Warner Bros Now Blu-Ray exclusive!!!!!

[HsvToolFool]

Blu-ray Disc faces fight against downloads

Meh. Until fiber-op networking and multi-gigabyte downloads
are commonplace, broadcast HD is a lie.

Such articles always omit the fact that the bit-rate for
downloaded HD content is far too low to actually be called
"high definition". The picture is terrible! Upscaled DVD looks
better than network and most cable "HD" for this reason.
There just isn't enough bandwidth to get a true HD image.

Here are some articles on the topic from one of my favorite
tech-news bloggers...

Don’t believe the low bit-rate ‘HD’ lie

Are AVCHD camcorders the next HD lie?

1080p was just the First Everest in the search for realism.
Displays are currently limited to a 24bpp color space. When
36bpp colorspace displays are affordable, the quality gap
between BluRay and pretender HD formats will be even
more apparent.

 

[Rich]

Meh. Until fiber-op networking and multi-gigabyte downloads
are commonplace, broadcast HD is a lie.

Such articles always omit the fact that the bit-rate for
downloaded HD content is far too low to actually be called
"high definition". The picture is terrible!

I have to disagree with you here, Brian. I have rented HD movies from Comcast OnDemand and the picture was great on my JVC RS1 projector and 104" screen. Now if I was A/B'ing them with the Blu Ray disc, maybe I would have noticed that it wasn't quite as good. But just for watching a movie in HD without really thinking too much about it, I thought the picture was great. It certainly wasn't terrible.

Most folks aren't going to care about the intricacies of high definition and most aren't going to want to pay BluRay prices for a lot of movies that they will probably watch only once. Especially when they can conveniently download and rent the same movie for five or six bucks.

Technology is moving rapidly enough that broadband really could steal the show from BluRay in a very short time. Just look at what music downloads are doing to C.D. sales. It wasn't that long ago (five years) that Apple created the iTunes store and now they are the number two distributor of music behind Wal Mart. I don't think we can overstate the significance of the previous sentence. The paradigm of music and movie distribution is shifting, and it is being driven by the younger consumers. The technology will continue to advance to keep up with this shift.

 

[Reverb2009]

I tried a few of Xbox live's so called "HD Movies" and the quality wasnt much better then standard DVD up converted. IMO were not yet to the point of quality HD downloads, HD DVD & Blu-Ray are both far superior. The question is do consumers care more about quality or convenience?

The ipod seams to suggest that consumers care more about convenience then the quality of there music. But in AV with all the HDTV sales, quality may win out. We will see.

Both MicroCrap and Apple are pushing hard for Downloads. Apple with there DL service and Apple TV, MicroCrap with Xbox live and there not yet officially announced X360 that Was rumored to be unveiled at CES with an HD DVD drive built in (until Warner Bros announcement), 200+ GB HD drive, and rumor has it cased in a tradition set top box.

 

[JonFo]

I agree with Brian on the bandwidth limits for HD downloads. Heck, even SD VOD takes too darn long to arrive on a 1.5Mbps DSL.

The limited bit-rate ‘HD’ is also something I’m suspect of from a pure quality standpoint. The artifacting and lack of navigation options (vs. BR) is a big shortcoming in my book.

Now, agree with Rich that for many, it will not be a big deal. Much like MP3’s vs CD’s. Convininece will trup other factors.

Frankly, depending on which display I’m using, a 720 level HD is fine, say on the 50” plasma, I would not care. Yes I can tell the diff between HD-Net 1080 and Fox 720, but for watching certain shows or movies, no big deal.

However, I do hope that much like LaserDisc in its day, that BR will be the preferred media of the movie fan and videophile communities. LD never really displaced VHS, but until the DVD arrived, it sure had traction with the home theater crowd and the movie buffs.

If we couple the great movie delivery platform with the fact that its also an awesome audio delivery platform, then there is hope that the two target markets can better support the viability of the BR ecosystem.

 

[Rich]

I think the key here is that this is a market-driven economy. And who is driving the market for movies? My guess is it ain't us -- It is the younger generation. Look at what Apple has done with music downloads in five years. Most teenagers haven't bought a CD in the last year. Apple now has all the movie studios on board to do the same thing with movies. What will they do with that in five years time, given their penetration with the younger market?

The technology for downloading HD is evolving rapidly. I know it isn't there quite yet. But BluRay isn't there quite yet, either, as far as market penetration goes. You have to get a lot more BR players out there before BR disc sales really pick up. The question is: will BR get a chance to penetrate the market (even without HDDVD) before downloads steal enough of the market to kill it in the water? To answer this question, I think those of us thirty and over have to realize that we are not the ones that are really driving this market. What are the teens and twenty-somethings going to be buying? That will determine how long BR lives and whether downloads become king sooner or later.

I'm telling you guys: don't discount what Apple is going to be able to do. Why do you think all of the movie studios signed up with them so quickly? Because they saw what Apple did with music and they realize where the market is headed. Ultimately, none of this has to do with quality or which is the "best" format. It is all market dynamics. The big players are going to concentrate their efforts where the money is flowing. And we see where that dynamic has taken SACD and DVDA and will at some point take the CD. Soon these will all be "niche products" if they survive at all and downloading or some type of flash memory media will be how we buy our music, and our movies.

 

[Reverb2009]

I think the key here is that this is a market-driven economy. And who is driving the market for movies? My guess is it ain't us -- It is the younger generation. Look at what Apple has done with music downloads in five years. Most teenagers haven't bought a CD in the last year. Apple now has all the movie studios on board to do the same thing with movies. What will they do with that in five years time, given their penetration with the younger market?

The technology for downloading HD is evolving rapidly. I know it isn't there quite yet. But BluRay isn't there quite yet, either, as far as market penetration goes. You have to get a lot more BR players out there before BR disc sales really pick up. The question is: will BR get a chance to penetrate the market (even without HDDVD) before downloads steal enough of the market to kill it in the water? To answer this question, I think those of us thirty and over have to realize that we are not the ones that are really driving this market. What are the teens and twenty-somethings going to be buying? That will determine how long BR lives and whether downloads become king sooner or later.

I'm telling you guys: don't discount what Apple is going to be able to do. Why do you think all of the movie studios signed up with them so quickly? Because they saw what Apple did with music and they realize where the market is headed. Ultimately, none of this has to do with quality or which is the "best" format. It is all market dynamics. The big players are going to concentrate their efforts where the money is flowing. And we see where that dynamic has taken SACD and DVDA and will at some point take the CD. Soon these will all be "niche products" if they survive at all and downloading or some type of flash memory media will be how we buy our music, and our movies.

I would say Blu-Ray has more then enough time to penetrate the market. There are still too many unknowns with movies downloads to replace a physical disk. How are you going to store them? Can you back them up in case of a crash? Will the copy protection let me watch a movie I own on the player in the leaving room on the player in the bedroom?

So far Apple and other want to be services are only doing movie download rentals. So far only Blockbuster and Netflex have to be worried IMO. The technology will eventually get there but IMO DVD/Blu-Ray doesnt need to worry...Yet. I do think that Blu-Ray will be that last disk based format.

 

[HsvToolFool]

I have to disagree with you here, Brian. I have rented HD movies from Comcast OnDemand and the picture was great on my JVC RS1 projector and 104" screen.

And DiscoveryHD is spectacular. Cable and dish certainly
have the potential to supply bit-rates which you can't
tell from BluRay. Unfortunately, we may be at the zenith of
decent quality broadcast HD.

As cable and dish networks try to cram 100+ channels of
pseudo-HD into their limited bandwidth, the bit-rates drop
and quality suffers. From day one, I saw a big difference
in the local OTA broadcasts. CBS is much better than Fox
where you and I live. Both look better than SD, but I'm
very thankful The Masters is on CBS.

Being a pessimist, I expect dish and cable will pursue the
Chock-Full-O-Channels route and leave the high-quality
HD content to BluRay hardcopies. Then the difference
between BluRay and cable/dish will be more apparent.

Technology is moving rapidly enough that broadband really could steal the show from BluRay in a very short time.

High-quality HD is indeed streamed on the web in Japan.
But most houses there have access to 10 Gbps fiber optic
networks. So the technology exists now, but America
doesn't have the money to install the infrastucture. After
all, the US is a bit larger than Japan. The project size alone
means it will be another decade before anyone outside big
cities will benefit from ultra-fast networking adequate for
streaming HD content.

Just look at what music downloads are doing to C.D. sales.

It may seem contradictory at first, but I suspect consumers,
especially young folk with perfect vision, are much more
discriminating of their video quality than their audio.

We all half-listen to compressed audio while performing
other tasks like driving or jogging, but that doesn't work
with video. There is no HD equivalent to iPod "ear buds".
The closest consumer product is the back-seat LCDs in
mini-vans which pacify our kids on long trips.