CapAmerica said:
I'm not a supporter of either format, The way I see it all Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are fighting over is who gets the title of being the Next LaserDisc. The way I see it the winner of this new format war isn't going to be Blu-Ray or HD-DVD its going to be Digital Distribution (iTunes, AmazonUnbox and XboxLive MarketPlace).
Physical Media is a dead format, when you are stuck using a physical media your are always going to be limited to how much your can store on it and you will always face having to upgrade every 5 years (or so). Also physical media also has that small little problem of getting damaged and not working any more and when that happens your screwed and have to buy it all over again.
With Digital Distribution you never have to worry about losing your purchased movie, If the file is deleted by mistake you can just re-download it for free. Once you pay for it you'll never have to pay for it again. And with Digital Distribution if a movie ever gets upgraded for better quality its a free upgrade (At least with iTunes).
Now before you say, "why would I use iTunes (or any other digital distributed media) I can't watch them on my HDTV." Not true, Apple now has AppleTV which allows you to watch (and listen) to any media purchased off of iTunes on your HDTV. Microsoft has the Xbox360 which allows you to watch your movies which you have purchased from XboxLive Market Place. And If all else fails their is always MediaCenter PCs which are becoming cheaper every year and support any format you can already watch on your home PC.
Now One may say, Digital Distribution will never take off because people want to own a physical media copy, Well yes there are people out there that want to own a actual disc (or tape) so they feel that they truly own something. The thing is that market doesn't care about HD movies they are perfectly fine with DVDs, Hell most were fine with VHS tapes and have only recently converted over to DVD do to the fact VHS movies are no longer made. The people who want a physical HD media are part of a very small group and are not in the same group as people who are interested in HD movies, The people who want HD movies are excited and accepting digital distribution. The people who still want physical media are a user base who doesn't care about HD Movies.
If you were to look at how well iTunes, AmazonUnbox and XboxLive Media are doing you would see that their movies are vastly outselling that of both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray put together. It is currently hard to get the sale figures for Amazon and XboxLive, But Apple is more then willing to post their sale figures.
*Please Note that the iTune Sale Figures are actually 2 months out dated compared to that of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. These were the newest figures I could find at the time I wrote this.
*Also Please Note That I'm aware of the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are for just movies. The info came from Video Business but it does say "Total disc sales" so it could be including blank discs and Blu-Ray games. Format | Movies Sold | Format Launch | Date # are from | iTunes | 1,300,000 | Sept. 12, 2006 | Jan 10, 2007 | HD-DVD | 650,000 | March 31, 2006 | March 9, 2007 | Blu-Ray | 675,000 | March 3, 2003 | March 9, 2007 |
Digital Distribution is the future, people who fear it most likely have no plans to part ways with their DVDs anyway. |
Um....and where am I going to store all my downloaded DRM protected content? On my 2tb. of HDD space? No thanks. That's being used for music, TV, games, and porn. Digital Distribution < Physical Media for HD content. I can take my disks wherever I go, I have to leave my Downloads on my PC or strip them of the DRM and burn them to a disk which defeats the purpose of not having physical media in the first place.
Also, I remember downloading a movie off XBL and it took 18+ hrs. and half my HDD space. I hardly call that On demand. The problem wasn't my download speed either. It's whatever MS has the speeds capped off at. And they aren't even as good quality as their physical media counterparts, they may be 720p but they are still compressed. For rentals I'll stick to my Netflix 3 at a time for $18 a month instead of paying per download. And I get to keep the movie for as long as i need to, it doesn't expire after 24 hours. For purchases I'll stick to my $12-$15 Physical media purchases(including HD) with a case and art, and the option to rip vs. $10-$15 dollar lesser quality downloads that I have to burn to a disk to take and play elsewhere.
For TV I'll stick to my media center server and 360's as extenders.
This is just my opinion, but when it comes to HD movies I would rather purchase physical media uncompressed and have the choice to take it with me, rip it, convert it, etc. vs. having to download a compressed, lesser quality version, that I'll have to buy/use an expensive burner(are there hd/bluray burners and blank disks yet?) and an expensive disk to burn it on.
About the dual sided HD/DVD disks, I think it is a great idea. I can play the hd side on and hd player or if i want to watch movie where there is no hd player available i can watch it in a standard dvd player. Having the choice is great. Blu-ray needs to match that feature.
