mmconhea

One in the same. Streaming is what people are going to expect out of these download services. After all- we get that already with inDemand. If you look at the major services that deliver movies- it's streaming.

Gizmo

You mean one of the biggest events in US History? Yeah, maybe it can't but I'm sure it will work just fine to watch a HD version of Max Payne or Space Buddies.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

In one way, I think it can't compare because people have to problem listening to music on the go and to do that they need it portable. With digital downloads it's made music that much easier to take it with you. They have a copy of their music in a portable format and they're happy with it because they can easily take it with them.

I think less people would want to own a more portable version of something that is normally associated as something one would watch in a more permanent setting, like at home. They aren't going to want a compressed version of something to watch on their nice tv, which most people wouldn't be able to do right now without some work. So instead, they buy a disc.

I know this has come out horrible but I hope someone can understand my grunting.

Spiky

I wish people wouldn't try to give new meanings to terms. We've been using HDLite to describe bad HDTV transmission with lower-than-acceptable bitrates or resolution for years, now. If you are refering to real 720p/1080i, call it what it is, "HD". HDLite is anything below these ATSC standards.

I'm not real fond of it, but we seem to have settled on "Full HD" for 1080p, to differentiate it from 720p/1080i. Or you could simply refer to Vudu's stuff as HDX, which is their name.

Qui Gon Jim

No, they are not. The downloading we are talking about here is not an in-time viewing like the inauguration. If you were to purchase a download, then it would reside locally, unlike a streaming event, and it wouldn't necessarily need to be viewed as it is downloading. I think it is extremely disingenuous to act as if all video streaming events are similar to what will probably be the most streamed live event in history, the inauguration. I don't even think that if the Superbowl were streamed it would have such interest, worldwide.

If you can't see that these are two completely separate things, I don't know what to say.

And again, a HD version of a movie would be a larger file, but it would not require more bandwidth to download than an SD version of the same content. It would however take more time. Even a streaming event such as the inauguration does not stream from the site to the monitor, it streams from the site to your computer, and then your computer needs to have the bandwidth on the video bus to display the image.

All bandwidth is not the same.

bunkaroo

Sorry - wasn't around for the HDTV transmission discussions. FWIW, to me 1080i is acceptable as "HD", but 720 is not. I'd settle for calling it HD*, as in higher definition than DVD.

WRT Vudu, I think it's important to make the distinction, as a lot of what I've read about them says things like it's equivalent to Blu-ray, and yet it's only a fraction of their "HD" content (the HDX stuff) that is actually comparable to BD.