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

[Jerry Jones]

By the way, I've purchased/downloaded -- as a test -- the Star Trek original series episode called "Where No Man Has Gone Before" guest starring Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman.

This is a classic Star Trek episode.

It looks great on my laptop screen.

When I get my APPLE TV, I'll be able to stream it to my regular TV screen and I'm confident it will look as good as a DVD.

It only cost $1.99 to buy the episode.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

You can authorize/deauthorize the devices in software.

So you would not have to buy new downloads from the iTunes store.

Broadband is almost everywhere now.

Anybody who can afford to go out and buy standard definition DVDs -- let alone high definition DVDs -- can afford broadband access.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

for this to work, broadband access needs to be available everywhere. This would be years away, if it happens at all. Till such time, movies will exist on disks.

Also, I believe the itunes store will only let you play your files on up to 6 devices, so down the road, 6 computers later, or a couple of computers / ipod/apple tv, and you will have to buy the movies again. That is, unless they come out with DRM free movies too.

[Jerry Jones]

By the way, in addition to my three Sony MiniDisc player/recorders, I also have one iPod "Shuffle."

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&mco=659264E9&node=home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_shuffle

This tiny device is smaller than a book of matches.

When I do my seven mile jog, I wear the Shuffle and listen to tons of songs.

It holds 240 at a time.

And you can create playlists at home on your computer and then sync them up with the Shuffle.

It's an amazing device.

Smaller than a book of matches.

Perfect for exercising.

And it sounds great.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Mark,

Here's the link to Sony's CONNECT music download store:

http://musicstore.connect.com/custom/promos/non_ie.html?checkBos=false

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Yes.

And if you lose your hard disk, you can download them again.

C'mon.

The iPod from APPLE has changed the way people listen to music.

Sure, physical record stores still sell CDs.

But fewer people are buying CDs for a couple of reasons.

1. They cost too much;
2. Albums often feature only one or two really good songs from an artist and the rest aren't so good.
3. CDs aren't as portable as iPods and other players.

Hence the amazing success of the iPod and music downloading.

Quality?

APPLE doesn't use .MP3 compression.

APPLE uses QuickTime media architecture and MPEG-4 and the quality is terrific.

Your favorite company, Mark, seems to be SONY.

Well, I like much of the SONY stuff that I've bought, including three MiniDisc recorders, which utilize Sony's ATRAC compression.

It sounds great.

SONY even offers music downloads in the ATRAC format through the CONNECT music store, but that store appears to be in the process of closing down by next March due to the fact the CONNECT service is moving to the open Windows Media platform.

But downloading is here to stay.

It has radically changed the music business.

It will do the same for the movie business.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

Can you back them up?

[Mehen]

Imagine the MASSIVE bandwidth needed to support the world's movie purchases...

[Hulk]

Yeah and how big a hard drive will those boxes hold? And how many drives?

And what happens if the drive crashes with a thousand dollars of downloaded movies on it?

Can you back them up?

Can you move them to another system?

Does it have to be proprietary software like Apples virus I-tunes?

And how long to download the movie?

And you have to have a really fast connection right?

And how good is the quality of these downloaded movies?

I guess they'll be 30 or 40GB like the Blu-Ray movies we're seeing?

That seems like a really long download doesn't it?

Like the other posters in this thread know this is nonsense at this point in time with this infrastructure for internet access.

Proprietary systems and not being able to "hold" the thing you bought to reload it if necessary is nuts in my opinion.

I would never buy a crappy 128kbps mp3 song. I can't listen to that garbage.

Now I'm locked into the quality of some movie that needs to be squeezed through my cable connection so I can download the 10GB version of the movie that should be 30GB?

No thanks.

[Tjalfe]

for this to work, broadband access needs to be available everywhere. This would be years away, if it happens at all. Till such time, movies will exist on disks.

Also, I believe the itunes store will only let you play your files on up to 6 devices, so down the road, 6 computers later, or a couple of computers / ipod/apple tv, and you will have to buy the movies again. That is, unless they come out with DRM free movies too.

[Jerry Jones]

Actually, there's no need to "ship" a hard disk streamer anywhere.

The way it works is amazingly simple... just like the downloading of music.

Just download the movie or TV show you want to watch and you keep it on your hard disk and play it as many times as you wish.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

The APPLE iTunes software works on both Macintosh and PC.

Music

More than 6 million songs. 99¢ each.

Movies

New and classic films from $9.99.

Music Videos

More than 11,000, $1.99 each.

TV Shows

600 shows at $1.99 an episode.

Audiobooks

More than 30,000 titles.

Podcasts

100,000 and counting. 100% free.

iPod Games

$4.99 each.

Then you can use a media streaming device such as APPLE TV to watch the programs on your TV.

APPLE TV can stream video files that you store on the hard drive of any computer in your house.

This is done without wires.

You use Wi-Fi 802.11n wireless networking. That's the latest--and fastest--iteration of the Wi-Fi standard. Designed to support speeds of up to 200 Mbps, the 11n standard is fast enough (on paper, at least) to deliver the high bandwidth required to stream high definition video.

But you don't have to stream anything to your TV.

You can watch everything on your computer, if you wish.

But if you have a widescreen TV, then the most efficient way of watching purchased or home-created video is to stream to that TV from the computer using a streaming device.

The good news is that streaming devices are cheaper than high definition optical media drives.

The other great news is that they are smaller and don't require you to mess with wires and the endless job of labeling and organizing dozens of antiquated optical discs.

You don't have to buy from APPLE.

The file-based sale of TV and movies via the Internet is now common.

You can buy from:

1. Amazon Unbox:

http://www.amazon.com/unbox-video-downloads/b/ref=sa_menu_atv1/102-5922760-9162552?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16261631&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-nav-1&pf_rd_r=1MAFM21TYWSRRCCVF0YQ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=304476501&pf_rd_i=507846

2. Apple iTunes:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

3. MovieLink:

http://www.movielink.com/

First, the movies and TV shows are cheaper when you download them.

Second, H.264 compression makes it possible now to download high definition movies and TV shows while keeping file size quite low.

Third, the downloaded movies and TV shows don't consume massive amounts of space on shelves in your home and you can keep everything nicely organized on your computer's hard disk.

Why invest hundreds of dollars in optical discs, players, recorders, drives, etc?

Hard disks are cheaper and faster!

We're also seeing the first of the solid-state storage devices.

Almost nobody at the university where I work uses optical discs these days.

Instead, they're using USB 2.0 mini drives to transport files.

The optical disc industry wants you to believe a "war" is still being fought between "HD DVD" and "Blu-ray Disc."

In truth, they're both too little, too late.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Mehen]

hdd/streaming seems like more of a headache than deciding between Blu and HD. No thanks.

[Fluff]

So what will the solution be? Ship movie watchers a 1tb drive with this months movies on it (40 movies), then they ship it back?

Then pay online for each key, and return the drive to the local video shop?

[Jerry Jones]

But the war won't continue, don't you see?

It's already over.

Both high definition DVD formats have lost.

There won't be a winner.

The war is already over.

And the real winner is the hard drive and wireless streaming.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Brian Ellis]

Don't you think that this discussion is sterile? It is neither you nor I who will decide who will win the battle but the general public wanting to buy the latest Hollywood blockbuster. As it is, the battle will continue for at least another year yet. So, in the words of Herbert Asquith, Wait and See.

[paulw]

The only thing I like about HD DVD over Blu-ray Disc is the fact that it is CHEAPER.

That's it.
Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

The thing I like about HD DVD is that it's region free. But I guess if you live in the US that's not a consideration..

[Hulk]

The only thing I like about HD DVD over Blu-ray Disc is the fact that it is CHEAPER.

That's it.

Other than that, I don't really care about either optical disc format.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

The only thing I like about Blu-Ray over HD-DVD is the greater native capacity per layer.
And other than that I don't care about the formats either.

You know if affordable hybrid burners and players came out we could live with both formats. Kind of like how the DVD +/- format war became irrelevent when all the burners could do both formats.