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Why HD-DVD and Blu-ray Are DOA

mikesd81 writes "Slate has up an article on why both new DVD formats are effectively dead on arrival. Article author Sean Cooper cites internet movie and cable on demand services, the price of new hardware, and the inexpensive cost of newer hard drives as the reasons behind his argument. The article goes on to say buying movies online isn't there yet. Titles in standard-def are few, in hi-def fewer still. With five times the visual information of a standard-def flick, an HD download of The Matrix, were it even available, could take all day over the average broadband connection. But consumers are demanding change, and change will happen fast." From the article: "On iTunes an album costs about 10 bucks--as much as $8 less than some CD retailers charge, partially because of the reduced cost of getting music to buyers online. Look for the same savings when it comes to downloading movies. And then there's the fact that hard-disk storage capacities are pushing ever upward while size and price drop. In a few years, you'll buy every episode of The West Wing on a drive the size of a deck of cards rather than on 45 DVDs in a box the size of your microwave oven." Phil Harrison is already saying the PlayStation 4 won't use discs.

6 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Re:His prediction is 5 years too early by DocBoss · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well according to this link we will start seeing 100 mbps downloads much sooner than that.
    http://www.isp-planet.com/cplanet/tech/2006/prime_ letter_060703.html

    --
    "They said we drink horse urine and sleep with our own kin. You say it's comedy, but how can someone laugh at that?"
  2. How soon they forget. by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 5, Informative
    an HD download of The Matrix, were it even available, could take all day over the average broadband connection.
    Doesn't anyone else remember marking a slew of downloads from a BBS, FTP, Usenet, or even the old Napster back in the day? You'd start your dialup modem chugging away and go off to school, work, or sleep while it ran. Same crap, different scale.
  3. 2 1/2 hours by bigpat · · Score: 2, Informative

    With five times the visual information of a standard-def flick, an HD download of The Matrix, were it even available, could take all day over the average broadband connection.

    A full length HD format movie would be around 5 Gigabytes, according to this article. So considering my download of the 1 Gigabyte Battlefield 2142 demo took about 30 minutes last night over my basic $34.95/month FiOS connection, that means it would just take about 2 1/2 hours to download a full length movie. Theoretically less than an hour with the faster service offerings. I really don't see the problem with that. Netflix takes a day or so to get your movie and it is very popular. I could see just leaving the computer on over night to get the download and watch the movie the next day. A torrent like download could even distribute the load.

    The only thing holding back distribution over broadband Internet is the studios. If the studios allow distribution like this, then there is a big enough market out there to make this work.

  4. Re:His prediction is 5 years too early by Shawn+is+an+Asshole · · Score: 4, Informative

    Satellite is completely useless for downloading. Every satellite provider has an "fair access policy" that will kick your connect to dial up speeds if you go over a certain quota. The quotas are very low, even on the most expensive plans. I was looking into that for a client. After googling for a day, I was unable to find a single review that wasn't negative.

    --
    "It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
  5. Re:Look at previous trends... by peragrin · · Score: 2, Informative

    so how many DVD-audios, and SCD's do you have? How about Minidisc's?

    what don't you remember those formats. Of them all the only good one was minidisc, but since Sony did weird shit with formatting on them they never took off.

    Not every new format gains acceptance, even good ones. I guess you never studied history or reality.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  6. Re:His prediction is 5 years too early by tenton · · Score: 2, Informative
    itunes will die. Paying by the song is a bad model. It has only been successful because that is the only way to get music on an ipod. Now that other players are as good or better (try the Creative Zen Vision M), people are catching on that paying $15 a month for unlimited downloads is easily the best way to go.


    That's funny. I take it you've never used iTunes or even have an iPod? Only way to get music on an iPod? My CD collection disagrees with you. You do realize the iPod existed before there was an iTunes store, right? You do realize you can load MP3s and a variety of other non encrypted file formats on to it, right? And that others have written programs that can load songs onto the iPod, without even having to have iTunes (the program).

    The single song paying model is brilliant and is exactly what people want. It's the record companies that doesn't want that. They'd rather you buy the whole album, even if you just want one song. They want you to spend $13-$20 even if you just want one song.

    And, since you've apparently have no clue how it works, you can buy albums off the iTunes music store (single albums run usually $9.99).