is/was DVD the shortest lived format ever...?

It looks as if the PC will go down its own route.
WM9 and such. Im sure it will be possible to download or stream fully HD movies, but it will never be a substitute for dedicated hardware like a player, amp and large display.

Still with these displays reaching PC like resolution, we may one day just run our PCs through these displays if we arent already!

I for one preffer to keep the 2 things separate. I have a PC and games room as well as all my AV equipment in the living room.

Multiple displays is what I see!
 
Lex said:
Do you guys think that maybe movies will eventually go down the MP3 route where we wont even own hardcopies, just have them all stored on a computer?

Well said that man.
I think that this is exactly the next big thing. Ala Minority Report. I honestly do believe that as broadband etc etc improves then we will all have a unit which will store movies and can be downloaded immediately. I understand that we all like to look at our pretty collections on stands, but I think time and technology and convenience will win the day in 15 years or so. Technology is advancing at a frightening pace. Look at music for instance you can store 10,000 music tracks on an i-pod no bigger than a packet of 20 fags. and this would be the studios answer to fraud etc. Any big collectors would just buy an additional hard disc or so.
I never really thought of it, but it would all make perfect sense. One format, one source. This is why (IMO) the 2 formats being kicked about at the moment will fail as did CDI and Laserdisc.
 
Can not see this happening myself. Movie studios will never allow the storage of films on computer hard drives because of piracy issues. The studios only allowed DVD and its digital format because of the increase in profit from the digital medium/re-issue increased sale of films and so profit. Tape was very tired at the end (I do consider it dead ). It's more likely that studios will set up something like Sky movies in which you buy the licence to view a file and watch when you want. If you think about it, it must be just about the cheapest distribution set up you could have. Encrypted for one view, 24 hour storage with improved HDCP nothing could be simpler. Film viewing will be by a turnkey system similar to/or by Sky+ and not open to the internet.
 
I don't think it would ever be open to the internet, but I believe it will be downloadable. No one is going to go along the route of the SKY pay per view. You wouldn't pay £3.75 for a movie that would wipe itself after one view.
I think there is obviously alot of thought and tech. advances that would have to be made, but look at HDCP now, it would be along these lines, and no matter what avenue they go down there will always be pirates, so they would have to develop a real tight system.
There are more DVD pirates and copies flying about out there than there has ever been in history, and that has to be the number one priority for studios.
on a slightly similar/different note, I would imagine that the likes of Games consoles will test the water first though with Microsoft leading the way. Downloadable software will definitely be coming in the next/next Generation of hardware (i.e. xbox 3 and PS4)
 
I don't mean exactly like sky, your licence will entitle you to watch your movie as many times as you want but each time you will have to go through the system to retrieve the information. Now that's a lot of transfers for the latest blockbuster but the tech will be in place for when next stage hardware availability is here in around 5-10 years time.
 
GrahamC said:
Can not see this happening myself. Movie studios will never allow the storage of films on computer hard drives because of piracy issues. The studios only allowed DVD and its digital format because of the increase in profit from the digital medium/re-issue increased sale of films and so profit. Tape was very tired at the end (I do consider it dead ). It's more likely that studios will set up something like Sky movies in which you buy the licence to view a file and watch when you want. If you think about it, it must be just about the cheapest distribution set up you could have. Encrypted for one view, 24 hour storage with improved HDCP nothing could be simpler. Film viewing will be by a turnkey system similar to/or by Sky+ and not open to the internet.

But you can already buy devices that allow you to rip dvds to a HDD to then be streamed around the house. In either HCC or What vid and tv this month there was talk of a 3 Terabyte HDD that would cost $22,000 (might have been ££22,000), and could store over 500 dvds. The next stage is to be able to download content via BB instead of purchasing a disc in the store. If companies were to send out an encrypted movie, I can't see how it would be any more vunerable to piracy than dvds are already? :confused:

Imagine the savings that could be made from removing shop/wholesaler profits, cost of manufacturing the discs, distribution, liscensing fee to format and disc/format creato, future cost of devweloping new formats, reduced V.A.T. as final selling price could be lower. One box could do tv, movies, music, computer games etc..
 
I think we could be talking stardate 5076.8 before we seriously see this happening IN THIS COUNTRY. May well happen in Japan or the States in the near future, but the communications companies in this country need to start taking broadband seriously before that happens.

I think you would need a minimum of an 8Gb download to make it worthwhile...downloading a film at the paltry 512Kb that I have at the moment would take forever. I'd have to start downloading Saturday's premier on Monday morning!!! :rolleyes: Then there's the issue of capped services... :nono:
 
One of the big selling points of MP3 is the portability of it, which I don't think people really need for Movies. If you could transfer movies onto your i-pod from the PC and then plug it into the TV to play them, that would be neat I suppose, but not that much more convenient then buying a disk and sticking it in the player, especially is it takes hours to download the file in the first place.

I can see us getting a 'video on demand' service, maybe with the ability to store movies on a Hard disk, but as Family Guy says, only when, at least 8Mb/s broadband is cheap and universally available.
 
Family Guy said:
I think we could be talking stardate 5076.8 before we seriously see this happening IN THIS COUNTRY. May well happen in Japan or the States in the near future, but the communications companies in this country need to start taking broadband seriously before that happens.

I think you would need a minimum of an 8Gb download to make it worthwhile...downloading a film at the paltry 512Kb that I have at the moment would take forever. I'd have to start downloading Saturday's premier on Monday morning!!! :rolleyes: Then there's the issue of capped services... :nono:

But BB spees are on the increase. I paid £18 pm for a 150K service last year. Now you can get a 1MB sevice for the same money. 2MB for £27, with 8MB for £40 advertised in a mag I saw this month with a 500GB pm limit. Though it's service was quite restrictive in how many people it would reach, and it was up to 8MB depending on whether you were within 2k range of it's boxes. Still, BB speeds are on the increase. Surely by 2010 we should have 10MB BB at least?
 
But at the same time, the quality needs to be improved. I recently had a dispute with my ISP. It came out I was right and they offered to upgrade my service to 2 meg for free. BT said it couldn't be done. So they offered 1 meg. Still couldn't be done. And this is in Surrey, the supposed thriving South East of England...and I'm less than 7 km away from 2 exchanges...
 
People why broardband? Everybody assumes that Hollywood will use ISPs to offer the widespread distribution of film content I think they won't. Hollywood will try and make the internet a secure conduit for films and will fail so will turn to the other conduit digital tv transmitions. You can rip movies to HD now but the copy protection will soon change probably with HD-DVD, Blu-Ray. Tech moves on apace and we are talking 5-10 years.

Imagine £100 STB and DVD sized dish/disc you stick on the window with the whole of the back catalogue from MGM for £3-£5 a licence. The film transmitted like normal TV with DD and HI-DEF when you want. There are 100s of thousands of films but with holographic storage probably only 3 years away able to hold 100s of films, with better encryption of films already in testing the scenario is not out of reach. You will go to Asda buy a packet with credit type card in it insert it into your STB. Connecting to the service it will select the film you just bought and transmit and probably try to sell you other titles as well. I don't think that you will actually end up with anything like an image file to store at all, even now Hollywood only sell you the licence to view.

I live 1 mile from my telephone exchange and BT say no-go on 1mb broardband. There is a lot of headline in 8mb broardband for £30 BUT how many are actually getting it.
 
edinburgh160 said:
There are more DVD pirates and copies flying about out there than there has ever been in history...

No offense, but do you work for the studios? That quote is brilliant in that it:
a) Is true
b) Sounds incredibly persuasive
c) Is actually completely meaningless with regards to piracy

Well done. There could be a lucrative job waiting for you in the world of spin. :D
 
Also, as is very correctly pointed out above, many dvd's (older) were straight transfers from the VHS code, and the same will apply with these formats (in the majority).

I definitely think the picture will be improved no end on HD DVD/Blu Ray except you've got to have the equipment capable to benefit from the picture improvements. Maybe some films won't improve on their DVD picture but they will most likely be cult films which won't make many sales eg older martial-arts films, more obscure horror movies etc etc. The majority of major studio films will definitely be improved upon.

There is something which might slow down the growth of these formats from reaching the mainstream and that is improvements on DVD players. I have recently heard of DVD players that upscale the quality of DVDs giving near high-definition quality.

Whatever the next format it won't make any difference until the price of high definition quality televisions are affordable to all.
 
Azrikam said:
No offense, but do you work for the studios? That quote is brilliant in that it:
a) Is true
b) Sounds incredibly persuasive
c) Is actually completely meaningless with regards to piracy

Well done. There could be a lucrative job waiting for you in the world of spin. :D

I talk rubbish (my wife can vouch) , and I'm open to offers Universal ;)
 
yamoda said:
There are years left for the DVD format. Joe Public isnt remotely interested in High Def. We were told to chuck out our cd's and invest in either SACD or DVDA and even taking into account the format war between those two, how many hi-def audio discs have been sold as a percentage of cd sales? DVD quality, like CD quality, is good enough for over 90% of consumers at the moment and will remain so until the uptake of high quality "downloadable" music and video. Once the major record and film companies work out a way to extract the maximum profit from the web, then all discs or formats will be on their way out.

I agree.

I bought a DVD player virtually the minute it came onto the market. I was frustrated by the lack of software available in shops at the time, but I'm glad that's not the case now.
I've got almost double the amount of DVD's compared to the amount of pre-recorded VHS tapes I collected & I'm reasonably happy with the SQ & PQ DVD offers (though I'd like to have the ability to scale DVD up to HD quality & own the hardware to view it, can't afford to at the moment :( )

I worked in electrical retail when DVD 1st came out & the 1st DVD player I sold was a 1st generation Tosh sold for the princely sum of £550!
If could have told myself there are equivalent tosh models available now for a tenth of that price back then I would have not believed myself.

Blu-ray/HD-DVD hardware/software prices will have to come down in price to the levels DVD hardware/software are now & become available pretty much everywhere before DVD will be superceded. Can't see that happening fast & Blu-ray/HD-DVD will be the video equivalent of SACD/DVD-A to CD in the beginning too IMO...
 
I agree mostly with this but blu-ray and HD-DVD may become more affordable faster than expected, for example with the release of the PS3 next year it is a certainty that it can't cost more than £300, yet this will feature blu-ray. The software is likely to be expensive though for awhile, like the £20-£25 bracket that DVDs used to be when it was a niche market .
 
Grimleys said:
I'd like to have the ability to scale DVD up to HD quality & own the hardware to view it, can't afford to at the moment )
You still won't see "HI DEF" though. It's just not there in the first place and the best "upscaler" will look shabby running next to a correctly calibrated system running at 480/576p. Remember, the display device will only "downscale" the source to at best, it's native res. So before you actually view, it's been upscaled and then downscaled again... :rolleyes:

Now scaling an image to fit the display device's native res...now that's a different kettle of fish altogether... :smashin:

The reason I'm looking forward to HD DVD is they'll be none of that uoscaling/downscaling malarky...just pure 720 lines of pure hi def data... :smashin:
 
Family Guy said:
Now scaling an image to fit the display device's native res...now that's a different kettle of fish altogether... :smashin:

That's what I want, but the PJ I've got (AE300) is only 960x540, the PJ I want (Z3) 1280x720 is HD ready? I want to have the ability to scale DVD to fit the Z3 resolution & be ready for HDTV/blu-ray/HD-DVD should I decide to take the plunge (so to speak) if & when it comes available :thumbsup:

I should have said that in the 1st place methinks :rolleyes:
 
With the advent of Blu Ray and HD-DVD just around the corner, it would appear (if you read the av tabloids) that the writing is on the wall for our current favourite format...

The remarkable thing is all this has happened in the last 7 years!! DVD was born, it's lived and, in the enthuasists eyes, it's on it's last legs.

I just found this from 08-02-2005. DVD was on it's last legs.

:laugh:
Bri
 
I think HD DVD had to have been the shortest format ever !
 
Interesting that 7 years later DVD's still outsell Blu-Rays and probably will continue to do so for the next few years. Does anyone have any figures for recent releases, say within the past 12-18 months for new releases?
 
brian s said:
I just found this from 08-02-2005. DVD was on it's last legs.

:laugh:
Bri

Is this my cue to deploy my crack about VHS being the future?
 

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