Brings back the drive-in vibe

 

[Charles Smith]

Agree with those thoughts re having one's own library and being able to re-discover things. It's the same damned thing with my couple of thousand LPs, the hundred or so reel-to-reel tapes, and even the better cassettes that sound very nice indeed on a decent system. And of course many, many books, most of them pretty carefully chosen. I really can't imagine not having that library around me. It's a part of my life and it answers to no one.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Originally Posted by Cinescott

I've often looked at home theater from a cost perspective, but it always breaks down. What I mean is one of the joys gained from the "luxury" of having a film library is re-discovering a gem I may not have watched in years. My collection seems to go through cycles. I may not watch something for months or even years, re-discover it, then see many new things that I never noticed before. This happened a lot with DVD. With Blu-ray being so young and my collection being relatively small, it happens less, but I'm looking forward to adding more titles every month.

But imagine having access to the full library of films. Wouldn't it be great if you could go online, view the list of TCM top 100 greatest films of all time and immediately start watching any one of them in high quality? Or looking at Robert Osborne's recommendations and watch each and every one. Going through my own collection is nice but going through a studio's collection is even better.

 

[Cinescott]

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey




But imagine having access to the full library of films. Wouldn't it be great if you could go online, view the list of TCM top 100 greatest films of all time and immediately start watching any one of them in high quality? Or looking at Robert Osborne's recommendations and watch each and every one. Going through my own collection is nice but going through a studio's collection is even better.

Sure, going through the online library would be a nice option, but for my primary collection, I still prefer to keep it local.

 

[Ryan-G]

To address the OP's points....


1. Studios would like for this to happen, but it won't, not in the way they envision it. There's a few reasons for that...

• First and foremost is ease of use. J6P is barely competent enough to surf the web, there's no way he's going to surf a dozen studios routinely, it exceeds J6Ps attention span.
• But he will surf a centralized distribution site, like Netflicks, Hulu, or X-box Live. That's easy enough for him to handle, and he'll go with the site he can find the most material upon.
• It makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to successfully launch properties. It kills the ability of users to find things accidently, and drastically reduces the "Walk in" factor of finding things on a store shelf or a centralized site. For TV, it's a game-ender, Too decentralized to attract enough attention.

This is why Itunes revolutionized the Music distribution market, it's easy, centralized, and facilitates "Walk in". Further, it's a pretty hefty financial burden on the studios, it requires full blown IT departments, investments in heavy-duty servers and their upkeep, major pipes to the internet, massive database needs with the related security and risks if it's cracked, and major contracts with credit card companies. It's a massive undertaking when they can just shift the burden to centralized sites and let them deal with the details and just get free money with almost no overhead.


It's very likely the model will settle to traditional Rental/Own options. Rent for $5, buy for $20. When you buy it, it won't actually live on your drive, it'll be like Gaming's Steam where you can just restream it whenever you like. I believe this is how X-box Live handles purchases to some degree as well. There's really no reason not to offer the option, any system that doesn't offer it won't survive. It'll fail the "Parent test", anyone who has had a kid and a copy of Finding Nemo knows what I mean, it'll get watched 10 times a day. Same thing with Star Wars, LotR, and their ilk. There'll be an option for "Owning", or if not expressely "Own it", it'll be an "Unlimited viewing of all media" subscription price, but that'd be heck for revenue calculation for the provider, "Own it" is easier on accounting.


2. One of three things is going to happen here...

• The Governments will get involved. There'll be too much public resistance to the bandwidth caps and the stifling of innovation. Once a fair number of people get smacked with heavy over-usage fees without warning, the Government will jump in.
• Capitalism will solve the problem. If ISP's start capping bandwidth, someone will realize they can grab market share by killing the cap. That'll start a price war. This is what drove me from Comcast to Fios.
• Wireless technology will evolve to the point where Internet access is no longer private sector. At some point, it's inevitable that a satelite network will manage global internet access wirelessly. Given how computing technologies develop, and communication, we're probably within 10 years of that possibility.

Regardless, the ISPs won't manage to pull off what they want. There'll be too much public pressure that some segment won't end up caving. Especially if Microsoft, Hulu, Netflicks, and Hollywood start looking into Anti-consumer charges against ISPs. They could potentially withdraw services to crush the ISPs, most of whom are cable providers. They hold an enourmous amount of power over the providers.

3. It'll actually develop differently.


Your house will have a 16-32 core Intel/AMD server in the basement beside the furnace, it'll wirelessly power any number of handheld and full screens throughout the house, as well as advanced speaker setups which will do away with the receiver in favor of software controls. Dad can watch football, Mom can watch her tv shows, the kids can game and do homework all without interfering with each other. The budget model will be some version of an Xbox, which will be the baseline for minimum system reqs. You'll stream your media through some centralized service, likely paying a subscription fee similiar to how Cable charges but with more fine control of your expenses and consumption, with options from ala carte to unlimited. The footprint of the hometheater will be reduced drastically.


Things won't really change significantly. The disposable generation is actually self-consuming, we can see this most readily with the video game market. The video game market has very much shifted towards the disposable model. In 2010, it was showing revenue drops almost every month despite having some of the biggest releases humanly possible. In 2011, it's not doing much better, March 2011 was a 15% drop from 2010, despite having Pokemon release and sell 3 million units in like 2 weeks. The disposable model is, by it's very nature, disposed of. By not creating memorable experiences, it loses the draw of creating anticipation, so each release becomes "Ho hum" and often extremely derivative of every other release. While initially successfull, it ends up burning itself out.


It's not all that dissimiliar from the B-movie era of theaters, initially a major revenue stream, eventually just ended up forgetable and unsuccessfull. The Direct-to-Video experiment ended equally as badly.

The drop in quality with disposable media ends up quickly killing the initial momentum. Movies won't end up going this route.


Rather, what will happen is that it'll usher in a new era in quality, most especially for TV. Look at Firefly, if it had been released in a pay-per-episode digital world, it never would've been cancelled before it's time. Nor would Angel, or any of the other casualties of Cable TV. In shifting to subscriber/purchaser models, shows and movies currently thought too risky can thrive by allowing people to view them as their schedules allow, rather than being subjected to the whims of Cable scheduling.


As an aside, I should probably mention, one of the options for the new future will be a Commercial subsidized cheaper subscription. For a fraction of the price, you can get the subscriptions, but you'll be forced to endure commercials. Or pay extra and not view them.


We actually stand on the edge of a massive evolution of many forms of media, quite literally on the very edge. In 5 years, our media consumption will be cheaper, easier, and of higher quality. Right now is a great time to be a fan of Movies, TV, or even Video Games!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Dave --


I'm not a huge fan of watching movies on my laptop either, I get where you're coming from. But I think people like us are the minority, and people like your friend (or most of my relatives and friends, for that matter) are the majority. The difference, I think, is just a fundamentally different way of watching and appreciating cinema. To us, it's something sacred. To them, it's just entertainment, just a way to pass the time or something to do in a night, but not a life-altering experience (at least not on a regular basis). There's nothing wrong with either point of view, it's just a different way of going about things.


In a way, it's not too much different from people who will go see whatever the most advertised movie of the week is vs. people who only go out to see things that they think are important or worth their time. It's the difference between, is it just a night out, or is it a life-enriching experience? We're never all gonna be on the same page about that, and that's okay. As difficult as it is for us to understand how someone could be content to rent $1 DVDs when they could have a Blu-ray player, I'm sure they don't understand why we'd spend all the money we do when we could get (what they perceive to be the same thing) for only $1.


What I find encouraging about the future of home theater is that options seem to be developing for both crowds. The people that have no interest in being movie snobs, who just want a piece of disposable entertainment or just want to see something once (or once in a blue moon), there have never been more options than today. You can rent at an actual video store, you can rent at the supermarket at the $1 machines or by mail, you can stream, you can watch what your cable company has on demand. For people who are true enthusiasts and collectors, our options are far better than what they've ever been -- once it was just what the local video store had or what we could tape off TV, or mail order for a small fortune. Now, we can own most things we like at incredibly high quality for around $20 a title. That was unthinkable $20 years ago. Today we have a system (and it's still developing of course) where people who are casual consumers can get things easily and at a low-cost at ways that are convenient for them, and where people who care about the highest quality possible, who care about ownership and collecting, can do that too. Frankly, I never want to see a system that's geared towards only one of these audiences. Movies -- indeed, all of the arts -- should be accessible in some form to anyone who has an interest in them.



Scott -- a little embarrassed to admit this, but I only saw Bridge On The RIver Kwai for the first time last fall, when the new restoration had a brief theatrical run before the Blu-ray came out. I can absolutely see why that movie was such a big deal for your dad -- it became an instant favor of mine even before it was finished, it was one of those movies where five minutes in, I knew I was witnessing perfection.

 

[Douglas Monce]

AT&T will begin to cap service monthly in the USA on 5/2/11 to 150GB to their DSL customers, and 250GB to their UVerse customers.  That means a DSL customer will be able to watch about 10HD movies before they go over (not counting all of the other downloading they might do). 

At the data rate of Neflix HD streaming, 6mbps, thats more like about 60 movies a month. Doug

 

[Douglas Monce]

For the foreseeable future, streaming will be hampered by bandwidth caps, both server and client-side. That alone will keep physical media alive for a few more years. I won't give up my Netflix subscription, but I also won't make it my primary content delivery channel because a) Comcast restricts me to 250 GB per month,  b) the quality is just not there, and c) I don't get a local copy of the content I can play regardless of internet availability.

 

When maturing delivery technologies align with updated infrastructure, and streaming can be treated the same way as cable TV (always on, basically), then physical media will decline. But it won't simply die off. If I were to guess, I'd say in ten years optical discs will be what LDs used to be: A niche format for connoisseurs, for those who demand a state-of-the-art presentation. We'll have 4k discs at higher prices and in smaller supply. But we'll have them. People don't spend thousands on home theater equipment just so that their media can be held hostage by companies that may lock you out at any time, and which will take your content with them if they go belly-up. The content providers know it, and so they'll keep making product available, for a price. 

 

 

 

 

Amen!

Again I have to say, are you going to be watching more than 60 movies a month? Because at Netflix highest data rate for HD, you'd have to watch around 60 movies a month to go over your limit. That assumes that the movies are around 2 hours each. I understand the quality issue, but frankly I think the quality of HD I'm getting from Netflix is VERY good. If you are watching on a PS3 it is 1080P with 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus. Its is blu-ray quality? No. But for casual viewing it is DAMN good. At least as good as you get from HD channels on cable. Doug

 

[Ricardo C]

Originally Posted by Douglas Monce Again I have to say, are you going to be watching more than 60 movies a month? Because at Netflix highest data rate for HD, you'd have to watch around 60 movies a month to go over your limit. That assumes that the movies are around 2 hours each. I understand the quality issue, but frankly I think the quality of HD I'm getting from Netflix is VERY good. If you are watching on a PS3 it is 1080P with 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus. Its is blu-ray quality? No. But for casual viewing it is DAMN good. At least as good as you get from HD channels on cable.

Doug

My wife and I are avid movie watchers. We usually watch one per day, but if work allows, we sometimes get in two or three. If we did all our movie watching through Netflix, we would have been blackballed by Comcast months ago.


I agree, Netflix is great for watching those movies you have no real desire to own, or to check out obscure flicks a buddy recommended. But at this point, I can't consider them a serious contender to be my primary content delivery channel. Broadcast-quality HD isn't what I want in my HT.

 

[AaronMK]

It's not so much will you be watching 60 movies (at 6 Mbps, it is more like 45 two hour movies) a month from Netflix, but will you be replacing your TV service with Internet based services? For a family of four, each with their own shows, that can add up quickly. Each member of that family of four would get 45 min of viewing per day. That is assuming 6 Mbps streams on a 250 GB cap, and not using the connection for ANYTHING else. Call it the sad state of peoples' viewing habits at the expense of being social, going outside, etc. but the cap becoming an issue all of a sudden doesn't sound so outrageous.


The choice of capping at 250 GB is interesting. It is typically plenty for a family... until they "cut the cord". But then overages are about fairness, not creating disincentives for people who would do such a thing... so says the representative of a company that penalizes people who don't get texting packages by effectively charging them at a rate $1,300/MB.

 

[Towergrove]

Also add to that total that people do much more with their monthly bandwidth than watch movies. They listen to movies, surf etc. That total movies I can stream or download in a month number will be much less. I do see Ultraviolet being a huge success and a boom for collectors who want to purchase once and play on any device. The studios are setting up UV for a summer introduction now. They want you to purchase their content.

 

[John Skoda]

Streaming will never replace physical discs for me.
Maybe there's one or two current movies a year that I'm interested in seeing. I mostly buy discs for classic movies I've already seen, so it's the extras on the discs that matter to me. I spend way more time watching the extras (or watching the movie with commentaries playing) than I ever spend watching the movie itself.

 

[Don Giro]

As usual, I'm "late to the dance" on this topic. I have FiOS 25mb down/up, and Verizon goes on and on about "no bandwidth caps." I'm sure this will change as time goes on, and when it does, I will have to seriously curtail my streaming activities.

I was against the whole idea of streaming since way before it became possible for various reasons. Now that I have Netflix streaming, I can't imagine life without it. I have a wealth of complete TV series that I can watch once and not take up shelf space. But I'd give it up in a heartbeat if Verizon tells me how many episodes of "The Larry Sanders Show" I can watch without owing them extra money.

I think I read somewhere that bandwidth caps would become a thing of the past once the "infrastructure" exists for faster internet on a much wider scale that could handle the speeds. I disagree. As it stands now, Verizon makes no money from how much Netflix I watch...and I'm sure it KILLS them.

The only way I see bandwidth caps going away is through competition. Someone mentioned AOL before; I remember those "metered internet" days. Weren't we only allowed 30 hours a month at the beginning? Once "real" internet providers came online (I was an early adopter of Netcom) and offered much more internet time for the money, it wasn't long before AOL got rid of their bandwidth caps. The only hurdle I see with that happening in the future is that there are too few national carriers these days other than Verizon and Comcast to compete...

As for "tangible" formats going away: I don't think we're "there" yet, but there's no doubt that we are living in a "portable" world. I'm not the huge audiophile some of you folks are, but I will be completely brokenhearted when CDs are gone. It's the"tangible" aspect I'll miss the most. I just won't buy downloadable music. I want the CD, and will go to great lengths to own them. In the past year I have ordered CDs from foreign bands I like from their native countries (Russia, Netherlands, Slovakia, and I'm working in getting a CD from the Czech Republic that has become a "Holy Grail" quest."

That said, 97% of my music enjoyment these days is from my iPod. I just don't have the time today to sit in a room and enjoy music, so I get about 80 minutes of enjoyment a day during my total commuting time. The last CD I put in my player was Sirenia's "The Meaning of Life." That was three weeks ago. During my commutes these days, I often see people watching movies on laptops and iPhones. It saddens me a bit, but there's not much I can do about it...


Oh, and I rip my CDs at 320kpbs...

 

[AaronMK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Giro


As it stands now, Verizon makes no money from how much Netflix I watch...and I'm sure it KILLS them.

They don't make money from Netflix directly, but it is applications like Netflix that make people want to pay them more for faster connections.


Even my technophobe parents in their sixties went from a $20/month Verizon DSL connection to a $55/month FiOS connection so they could get good lag-free Netflix, even if they are streaming more than one thing at a time.

 

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by Ryan-G

We actually stand on the edge of a massive evolution of many forms of media, quite literally on the very edge. In 5 years, our media consumption will be cheaper, easier, and of higher quality. Right now is a great time to be a fan of Movies, TV, or even Video Games!

Excellent post, Ryan! I admire your optimistic responses to my original talking points and even envy your positive outlook given how naturally cynical and anti-establishment I tend to be. I do hope your ideas of the future, and not mine, prove to be the ones that come true.