I have seen the future and it is digital downloads.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I have seen my navel and it is full of lint.

[nsps]

I like having a physical object to correlate with the films I buy. Sometimes I sleep with some of my nicer Criterion digipaks like they're teddy bears.

It's interesting to look at how this is affecting the music business. More and more artists are doing nice vinyl pressings of their albums, with quality packaging, and online access to digital versions, so you have mp3s for convenience, and a big hunk of packaging for a nice, sit-down listening experience.

Like swo17, I find that the differences in file size and consumption habits make for a very different scenario from music. Blu-ray or another physical method will have the best quality due to the need for manageable download sizes, and will therefore become the medium of the home theater enthusiast. Gadget-heads who are more interested in innovation will dig digital distribution methods. But the average consumers who made DVD such a hit will need some appealing reasons to switch, and I don't see them yet.

[hammock]

I like having a physical object to correlate with the films I buy. Sometimes I sleep with some of my nicer Criterion digipaks like they're teddy bears.

It's interesting to look at how this is affecting the music business. More and more artists are doing nice vinyl pressings of their albums, with quality packaging, and online access to digital versions, so you have mp3s for convenience, and a big hunk of packaging for a nice, sit-down listening experience.

Like swo17, I find that the differences in file size and consumption habits make for a very different scenario from music. Blu-ray or another physical method will have the best quality due to the need for manageable download sizes, and will therefore become the medium of the home theater enthusiast. Gadget-heads who are more interested in innovation will dig digital distribution methods. But the average consumers who made DVD such a hit will need some appealing reasons to switch, and I don't see them yet.

This is the exact same argument we used in the music business when mp3's started to show up. "Who is gonna download those big files? It takes hours and you can only store 10 files on your hard drive then you're out of space. You can't take them with you either". Space and speed will not be a problem and where I live the future seems to be now with 100 mbit fiber net and 1TB discs at $100. in less than 2 years I guess we'll have 1,000 mbit fiber as some Swedes do and no need to do any prediction on hard drive space, just take a look at the past 5 years.

[Sanjuro]

My local provider just started offering 1Gbit fiber at $50 a month. Of course, out here in the Northern wastelands we're restricted to only 100 mbits for the time being.

Darn.

Did manage to pick up a 1TB hard drive for $100 the other day though, so that's some consolation.

[swo17]

This is the exact same argument we used in the music business when mp3's started to show up. "Who is gonna download those big files? It takes hours and you can only store 10 files on your hard drive then you're out of space. You can't take them with you either". Space and speed will not be a problem and where I live the future seems to be now with 100 mbit fiber net and 1TB discs at $100. in less than 2 years I guess we'll have 1,000 mbit fiber as some Swedes do and no need to do any prediction on hard drive space, just take a look at the past 5 years.

I don't dispute that hard drive space is getting more and more affordable, but let's do a little math here. Say I have a 1TB hard drive and that a high quality album rip takes up 100 MB of space. Ignoring that 1 TB is not exactly equal to 1 million MB, this means you can store about 10,000 albums on your hard drive (even more if you rip some albums at slightly lower quality), which I think would suit most people for their entire lives.

Now, consider a Blu-ray rip. Let's say this takes up 20 GB per movie. This allows room for about 50 movies on the same 1 TB hard drive. This would last some people on this board a couple of months.

[sopordave]

Given enough time, I have no doubt that storage will become cheap enough and the internet infrastructure fast enough to support downloads of movies. I'm much more concerned about not having to be tied down to a computer to watch a movie.

I enjoy dimming the lights, lounging on my couch, and watching movies on a TV by inserting a disc and hitting play. As far as I know, this is not possible with the current generation of digital movies, and the industry doesn't look like they will be able to agree on anything in the near future. If I am going to ditch the packaging and permanency of a physical disc, the provider better be prepared to allow me to do the following:

1. Have a black box that hooks up to the TV that I can buy for a reasonable price.
2. Allow me to watch the video on Windows, Linux, or Mac.
3. Allow me to download/stream it at any time, any where.

I don't care about DRM, so long as it works on any system I want it to. This doesn't seem likely to happen. I can't even watch a streaming Netflix movie in Firefox, and forget about even trying it on a Linux box.

The future may be digital downloads, but that future is very, very far off for me.

[hammock]

Given enough time, I have no doubt that storage will become cheap enough and the internet infrastructure fast enough to support downloads of movies. I'm much more concerned about not having to be tied down to a computer to watch a movie.

I enjoy dimming the lights, lounging on my couch, and watching movies on a TV by inserting a disc and hitting play. As far as I know, this is not possible with the current generation of digital movies, and the industry doesn't look like they will be able to agree on anything in the near future. If I am going to ditch the packaging and permanency of a physical disc, the provider better be prepared to allow me to do the following:

1. Have a black box that hooks up to the TV that I can buy for a reasonable price.
2. Allow me to watch the video on Windows, Linux, or Mac.
3. Allow me to download/stream it at any time, any where.

I don't care about DRM, so long as it works on any system I want it to. This doesn't seem likely to happen. I can't even watch a streaming Netflix movie in Firefox, and forget about even trying it on a Linux box.

The future may be digital downloads, but that future is very, very far off for me.

Maybe a Network Media Tank could be on your Christmas whishlist. I would recommend the Popcorn Hour that is less than $200 and will do all of the above (except #2 - obviously). To be able to stream you need to download the free program myihome. I have solved all my technical problems and I'm able to watch my digital files everywhere. I actually rip my bought DVD's and copy the iso files to my PH over the network. This way I can play all regions and I don't need a big ugly DVD player every room. I've combined it with a Yamaha 800 speaker and it works well for me.

[hammock]

This is the exact same argument we used in the music business when mp3's started to show up. "Who is gonna download those big files? It takes hours and you can only store 10 files on your hard drive then you're out of space. You can't take them with you either". Space and speed will not be a problem and where I live the future seems to be now with 100 mbit fiber net and 1TB discs at $100. in less than 2 years I guess we'll have 1,000 mbit fiber as some Swedes do and no need to do any prediction on hard drive space, just take a look at the past 5 years.

I don't dispute that hard drive space is getting more and more affordable, but let's do a little math here. Say I have a 1TB hard drive and that a high quality album rip takes up 100 MB of space. Ignoring that 1 TB is not exactly equal to 1 million MB, this means you can store about 10,000 albums on your hard drive (even more if you rip some albums at slightly lower quality), which I think would suit most people for their entire lives.

Now, consider a Blu-ray rip. Let's say this takes up 20 GB per movie. This allows room for about 50 movies on the same 1 TB hard drive. This would last some people on this board a couple of months.

I understand what you're saying, but the future (which is 1-2 years from now) will give you somethin like this

[swo17]

OK, you might be starting to convince me on the storage front...if that thing is affordable.

[sopordave]

Given enough time, I have no doubt that storage will become cheap enough and the internet infrastructure fast enough to support downloads of movies. I'm much more concerned about not having to be tied down to a computer to watch a movie.

I enjoy dimming the lights, lounging on my couch, and watching movies on a TV by inserting a disc and hitting play. As far as I know, this is not possible with the current generation of digital movies, and the industry doesn't look like they will be able to agree on anything in the near future. If I am going to ditch the packaging and permanency of a physical disc, the provider better be prepared to allow me to do the following:

1. Have a black box that hooks up to the TV that I can buy for a reasonable price.
2. Allow me to watch the video on Windows, Linux, or Mac.
3. Allow me to download/stream it at any time, any where.

I don't care about DRM, so long as it works on any system I want it to. This doesn't seem likely to happen. I can't even watch a streaming Netflix movie in Firefox, and forget about even trying it on a Linux box.

The future may be digital downloads, but that future is very, very far off for me.

Maybe a Network Media Tank could be on your Christmas whishlist. I would recommend the Popcorn Hour that is less than $200 and will do all of the above (except #2 - obviously). To be able to stream you need to download the free program myihome. I have solved all my technical problems and I'm able to watch my digital files everywhere. I actually rip my bought DVD's and copy the iso files to my PH over the network. This way I can play all regions and I don't need a big ugly DVD player every room. I've combined it with a Yamaha 800 speaker and it works well for me.

Thanks for the recommendation, but I'm actually in the middle of building a HTPC right now. These types of systems are great if you have an always-on server where you can store your own rips and whatnot.

My argument was more along the lines of purchasing digital copies, not ripping my own. If you were to right now, purchase a digital video, would it work with that system right out of the box? Will the DRM prevent you from playing it? Would you have to move it into some shared network folder? What happens when (not if) the harddrive crashes?

These are things that the typical consumer does NOT want to worry about. One of the main draws to digital is that "I want it and I want it now", but that doesn't exactly align with what you were talking about.

Don't get me wrong - I think HTPC/NMTs are great, but they require more work/geekiness than the general population can handle.