Ray007 on 08 May 2007
| theshoe23 said: Ok, for the last time, downloadable movies will NOT become the standard for high definition films in the time it would take for one of the existing HD disc formats to become a standard. There will be an increased adoption of HDTVs in the next year or so and eventually HDTVs will be all that are left (to buy). So if your TV dies you will HAVE to get an HDTV to replace it. This increase in HDTV adoption will cause an increase in HD movies. HD Movies ARE HUGE! That is why they are stored on HD-DVD or Blu-ray discs. Their capacities are measured in double digit gigabytes! At the current rate high speed internet adoption. There will still be a substantial part of the worlds population that are limited to cable modem speeds (as many are limited by slow dsl or even dial up at present). This speed (while fast - around 2.5 to 5 mbps) is still too slow to make downloading a movie more convenient than a trip to the video store. Just try starting to download a movie on the 360 right before you want watch it. The sun will come up before its done! |
Not sure about the rest of the world, but your comments sure ring true in Australia. We’ve just recently had some adoption of ADSL2+ through a number of smaller players (wholesale resellers). But few people are lucky enough to have access to those speeds. Most current plans here are limited to a connection speed of 8Mbps and download quotas in the range of 10-50GB/month (which won’t get you too far for HD streaming). Higher quotas exist, but the costs are insane – my plan is AU$60/month and has a 20GB limit.
The current government is completely clueless in regards to broadband (amongst other things). And with talks of a national broadband network only recently hitting the political limelight, the situation doesn’t look like changing for another 4-5 years. Basically, I don’t see “downloadable services” being successful here in Aus for quite some time.
