Blu-ray/HD-DVD vs Downloading HD Movies.. - Page 2

Douglas Monce · 08-23-2007, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

When I was out at EMA I met a pair of guys that had a
rather innovative idea that they were pushing to the studios.

They had what looked like an ordinary USB flash drive, though
it was somewhat larger and bulkier. Still quite compact, though.

Their idea was to put Kiosks in video stores or supermarkets where
essentially you would stick your USB drive in the Kiosk and get a
major movie downloaded to it. The movie would be on a time limit
for rental purposes or you could keep it indefinitely.

If I remember correct, this key is capable of holding 500 HD films.
Now, that seems kind of far fetched, but I believe that was the
number quoted to me.

You could bring this USB key to friend's house and watch it on his
TV. However, you would not be able to transfer it to a hard drive.

Lose the USB key? Not a problem. Each key has a specific ID
number and everyone's data is backed up on a master server at
company headquarters. This way you can be issued a replacement
USB key and all your data would be easily restored.

This is real technology that is out there and being touted
to the studios right now. I was just blown away after talking with
these guys (one of them is the cousin of Donny Osmond). I thought
so highly of their product that I even notified a few studios that they
should talk with these two gentlemen.

That is a very cool idea. I have also heard that the USB ports on the front of the HD DVD players maybe able to be used to hook up an external hard drive. Movies could be downloaded to the drive via the HD DVD players internet connection and played via the player on a rental basis.

Doug

Damian Howard · 08-23-2007, 06:28 PM

That idea about the USB key thing seems pretty unique and interesting. But i'm guessing it would require a hefty up front investment. Not only to mass make, promote but the whole aspect of the backing up part. There would be need of lots of storage for each person unless of course it's just a list of movies you have "bought/ downloaded to the USB key at a outlet" which would be easy to replace.

Ryan-G · 08-23-2007, 06:34 PM

IMO it'll eventually replace the rental market.

But that said, there's still one other major limitation that hasn't been touched upon in this thread. Server-side storage, which still kills even the idea Ronald witnessed.

Server-side storage doesn't use the same kind of drives that are used in a desktop, they use SCSI drives. The main reason being that SCSI is faster, and more capable in arrays such as the one needed to store the Terra's of Terrabytes to handle just movies, much less TV, in HD.

SCSI drives cost an order of magnitude more than normal desktop drives. Here's an example...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Ultra320+80pin

You can click around and get a feel for it, but what it comes down to is approximately $500-700 for a 300 gigabyte drive, or roughly $2000-3200 just to get a single Terra. Now given, no cooporation's paying that price, it's still *extremely* expensive. To deploy just a single server to handle this would be a several million dollar deal, and it's very unlikely that a single server could handle the necessary traffic for country wide deployment.

Likely we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars just for the drives alone for a country wide deployment for just one company/service. Before we even have a computer to put it in, a connection to the outside world, the software, or even a single person to set it up(It'll take *alot* of people to deploy countrywide).

It's cost-prohibitive right now. It could be done today, with ease, the concept is very simple for today's programmers, as Ronald's experience shows. But the hardware, the storage for servers alone, it's just not ready yet. It can be done, but IMO Microsoft is one of the very few companies with a bankroll big enough to handle it.

I *really* wouldn't be surprised if one did the math, they would discover a potential cost in the multi-billions, once you factor in hardware/deployment/software/marketing.

BrettGallman · 08-23-2007, 11:19 PM

Even though the technology in Ron's post sounds absolutely awesome, I still wouldn't be able to get used to the idea of not having something physical. Plus, I love to have disc art (as long as it doesn't suck), and, as I said before, I like to be able to see my collection sitting on my shelf. Hell, I get a kick out of re-arranging it from time to time. If anything, I want to be able to keep up that idiosyncratic behavior.

Dan Hitchman · 08-24-2007, 02:23 AM

Downloads on our primitive internet infrastruction here in the U.S. will be a joke for many years to come. In Japan they would laugh at our puny 5-6 Megabits/sec "broadband" speeds. If you can even get that kind of sustainable throughput... ha!

Dan

GlennH · 08-24-2007, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PerryD

Rob, have you ever done a HD OnDemand movie? It's instanteous and seemless and very good quality and EXISTS RIGHT NOW. There isn't any 30 minute delay to "download" the movie. It's not unreasonable to believe that the quality and selection of movies are only going to improve over time.

Even "purchasing" a movie can mean just a bit selected in their system that says you own it. The movie doesn't ever have to reside on your DVR, just further viewing streams would be free.

I am open to ideas that involve not having the physical media anymore. But there are major concerns with this model, some of which have been touched on by others here.

- Selection would have to increase tremendously

- If all I have is a "bit" that allows me to rewatch my movie anytime, what happens if the company goes out of business, or they lose the rights to that movie? (such as happens now when a title goes OOP - they don't come take your DVD away but I'll bet they would take your bit away)

ErichH · 08-25-2007, 07:57 PM

Interesting concept, but the studios have known for a long time that once the media goes soft, it's unprotected.

One thing that helps with current soft traffic is the MPAA's best buddie, the FCC. Ever wonder why we don't have 40-50mbit connections available like much of the eastern portion of europe and asia? Movies are not the whole story, but is it not strange to see all those copper wires hanging around from the 40s and 50s?

I think legal DLs of large size content will come, but a struggle will drag on for many years.

Jari K · 07-24-2008, 06:52 PM

*old thread up* (since I didn´t want to create another one for this..) Just wanted to share the link..

Microsoft's Don Mattrick talks about downloading (etc)..

Microsoft's Don Mattrick Interview // Xbox 360 /// Eurogamer

"Q (Eurogamer) = You've mentioned things that are excellent in hardware. In hardware, HD-DVD got beaten down by Blu-ray and Blu-ray's now the prevalent next-generation DVD format. Does that matter to you guys?

A= The next-gen DVD format wars may well have been "a bit of a Trojan Horse", says Mattrick, and he backs digital distribution of high-def content as the consumer preference.

Don Mattrick: It's a broader discussion. Last time I looked, there's 97,000 titles on DVD. It accounts for 99 percent of the volume of that business. There's high-definition TV, there's up-res DVDs right now, so I kind of wonder if this format wars is a bit of a Trojan Horse.

I think that what people want is digital high-def content, I think that's what our box provides, and we've announced several movie partners - and one in particular, Netflix, for the streaming technology. People love being able to download and interact instantaneously with high-def content. I don't have to go somewhere, I don't have to buy a disc, I don't have to pay a 12-14 dollar or 6-7 pound premium to do that. I don't have to have my face be two feet in front of my TV to see the difference.

Last time I looked at my living room, I was more than 8 or 10 feet away from my big-screen TV and the most recent demos I saw, it was someone in the industry - and I won't name who, because they would be so embarrassed - but they were showing a bunch of us Blu-ray and the person said, "You're sitting too far back to notice the different, get closer." I was like, okay!

When you put it all through, it's an interesting PR war that Sony's fighting with that front. I'm not convinced it's going to be a driver of sales. I think it's going to take a long time to get to even 10 percent of DVD volume, and I think consumers are going to say, "interesting format", there's going to be some early adopters of it who are going to think it's important, and there's going to be a bunch of people who say, "You know what? I'm quite happy with what I've got on DVD, I'm quite happy with my movie library, I'm quite happy not paying 6-7 pounds incremental per movie, I'm quite aware that I watch a movie once, maybe twice, but it doesn't have the same utility as games," and I think high-def and digital are more interesting forces of change in our space than the format of storage."



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