Format war over?

[Darth Wong]

Either way it's still a considerable amount of data you have to redownload. Replacing hundreds of DVDs would be a huge pain in the ass as well, but the chances of losing all of them at once is considerably less likely.

You also can't back them up all at once, but you can with a single storage device. Simply get a second one and do a data dump.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah, I don't give a shit about either format.

The thing about the HD formats is that their backers want to believe it will be like DVD dethroning VHS all over again. However, when DVD took down VHS, you could see the difference in picture quality on any TV set, not just special high-priced bleeding-edge TV sets. You also got a shitload of new features, like menus and onscreen games and multiple soundtracks and 5.1 channel surround sound, all of which were impossible with VHS. Not to mention no longer having to rewind the damned tape: something that us old-timers will remember without fondness.

That's a good point. The same could also be true with CDs vs cassettes.
MP3s also worked because they offered some options and possibilities CDs didnt than just "better quality" as well - you can pack a HUGE selection and tailor it to what you want to hear.

I wonder if an analogy could be drawn between the audio DVDs and the "current" HD formats. When I go into stores you can ALWAYS find a shitload of audio cds (and movie DVDs) but I generlaly don't recall seeing many audio DVDs (if they have them they're far out of the way.)

I never tried DVD audio, but from what I have read about it or browed, it doesnt seem to offer all that many tangible benefits over CDs or MP3 players.

Edit : The "in computer storage" you mention for movies nad such sounds alot like a video/movie version of MP3s too.

[Master of Ossus]

If I had several tens of millions of dollars, Kaleidescape would be an utterly awesome product. Alas... to be rich...

The ten seasons of Stargate in high quality (but not HD) format occupies around 300 GB.. and if we consider HD then it's game over.

And if they go the route of having everthing online and people streaming it, we'll need a hell lot more of bandwidth which I think is not going to be available.

How is it "game over" once you pass the 300GB mark? The Kaleidescape system can store well over 1000 DVD's in a single rackmount unit (which means the thing probably has a capacity of over 5TB), and realistically if you have tens of millions of dollars then you can get multiple units. 500GB HDD's are pretty inexpensive, nowadays. Also, downloading a movie takes what... 15 minutes? That doesn't sound all that threatening to me in terms of bandwidth, particularly since only people with good broadband connections who've actually paid to set up the network will get to use it to its full capacity, and realistically you're not going to be downloading ten videos a night every night.

[Uraniun235]

I'm not sure how you're going to pull down a whole movie in only fifteen minutes without a fiber connection. That's a lot of data to move even for a broadband connection, even if we assume they use a better compression method than what DVDs currently use. It only gets worse when we start talking about high-definition material.

Another problem isn't so much with consumer bandwidth, but with provider bandwidth. That's a lot of bandwidth to try to shove down the pipe. This might not be as huge an issue if the ISPs themselves take on the task of providing downloadable video content, but then you still run into the issue of the servers themselves being hammered - hard drives only transfer data so fast.

These problems aren't insurmountable at all, but they are quite real, and may hamper widespread adoption of such technology for awhile - the costs involved will probably not be trivial. I'm not saying it's unworkable, I'm just saying fifteen minutes for a whole movie may be stretching things a bit.

(which means the thing probably has a capacity of over 5TB),

From their website:

A single Kaleidescape 1U Server can be configured to hold up to 2.25 terabytes of usable disk storage, sufficient to hold approximately 335 DVDs or 3,750 CDs. A single Kaleidescape 3U Server can be configured to hold up to 9 terabytes of usable disk storage, sufficient to hold approximately 1,340 DVDs or approximately 15,000 CDs.

Although, for the ultra-high-end, I would think that we should start to see even bigger numbers now that 1TB drives are available.

[Master of Ossus]

(which means the thing probably has a capacity of over 5TB),

From their website:

A single Kaleidescape 1U Server can be configured to hold up to 2.25 terabytes of usable disk storage, sufficient to hold approximately 335 DVDs or 3,750 CDs. A single Kaleidescape 3U Server can be configured to hold up to 9 terabytes of usable disk storage, sufficient to hold approximately 1,340 DVDs or approximately 15,000 CDs.

Although, for the ultra-high-end, I would think that we should start to see even bigger numbers now that 1TB drives are available.

I was talking about their 3U Server. Since they claim that the move to HDD is lossless, I'm assuming that it's not all that compressed, and 1300+ DVD's represents multiple TB's of storage, which is almost inconceivable for a home NAS/media server, at least from my perspective.

As for the bandwidth, most businesses have more than enough to drive several downloads, and the big ones can easily allow for thousands of downloads simultaneously. The movie files that I usually rip from my DVD's tend to be about 700MB's (albeit with loss from the DVD quality), and 700MB's isn't inordinate for someone with a high-end cable or DSL connection (movie trailers usually download in ~30 seconds or so, and those tend to be a good 50MB's). You're right that a high-def video imposes much greater requirements, though.

[General Zod]

How is it "game over" once you pass the 300GB mark? The Kaleidescape system can store well over 1000 DVD's in a single rackmount unit (which means the thing probably has a capacity of over 5TB), and realistically if you have tens of millions of dollars then you can get multiple units. 500GB HDD's are pretty inexpensive, nowadays. Also, downloading a movie takes what... 15 minutes? That doesn't sound all that threatening to me in terms of bandwidth, particularly since only people with good broadband connections who've actually paid to set up the network will get to use it to its full capacity, and realistically you're not going to be downloading ten videos a night every night.

15 minutes?

If you have one of those fancy 100mbit FIOS lines perhaps. On my 8mbit cable connection it might take me 45 minutes if I get a fast connection for a 700mb movie. Otherwise it could take up to 4-5 hours.

[Darth Wong]

How is it "game over" once you pass the 300GB mark? The Kaleidescape system can store well over 1000 DVD's in a single rackmount unit (which means the thing probably has a capacity of over 5TB), and realistically if you have tens of millions of dollars then you can get multiple units. 500GB HDD's are pretty inexpensive, nowadays. Also, downloading a movie takes what... 15 minutes? That doesn't sound all that threatening to me in terms of bandwidth, particularly since only people with good broadband connections who've actually paid to set up the network will get to use it to its full capacity, and realistically you're not going to be downloading ten videos a night every night.

15 minutes?

If you have one of those fancy 100mbit FIOS lines perhaps. On my 8mbit cable connection it might take me 45 minutes if I get a fast connection for a 700mb movie. Otherwise it could take up to 4-5 hours.

So? If I mail-order a DVD to arrive at my home, thus duplicating the in-home delivery feature, it will take a couple of days at minimum.

[Raven]

It's not like you're going to need your entire movie library immediately, though. Just prioritize and stagger the downloads: grab some of your favorite music and a couple movies you might watch soon first, and you won't even miss the rest that you can download later on.

This is an excellent idea, prioritize the movies you want. The ones you want to watch soon are downloaded first at high speeds, the others are queued and downloaded silently while you watch your first movies. A system could also intelligently detect your internet use and throttle itself back when you need to use the Internet for something else.

Also, if bandwidth is a problem, what if the movie service provider utlized bittorrent style distributed downloading?
It should be an opt-in thing, maybe a "let us use your Internet connection and you pay $XX less per month" kind of thing.

Blizzard uses bittorrent to push out Warcraft patches, can't a large movie download service use similar technology to save bandwidth on popular movies?

[General Zod]

It's not like you're going to need your entire movie library immediately, though. Just prioritize and stagger the downloads: grab some of your favorite music and a couple movies you might watch soon first, and you won't even miss the rest that you can download later on.

This is an excellent idea, prioritize the movies you want. The ones you want to watch soon are downloaded first at high speeds, the others are queued and downloaded silently while you watch your first movies. A system could also intelligently detect your internet use and throttle itself back when you need to use the Internet for something else.

Also, if bandwidth is a problem, what if the movie service provider utlized bittorrent style distributed downloading?
It should be an opt-in thing, maybe a "let us use your Internet connection and you pay $XX less per month" kind of thing.

Blizzard uses bittorrent to push out Warcraft patches, can't a large movie download service use similar technology to save bandwidth on popular movies?

Bittorrent can wind up consuming even more bandwidth, as it's simultaneously uploading as well as downloading. It lightens the load for the servers hosting the files, but not necessarily for the individual users downloading them. There's also the problem of some ISPs not liking bittorrent and using things like packet shaping on their networks to block it.

[Raven]

Bittorrent can wind up consuming even more bandwidth, as it's simultaneously uploading as well as downloading. It lightens the load for the servers hosting the files, but not necessarily for the individual users downloading them. There's also the problem of some ISPs not liking bittorrent and using things like packet shaping on their networks to block it.

I was talking more about the servers. Individuals, for the most part, have bandwidth to spare.

Quoting Mad's idea of queueing your downloads, particularly letting them run in the background, it makes sense that you don't really need super fast download speeds if you aren't watching those movies right away. If server bandwidth is a concern, you giving up some of your bandwidth at night to help upload torrents isn't too big a deal.

I know many businesses that block bittorrent, but I didn't know entire ISPs did so. Is that a common thing?

[General Zod]

I was talking more about the servers. Individuals, for the most part, have bandwidth to spare.

My initial complaint (the one Mad was addressing) was in regard to end user bandwidth consumption of having to replace an entire crashed library. For users on anything less than high speed cable, this is very time consuming and can use up a considerable amount of bandwidth. Gets even worse if you have an ISP that limits your bandwidth usage each month.

Quoting Mad's idea of queueing your downloads, particularly letting them run in the background, it makes sense that you don't really need super fast download speeds if you aren't watching those movies right away. If server bandwidth is a concern, you giving up some of your bandwidth at night to help upload torrents isn't too big a deal.

The fact that this could take weeks if not months to replace a collection without a considerable pipe is problematic. Not everyone is willing to leave their machines on for this long at a stretch.

I know many businesses that block bittorrent, but I didn't know entire ISPs did so. Is that a common thing?

There was an article not too long ago about one ISP blocking bittorrent ports through packet shaping. Some estimated reports put BT usage at roughly 35% (more or less maybe, it's been awhile since I read the article) of the entire internet's bandwidth consumption. ISPs don't like massive amounts of use that will affect several backbones.

[Lisa]

even bit torrent can be slow with a big pipe

I plan on going with a combination of optical and hard drive storage in the near future, I plan on replacing my dvd player as it begins to fail with a mac mini with VLC, iTunes and iDVD. I'll also be able to stream music through my surround sound from websites. Cost wise it's similar to buying micro itx board, various parts and putting it in a custom enclosure that would look nice in my entertainment center how ever it has the benefit of technical support and easily managed media updates

It also comes with a handy remote.

[Darth Wong]

The fact that this could take weeks if not months to replace a collection without a considerable pipe is problematic. Not everyone is willing to leave their machines on for this long at a stretch.

You know, I've already posted twice now that such a device would logically be accompanied by a backup device of equal capacity. You have a fucking reading comprehension problem?