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Broadband to Kill Off DVD?
Elteto writes "Just when we thought the DVD could not be any more ubiquitous, Serge Tchuruk at the Alcatel Forum in Paris announces that the days of the rapidly adopted medium are nearing their end. The increasing availability, affordability, and speed of broadband will contribute to a more efficient delivery method of media content. Will DVD join LaserDisc in obscurity?"
Yeah, when people stop being interested in physical objects.
i guess it's "hip" to try to be a visionary by predicting an early death of something.
How many people have used DVDs and DVD players? Or have a DVD drive in their computer?
They may be going the way of VHS or casette tapes (or at worst 8-tracks), but they're not going the way of LaserDisc any time soon.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
People will never be able to figure out how to run a VoD file on their TV...
"Honey, why won't the ethernet cable fit in the coaxial input?"
Wait, that would be MPEG, not NTSC streams...
Due to financial difficulties, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
I don't even need to RTFA for this one...
Broadband cannot replace DVD's. I don't see a day where accessing large amounts of data is as guaranteed as having a disc with everything accessible right then and there. I know I would rather have my DVD available than rely on some server that may or may not go down when they feel like it.
I also enjoy being able to boot a device not connected to the intarweb with a DVD. I don't see DVD's going anywhere, unless Blu-Ray/HD-DVD manage to oust it (this will still take many a year for the prices to even out)
HD DVD or BluRay will kill off DVD.
...under the Christmas tree? Weren't e-books going to replace physical books by now, too?
Short answer: No.
Come on people. This article is just plain stupid. I can see the DVD being upgraded, for more storage capacity (see blue-ray), I can see the DVD fading away gradually (like VHS); but saying that Joe Sixpack will suddenly stop buying DVDs and use, say a broadband connected Tivo-like-device, is ludicrous. Technology lingers. That's why Microsoft has to build in special modes in their OS to run older programs. People still use legacy technology! Hell, I still have a tape player in my car.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The article doesn't talk about Tivos, Internet TV streams, or some new emerging technology. In fact, it doesn't really mention anything!
I'm not sure how articles like this end up on slashdot. I should write an article: New Power Source will replace Gasoline!
Hey, put me on slashdot!
Slashdot = ((Technology + Politics) / Trolls) % Grammar Nazis
wow, i just saw this, and already the 3 stereotypical posts have been made.
Anyway, No, it will not pass into obsurity anytime soon. The reason is, unlike laserdisc, DVD actually has a sizeable installed base. That means, that the next gen format will support DVD, and the gen after that will probably do so aswell.
Broadband is not everywhere yet, and never will be. I can take a dvd and watch it in my laptop or a portable player in the car or train (while driving through a tunnel through a mountain), on a plane, in the middle of nowhere, etc..
Furthermore, people have large collections of DVD. Why I want to wait even a few minutes to download something when I can just stick it in my DVD player. More likely, by the time that DVDs take a few minutes to download, I will have my entire DVD collection sitting on a massive harddrive in a media jukebox anyways (provided some corperation doesn't make that illegal, anyways) and I can watch on demand, just like downloading. Except I don't have to pay extra bandwidth fees (if applicable) or anyone else any money who wanted to charge per viewing (since they can).
Speak before you think
There are three reasons this is bunk:
;-) and that bring us to:
First, the idea that we will throw away out current media has been floated since the days of the floppy. It's always a correct prediction, but only because a better physical medium comes along.
Second, the idea that we're going to be OK with just using storage on the Net and not having any physical media on which to store our data sounds good, right up until the first datacenter fire that loses me last week's data storage. It's also a terrible idea to keep your wares and copyrighted porn on someone else's servers
Third, PRIVACY. There's no single reason why networked media will never win over good-old local storage that beats the desire for privacy.
http://www.alcatel.com/ http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_02 /b3865705.htm
*ahem*
I don't think this really needs discussing any further. People have interests, these interests are financial - people will say things to support these financial interests.
Obviously the CEO of a NETWORK company would like to convince people that physical storage of data is a thing of the past.
How many people do you know have cable? Boom, done. Everything is there for the digital download of content (all types) straight to the set-top box. Your parent's will never know they have broadband. The will just get the box from the cable company and have full access (PPV or subscription, I don't know, but I like subscription) to Netflix / Blockbuster / movie label content.
DVD players can be had for under $40. I doubt mass produced BluRay or HD DVD players that still play regular DVDs would cost much more, so people will probably end up buying a dual format player and slowly migrating to the new formats. Discs with entire seasons of shows would be cheaper than the current ones, and thus those discs will probably kick-start the higher def format sales.
I agree that most people would be loathe to replace many DVDs with HDTV format ones, except their very favorite ones.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
"If given the choice to pay for and download movies online, I'd be all over it."
And I suspect that the movie companies would be all over you too, or would that be own you, as you would be one of the first to accept the fact that on-line movies will have DRM written all over it....
Content control is as much of a psychological issue as it is a technology issue. Decision-makers at content companies (movie studios in this case) need to overcome their fear of digital transmission. They were OK with DVDs because of CSS, but in the end, you can buy "unlicensed" DVDs for $1 each in many parts of the world, and CSS didn't do anything to prevent this. So the studios couldn't end up being any worse-off than they are now, but psychologically, they may not be able to see this. What they really should do is adopt the Netflix type pricing model and just say "watch movies all you want for $20 a month." If it's convenient most people would rather pay $20 than try to find and distribute unlicensed copies.
But those barriers will both fall. Technology is like the tide; you can resist it but it will eventually get its way.
...for me anyway.
I used to love DVD shopping but in the last two years my "habit" has come under severe control.
Everytime I think about buying a DVD I ask myself what I'm paying for that I couldn't get online for free. Are the extras (if any) really worth £15.99 ? Nope. So I'll go and download myself a good DivX encoding and add it to the library.
The only DVDs I do buy these days tend to be box sets and hard to get titles, even that's a rarity.
I amassed over a hundred titles in my first two years of DVD ownership, I think I've bought maybe half a dozen in the two years just gone.
CDs, DVDs and downloaded content all have their place. Sure, I download music all the time (and pay for it), and would do the same with film if it were available.
However, when I find a gem - something I really love - I'll still fork over the cash for a physical copy of the item. It's worth owning a DVD or CD for the artwork and inserts that come with it, but even more so, it's something to collect and display. It's no different than books - I first read 1984 and Neuromancer online and subsequently purchased both.
Perhaps nobody will buy bad movies on DVD anymore as they've seen it online and been unimpressed, but I'd say that's a good thing.
Uh, no. That's like saying everyone in the world is going to be ordering cable internet / broadband / wireless / etc. Not everyone wants or even needs to be "connected" any more than everyone is going to want to stop using DVD.
Only someone who wanted to have 100% control over your access would say something like that. You can't lend someone a broadband feed, you can't watch it again any time you want (you are at the mercy of availability), and they can edit the content, etc.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Some here have stated the media doesn't matter, it's the data, while others are firmly attached to physical media. Whichever is important to you, the real underlying issue is control of your data. You want to control what you see, the circumstances under which you see it, and when you see it. You also want to control the price.
What the big media companies, up to this point, have always controlled is the formats. It started with phonographs, along the way we had reel-to-reel, cassettes, 8-track, and finally CD. For video we had VHS, Beta, laser disc, video disc (remember those?) and now DVD.
What's changed is that the final (as of now) formats are all digital, and have converged with PCs so that now, finally, YOU have much more control of not only where & when, but also the format itself. A computer with the correct inputs/outputs give us control over the media - we could even stick digital video/audio back on VHS or cassette if we choose. The media companies fight that with the DMCA & the labels of piracy in an effort to retain that control. Why? Because every format change (in the past) allowed them to automatically generate new revenue not based on new products and content, but the re-selling of old. It's cheaper to recycle old ideas than to come up with new. Even better (for them), they soon will not only charge for a new format, but literally charge you every time you watch something. Despite being called dinosaurs, they see ahead and this is what they want.
And then you have guys like this Alcatel guy saying "No, DVDs aren't the new media, it's the internet!" This guy really isn't saying anything new because many of us are already familiar (thanks largely to Napster) with moving audio/video over the internet. Our computers are small internet hubs whereby music/video files are moved to other devices as it pleases us.
Really, the cat's out of the bag with digital content. The question is control: The media companies want you to have less so they can charge you more (on a per-view basis instead of a one-time charge), while people like us want more control because we have the capability for the first time to use it as we really want to.
All this Alcatel guy is doing is trying to insert himself into the food chain by getting a piece of the media conglomerate action.