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The Future of Digital Video?
An Anonymous Coward, in name only asks: "I've been asked to write about the Future of DVD technology for a newsletter and I've been doing some thinking and research regarding this. It seems pretty clear that DVD is a dead-end technology, due to be replaced by Video On Demand. Already Disney is launching a VOD service, albeit through traditional broadcasting. It's to be a brief piece, and I plan to touch on how VOD will affect viewers as well as professionals. What is a realistic timeframe for beefing up broadband (such as Powerline Broadband?) and smartening compression (On2's VP5 , MPEG7?) to create a workable VOD system that will replace DVDs? Is delivery more likely to be based on an open or proprietary standard? What do you see as the future of Digital Video? Any input is greatly appreciated." While I don't think that Video on Demand will spell the end of DVDs, it would be interesting to know how far the technology has progressed, and how much further it would need to be developed before you could can pick-and-choose your movie-of-the-night from your own living room.
I have VOD now (surewest broadband), and there is still plenty to be desired. I don't always watch a movie all at one time, some movies I want to watch a little today and some tommorrow, and DVDs never fail to play when the network connection goes down. The ownership model of video delivery will always exist in some form or another, but the business models and technology will change.
In fact... while MPEG4 may result in smaller file sizes than MPEG2, there are probably going to be some people who don't like it, anyways. Dolby Digital has better compression than DTS, but... audiophiles insist that they can hear a difference. In fact, enough people prefer DTS to Dolby Digital that many movies are released with both DTS and Dolby Digital tracks! And also, let's not forget SuperBit DVD's... DVD's which sacrifice the special features to give the video a higher bitrate. If these didn't sell well, the company wouldn't *still* be releasing SuberBit DVD's, but they are. So... even if the compression *did* manage to shrink the video down to managable amounts, it still might not be enough to give VOD a "nudge", so to speak.
Further, any VOD system will be riddled with DRM. Some people will no doubt complain that they can actually see this DRM manefist itself in the movies they download, and still others will no doubt have problems with the playback.
I believe the future lies in the HD-DVD. There are a number of proposals for this, including one that uses MPEG2 on a Blu-Ray disc (~50gb, if dual layered) and another that uses MPEG4 on a DVD (~9gb, if dual layered). you can read about them here:
http://www.dvdsite.org/
Bah!
If people wanted physical copies of things why do things like netflix and Blockbuster (shudder) exist? Video on demand with a decent price and selection will do as well as these traditional rental companies. People don't buy copies soley to view them or listen to them, many people are interested in the extras (CD Labels, DVD extras, general packaging).
Personally I feel the future of Digital Video is in DVD players with ripping capabilites. Once HD space is cheap enough that a DVD player can hold 50+ hours of video for under $199 people will move there collections onto the players themselves. Have a sapranoes marathon without changing DVD's. Using a CDDB type of service will let you navigate your collection quicker than the traditional "flip through the boxes" technique. Furthermore people hate having to change disks. Blue laser DVD's will allivate this problem but personally I belive slapping in a 300 gig HD will be dirt cheap by the time those drives hit the market.
Time for me to get back to finals and quit reloading slashdot.....
I need no spell checker! It's much more fun to guess what I'm trying to say...
But that's not what I want!
I want to be able to get whatever form of entertainment when I want it. That isn't to say that I want pay per use, but rather that I want to pay a yearly entertainment fee and get whatever I want to.
If I want to find out what's so great about a particular show that I've heard about, I want to see it now. I don't want to wait for it to come on or to buy a collector's set. I'm even willing to deal with commercials, but I want things to be on my schedule rather than the networks'.
I like the idea of everything being at my fingertips. I'd like to be able to summon any obscure movie at whatever time I choose. Or any song. Or any book. Or anything. If some sort of flat-rate content on demand service were available it would give me the control I desire. Peer to peer services already do this to a degree, although not quite legally in some circumstances (I see no wrong whatsoever in sharing shows that have been publicly broadcast already though; they've already been given away).
I don't like the idea of pay-per-use, but to say that I don't like getting what I want, when I want it would be like saying that I don't like caramel. Everyone loves caramel.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Its another one of these misnamings, such as Moores law (a marketing term coined by the head of Intel to sell their product philosophy).
Its never been _on demand_. Its been on request. If I demand I want repeats of an obscure late 80s comedy show shown on uk television (called Absolutely), theres no chance I will get it.
And it will never knock out recorded technology.
Yet again the MPAA wants a shift away from anyone owning their content in the end. Maybe its the future, but its a future where they will sell less, and get less money for their product. And in the end, it just means we record it off the television rather than buy it legitimately from them.
Didn't they learn from the original DVD-subscribe idea of DIVX?
As for Video On Demand itself, its been one of those "killer app" technologies which the telecomms companies have built since 1995, and never hugely deployed because the customers don't really want it. It offers them little, and local rental shops can always deliver (or post rentals to you). Its a novelty, and probably the last choice of the consumer. So they don't demand anything in the end...
You're missing one key point. To use VOD (aka pay-per-view w/o the time constraint -- in theory), you have to pay each time you want to watch it. At least with my DVD's, I can watch them any time and as often as I wish. If I want to pay once to view something, I'll go to the movies where I can enjoy it with more people than can fit into my living room.
m unications/two-tin-cans-with-a-string....
Oh, wait! What am I thinking? It costs as much to go see a movie as it does to buy the DVD and hold a cookout for all my friends and then sit down and watch the DVD.
Problem is, the market won't support it. MP3 players are a fine example of this. There's already growing resistance to RIAA trying to control all channels of what people can view. When people pay to own something, they expect that they will have material possession of that item, to use wherever and whenever they choose.
VOD is more akin to video rental.
If you want to find out about what will replace DVDs, you should look at the budding technologies coming out of data storage. Holographic cards the size of a credit card that can hold multiple terabytes of random access storage at high throughput data speeds.
Don't forget about quantum computing approaches. I know of at least three major computer manufacturers that are in a quiet race to develop quantum-level computing for the consumer market. It will be a while before we see a functional CPU, but the storage capabilities may show up sooner. Rather than have bits that can only have two values, 0 or 1, a quantum bit can have many more values. How about 0 through 9 -- a true decimal computer. I'll leave it to the math gurus to figure out the storage density of decimal over binary. My guess would be multiple terabytes in something the size of a grain of salt, and all data accessible instantly (forget about discussing xHz).
In the end, VOD is only about control of distribution. If people have to pay every time they want to view something, or pay on a regular basis, it will get old real fast. Look at pay-per-view. It's exactly the same thing as VOD, just using a different moniker. Only, I can't use VOD/pay-per-view when I'm sitting on a plane with my computer. Or, if I'm on the road. Or visiting relatives who don't have cable/broadband/satellite/some-form-of-modern-com
Whew! This water sure is cold!