Microsoft Adding Blu Ray Support!!!

[Lone_Canis_Lupus]

phil said:

NeoRatt said:
About 15 years ago PCs were considered a nice to have...

About 10 years ago the Internet was a nice to have...

About 5 years ago most people still had film cameras...

Now, Internet social and knowledge networks are huge like Facebook, My Space, Blogger, Wikipedia, etc...

What makes everyone believe that in 5 years digital downloads would not be the only and best way to get media? Just a what if scenario... What if satellites provided Internet access faster without the need for wiring? Both Japanese and American companies have plans that have been forming for over a decade on satellite Internet access at a low cost. And as for wanting a blu-ray disc or whatever, will it matter if the copyright owners refuse to distribute physical media?

Point is, I have been in the technology world for a while, and no one can see the next five years and nay say any prediction. To do so is wrong... Think more about what could or would need to happen to make it possible. I thought browsers were a waste of time in '92... Now, I feel they are a needed tool that I don't want to be without. I would have thought people in these forums knew that more than others but I guess I am wrong

 

And about 5 years ago, most people had just about as much bandwidth as they have today, at least here in the states. Satellite internet access isn't as hot as you might think. The MINIMUM time to transmit data to the satellite is 110ms. That's only one single direction trip to the satellite(assuming geosynchronous orbit = 35780km). To communicate requires 4 total trips(1 up from home, 1 down to NOC, 1 up from NOC, 1 down from home). So, for any kind of communication, you get almost half a second of lag. This limit is set by the speed of light... until quantum communication is available for the home, you can't get around it. Satellite internet is SHIT for anything requiring low latency(hello, video games).

Where digital distribution really becomes a quagmire is if you can't get government mandated net neutrality. If Verizon, AT&T, and the like all start charging content providers(and they will), content providers will pass that onto consumers. Given the state of politics in this country, I very much doubt that government mandated net neutrality will happen.

Right now, digital distribution is all hype.

 Yeah...I REALLY didnt like satellite internet when I had it(there was no DSL here at the time...and we really didn't want dial-up). The bandwidth limit is crazy. You could only download 170MB every 12 hours before your connection dropped down to dial-up speed! So forget any random download huge-files days...that's just crazy. And we only got 2Mbits of downspeed with that...I'm glad we got DSL here now. AT&T's 6Mbit downspeed and 1Mbit up is nice. Only $30 added to the phone bill too. No limits on bandwidth either.