HD DVD, Blu-ray content to be degraded for analog sets

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-01-26 04:48pm

Yeah, but they still possess the MP3. It's not just something they stream off a server somewhere but don't actually have a local copy of. If you have a local copy on a physical object which you own, that's pretty close to having it in physical form.

Besides, what about movies you want to watch 50 times, which is a lowball estimate for kids' movies? Watch it 50 times off the hypothetical giant server farm? Pay 50 times? Buy a permanent-view license and hope that the studios don't arbitrarily alter the terms of the contract even though I'm sure the fine print will allow them to do so at their whim?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-01-26 04:52pm

The only area such a view on demand network could realistically work is as a complete replacement for the video rental industry, for which niche it would be perfect. Outside of that specific field, total VOD is a pipe dream.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2006-01-26 05:14pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:There's only so much more information you can process. Look at the Ultra High Definition Video NHK developed from scratch in Japan. You're talking about 7,680 × 4,320 pixel resolution with 22.2 channel audio! That's resolution so high, the human brain sees it as reality (Fry's comment about HDTV having "better resolution than real-life" in Futurama springs to mind). People got motion sickness from watching the screen, to say nothing of all the audio data being pumped out, 22 surround speakers anyone?

That is just so fucking awesome. I can't wait until the future is now.
Imagine playing future-doom on something like that, might need a bucket to vomit into incase you don't like gore.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-01-26 05:40pm

Darth Wong wrote:Yeah, but they still possess the MP3. It's not just something they stream off a server somewhere but don't actually have a local copy of. If you have a local copy on a physical object which you own, that's pretty close to having it in physical form.

Besides, what about movies you want to watch 50 times, which is a lowball estimate for kids' movies? Watch it 50 times off the hypothetical giant server farm? Pay 50 times? Buy a permanent-view license and hope that the studios don't arbitrarily alter the terms of the contract even though I'm sure the fine print will allow them to do so at their whim?

If they do it the way I think they should do it, you would pay a monthly subscription fee, which gives you a permanent-view license for every movie ever made. It sounds ridiculous at first that they would give away the farm like that, but the marginal cost of supplying such a product is basically zero, and it's such an attractive offering that it would be too good to pass up. With very few ongoing costs, and tens of millions of subscribers, they'd make a killing, much more than they'll ever make on DVD sales even if their ridiculous crusade againt piracy was completely successful.

The current ideas about paying a fee for the privalege of watching a single movie that you don't even get to own a copy of is never going to work, something the industry should have learned from Circuit City's DIVX debacle.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2006-01-26 07:41pm

There's a reason I buy CDs and make my own MP3s from them rather than listen to radio or Internet radio, as well as a reason I will buy/download and save to my hard drive a movie or MP3 instead of streaming it.

Four reasons actually. Convienience, control, posession, and one-time expense.

And that's today. I don't see it changing in 15 or twenty years.

As for the original topic, all of that makes me even happier that I don't even have a TV. I get my electronic entertainment from computer games and the Internet, and watch DVDs on my computer. I watched my father and grandfather spend hours at a time tring to figure out how to connect two VCRs and cable to a TV in the 80's, and erupt at the complexity of cable boxes and other stuff I didn't even recognize in the 90's. If you can't figure the system out in 10 minutes after reading the instructions, then it's too complicated for what is supposed to be a leisure activity.

If the movie industry is going to try this sort of BS, they can kiss my pasty white ass.

Maybe this sort of headache will simply start driving people back to other forms of entertainment. "Dad, when are we going to get cable?" "We're not, it's too much trouble. Go to the park and hang out with your friends or read a book if you're bored."

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-01-26 09:49pm

technomage wrote:As for the original topic, all of that makes me even happier that I don't even have a TV. I get my electronic entertainment from computer games and the Internet, and watch DVDs on my computer. I watched my father and grandfather spend hours at a time tring to figure out how to connect two VCRs and cable to a TV in the 80's, and erupt at the complexity of cable boxes and other stuff I didn't even recognize in the 90's. If you can't figure the system out in 10 minutes after reading the instructions, then it's too complicated for what is supposed to be a leisure activity.

For someone with a name like "technomage" you certainly have a semi-luddite mentality. They're machines, not toys, and even most toys you have to put together and figure out how they work.

And no offence, but maybe your father and grandfather just didn't really know what the hell they were doing. Really, I can see maybe a half-hour or an hour hooking stuff up, but hours? Home video electronics simply aren't that hard to understnad when you know what does what, where things go, read the instructions (which often contain directions of how to do such things nowadays), and simply understand what you're doing.

technomage · Post by **technomage** » 2006-01-26 11:59pm

Well, I did choose the name after Elric of B5.

I am not even remotely a Luddite. I put my own computer together from parts I purchased, though it took me three days working in my spare time, and I learned how from doing my own upgrades on an older computer. (And a lot of time searching various web forums.) But for me, that's fun. I enjoy it. But I think that TV/VCR/DVD/Cable connections can be a pain, and what I read here suggested to me that this is going to get even worse in the future, and the real point I made is that when the frustration and difficulty of a task outweighs the enjoyability of the objective, you're defeating the purpose. Maybe they didn't understand it well, but in my experience not everybody understands these things. I do know a number of people (besides my relatives) who think that these things should be "plug'n'play."

Advancing technology, and the need for backwards compatibility that goes with it, can alone complicate matters. Once, the only input a TV had was a couple of screws where the antenna was connected. Now, you'll have cable, DVD, and HD inputs, plus it might still have screws for the poor bastards who still use aerial antennas (yes, there are some still in the world, if the ones you can see on houses are any indicator.)

Have you seen the sort of cord spaghetti that results when you have two VCRs, a DVD player, and a cable box/switcher (I'm not entirely sure just what the thing is), all tied into a television? I could figure it out, I'm sure, but I'd spend a couple of hours just reading the manuals and tracing the cords from plug to plug. It gets worse if you throw in console game systems, heck maybe more than one. Cable splitters, cable switchers, adaptors, various standards of plug and socket, oh what fun. This stuff can be pretty daunting to someone whose understanding of electronics is limited to using the remote control or the microwave.

Maybe you just have to be the sort of person who loves stereos or computers.