The End of Physical Media

L-s-L69 writes "The register is reporting that Forrester is predicting that a third of all music sales will be made by downloads in the next five years. They also predict that almost 15 per cent of films will be viewed by "on-demand" services such as rather than by DVD or video by 2005. "

Comments

Sound Quality

[mopslik]

...a third of all music sales will be made by downloads in the next five years...

Hooray, five years of tinny-sounding 128-kbps MP3s rather than properly sampled CD-audio tracks!

MP3s are great because they're portable, but they still don't sound as good as compact discs. Never mind the fact that downloading an entire MP3 album pretty much requires broadband to start with.

HomeChoice

[deepstephen]

I used to have HomeChoice at home, and it was excellent. The only reason I stopped using their service was because I moved out of the area they cover, and I miss them very much.

They use a DSL line with a set-top box which splits the signal into two parts: one for video on demand, and the other to plug your computer (or network) into. The video service has an archive of TV programmes in all kinds of genres, as well as music videos and the most recent news bulletins from a variety of sources.

Plus you can also 'rent' movies from them, just by clicking a few buttons. You get to play it as much as you like for 24 hours and the cost is comparable to (if not better than) the Blockbuster round the corner. You can pause, fast-forward, rewind, no problem. It works great.

It's fast, very usable, convenient, cheap and it works. I have seen the future and it is video on demand. And no they're not paying me to say this. :-)