Comcast already has 1,300 movies on your fingertips. They plan on having 6,000 by next year, with half on HD. Directv is staring on-demand within weeks (some already have it) and most of it will be free.

In 5 years, we'll have tens of thousands of movies at your fingertips. And be able to view them with a click. Once you experience the beauty of Tivo/DVR, you don't want to go back to disc.

Yes, downloading movies is a faster way to get your movies, but there are things you can't really get on the movies you stored on the hdd.

Sound and subtitle options, sound option allows you choose a different language track or a better encoding for your receiver. To me, those two options are worthy enough to get the physical movie than the downloaded version.

I've watched a couple of the 720p offerings on the xbox 360 and upconverted DVD does not look as good.

I'm a buyer of movies more than a renter so if its a film I want I will get it on Blu-ray for $20 and have it to watch whenever I want. However, if it is something I only want to watch once I would rather watch it in 720p for $4-$5 and be done with it.

I really wish the myth that upconverted DVD looks as good as true HD video would die already. It doesn't on any HDTV I have ever used and I even had a Denon 2910 as my upconverter.

You might be happy to know that the new machines will likely be backward compatible and thus capable of playing DVDs as well as one of the other format.

There is always the option to up convert your DVDs to HD. While there is absolutely no actual improvement in quality, or even possible a degrade in quality, you are even now able to up convert.

I have over 700 titles on DVD right now and I sure wouldn't find it convenient to have to redownload all of them one at a time in the event of a HD failure. Even if they dramatically decreased download times, it would still be a major pain. I still wouldn't feel safe even with my entire collection backed-up on a separate (offline) HD since there are still scenarios that could cripple both simultaneously (i.e. a thief steals them both, there's a power failure or surge when both are hooked up, they get cross-contaminated with a virus, exposed to magnetism, etc.). And if I was going to back-up to disc as a secondary fail-safe, well then I might as well just have a prerecorded BRD collection and use those to burn from.

VHS -> DVD -> HD DVD or Blu-ray -> VOD or Downloaded Media

This is just a natural progression of technology. I don't understand how some people can be so staunch that HDM will overtake DVD but not think that one day Downloads will overtake HDM.

Anyway, when that day comes, the chance of you having to re-download all that will be almost nil. About as low as all of your discs malfunctioning. I see most people not even wanting to keep things locally since access to tens of thousands of movies will be instant, and for people who want things locally, they will have something like a 10TB SSD (as well as another 10TB SSD for backup) which will be a lot less prone to error than a burned disc, and it'll be a lot cheaper than buying discs, and it'll take a lot less space. And this will be a LOT sooner than you think.

VHS -> DVD -> HD-DVD/Blu-ray -> Downloads -> 3D Downloads -> Virtual Reality -> Mind Melding -> Nirvana

I just don't see it. My DVD collection is probably 10,000 GBs of data. The more HD I get the more that figure jumps. Sorry, but I'm not buying Terrabytes of storage just for my movie collection not to mention it ruins part of the reason I love collecting.

I think this has huge potential as a rental service, but I just don't see the average person doing this for permanent movie buying. Where are we suppose to store all this? PC HDDs? That makes watching it on TV very inconvenient. A specific movie device like Apple TV. Okay, but they are not going to have the 10,000 GB model out anytime soon.

If anything it looks like the future you see is the complete death of movie collecting. Everything will just be watched on demand. I guess they could work, but I don't see it replacing DVD as something we own and collect. Maybe my generation will be the last to buy and collect movies, but we will live awhile longer and so will disc media. I don't see it dying all together. Even vinyl is still alive.

But isn't the ability to watch a movie on demand the entire point of having a collection of movies?

I want to watch a specific movie right this minute. I run over to my shelves, find the title, open the box, run over to the DVD player, insert the disc, run back to my chair, sit down and mash play on the remote.

or...

I want to watch a movie right now. I pick up the remote, flip through a menu to find the movie I want and mash play.

How is that not better?

...unless we are only collecting movies to have a nice, big, wall of shiny to show off to all our friends and family and internet strangers.

Maybe it's just me, but I've never really considered having 900 boxes in my living room as being a huge plus. I'd much rather flip through a DVD Profiler like menu on my TV. View the poster art, check out the cast and crew and any other useless technical data I might need, and then just push a button to watch that movie right then and there.

All my boxes went into storage 3 years ago, and I keep all my discs in a 500 CD case. The idea of collecting these things as a permanent library just got old to me and took up way too much space.

That may be the future. I have a collector's mentality though and like having all those boxes on shelves to look through. I've said it before, I am probably a dinosaur in all of this and will be in the minority in the future. I can definitely understand the appeal of a VOD future where you pay $3-4 when you want to watch something and have an endless library to choose from. The movie studios would definitely prefer this.

However, one reason I have always like ownership is when something gets pulled for rights issues or because somebody decides they want to change it I still own a copy of the original. With VOD you are at their mercy for future changes to content.

For me, I do enjoy buying and collecting movies (although the space issue is becoming more and more of a concern), but I do like to rent movies as well just because more and more, movies arent worth buying, but I would still like to see them. I dont like going to BM rental places, and netflix and bb-online dont really work for me either. So I like VOD, and cant wait to get more and more VOD w/HD because it gets harder and harder for me to watch SD. And I agree that upconverted SD is not the same at all.

I agree. I made a similar observation last week. I can pick an HD movie off of my cable's VOD service and be watching the movie in less time than it takes for my XA1 to open the tray to put the disc in.

Again, everyone is saying "I wont" "I don't" but the "I" in this case is not at all representative of the average consumer. We here have big collections, and love to get new discs and catalog them and look for deals, but the average person does not. The average person does not rebuy movies they already have. They don't make sure their discs are all arranged nicely on shelves. The don't care for their discs, they are throwaway possessions.

For these people, VOD will be the way. No pesky discs to keep track of, they will be able to buy on the slightest impulse.

There will always be a physical medium, but DVD is the last dominant physical medium before VOD services take over.

10TB of storage would cost you about $2000 today. In five years, once VOD will be prime time, it will cost under $500.

It's also a bunch of stubborn people who probably haven't tried modern VOD or tried it, didn't like it, and believe it can never get better.

That sounds great, but no way in 5 years will downloads be ready to own, with full 1080p quality and lossless audio. Too many things have to be in place for that. Bandwith, internet speed, etc. We are a ways off of those being good enough to handle a high-definition download. I just think there's too many issues to be worked out before we even think about the downloading we're discussing.

Or tried it and found the picture and audio quality was actually worse than an upconverted DVD.

I have no idea what service you are looking at, but I have a Comcast Moto 6412 HD DVR and every single VOD movie I have watched:

1.) Robocop
2.) Ghost Rider
3.) The Rock
4.) Apocalypto
5.) Aeon Flux

Looked better than DVD and I own 3 of 5 titles there. Aeon Flux looked slightly worse than my HD DVD.

I guess, but I still don't see a lot of people buying these to keep on a HDD. I think the collecting will end as the VOD gets more popular. People will just switch back to being more renters like they were in the VHS days. I knew few people that actually bought movies in those days. Maybe 10-20 must haves, but no one I knew had real movie collections until DVD. I think it will go back in the VHS direction. They may buy a handful of titles digitally, but I think renting will be the norm.

I think that once you experience the beauty of Tivo (DVR), you will never want to watch TV in any other way. Tivo, and now Directv HD DVR, not only just changed the way I watch TV, they have changed my life. I watch everything WHEN I want to watch and how I want to watch (skip commercials, pause, replay, etc.).

VOD is slowly doing the same with movies. I think as more people experience how much more convenient VOD is (and will be in the next few years), fewer people will want to collect. Sure, there will always be you guys (serious collectors) who will want physical media, but that will not be the norm. Why collect a few hundred movies when you will have instant access to tens of thousands of movies?

Could it be because none of these tens of thousands of movies would be something we want to see?

I fail to see what censoring laws they will implement as well. Once you start bypassing the system in place I don't think there will be much variety in terms of product. (Example: If VOD is the future as you claim explain to me how the much touted on this forum Battle Royale gets to be seen, explain how the majority of important extras and the not so important ones that seem to be breaking or making a purchase at this point for many would be integrated, ect). Any possible scenarios you might think of will be destroyed by cost and licensing fees and eventually result in lack of market presence.

Explain how if physical media is truly to become obsolete we would end up dealing with the holidays? Are we going to give our children and grandchildren digital downloads of Disney movies or are we going to still offer them a real present?

VOD may take a small percentage of the current market but to assume that the majority of sales will come through it and therefore eventually replace physical content is rather naive (downloads are reportedly taking less than 10% of all music sales). Any such move would kill hundreds of small distribs and encourage rampant pirating overseas (let's assume that the US will be the leader).

When back in 1999 Penguin Books announced their plans to exclusively distribute some of their titles in e-form on the net there were outcries that the book business is coming to an end. The reality however is rather different -- here we are 10 years later and people are still buying books in bookstores while exclusive writings are to be found via e-downloads.

Pro-B

Honestly, I don't like the idea of VOD because I'm afraid of the model that they might come up with.

Looking at the xbox live marketplace model, where they charge for additional content for popular titles which probably should have been on the discs in the first place. I definitely see the same occuring for VOD. You want that extra documentary well you're going to have to pay for that; some trailers, you'll have to pay for that too. The studios are looking closely at the model Microsoft has set and so far it's been successful but would you really want it this way? I wouldn't.

What I would like is some sort of home server which 1) will allow you to go to a store and then download a digital copy from that disc onto the server and keeping the physical as a backup and 2) allow downloads on the server for movies you want to rent or buy.

Agreed. I would love something that combines the convenience of VOD with the ownership of a collection.

I kind of envision rentals being both Pay-Per-View for new releases and subscription based for everything else (as in pay $50 a month and you can have unlimited access to our entire database of catalog titles). Then for retail sales you'll be able to buy a download or a physical disc (which a lot of folks may find preferable for backup purposes anyway). The downloads will probably have various licensing options like $5 for a license that expires in a week, $10 for a month, or full price for an unlimited one. And the physical discs will also come with licenses (similar to premium software that we use now) that allow the user to rip the movie to his various computers, mobile devices, etc. That's kind of how I see this thing going, however there will likely also be a lot of hair-brained DRM schemes that they try out along the way too.

I foresee a similar to what you suggest above development. Perhaps VOD could be used to compliment physical media rather than compete with it. Something close to what Apple are currently offering via their mall stores, perhaps a similar model.

The two big issues I can not ignore however are 1) legal limitations and 2) distro revenue.

With the first the problem is how do you control content once it becomes shared property. If you unload tens of thousands of films in pristine 1080p or higher quality you are practically looking to rewrite the entire legal system that is currently in place. Royalties, contracts, secondary fees, everything has to be reorganized in a manner that would reflect the new model.

Now assume that the same model is used overseas where hundreds of distribs are paying and sharing licensing fees with the majors. You want to argue that somehow VOD will outplay physical media in terms of licensing revenue? This has got to be the biggest bluff ever...it won't! Ever! Any such attempt will alienate local distribs, who have already been hit hard by region-free product to begin with, and result in tremendous losses for the majors. From media, to merchandise, to secondary licensing fees (smaller markets) there will be a tremendous decrease in profits for the producers.

Second, let's assume that the model which VOD would introduce truly takes off and becomes global. The minute you launch (or figure out how not to) it in countries that are not covered by the Geneva/Stockholm agreements (authoring laws, etc) you would unleash such unseen in the history of home media piracy that no one will see the end of it. From Russia to China there would be first class production lines that will deliver virtual masters at no cost to the consumer.

Example: for those of you who don't know how foreign licensing and distribution works 9 out of 10 times media (CDs, DVDs, games) is priced within a bracket pinpointed by the studio holding the rights. This would mean a set price of say 6$/ 6 Euro for a major release. You want to come and argue that enormous markets such as the ex-Soviet Union and territories would adopt a legal system that would put piracy away and streamline revenue for the majors...and succeed? Quite frankly if you even think about such possibility then you have absolutely zero knowledge of how the markets outside of the US function. It would be a cold day in hell before people who make 250-300$ per month would end up paying 20-30$ for a subscription VOD service. There is a reason why no one bothers Russia when it comes to piracy...no one knows how to control it, as it is de facto a state business.

In this global game the majors want to play there is much more they could lose with VOD than there is to gain. Obviously there is a lot for the providers to earn...with little to lose (if they play their cards right).

Ciao,
Pro-B