A new format war?

[forumjunkie]

Just came across this article

http://www.bdfile.com/content.php?326-The-Next-Format-War-Blu-ray-Disc-(BD)-vs-Digital-Downloads

Will digital downloads kill the pyshcial media? or is that just some BD propaganda?

[kempodragon]

I like the statement that BD's don't have DRM unlike digital downloads. :p:D

[forumjunkie]

beside the fact the the author doesn't have a great deal of knowlegde on DRM.

I think this can go either way.. Personally I prefer renting movies online it saves me the hassle of running out to the store and taking it back when i'm done. I'd rather buy the disc of a movie which I will watch more than once though.

[2Bdecided]

I don't think this counts as a format war. Complementary formats can co-exist for decades - e.g. vinyl and cassette. When something new replaces something older, that's not a format war either.

Surprised the article didn't mention UltraViolet (http://www.uvvu.com/home.html).

I think almost everyone believes that BluRay will be the last commercial physical media format.
Maybe there will be some failed replacements (e.g. like DVD-A and SACD failed to replace CD).

Cheers,
David.

[Ghitulescu]

There will always be a ROM/WORM format, whatever its physical format would be. Despite the content industry would prefer for consumer to have only "pay-per-view" items, preferably remote-erasable.

[Nexin]

No such competition will ever exist. For drm it cripples media no one wants it on their pc. BD prices are to unrealistic not many or hardly any do buy into it. Shame about bd and hd mediawar and that bd has become something not many can afford to buy into, mismanaged or crippled on by the corporates behind bd on purpose.

People are waiting for a new digital storage sollution, one that will replace dvd at the same prices dvd is now. Maybe even sdd will come into the forefront yet is to far away. Though i think the right sollution will be in time memory based. If the problems that exist now can be overcome or new way of implementing with memory is found with huge size storage.

[Ghitulescu]

Well, I remember that the DVDs (which initially were priced at ~30€) falled under the 10€ mark only after 10 years, now one can buy BDs for 10€, after 2-3 years only.

And I think there will always be a market for individual pieces (be them singles or movies). Consider the today's situation, when 2000 MP3 songs are on a 1TB HDD. Imagine the future storage that would hold the same 2000 music pieces. Imagine you have to buy them all (already a catch here right ;)) but not one by one, all of them at once. How many around here would spend 2000€ or more? Please raise your hand... Don't forget to consider that the studios won't change their policy, and, like today's albums, one song out of 17 is worth its money. The second call: 2000€ at once, for something you don't like 100% and maybe you can't even skip them, maybe with unskipable commercials too. Anyone?

For personal storage, yes, such systems might work (supposingly one has the legal right to extract the audio/video from commercial media and to build his/her mediateque).

So, again, we have to accept the formats the media concerns impose us. What we can do is to extract the information and use it as we like.

Of course, there's the alternative to produce ourselves the music or the movies :) but we still have to adapt ourselves to the standards the industry provides.

[Lyle_JP]

I don't think this counts as a format war. Complementary formats can co-exist for decades - e.g. vinyl and cassette.

I don't know how "complementary" they were. Every pre-recorded cassette sale displaced an LP sale, and LP was already mortally crippled by cassette before CD came along to deal the final death blow.

[Lyris]

I don't think digital downloads will win. I think analogue downloads are where it's at.

All joking and pointing out the stupidity of that phrase aside, I think physical media will be around for a long time yet.
Can you imagine Christmas morning in a download-only world?

"Wow, thanks mom! I've unwrapped some awesome serial numbers this morning! Once the server isn't too busy I'll download my virtual gift!"

[Mug Funky]

discs will hang around, as the trend in downloads is still much lower quality. a good BD will near transparency, where a VOD will tend to be a little bit scrubbed of details, and often in 720 rather than 1080.

there's the argument that as internet speeds increase, so will quality, but i'm cynical on the matter - most providers have shown that when bandwidth increases, they stuff more crap down the pipe and actually reduce quality.

i do see physical media becoming more of a niche thing though. we're living in an age where everyone's used to carrying their entire library with them on a small box, and where people in their 50s and 60s are bragging about their terabyte hard disks with all these downloads on them. in this environment, discs will be bought by an increasingly narrow market who care about quality and know enough to identify it accurately in a marketplace saturated in snake-oil and false claims or invented concepts of quality (wtf would anyone need 600hz ffs? how can it make your 50i broadcast look any better?)

[forumjunkie]

discs will hang around, as the trend in downloads is still much lower quality. a good BD will near transparency, where a VOD will tend to be a little bit scrubbed of details, and often in 720 rather than 1080.

there's the argument that as internet speeds increase, so will quality, but i'm cynical on the matter - most providers have shown that when bandwidth increases, they stuff more crap down the pipe and actually reduce quality.

i do see physical media becoming more of a niche thing though. we're living in an age where everyone's used to carrying their entire library with them on a small box, and where people in their 50s and 60s are bragging about their terabyte hard disks with all these downloads on them. in this environment, discs will be bought by an increasingly narrow market who care about quality and know enough to identify it accurately in a marketplace saturated in snake-oil and false claims or invented concepts of quality (wtf would anyone need 600hz ffs? how can it make your 50i broadcast look any better?)

BD's now come with digital copies, so they will be able to transfer it to their digital collections.

[Ghitulescu]

BD's now come with digital copies, so they will be able to transfer it to their digital collections.
Have you tried yourself one of these "digital copies"?

[forumjunkie]

I haven't.... What makes them different?

[Ghitulescu]

Only Fox is doing these releases that include an unlockable digital copy on a separate disc, but I'm sure more studios will adopt this habit. The only downside (the biggest for me) is that it's an Itunes compatible digital copy, meaning that you have to have the Itunes software on your PC and you have to be a registered user. This digital copy is compatible with Ipods only, and you may have to do some conversion in order for it to work on some other portable devices.

Sony Blu-Ray releases embed MP4 files that could be transferred to PSP via PS3. Only Sony embeds PSP versions. The other studios don't care about PSP.

But there are also WMP versions as well
http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_digital_copy.htm

[nurbs]

The digital copies are also restricted to certain countries according to what is printed on the case. I haven't tried it though since I can make my own better digital copy.

[forumjunkie]

Only Fox is doing these releases that include an unlockable digital copy on a separate disc, but I'm sure more studios will adopt this habit. The only downside (the biggest for me) is that it's an Itunes compatible digital copy, meaning that you have to have the Itunes software on your PC and you have to be a registered user. This digital copy is compatible with Ipods only, and you may have to do some conversion in order for it to work on some other portable devices.

Sony Blu-Ray releases embed MP4 files that could be transferred to PSP via PS3. Only Sony embeds PSP versions. The other studios don't care about PSP.

But there are also WMP versions as well
http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_digital_copy.htm

seems to me these digital copies are no different from ones you download.

[Ghitulescu]

I don't download any digital copies, these are on the BD, and as long as I can rip the DVDs or the BDs, I don't really care whether they are or not in the package.

[Nexin]

Well, I remember that the DVDs (which initially were priced at ~30€) falled under the 10€ mark only after 10 years, now one can buy BDs for 10€, after 2-3 years only.

Shame it's not the same story for the hardware, which are needed for the discs.

[Ghitulescu]

The BD players already hit the 100€ mark for some weeks if not months... :) Last year the cheapest "name" DVD player was some 90-100€ (Sony, Pioneer, Philips etc.).
Again an improvement comparing to the DVD players. One should however not forget that digital connections require less investment than analogues, but this doesn't explain all. I think, and I said it long time ago, that the BD is pushed hard to consumers, or the companies that invested into BD would have huge losses - as many said, there are other alternatives, in HD too. In the same politics is included the 3D thing, despite HDTV broadcasters send 3D movies too.

[Nexin]

Oops your right just had a look at a copule of sites 'Stop Press... Now available.. Low price BluRay read/write pc drives now less than £40'. And about time since it was something that was becoming a lemon. So we can say soon godbye to home and pc dvd drives, since the new bd drives should be all that is needed. Better to hold onto them incase have some dics that will only read in those, happened with cd when got early dvd pc drives.

[ttringle]

BD's now come with digital copies, so they will be able to transfer it to their digital collections.

Oh stop it, you know very well that the ratio of BD's that come with digital copy is almost comical. Then on top of that you have two competing worlds when it comes to digital copies, the successful one (itunes) which almost anybody who prefers a digital copy has access to, and which works on windows and Macs. And the windows only versions which don't work on macs and barely works on windows and has no standard storefront from which to obtain the digital copies (which means in a few years those servers will be shutdown and when your hard drive crashes you lose your files forever).

[forumjunkie]

Oh stop it, you know very well that the ratio of BD's that come with digital copy is almost comical. Then on top of that you have two competing worlds when it comes to digital copies, the successful one (itunes) which almost anybody who prefers a digital copy has access to, and which works on windows and Macs. And the windows only versions which don't work on macs and barely works on windows and has no standard storefront from which to obtain the digital copies (which means in a few years those servers will be shutdown and when your hard drive crashes you lose your files forever).

I had my experience with them recently and they are not everything they crack up to be.

[Big Vern]

Dunno about the rest of the world, but in the UK most ISP are capped on the downloads, so for this streaming to work, the caps will have to raised of gone forever. I pay for a premium unlimited service, but I was on capped ISP before that, and it was shocking.

[forumjunkie]

Yeah BT give you a 100GB limit on an "unlimited" package.... They have put it up to 300GB now.

[forumjunkie]

Im going to switch internet providers because BT keeps going down :(

[Stereodude]

When I can stream a movie with picture & audio quality on par with a Blu-Ray I'll be interested to replace physical media for renting. Until then, physical media is going to be my choice.

[Ghitulescu]

The future is the cable and VOD (media-on-demand). But until then I favourize (and even after if still available) the physical media (disks or whatever it will be then).

[Ghitulescu]

It has become very difficult to make a decide that which format we like. MP3 is best as Audio and DVD is best as video. I like DVD, MPEG and BDM format.

MP3 is not best for audio.

Besides, you changed your preferences meanwhile
I like these video formats, MPG , MOV and WMV and little bit RM.

[Quoted spammer banned. ~ foxyshadis]

[forumjunkie]

I prefer Flac audio quality but the files are just too damn big.

[Ghitulescu]

You can't have the smoked ham and the living pig the very same time (unles we are talking about a different pig) :)

[Ajax_Undone]

You can't have the smoked ham and the living pig the very same time (unles we are talking about a different pig) :)

Or quantum mechanics. :p

[forumjunkie]

You can't have the smoked ham and the living pig the very same time (unles we are talking about a different pig) :)

Never say never!

[forumjunkie]

A good read that covers a great deal about BD, the format wars and the future of BD is Blu-ray disc demystified I would recommend for people who visit doom9.org http://www.amazon.com/Blu-ray-Disc-Demystified-Jim-Taylor/dp/0071590927 as it covers alot of the technical aspects of the format too.