[andyjenk]

I have a 3.2GHz PC with 2Gb memory. Playback of HDMI files with QuickTime on my monitor is very jerky. The same files (recorded on a Toshiba Camileo S10 camcorder play back from the S10 via HDMI to my TV flawlessly.

Can anyone explain this?

With the above in mind, and the falling price of SDHC cards, is Blu-Ray going to turn out to be another 8-track cartridge story? The future would seem to me to be to put HD movies onto secured SDHC cards (suitably packaged) and use the (obviously cheap) technology used in camcorders to play them. Or am I missing something?

[HDCriticalFan]

Let's see, current BR disks go up to 50 Gb.

Current SDHC cards cost about £30 for the 16 Gb size and I've seen a 32Gb card for £100. It's hard to see that a 50 Gig card is going to exist this side of £50 for several years.

Presently blank optical disks are sold for a pound or two.

Can anyone see where I'm going with this ?


The other thing is that AFAIK BR discs are stamped like CDs and DVDs. A single disk can be stamped in a spilt second. With a memory card approach it would be necessary to transfer the data electronically. Whilst this could be done at "high speed" it would still take several minutes. I don't think that this is going to be commercially viable.


However, nothing is permanent and I'm sure that BR won't last forever. The replacement technology will probably be even more radical than your suggestion though. Rather than a change in physical container (from disk to memory card) I foresee the move away from any physical device to on-demand electronically delivered content.

This is already starting with the likes of the BBC iplayer and those of other broadcasters, not to mention cable TV. There has also been talk of Sky using broadband to augment its service.

In the future, the idea of using physical containers for software may seem as archaic as horse-drawn carts !

I was just thinking about computer software. Back in the 80s it used to be in big boxes, with a dozen or more floppy disks (and took ages to install). In the 90s it switched to CD (and then DVD). But I'm scratching my head to think of the last time I bought software on a physical medium. I've been buying stuff and downloading it via the Internet for years now.


And haven't "the kids" stopped buying music altogether ? If they do actually pay, it is for downloads to their phones.





Regards

[andyjenk]

Originally Posted by HDCriticalFan

Let's see, current BR disks go up to 50 Gb.

Regards

Thanks for the info. I had thought that 16Gb would be ample for most movies (not owning any BR) and "Extras" could go on another SDHC. I think that if you scale up production of SDHC for the Movie market you'd find that card prices soon matched disk prices. It will be interesting to see how quickly SDHC develops. Good point about stamping. Anybody like to invent a magnetic stamping machine?

I wonder how quickly we'll accept the next step - running all our software on the internet. Is it Microsoft or Google pushing this? I think the bottleneck at the moment is processing power, which seems to have stagnated somewhat - unless, as my first question implied, processing power is not necessarily the answer.