Gizmo

Well, thats your personal opinion. Being on the market for 2.5 years and apparently being the "replacement for DVD" as many like to chime means its past its infancy stage. Consumers don't want to hassle with firmware updates on a regular basis. They want it to work right our of the box and frankly, that's how it should be.

Gizmo

Tell me about it. My work calls the computer "fix it guy" for any little problem. You know what the problem typically is? The batteries in their wireless mouse died. They need a fresh reboot after being left on for 2 years. A cable that was loosly connected became unplugged. I started taking about 15-20 minutes to fix these "issues" just so it looks like they are "issues". Job security at its best.

BuckNaked2k

mmconhea

Today was a great example of how downloadable content is not even close to being ready for prime time. Of course BluRay would have done no better in distributing the inauguration content today, but the performance of the pages streaming this event, an the whole internet as a whole slowed to a crawl. Numerous people were in the dark trying to view it online. This is a great argument for live TV over streaming content. The a lot of the folks counting on watching it on their computer were in for a surprise. While TV worked as usual.

I can see something similar happening on the eve of a big movie becoming available as a download. Slow load times, people being left out. At least with BluRay, companies can start producing discs far ahead of time to meet demand.

DVD Polizei

I tell people this about downloading HD content as viable.

Imagine all the roads in the US.

Now imagine every goddamn car in the US is on the road at the same time, trying to get to a destination...with traffic lights working sometimes.

Nuff said. Downloading sucks ass.

Gizmo

...So they are going to produce BD discs of live events and distribute them to us as they are filming...?

Qui Gon Jim

You are mistaking bandwidth with availability. It can be assumed that as one of these services takes off, it scales to meet demand. The demand for the inaguration was off the charts abnormal, and systems were not able to meet that demand. The pipe was open, but the water company didn't have a pump big enough to fill the pipe faster than it was emptied.

Streams were not problematic because of bandwidth, but because the streamers were not prepared to service the demand (for the most part).

Qui Gon Jim

Additionally, you are talking about streaming and downloading which are two different beasts.

Walker Boh

The Internet isn't a dump truck; it's a series of tubes.

Shazam

Uh, what? You meet demand by having the available bandwidth. If the bandwidth isn't there, you have no hope of meeting demand.

Your analogy is totally flawed. Servers are not "pumps". The interweb is not composed of "pipes".

Putting the available bandwidth in place for the interweb to stream true HD content to people's houses is a collosal undertaking. Most people don't even have broadband yet. I guess it'd make a great economic stimulus project.

Qui Gon Jim

Hate to break it to you, but the "pipes" analogy is used pretty often. It was not the bandwidth to houses that was causing issues, it was the inability of servers to service so many clients simultaneously.

And again, streaming a live even is totally different than a download.

Qui Gon Jim

Also, you are taking one event, the inauguration, and assuming that sites would have ramped up to a huge degree for one single event. It wouldn't need to be so immediate with some type of downloading service. As demand increased, the necessary hardware would scale up to meet demand in a curve, rather than a huge peak, then an equally huge drop off.

Of course, there would be peaks, and headaches in any system, when demand is underestimated for a big title. but that is hardly any different than BD- remember Iron Man?

Shazam

It doesn't matter if the "pipes" analogy is used often. And more often than not, it's in jest.

The bandwidth to houses? You realize the problem is one of total infrastructure, right?

There's hardly any difference between live streaming and downloading.

Psst... I used to work for a company that did on demand and live video streaming.

Shazam

You vastly underestimate the amount of bandwidth something like a BD uses. A BD movie can peak at 50 Mb/s. A typical network card in a PC does a max of 100 Mb/s. TCP/IP is a very verbose protocol and can reduce your effective bandwidth by 30%. The typical broadband connection isn't even 10 Mb/s. The network cards in your usual PC also uses high amounts of CPU time when utilized heavily. I'm not even factoring the loss from the video transport protocol.

An OC-768(!!!) has max bandwidth of ~40000 Mb/s. That's not even 4000 people watching/downloading a BD movie.

And even something that's compressed to hell like the inauguration took Akamai to their knees, with only 7 million viewers. That's one decent TV show. What are you going to do with the other 300 channels?

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I'm guessing the point you're making is that you want to have a more consistent stream of data as opposed to downloading a file where variable rates aren't going to effect the outcome as much?

SPRBD

I really am at a loss to understand why people want HD VOD, streamed or otherwise.

So they can pay every time they want to watch their favorite movie? So, if they pay extra for a digital copy that they can keep and watch multiple times, they have to buy huge amounts of storage space for their downloads?

Sure, that's fine for the casual movie-watcher. But for people with collections of a few hundred (or thousand) movies, it sounds like a really f*cked-up idea.

Spiky

I'd say the pipes analogy is perfect. It's the analysis of it that's flawed in this case. As an analogy, its main breakdown is pipes are assumed to be unidirectional, and networks are more like omni- at this time. But that's why it's an analogy, it's one way to help explain a portion of networking.

But I agree, people just don't get exactly what is truly required for every inch of the connected planet to do HD, esp in addition to everything else happening on the web at any particular time.

(although, if we shut down a whole bunch of porn sites, who knows how much bandwidth would turn up)

Gizmo

Very few people watch a film more then once when they buy it (not including kids films). We might be the minority, but I would say looking at my DVD/HD/BD collection I probably watched 20% of my films more then once and at least half never even cracked open the wrapper...

HD VOD intrigues me because I'm not a fan of paying $20 for a movie I will probably watch once, and when I sell it I'm likely to get $14 or less for it (not including shipping/package/gas etc). Renting a title for $4-$6 is a might nice idea for me...been doing that far more often as of late on my 360/AppleTV. Sure, it may not be as nice as BD in the PQ/AQ department, but I'm not a pic/audiophile like some.

Adam Tyner

...and there's the advantage of immediacy too. If I want to watch something I don't own, I can dial it up and have it handy really, really quickly. It could be a title that the local stores don't carry (meaning I'd have to order it online if I wanted a physical copy and wait a few days), and maybe it's a title that's not in high-def on a physical format at all. I see movies pop up in HD VOD even through my lousy cable provider all the time that aren't on Blu-ray (everything from The Philadelphia Story to Lars and the Real Girl).

Drexl

There's also the strong possibility that it won't be PPV, but rather a "buy once, stream any time" model, or even a subscription with unlimited streaming like NetFlix has now.

Spiky

Uh, no. Not everybody does this. I think I have 3 DVDs I haven't watched (other than some of the kids' or wife's flicks, but they've watched them), and they are part of box sets that I really bought for other movies. My collection is not as large as some people's, but it's hundreds. I think you are just assuming everyone does what you do. Why would you spend $20 on something you don't use? That's a totally different topic.

You really think they will EVER do that? I suppose Apple is close. Hmm...

SPRBD

You are fucking dreaming! How long have digital copies of albums (iTunes, etc) been available? How many great albums are not available digitally? Way to many. Should digital downloads (whatever) become the norm, expect your choices to be much more limited than the selection which you can currently purchase on DVD from Amazon.

I swear, people think that there are these great, infinitely large machines out there that are desperate to host EVERY movie ever made. It just makes me laugh. Your digital choices will be so limited should that day ever happen, that you'll be begging for the days of physical media to return.

The good thing about physical media is, once it hits print, you can buy it! Once you've bought it, you never have to worry about it being out of print again.

Stamina

I think Christmas '08 was a lot bigger for Blu-ray than many might realize. Age groups are important. The 35-45 age group is a tough, tough sell. I know, I'm in that age group & sat out the format war completely. I finally jumped into Blu-ray late last year. Four of my friends got either Blu-ray players &/or 1080P TVs at Christmas. I see this as significant, because only 1 of them actaully has a DVD collection. Now all of them own between 5 - 10 Blu's & want more. Blu-ray seems to be just getting started with my age group.

I see people talking about VOD/Streaming. I would think streaming in the future, would likely be a nice supplement to an already existing Blu-ray/DVD collection. People like physical media. Resolution can & will go up. There is no question the technology is already there. But a major problem is that people don't want to buy a new TVs & players every year or two. Not to mention the confusion it causes the public. 1080P seems to be a nice jumping off point, to settle into a new format for several years

Qui Gon Jim

Precisely.

beebs

Demographics are not everything. Early adopters for technology like Blu-ray are almost always males 35-50. Not all people in this age band go out and get every latest technology, but those who do mostly are in this age range.

Many will look at new technologies and say younger folks would be more interested in it. Indeed, they would be but the price of new tech normally keeps them from jumping on something new like Blu-ray.

-comix