"Blu-ray Disc" vs. "HD DVD": Neither Is Winning

[Jerry Jones]

Elie,

1. Who told you Blu-ray Disc movies don't feature any copy protection?

2. Ever hear of a flash drive? You know... the kind that has already practically replaced the CD for individuals who wish to transport files.

Where I work, practically everybody has a flash drive on their key chain.

They almost never use CDs.

These flash drives can be purchased in virtually any store with an electronics department and they're getting bigger and faster and cheaper. There's no way optical discs can match the performance of modern flash memory.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

Yeah, but I know I'll be going Blu-Ray all the way, not some downloaded content DRM'd to hell with all sorts of copy protection. Besides I don't want to hog my entire bandwidth to download movies, and then do what with them? where do I store the large files? what if I want to take a bunch of movies with me to a friends house to watch? Hmmmm, you see the limitations with downloaded content?

Anyway, downloading movies "legally" may not be for everyone, I still prefer media like DVD and now Blu-Ray.

[Tjalfe]

indeed.. once you play your Blu-Ray disk at home, it will lock to your address, never allowing you to play it outside of your house

[Elie]

Oh those thingies, is that what they are calling them now?

Hmmm let me see.... I wonder if I can plug that flash drive into my friends home audio and video system where all the files can be recognized and played back instantly without any compatibility issues. Since all my relatives, friends and most people I know in Canada don't have a PC or Laptop sitting next to a 5-10k audio video home theater system, i think it renders your solution as useless.

I'd rather take the disc, plug it into another blu-ray player and playback. which is easier???

PS: The copy protection of blu-ray is not a concern, I don't copy DVD's today and I don't need to copy blu-ray discs tomorrow. I have purchased music online and downloaded before, and this company only gives you access to those file simply to playback only if you are connected to the internet, and it gives you up to 5 times to burn to disc (CD), all i'm saying is due to these rights, I don't think you will be able to download a movie and use it willynilly without any kind of safe gaurds, say you do copy it to flash, then you take it to watch somewhere else with no access to the internet, what happens then? You may need an Internet connection to validate the licenses etc, before playback can occur.

This needs to be verified.

[Jerry Jones]

In fact, if you're friends and most people you know in Canada don't have a PC or laptop, then I suspect they probably won't have a Blu-ray Disc/HD DVD player either.

Moreover, I would be willing to bet the compatibility issues would be greater with an optical disc than with a data file.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

I wonder if I can plug that flash drive into my friends home audio and video system where all the files can be recognized and played back instantly without any compatibility issues. Since all my relatives, friends and most people I know in Canada don't have a PC or Laptop sitting next to a 5-10k audio video home theater system, i think it renders your solution as useless.

[Tjalfe]

I don't remember compatability issues with CD and DVD when they started out, why do you think it will be an issue now?

[Elie]

Actually Jerry, the odds for them owning a laptop capable of HDMI or DVI out and a TV that supports either, AS WELL AS, digital audio out either via coax or fibre for 5.1 or 6.1 HD Dolby Digital surround to a receiver is highly unlikely.
So basically you are saying that in order for people to enjoy the quality and flexibility of HD they need to either purchase a set top box to stream HD movies to the home, (In fact our company does that today over satellite), or simply download content to a PC or MAC, and then what? You watch the movie on your 20inch computer monitor or are you going to resort to complex solutions in order to view HD content to the home theatre somehow, provided you do not have a PC or laptop capable of quality output.

Downloading content may be for hi-tech folks who have the hardware and the ability to connect to high end HD TV’s and receivers for the ultimate experience or on the other end of the scale, it’s for those who don’t care about quality and all they want to do is watch movies on their computer monitors with two speakers attached.
Mind you, streaming from your TV provider is another choice since you will have an HD PVR or something, and be able to watch full quality HD. However the only way to save the movie is to capture to a PC with an HD capable editing suite, but then you lose the 5.1 audio. So it’s a no win situation.
I like to go to HMV, purchase a movie on Blu-ray, go home, insert into my Blu-ray player and playback at 1080P with 5.1 to 6.1 audio pounding away without any hassles.
That is why Blu-ray and DVD will survive for a very long time to come.

Just lookign at the big picture, what invloves the least amount of effort to enjoy watching a movie at full HD quality.

To Tjalfe: Sorry are you asking me or Jerry?

Cheers,
Elie

[Jerry Jones]

Well, there's really nothing complex at all about streaming HD in the home.

I don't have the latest and greatest.

I just have a simple, $599 Mac mini.

With an Apple Airport Extreme:

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/

...it is just plain easy to network every PC or Mac in the household...

...and...

...it's wireless...

Just as easy -- I would argue -- as installing and setting up a high definition DVD player.

Add an Apple TV:

http://www.apple.com/appletv/connect.html

...and then any high definition content on any computer in the house can be beamed to the high definition TV.

I was amazed just the other day by the movie trailers I could watch -- live -- using a Clearwire (Wimax) modem using Apple's "Front Row" software:

http://www.apple.com/imac/software/frontrow.html

I used my Apple remote and selected that "movies" link.

Then, these motion 3D graphics of each movie -- represented by a movie poster -- actually move on my computer screen and when I click on any of them, I am allowed to see a full-motion video with sound.

This is using nothing more than my 802.11g wireless modem in my computer.

The reason I believe high definition content will be distributed via flash media and the Internet is due to the fact it will be both cheaper and easier.

Not the other way around, as you've suggested.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Elie,

Those are some really good points. I have another one. Since H.264 is such a highly compressed formats most HD movies are going to be at least 20GB, probably 25GB or more is more realistic. This is too much to store on hard disk even if you have a large disk available to store movies. A 500GB disc dedicated to movies would only hold 20 movies. That's not a lot. I don't consider myself much of a DVD collector at all and I probably have a 100. That would be 2 TEREBYTES on the hard drive for HD format movies.

I think downloading will be good method to watch movies but I also think it will coexist with optical disc for quite some time. I like to have my movies "right there" in the drawer where I can look at the case. Read the info. See the photos. I already lost my nice albums I don't want to lose all things physical.

Plus there still that little problem of sustaining 20Mpbs download speeds for "on demand" movies.

In most places we're 10 times from that. Imagine if everyone started downloading movies in HD! The internet would go down Friday and Saturday nights everywhere on a regular basis.

[Evildead666]

It doesn't discount Flash storage though...

I have a couple of 720p files in h.264 which are under 4.5Gb.
For 1080p, they are about 10-20Gb...

Optical media are hard to produce, and the readers are hard to produce.
USB Flash drive anyone ? 480Mbps ? a good 32Gb CompactFlash card ? A 32Gb ROM Card ?

I don't see why we are not renting using reusable media...

As for home storage, 500Gb is pretty cheap now, so 4x500Gb isn't too hard to do, especially if you have the cash to buy a Blu-Ray player...

When your Blu-Ray is scratched so that you cannot read it, or the printed layer has come off ? What do you do then ?
DVD's, like all optical media, can be very easily destroyed. Too easily.

A whole 1080p film on a 32Gb SDHC ? woohoo.

[dZeus]

the real sneaker was Philips. it has only once made mistake supporting one format and no one remembers that. (Video 2000, anyone?? They did realize early enough to kill it and go with VHS.) ...

V2000 AND the following failed products:
- DCC
- CDi

and probably even more

[Hulk]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think 32GB of flash is more expensive than a mass produced BD-ROM right? Unless you throw around your discs like frisbees then they hold up pretty well. I have DVDs that are 10 years old and in pristine condition. And I have CDs 20 years old in perfect condition. In fact I was playing some 20 year old CDs in my 20 year old Denon CD player last night. I wonder if a Flash memory module would stand up to 20 years of use?

And I am NOT argueing against SSD memory? Just pointing out some facts about time proven optical technology.

I am ready for affordable SSD storage to take over!

[paulw]

Looks like if you bought a 1st gen Blu-ray player other than a PS3 then you may be screwed.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Bluray_Early_adopters_knew_what_they_were_getting_into/1199841379

[Brian Ellis]

Looks like if you bought a 1st gen Blu-ray player other than a PS3 then you may be screwed.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Blur...nto/1199841379

Another good reason why it's stupid to espouse new technologies as soon as they appear.

[Evildead666]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think 32GB of flash is more expensive than a mass produced BD-ROM right?

And I am NOT argueing against SSD memory? Just pointing out some facts about time proven optical technology.

I am ready for affordable SSD storage to take over!

SSD isn't needed for this. You only need up to 80-100 Mbps for the bandwidth of the video.
They are doing Flash USB sticks, and CF devices that are 32, 48 64Gb already.

How much of a BD or a HDDVD is used for the film, discounting all the extra crap they add as filler...? I don't think ANY BD's out there are using 2-layer tech so far ? So why would we need it, unless an increase in quality is coming, higher res maybe ?

At the local video rental store, the DVD's are regularly destroyed by people who don't care, or don't know how to use them properly.

They have invested in a machine to redo the surface of scratched CD's and DVD's, which renders them back to perfect, since it happenned so often...

Power usage : No moving parts, less power usage, in car entertainement without having to make suspension BD drives...?
Temperature independant ? No condensation problems on the laser ?

Flash storage is the only way ahead, until we get to another non-kinetic method of data storage (holographic weird crystal things like in Superman...?)

[Jerry Jones]

Looks like Toshiba has initiated steep "HD DVD" product discounts; got to hand it to them.

They're not throwing in the towel, by any means:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205604607

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net