HD DVD Vs Blueray, whoever wins loses.

[enablerbro1]

With the war raging over which format is better, fuelled by studios taking sides, isn't it all a bit old hat? Within a decade we'll all be downloading our entertainment content so HD DVDs and BDs will all be redundant anyway. What will be important will be the speed of your internet connection and how well it feeds your home network from your home server. We already have TB HDDs and average dsl speeds are slowly creeping up. Once BT have sorted out the fibre optic stuff more people with have faster connections so surely the intermediate future is downloadable entertainment?

The BBC and Channel 4 already offer a sort of download service.

[Sonic67]

Only one in twenty music tracks is downloaded. Yet how many people have ipods etc? If most people still prefer a CD over itunes why is downloadable films going to 'win'?

Do you prefer to download or own a copy?

[The Moog]

I agree,
I think we are a long way off quickly and easily being able to download 20 or 30 gigs of HD film and extras... And yes, I like to have the disc and box that goes with it!


The Moog

[ianh64]

I much prefer physical media to virtual ones.

There is just something nice about owning a collection of CD/Movies which includes the box and media in a reasonable sized package.

Just think how insignificant a job lot of downloads are compared to a nice box set. There is more to ownership than a collection of bits and bytes.

[sinizterguy]

I for one wont be going the download route until ISPs shove their FUP policies and buying a movie means I can download it as many times as I want to, until the end of time. Anything else would mean that I have just rented the movie.

I cant manage to keep TBs of data backed up and ir order in a home environment - which is why I would unlimited downloads and no FUPs with the ISP.

[Sonic67]

Something to think about here's the music industry

It seems that most ipod owners are not downloading music tracks – they are buying CDs ripping them to MP3 and putting them on their MP3 players or getting stuff illegally.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5350258.stm

On average, the study reports, only 5% of the music on an iPod will be bought from online music stores. The rest will be from CDs the owner of an MP3 player already has or tracks they have downloaded from file-sharing sites.

Perhaps the only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music - especially CDs.

If the film industry follows the music industry people will be buying films, downloading pirate films and watching a small percentage of legal downloaded films.

[Greg]

Even if I had a 200MB internet connection and could download the latest Hidef DVD in 2 seconds I would still not bother. I like my movies on disc with the boxes and ease of use that they come with.

But I would guess the majority of the country are lucky to get 8MB internet. My crappy 2mb exchange isn't going to be even looked at with regards to increasing speeds for at least another 5 years.

A lot of people say downloading is the future but personally I will always prefer to physically have something. Imagine the hassle if your PC died or HD just went.

As people still haven't even given up on good old vinyl, I cannot imagine the silver disc disappearing for some time to come.

I have yet to even download a single song track from the web.

I'm with Greg on this, I like the boxes, the artwork and slight sense of occasion that comes from put a disc in the tray.

(As mentioned Music downloads have need around for quite a few years now, and CD sales are in no risk of disappearing).

[Timbo21]

I like having a disc much more.

It takes long enough to downoad a 700mb movie, let alone something like 15-30GB, lol