Another speed bump for mass market adoption of Blu-Ray?

Tarkus wrote:

> skip wrote:
>
>> I guess none of these people have seen Blu Ray at 1080p On a good TV.
>> Nothing off of the air can duplicate that picture.
>
>
> Of course not. But their side lost, so now HD on disc sucks.

No, they got so into "Blu-ray is evil because Sony makes rootkits" from
'06, and now they can't understand why the Bad People won and everyone
likes them...

It helps to update one's mental files, every so often.

Derek Janssen (or as the saying goes, "Change your mind, it's beginning
to smell")
ejanss1@verizon.net

On Thu, 22 May 2008 20:11:27 GMT, Derek Janssen
<ejanss1@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:

>Tarkus wrote:
>
>> skip wrote:
>>
>>> I guess none of these people have seen Blu Ray at 1080p On a good TV.
>>> Nothing off of the air can duplicate that picture.
>>
>>
>> Of course not. But their side lost, so now HD on disc sucks.
>
>No, they got so into "Blu-ray is evil because Sony makes rootkits" from
>'06, and now they can't understand why the Bad People won and everyone
>likes them...
>
>It helps to update one's mental files, every so often.
>
>Derek Janssen (or as the saying goes, "Change your mind, it's beginning
>to smell")
>ejanss1@verizon.net


You are both ****ing generalizing ****ing dolts.

I have BOTH formats, you ****ing idiots, and that doesn't change what
Sony does in their nitty gritty underpinnings. We are just now getting
up over 1.5 Mb/s in the consumer hooks, so a 25Mb/s high def DVD stream
is ALWAYS going to be better. Until networks can stream at those rates
(good luck), we are going to be tied to a local data storage and delivery
medium.

Fact: BOTH HD formats have picture quality better than ANYTHING that
has EVER been sent over transmission lines or airwaves.

Get it through your heads, dopes... high definition DVD formats are
going to be the mode of collection for films for a long time to come.
Data streaming technologies are WAY behind, and ALWAYS will be as long as
they cannot sustain a like data rate as a disc, and we all no that they
cannot.

Data storage technologies wont be able to beat a stamped disc on CoM
(Cost Of Manufacture). Even when and if memory arrays and
containment/use methods get capable, their price will still be too high
to make them a medium for collectibles that are data related.

Until a nano-wire memory device gets perfected that can fit on a small
chip die, and can be made for pennies per TERABYTE, we won't be seeing a
switch away from stamped optical discs any time soon.

Until you can stick a credit card sized wafer into a slot, and play a
flick, you are going to see optical discs in use for some time to come.

There MAY be a transition period where a device is sold that becomes a
temporal carrier for a high resolution DL'd master image that gets
written to it that carries a single film title, or even a series of
titles that are "rented".

There may even be media servers that end up AT your ISP that store huge
ISO image datagrams so that users do not need more than a single hop to
grab a title. Kind of like bit torrent in reverse... your ISP streams
the title out to a thousand sockets at one time, because there are
literally that many requestors for the title on their locality.

Instead of feeding a thousand separate streams, they pipe one stream
over a thousand ports. Any data errors can be addressed by those that
had a failed stream after the main stream feeds.

"Archimedes' Lever" <OneBigLever@InfiniteSeries.Org> wrote in message
news:mukc349u3npjf8pr862nh4c4atg18dgqsc@4ax.com...
>
> ****ing generalizing ****ing dolts.
>
> you ****ing idiots,
>
> Get it through your heads, dopes...
>
==============================
Always the charmer!

Tarkus <karnevil9@atlantabraves.net> wrote:
> It may hurt rentals, but I doubt very much it will have much effect on
> sales. For one thing, cable/satellite HDTV sucks in comparison to
> Blu-ray, and for another, people aren't going to want to pay more than
> once to watch a movie they really like. (Yeah, geeks will probably be
> able to burn PPV HDTV, but we're talking about mainstream.)

I doubt most geeks would bother burning a PPV feed. Why bother when you
could use a torrent to d/l a higher quality version?

Besides which, netflix gives you better quality (Blu-ray discs) more
flexibility (streaming video via an increasing number of devices) and is
cheaper per title.

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.

On May 21, 4:13 pm, Derek Janssen <ejan...@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:
> Derek Janssen (and the irony is, they think they're beating disk
> sales/rentals because it's, quote, "easier" to watch the movie... )

Yeah, anyone that ever tries to give me that line again is going to
get an earful. Last weekend I got it in my head that I wanted to rent
"Supergirl", since I had never seen the movie despite being a huge fan
of comic book adaptations. I didn't really want to buy it, since I'm
now buying all my mainstream stuff in BR and also since I knew it had
a reputation for not being a very good movie in the first place.
Seeing as I was pretty busy that weekend, I thought I'd approach VOD-
as-rental with an open mind, since IMO that's the only appropriate use
for it.

I checked iTunes. They don't have it. I checked Amazon Unbox.
Nope. I checked my cable company's VOD/PPV service. Nope. I don't
have a 360 or a PS3, but at this point, I was feeling pretty stupid
for even trying. I had already expended ten times the amount of
energy it would have taken me to just Netflix the movie, which
completely defeats the whole "effortless" selling point of downloads.
CONTENT RULES ALL, people. If a guy like me, who actually wants to
spend a decent chunk of change watching B-movies, cult favorites, or
y'know, ANYTHING BESIDES THE LATEST STUFF THAT JUST CAME OUT can't
catch a break with downloads, then we'll go right back to discs. It's
that simple. Yeah, I'm sure that someone's going to say, "But, Aaron,
the studios will step up their game and make the selection better."
Well, that's spiffy, but the point I'll come back to is "Yeah, but DVD
is there *NOW*, and BluRay is on track to match DVD as time goes on."
Why give up two co-operating and proven technologies that give me what
I want in the best possible quality, for a bunch of competing set-top
boxes trying to sell (er, I mean, "rent") me hyper-compressed
downloads?

I still say that if downloads were to kill off discs, it would
ultimately result in the consumer having a much smaller selection of
content.

--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com

godslabrat@gmail.com wrote:
> I checked iTunes. They don't have it. I checked Amazon Unbox.
> Nope. I checked my cable company's VOD/PPV service. Nope. I don't
> have a 360 or a PS3, but at this point, I was feeling pretty stupid
> for even trying. I had already expended ten times the amount of
> energy it would have taken me to just Netflix the movie, which
> completely defeats the whole "effortless" selling point of downloads.
> CONTENT RULES ALL, people. If a guy like me, who actually wants to
> spend a decent chunk of change watching B-movies, cult favorites, or
> y'know, ANYTHING BESIDES THE LATEST STUFF THAT JUST CAME OUT can't
> catch a break with downloads, then we'll go right back to discs. It's
> that simple. Yeah, I'm sure that someone's going to say, "But, Aaron,
> the studios will step up their game and make the selection better."
> Well, that's spiffy, but the point I'll come back to is "Yeah, but DVD
> is there *NOW*, and BluRay is on track to match DVD as time goes on."
> Why give up two co-operating and proven technologies that give me what
> I want in the best possible quality, for a bunch of competing set-top
> boxes trying to sell (er, I mean, "rent") me hyper-compressed
> downloads?

You've hit the nail on the head here.

Some years ago, there was an ad campaign for AT&T (I think it was) about
VOD which featured a harried businessman checking into a hotel and asking
if they had any movies to rent. The clerk responded that they had every
movie ever made, to which the businessman responds "how'd they do that?"

Anyways, THAT should be the real goal of these streaming, digital
download, or VOD type services. Their strength should be in having
every obscure film (and TV series!) ever released - not just the newest
hits that are being touted at the local Target for $15.99... After all,
digital storage is cheap - and getting cheaper all the time. This would
solve the "out of print" problem to some extent. You could at least still
WATCH that content, even if it was only for a few days.

> I still say that if downloads were to kill off discs, it would
> ultimately result in the consumer having a much smaller selection of
> content.

That would pretty much turn video into today's commercial radio industry.
Only the most recent or favorite stuff gets played (and played and played
and played and played) until something newer comes along, then the "old"
stuff disappears completly. Pretty stupid.

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.

Doug Jacobs wrote:
> Anyways, THAT should be the real goal of these streaming, digital
> download, or VOD type services. Their strength should be in having
> every obscure film (and TV series!) ever released - not just the newest
> hits that are being touted at the local Target for $15.99... After all,
> digital storage is cheap - and getting cheaper all the time. This would
> solve the "out of print" problem to some extent. You could at least still
> WATCH that content, even if it was only for a few days.

If they store every film and TV series ever made, their storage costs
aren't going to be THAT cheap, even if they're streaming YouTube quality
videos, never mind hi-def. That's simply never going to happen.

> That would pretty much turn video into today's commercial radio industry.
> Only the most recent or favorite stuff gets played (and played and played
> and played and played) until something newer comes along, then the "old"
> stuff disappears completly. Pretty stupid.

Isn't that what Classic Rock and Golden Oldies stations (for example)
are for?

Doug Jacobs wrote:
> godslabrat@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>I checked iTunes. They don't have it. I checked Amazon Unbox.
>>Nope. I checked my cable company's VOD/PPV service. Nope. I don't
>>have a 360 or a PS3, but at this point, I was feeling pretty stupid
>>for even trying. I had already expended ten times the amount of
>>energy it would have taken me to just Netflix the movie, which
>>completely defeats the whole "effortless" selling point of downloads.
>>CONTENT RULES ALL, people. If a guy like me, who actually wants to
>>spend a decent chunk of change watching B-movies, cult favorites, or
>>y'know, ANYTHING BESIDES THE LATEST STUFF THAT JUST CAME OUT can't
>>catch a break with downloads, then we'll go right back to discs. It's
>>that simple. Yeah, I'm sure that someone's going to say, "But, Aaron,
>>the studios will step up their game and make the selection better."
>>Well, that's spiffy, but the point I'll come back to is "Yeah, but DVD
>>is there *NOW*, and BluRay is on track to match DVD as time goes on."
>>Why give up two co-operating and proven technologies that give me what
>>I want in the best possible quality, for a bunch of competing set-top
>>boxes trying to sell (er, I mean, "rent") me hyper-compressed
>>downloads?
>
>
> You've hit the nail on the head here.
>
> Some years ago, there was an ad campaign for AT&T (I think it was) about
> VOD which featured a harried businessman checking into a hotel and asking
> if they had any movies to rent. The clerk responded that they had every
> movie ever made, to which the businessman responds "how'd they do that?"
>
> Anyways, THAT should be the real goal of these streaming, digital
> download, or VOD type services. Their strength should be in having
> every obscure film (and TV series!) ever released - not just the newest
> hits that are being touted at the local Target for $15.99... After all,
> digital storage is cheap - and getting cheaper all the time. This would
> solve the "out of print" problem to some extent. You could at least still
> WATCH that content, even if it was only for a few days.

The main problem is, all that downloadable material, WITH
customer-playback ability (or, as the cable ads say, "You're in
control--You can fast-forward *and* rewind!") have to come from somewhere...
And even given the future Neato Vaporware that usually turns up in the
discussion, server size usually dicatates that only a *few* movies are
going to be available--Which, as we've seen, usually means This Month's
DVD/HBO licensees, overexposed "default" family or action titles we've
already seen a hundred times, or other such condescending delusions of
what studios think real viewers watch.

And anyone who regularly rents movies under their own power knows, a
majority of experienced Netflix'ers prefer movies that DON'T show up
this month on HBO...In looking for something we haven't already seen in
theaters, if that, we'd rather look up a Criterion, or catch up on our
Lost reruns, or engage in any other actual expression of cinematic
curiosity that doesn't have to have Will Smith in it.

So, the biggest speed bump to downloads is what it's always been:
Smart People watching movies that they want to see, instead of Gullible
Idiots who think it's "neat" that they don't have to go to Blockbuster.

Derek Janssen (darn those Smart People for ruining everything!)
ejanss1@verizon.net

Tarkus <karnevil9@atlantabraves.net> wrote:
> If they store every film and TV series ever made, their storage costs
> aren't going to be THAT cheap, even if they're streaming YouTube quality
> videos, never mind hi-def. That's simply never going to happen.

This would only need to be a centralized database - not something every
hotel would have in their basement. No, it wouldn't be a trivial
undertaking, but it's becoming more and more possible as technology
progresses.

>> That would pretty much turn video into today's commercial radio industry.
>> Only the most recent or favorite stuff gets played (and played and played
>> and played and played) until something newer comes along, then the "old"
>> stuff disappears completly. Pretty stupid.
>
> Isn't that what Classic Rock and Golden Oldies stations (for example)
> are for?

According to these stations, groups like The Beatles only recorded 2 songs
because that's all they ever play of them. Every day. Over and over and
over again.

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.

Derek Janssen <ejanss1@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:

> The main problem is, all that downloadable material, WITH
> customer-playback ability (or, as the cable ads say, "You're in
> control--You can fast-forward *and* rewind!") have to come from somewhere...
> And even given the future Neato Vaporware that usually turns up in the
> discussion, server size usually dicatates that only a *few* movies are
> going to be available--Which, as we've seen, usually means This Month's
> DVD/HBO licensees, overexposed "default" family or action titles we've
> already seen a hundred times, or other such condescending delusions of
> what studios think real viewers watch.
>
> And anyone who regularly rents movies under their own power knows, a
> majority of experienced Netflix'ers prefer movies that DON'T show up
> this month on HBO...In looking for something we haven't already seen in
> theaters, if that, we'd rather look up a Criterion, or catch up on our
> Lost reruns, or engage in any other actual expression of cinematic
> curiosity that doesn't have to have Will Smith in it.
>
> So, the biggest speed bump to downloads is what it's always been:
> Smart People watching movies that they want to see, instead of Gullible
> Idiots who think it's "neat" that they don't have to go to Blockbuster.

That was sort of my point. Download/streaming services should be going
after what you call the Smart People demographic. After all, isn't it
easier to store a digital copy of a movie instead of having to provide
shelf space for the single DVD in a warehouse somewhere, just in case
someone wants to watch it?

--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.