Since DVD distribution didn't take off in the US until 2003 why did you ask a question where there was no correct answer? Personally I had a DVD player in 2001, looking at my Amazon history I started purchasing DVDs from Amazon in 2002.
My first DVD player was my 1999 blue iMac. That is when I started buying DVDs. At the time brick and mortar media stores in New York had a huge selection of DVDs. Tower, Virgin Megastore, The Wiz...and so on. None of those stores exist anymore.
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And currently I purchase the majority (over 90%) of my movies (99% are Blu-rays) from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. This has nothing to do with the lack of a store selling Blu-ray movies, those are around, generally one of the Amazons are much cheaper.
That's fine that Amazon is your primary DVD retailer. My point is that Amazon did not absorb the lost sales from the closed brick and mortar stores. Where did those sales go?
My first DVD player was my 1999 blue iMac. That is when I started buying DVDs. At the time brick and mortar media stores in New York had a huge selection of DVDs. Tower, Virgin Megastore, The Wiz...and so on. None of those stores exist anymore.
What year did you get the DVD drive for the iMac, Apple did sell one then. In New Zealand every DVD store I purchased DVDs from still exist, and they still sell DVDs and Blu-rays and CDs. I would list the store names but they wouldn't mean anything to you.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
That's fine that Amazon is your primary DVD retailer. My point is that Amazon did not absorb the lost sales from the closed brick and mortar stores. Where did those sales go?
What makes you think anyone has absorbed those sales changes. As has been noted the fall in DVD sales isn't being picked up by any media type, downloads or Blu-rays, the industry as a whole is down.
Personally I do not purchase anywhere near the number of movies I used to (I used to purchase 75-100 per year, now would be under 10-20 a year), I now have close access to a video rental store (5 minute walk) and use that now instead
What makes you think anyone has absorbed those sales changes. As has been noted the fall in DVD sales isn't being picked up by any media type, downloads or Blu-rays, the industry as a whole is down.
Personally I do not purchase anywhere near the number of movies I used to (I used to purchase 75-100 per year, now would be under 10-20 a year), I now have close access to a video rental store (5 minute walk) and use that now instead
I think his point was that physical revenue is down and digital revenue is up. This is evidenced by the almost complete dissapearence of physical media specialty retail chains. While online sale of physical media is up, the overall trend is still down.
It is fully acknowledged that different countries are at different points along this transition.
Sound quality could always be better. And certainly the few 24bit Audio DVDs I have sound much better than any 'lossless' CD I have.
Though I don't want to get hung up on initial audio quality. The point I tried to make was that re-encoding already lossy quality (e.g. AAC) into yet another lossy format (whatever lossy codec is popular in 10 years) will dramatically reduce overall audio quality.
And I might have to do that if the audio player of my choice in 10 years does not support AAC but only some other, newer format.
It is the 'being locked into having to buy an audio player that supports AAC in 10 years' - or facing a huge loss of audio quality if I have to transcode my AACs - that has me worried.
With CDs I don't have that transcoding fear.
And I really hate the iTunes market segmentation.
I don't just listen to mainstream US pop because there's lots of other fantastic stuff out there from so many different countries. That new British band, or the soundtrack to that French movie or Japanese anime, that Flamenco singer from Spain or the Italian pop star that reminded me of last summer's vacation there. None of these I can purchase in iTunes with my US credit card and address. THAT is what sucks.
And I don't think we can blame copyrights for it, as I can very easily buy all this music - on good ol' CDs.
I think it has more to do with studio bosses abusing this digital distribution as a chance to introduce tiered pricing by country - to milk consumers better.
Something they lost with CDs as these have a more uniform pricing nowadays.
Most people cant play the 8 tracks, various speeds of records, or cassette tapes that they bought over the past few decades either. The same is true for laserdisc, beta, divx discs (the other divx), and VHS. These can be converted, but this is almost never done except for perhaps things like wedding videos.
Your point about mp3 or aac eventually not being supported is technically true. But have we seen that happen yet with an industry standard non-drm audio or video file format? My guess is that it isnt likely to happen quicker than for physical media.
As for market segmentation, copyrights are most definitely at the center of the issue. Licenses to distribute physical and digital forms are typically negotiated separately. Copyright holders and the copyright enforcement organizations are precisely why you cant buy what you want from iTunes unless you have a credit card from the right country.
DVD are decreasing, Blu-ray is continuing to increase in sales and rentals). The issue is Digital Downloads are not increasing at the same rate that physical media is decreasing.
I don't think the movie industry wants digital downloads to take off because if your broadband is fast enough to download a large movie, it's fast enough to download a large movie for free. This is why Apple's streaming-only model is the only way legitimate online movies will work. Instant-on is the one advantage you can't give people with P2P but it really should be mixed with pay-per-view for the best advantage. If providers can bypass net neutrality and filter bandwidth based on content, they should support it much more fully as it means file-sharing is throttled to benefit streaming (though there can be exceptions).
The level of broadband needed to reach this level is not all that high. People always say they want Blu-Ray for the highest quality but HD-DVD was fine and was at most 30GB. This means the bitrate is about 45Mbits and in many cases was just mpeg-2 encoding.
AVC encoding can easily manage 2x better encoding at the same bitrate. I'd say the most needed for 1080p is around 15MBits/s, which is a 10GB file for a 90 minute movie.
This would suggest that given the minimum broadband rating is 4MBits and what the vast majority of people will have, 1080p streaming can't happen on a large scale yet and possibly not for a while. PSN manages it with 8Mbits but likely not that many users. 720p however should be fine in the 4-8Mbits range and I don't hear any complaints about 720p quality not being good enough while people are watching it.
Does this mean that Blu-Ray is the only solution for offline high bitrate video? No, we have SD cards, which are way more compact. They are expensive right now but they can easily be reusable. Instead of Amazon shipping you a BD-R, you ship them an SD card, they copy a movie onto it and ship it back. You only need a 16GB card and you can watch it on a netbook or ultraportable.
Not that there's anything wrong with Blu-Ray particularly as a format, the drives just doesn't need to go inside the computer.
I think Apple should support Blu-Ray decoding, authoring and burning so long as it doesn't involve unreasonable licensing and implementations. If the licensing is still problematic (which it must be), then we need to wait on the people who can change it to change it. They are the people to blame for all this.
I don't think Apple should sell Blu-Ray drives with Macs because you can fit 2 x 2.5" hard drive in place of an optical and slim BD-R drives are expensive. Why force people to have the bulk and expense of a drive they might never use?
What year did you get the DVD drive for the iMac, Apple did sell one then.
1999. Yes Apple was the first computer manufacturer to sell DVD players in all of their computers at that point.
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In New Zealand every DVD store I purchased DVDs from still exist, and they still sell DVDs and Blu-rays and CDs. I would list the store names but they wouldn't mean anything to you.
Once Netflix and Hulu come to NZ things will change.
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What makes you think anyone has absorbed those sales changes. As has been noted the fall in DVD sales isn't being picked up by any media type, downloads or Blu-rays, the industry as a whole is down.
The demand for movies and television is growing. The reason sales are down is because DVD at its hight was extremely lucrative. People are buying less and renting more.
I think his point was that physical revenue is down and digital revenue is up. This is evidenced by the almost complete dissapearence of physical media specialty retail chains. While online sale of physical media is up, the overall trend is still down.
It is fully acknowledged that different countries are at different points along this transition.
I think his point was that physical revenue is down and digital revenue is up. This is evidenced by the almost complete dissapearence of physical media specialty retail chains. While online sale of physical media is up, the overall trend is still down.
As this is the "Blu-ray" thread you need to remember to split the physical media sales. DVD sales are generally down, Blu-ray sales are continuing to increase. Just like downloads, Blu-ray increases don't match the decrease in DVD sales.
1999. Yes Apple was the first computer manufacturer to sell DVD players in all of their computers at that point.
Jolly good, another mistake for Wikipedia...
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Once Netflix and Hulu come to NZ things will change.
We have ondemand sites now, the quality is terrible, the data usage is terrible, and one network tries to charge you for the use.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
The demand for movies and television is growing. The reason sales are down is because DVD at its hight was extremely lucrative. People are buying less and renting more.
And like I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, digital downloads (even rentals) are not currently matching the shortfall either
I don't think the movie industry wants digital downloads to take off because if your broadband is fast enough to download a large movie, it's fast enough to download a large movie for free. This is why Apple's streaming-only model is the only way legitimate online movies will work. Instant-on is the one advantage you can't give people with P2P but it really should be mixed with pay-per-view for the best advantage. If providers can bypass net neutrality and filter bandwidth based on content, they should support it much more fully as it means file-sharing is throttled to benefit streaming (though there can be exceptions).
They are still missing the interoperability, I don't want to be locked to one vendor for purchasing or renting movies, using the current systems I can play DVDs or Blu-rays on a number of devices from manufacturers, digital downloads (or renting), if I choose Apple, I have to use an Apple product to use it. Fine I have an Apple TV, oh, the price is 50% higher (on new releases, greater on older items) than walking 5 minutes to the video store, and the selection is smaller than the video store.
No one is denying that digital downloads are going to the be market leader product one day, it just isn't today, and won't be tomorrow.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
The level of broadband needed to reach this level is not all that high. People always say they want Blu-Ray for the highest quality but HD-DVD was fine and was at most 30GB. This means the bitrate is about 45Mbits and in many cases was just mpeg-2 encoding.
Unless I am reading you wrong, it was the initial Blu-ray releases that were MPEG2, the initial HD-DVD releases where VC1
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Originally Posted by Marvin
This would suggest that given the minimum broadband rating is 4MBits and what the vast majority of people will have, 1080p streaming can't happen on a large scale yet and possibly not for a while. PSN manages it with 8Mbits but likely not that many users. 720p however should be fine in the 4-8Mbits range and I don't hear any complaints about 720p quality not being good enough while people are watching it.
The thing is, while you are watching it most qualities are ok, when you compare it to what you can get the Apple 720p and below are not nice.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Does this mean that Blu-Ray is the only solution for offline high bitrate video? No, we have SD cards, which are way more compact. They are expensive right now but they can easily be reusable. Instead of Amazon shipping you a BD-R, you ship them an SD card, they copy a movie onto it and ship it back. You only need a 16GB card and you can watch it on a netbook or ultraportable.
If you have downgraded your 40GB movie to 16GB is it really high bitrate anymore? And don't forget audio, the vast majority of these Blu-ray movies have HD audio as well.
I just purchased a Blu-ray player. I don't yet own a single Blu-ray disk (although I plan to).
The model I bought also has built-in WiFi and streams Netflix, Pandora, and CinemaNow. We watch streaming Netflix shows and movies pretty regularly.
The player cost $130.
It replaced a HTPC that we were using to pretty much do the exact sasme thing: watch Netflix and DVDs. Now the HTPC has been put to better use.
I'm with those who like to have a physical, "original", full quality copy of media on-hand for several reasons.
I'm extremely finicky when it comes to quality. Most people either don't care about or can't tell the difference between MP3 quality and CD quality, but I can. Same with video.
Now sure, I own an iPod Touch and I enjoy watching videos and listening to music on it even though they're not original quality. With an iPod, it's about convenience and portability, anyway.
But there are times when I want to watch a movie or listen to a song in all it's "original glory". It makes a world of difference to me.
I also like having a physical copy as a backup. Sure, you can backup digital copies on hard drives, thumb drives, etc. But in most cases you're backing up a copy that is not original, lossless quality. And if you are backing up all your media in its original quality to a hard drive, you'll need an awful lot of space depending on the size of your media library.
Someday, if on-demand digital and streaming media can be delivered at lossless or near lossless quality and internet bandwidth can accommodate it, I may change my mind!
Lastly, much media simply cannot yet be obtained via the internet and the physical media must be acquired in order to enjoy it.
For example years ago I wanted the Japanese edition of soundtrack to a PSOne video game (Wild Arms). For all I know, it may now be available as a legal digital download somewhere, but it wasn't back then. And I don't condone media piracy. I scoured the internet, finally found an online CD store that sold it at a fair price and ordered a copy.
We have ondemand sites now, the quality is terrible, the data usage is terrible, and one network tries to charge you for the use.
Yes on demand existed in the US before Netflix and Hulu existed. What they did was organize the business model into something that works and is popular.
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And like I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, digital downloads (even rentals) are not currently matching the shortfall either
I'm not ignoring that. Its not my point that download/streaming will be as popular as DVD. None of the distribution methods will ever replace DVD at its height. Home movie distribution is splintering among several different options. DVD, Blu-ray, downloading, streaming, cable television, video on demand.
They are still missing the interoperability, I don't want to be locked to one vendor for purchasing or renting movies
Interoperability matters more for ownership than renting and I think the distinction between them is important. I would say Blu-Ray is ideal for ownership but you don't need to own every film. If you watch a film less than 3 times, you will save money renting over owning. This will apply to the vast majority of the media you consume.
So is Blu-Ray better for rental? I don't think so. The quality is comparable:
Sure if you watch each one side-by-side, frame-stepping through each from 12 inches away on a 60" TV, you will see the differences but at a reasonable viewing distance, watching each separately, you will get a pleasing experience with both and streaming is more convenient.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
I can play DVDs or Blu-rays on a number of devices from manufacturers, digital downloads (or renting), if I choose Apple, I have to use an Apple product to use it.
Realistically, how many devices can you watch a Blu-Ray or even DVD movie on? Netbook? Not without another external drive. Mobile phone? No, not unless a version is provided on the disc and you have the facility to copy it off the disc. This pretty much limits you to your TV system in the case of Blu-Ray.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
No one is denying that digital downloads are going to the be market leader product one day, it just isn't today, and won't be tomorrow.
But is it soon enough that we can ignore Blu-Ray in the near-term? Blu-Ray is fine for ownership and data archiving but there's no urgency to support it, especially if the licensing is unreasonable.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
Unless I am reading you wrong, it was the initial Blu-ray releases that were MPEG2, the initial HD-DVD releases where VC1
In that case, the bitrate measure would be the 35-50GB movies on Blu-Ray but the required bitrates for streaming are in the same range.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
If you have downgraded your 40GB movie to 16GB is it really high bitrate anymore? And don't forget audio, the vast majority of these Blu-ray movies have HD audio as well.
But I can use the same line of thinking to say that Blu-Ray isn't good enough. 1080p30 8bpc isn't good enough. I want the full 4k 60FPS, 10-bit original movie in uncompressed format at 8GBit/s. There's always going to be a compromise up until you reach the original version. The question is at what point do you stop caring about quality?
Usually it's when the quality comes at an inconvenience or expense. Blu-Ray is already an inconvenience and expense IMO because the files are huge and the discs are slow and noisy and a lot of people have had to upgrade hardware. Say you don't get a mobile format on your BD-R disc, ripping and encoding can take over 3 hours, assuming you even have a Blu-Ray drive for your computer and a way of running Windows. The same process from a DVD takes 15-30 minutes.
If you have downgraded your 40GB movie to 16GB is it really high bitrate anymore? And don't forget audio, the vast majority of these Blu-ray movies have HD audio as well.
Out of 40GB, about 15-20GB is video file and rest is versions of HD audio (compressed and uncompressed), other language audio tracks, and other junk in most cases, unless the disc is encoded with MPEG2.
The HD audio is possible with 1.5Mbps DD+ track and only adds about 1-2 GB of data. DD+ is compressed, but it still is HD audio.
So, yes, you can have high bitrate HD video & audio experience with about 15 to 20 GB of data for most movies in 1080p. Now, if you can compromise to 720p or 1080i, you can reduce to 1/2 the required data size to 1080p fromat at the same bit rate.
Sure if you watch each one side-by-side, frame-stepping through each from 12 inches away on a 60" TV, you will see the differences but at a reasonable viewing distance, watching each separately, you will get a pleasing experience with both and streaming is more convenient.
I only have a 40" TV, I can tell without issue if I am watching TV, DVD, Apple TV, or a Blu-ray, it isn't that hard.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Realistically, how many devices can you watch a Blu-Ray or even DVD movie on? Netbook? Not without another external drive. Mobile phone? No, not unless a version is provided on the disc and you have the facility to copy it off the disc. This pretty much limits you to your TV system in the case of Blu-Ray.
I can take my Blu-ray to any other place that has a blu-ray play and play that movie, I can't do that with the current digital download systems.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
But is it soon enough that we can ignore Blu-Ray in the near-term? Blu-Ray is fine for ownership and data archiving but there's no urgency to support it, especially if the licensing is unreasonable.
You need to update your sayings, they licensing argument was solved a long time ago.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
But I can use the same line of thinking to say that Blu-Ray isn't good enough. 1080p30 8bpc isn't good enough. I want the full 4k 60FPS, 10-bit original movie in uncompressed format at 8GBit/s. There's always going to be a compromise up until you reach the original version. The question is at what point do you stop caring about quality?
For me it is easy, why would I pay more for a product of lesser quality. Digital downloads are more expensive and poorer quality than Blu-ray, as a consumer it doesn't make sense for me to support it.
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Usually it's when the quality comes at an inconvenience or expense. Blu-Ray is already an inconvenience and expense IMO because the files are huge and the discs are slow and noisy and a lot of people have had to upgrade hardware. Say you don't get a mobile format on your BD-R disc, ripping and encoding can take over 3 hours, assuming you even have a Blu-Ray drive for your computer and a way of running Windows. The same process from a DVD takes 15-30 minutes.
You may need to purchase smarter if this is your impression of Blu-ray, my Blu-rays players are not noisy, they are not slow, I have owned one for 3.5 years, still works fine, plays all movies. They are not expensive (players are NZ$150 now), the movies are not expensive (Apple HD movies are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to rent).
If you want to go the portable route, then maybe blu-ray isn't the right choice for you, but I don't really want to watch all my movies on a 2-4 inch screen.
Out of 40GB, about 15-20GB is video file and rest is versions of HD audio (compressed and uncompressed), other language audio tracks, and other junk in most cases, unless the disc is encoded with MPEG2.
The HD audio is possible with 1.5Mbps DD+ track and only adds about 1-2 GB of data. DD+ is compressed, but it still is HD audio.
So, yes, you can have high bitrate HD video & audio experience with about 15 to 20 GB of data for most movies in 1080p. Now, if you can compromise to 720p or 1080i, you can reduce to 1/2 the required data size to 1080p fromat at the same bit rate.
While Dolby Digital Plus is an advancement over DD, it is not HD audio, and shouldn't be confused with HD audio. I think you will find movies that contain HD audio formats like DTS-HDMA or TrueHD have a slightly larger audio track than your suggested enhanced audio formats.
I only have a 40" TV, I can tell without issue if I am watching TV, DVD, Apple TV, or a Blu-ray, it isn't that hard.
If you are sitting close enough, sure. The further back you go the less noticeable the difference.
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I can take my Blu-ray to any other place that has a blu-ray play and play that movie, I can't do that with the current digital download systems.
I can plug an iPod, iPhone, iPad into any television with AV ports and the play video. Every television has AV ports, not every television has a Blu-ray player.
Once they make AirPlay an open API. You will be able to stream video content to any device that supports it.
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For me it is easy, why would I pay more for a product of lesser quality. Digital downloads are more expensive and poorer quality than Blu-ray, as a consumer it doesn't make sense for me to support it.
As I said this will change when you guys receive Netflix and Hulu type services. Paying Netflix $12 or Hulu $10 a month is a great deal cheaper than buying Blu-ray discs.
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Apple HD movies are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to rent
You keep bringing this up as though it is the only online content service.
You keep bringing this up as though it is the only online content service.
Exactly! I just discovered Vudu's selection of $.99 movie rentals. That's cheap enough to lure cheapskates like me into renting movies again. Wow does HDX look good, especially for just one dollar!
I only have a 40" TV, I can tell without issue if I am watching TV, DVD, Apple TV, or a Blu-ray, it isn't that hard.
The main difference between 720p ATV and Blu-Ray is the sharpness. The following is a scan showing XVid, DVD, 720p and 1080p from top to bottom:
1080p is at best slightly sharper than 720p. 720p is 2/3rds the picture size of 1080p. It may be that some streaming services show other visual artifacts but the bitrate Apple use should be high enough for 720p.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
I can take my Blu-ray to any other place that has a blu-ray play and play that movie, I can't do that with the current digital download systems.
Of course you can. You can take your iPad that you rent a movie on round to someone else's house who has an Apple TV and view the movie or even plug a device into the TV. I've played iTunes movies off my iPhone on a TV. In the case of iTunes rentals, you need to have an Apple device to stream it to but it's not the case for all rentals.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
You need to update your sayings, they licensing argument was solved a long time ago.
The licensing was changed a while ago but no one said their changes made it acceptable.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
For me it is easy, why would I pay more for a product of lesser quality. Digital downloads are more expensive and poorer quality than Blu-ray, as a consumer it doesn't make sense for me to support it.
It makes perfect sense because they are more convenient and the cost and quality difference is negligible to most people. You can buy/rent a movie and start watching it within seconds without leaving your seat.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
You may need to purchase smarter if this is your impression of Blu-ray, my Blu-rays players are not noisy, they are not slow, I have owned one for 3.5 years, still works fine, plays all movies. They are not expensive (players are NZ$150 now), the movies are not expensive (Apple HD movies are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to rent).
That's just for the Blu-Ray player attached to the TV though. When you get the Blu-Ray player for the computer in order to get the ability to play anywhere, that's when the price gets higher and you notice the noise. For a slight improvement in sharpness it's not worth it. Some streaming services are instant-on too, Blu-Ray can take as much as 25 seconds to load the disc.
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Originally Posted by jfanning
If you want to go the portable route, then maybe blu-ray isn't the right choice for you, but I don't really want to watch all my movies on a 2-4 inch screen.
Me neither but I want to be able to watch any of them on a mobile device when I go away for a break and it's all I have with me. Also, a lot of people are portable now - 70% of all computer owners are buying laptops/netbooks now and I don't have to say how popular mobile devices and tablets are. I would be shocked to see tablets supporting Blu-Ray, which means that you have to find an alternative way of watching movies on them.
Comments
Since DVD distribution didn't take off in the US until 2003 why did you ask a question where there was no correct answer? Personally I had a DVD player in 2001, looking at my Amazon history I started purchasing DVDs from Amazon in 2002.
My first DVD player was my 1999 blue iMac. That is when I started buying DVDs. At the time brick and mortar media stores in New York had a huge selection of DVDs. Tower, Virgin Megastore, The Wiz...and so on. None of those stores exist anymore.
And currently I purchase the majority (over 90%) of my movies (99% are Blu-rays) from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. This has nothing to do with the lack of a store selling Blu-ray movies, those are around, generally one of the Amazons are much cheaper.
That's fine that Amazon is your primary DVD retailer. My point is that Amazon did not absorb the lost sales from the closed brick and mortar stores. Where did those sales go?
My first DVD player was my 1999 blue iMac. That is when I started buying DVDs. At the time brick and mortar media stores in New York had a huge selection of DVDs. Tower, Virgin Megastore, The Wiz...and so on. None of those stores exist anymore.
What year did you get the DVD drive for the iMac, Apple did sell one then. In New Zealand every DVD store I purchased DVDs from still exist, and they still sell DVDs and Blu-rays and CDs. I would list the store names but they wouldn't mean anything to you.
That's fine that Amazon is your primary DVD retailer. My point is that Amazon did not absorb the lost sales from the closed brick and mortar stores. Where did those sales go?
What makes you think anyone has absorbed those sales changes. As has been noted the fall in DVD sales isn't being picked up by any media type, downloads or Blu-rays, the industry as a whole is down.
Personally I do not purchase anywhere near the number of movies I used to (I used to purchase 75-100 per year, now would be under 10-20 a year), I now have close access to a video rental store (5 minute walk) and use that now instead
What makes you think anyone has absorbed those sales changes. As has been noted the fall in DVD sales isn't being picked up by any media type, downloads or Blu-rays, the industry as a whole is down.
Personally I do not purchase anywhere near the number of movies I used to (I used to purchase 75-100 per year, now would be under 10-20 a year), I now have close access to a video rental store (5 minute walk) and use that now instead
I think his point was that physical revenue is down and digital revenue is up. This is evidenced by the almost complete dissapearence of physical media specialty retail chains. While online sale of physical media is up, the overall trend is still down.
It is fully acknowledged that different countries are at different points along this transition.
What you're saying is all very true.
Sound quality could always be better. And certainly the few 24bit Audio DVDs I have sound much better than any 'lossless' CD I have.
Though I don't want to get hung up on initial audio quality. The point I tried to make was that re-encoding already lossy quality (e.g. AAC) into yet another lossy format (whatever lossy codec is popular in 10 years) will dramatically reduce overall audio quality.
And I might have to do that if the audio player of my choice in 10 years does not support AAC but only some other, newer format.
It is the 'being locked into having to buy an audio player that supports AAC in 10 years' - or facing a huge loss of audio quality if I have to transcode my AACs - that has me worried.
With CDs I don't have that transcoding fear.
And I really hate the iTunes market segmentation.
I don't just listen to mainstream US pop because there's lots of other fantastic stuff out there from so many different countries. That new British band, or the soundtrack to that French movie or Japanese anime, that Flamenco singer from Spain or the Italian pop star that reminded me of last summer's vacation there. None of these I can purchase in iTunes with my US credit card and address. THAT is what sucks.
And I don't think we can blame copyrights for it, as I can very easily buy all this music - on good ol' CDs.
I think it has more to do with studio bosses abusing this digital distribution as a chance to introduce tiered pricing by country - to milk consumers better.
Something they lost with CDs as these have a more uniform pricing nowadays.
Most people cant play the 8 tracks, various speeds of records, or cassette tapes that they bought over the past few decades either. The same is true for laserdisc, beta, divx discs (the other divx), and VHS. These can be converted, but this is almost never done except for perhaps things like wedding videos.
Your point about mp3 or aac eventually not being supported is technically true. But have we seen that happen yet with an industry standard non-drm audio or video file format? My guess is that it isnt likely to happen quicker than for physical media.
As for market segmentation, copyrights are most definitely at the center of the issue. Licenses to distribute physical and digital forms are typically negotiated separately. Copyright holders and the copyright enforcement organizations are precisely why you cant buy what you want from iTunes unless you have a credit card from the right country.
DVD are decreasing, Blu-ray is continuing to increase in sales and rentals). The issue is Digital Downloads are not increasing at the same rate that physical media is decreasing.
I don't think the movie industry wants digital downloads to take off because if your broadband is fast enough to download a large movie, it's fast enough to download a large movie for free. This is why Apple's streaming-only model is the only way legitimate online movies will work. Instant-on is the one advantage you can't give people with P2P but it really should be mixed with pay-per-view for the best advantage. If providers can bypass net neutrality and filter bandwidth based on content, they should support it much more fully as it means file-sharing is throttled to benefit streaming (though there can be exceptions).
The level of broadband needed to reach this level is not all that high. People always say they want Blu-Ray for the highest quality but HD-DVD was fine and was at most 30GB. This means the bitrate is about 45Mbits and in many cases was just mpeg-2 encoding.
AVC encoding can easily manage 2x better encoding at the same bitrate. I'd say the most needed for 1080p is around 15MBits/s, which is a 10GB file for a 90 minute movie.
This would suggest that given the minimum broadband rating is 4MBits and what the vast majority of people will have, 1080p streaming can't happen on a large scale yet and possibly not for a while. PSN manages it with 8Mbits but likely not that many users. 720p however should be fine in the 4-8Mbits range and I don't hear any complaints about 720p quality not being good enough while people are watching it.
Does this mean that Blu-Ray is the only solution for offline high bitrate video? No, we have SD cards, which are way more compact. They are expensive right now but they can easily be reusable. Instead of Amazon shipping you a BD-R, you ship them an SD card, they copy a movie onto it and ship it back. You only need a 16GB card and you can watch it on a netbook or ultraportable.
Not that there's anything wrong with Blu-Ray particularly as a format, the drives just doesn't need to go inside the computer.
I think Apple should support Blu-Ray decoding, authoring and burning so long as it doesn't involve unreasonable licensing and implementations. If the licensing is still problematic (which it must be), then we need to wait on the people who can change it to change it. They are the people to blame for all this.
I don't think Apple should sell Blu-Ray drives with Macs because you can fit 2 x 2.5" hard drive in place of an optical and slim BD-R drives are expensive. Why force people to have the bulk and expense of a drive they might never use?
What year did you get the DVD drive for the iMac, Apple did sell one then.
1999. Yes Apple was the first computer manufacturer to sell DVD players in all of their computers at that point.
In New Zealand every DVD store I purchased DVDs from still exist, and they still sell DVDs and Blu-rays and CDs. I would list the store names but they wouldn't mean anything to you.
Once Netflix and Hulu come to NZ things will change.
What makes you think anyone has absorbed those sales changes. As has been noted the fall in DVD sales isn't being picked up by any media type, downloads or Blu-rays, the industry as a whole is down.
The demand for movies and television is growing. The reason sales are down is because DVD at its hight was extremely lucrative. People are buying less and renting more.
I think his point was that physical revenue is down and digital revenue is up. This is evidenced by the almost complete dissapearence of physical media specialty retail chains. While online sale of physical media is up, the overall trend is still down.
It is fully acknowledged that different countries are at different points along this transition.
I think his point was that physical revenue is down and digital revenue is up. This is evidenced by the almost complete dissapearence of physical media specialty retail chains. While online sale of physical media is up, the overall trend is still down.
As this is the "Blu-ray" thread you need to remember to split the physical media sales. DVD sales are generally down, Blu-ray sales are continuing to increase. Just like downloads, Blu-ray increases don't match the decrease in DVD sales.
1999. Yes Apple was the first computer manufacturer to sell DVD players in all of their computers at that point.
Jolly good, another mistake for Wikipedia...
Once Netflix and Hulu come to NZ things will change.
We have ondemand sites now, the quality is terrible, the data usage is terrible, and one network tries to charge you for the use.
The demand for movies and television is growing. The reason sales are down is because DVD at its hight was extremely lucrative. People are buying less and renting more.
And like I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, digital downloads (even rentals) are not currently matching the shortfall either
Yes exactly.
Then you keep missing the point.
I don't think the movie industry wants digital downloads to take off because if your broadband is fast enough to download a large movie, it's fast enough to download a large movie for free. This is why Apple's streaming-only model is the only way legitimate online movies will work. Instant-on is the one advantage you can't give people with P2P but it really should be mixed with pay-per-view for the best advantage. If providers can bypass net neutrality and filter bandwidth based on content, they should support it much more fully as it means file-sharing is throttled to benefit streaming (though there can be exceptions).
They are still missing the interoperability, I don't want to be locked to one vendor for purchasing or renting movies, using the current systems I can play DVDs or Blu-rays on a number of devices from manufacturers, digital downloads (or renting), if I choose Apple, I have to use an Apple product to use it. Fine I have an Apple TV, oh, the price is 50% higher (on new releases, greater on older items) than walking 5 minutes to the video store, and the selection is smaller than the video store.
No one is denying that digital downloads are going to the be market leader product one day, it just isn't today, and won't be tomorrow.
The level of broadband needed to reach this level is not all that high. People always say they want Blu-Ray for the highest quality but HD-DVD was fine and was at most 30GB. This means the bitrate is about 45Mbits and in many cases was just mpeg-2 encoding.
Unless I am reading you wrong, it was the initial Blu-ray releases that were MPEG2, the initial HD-DVD releases where VC1
This would suggest that given the minimum broadband rating is 4MBits and what the vast majority of people will have, 1080p streaming can't happen on a large scale yet and possibly not for a while. PSN manages it with 8Mbits but likely not that many users. 720p however should be fine in the 4-8Mbits range and I don't hear any complaints about 720p quality not being good enough while people are watching it.
The thing is, while you are watching it most qualities are ok, when you compare it to what you can get the Apple 720p and below are not nice.
Does this mean that Blu-Ray is the only solution for offline high bitrate video? No, we have SD cards, which are way more compact. They are expensive right now but they can easily be reusable. Instead of Amazon shipping you a BD-R, you ship them an SD card, they copy a movie onto it and ship it back. You only need a 16GB card and you can watch it on a netbook or ultraportable.
If you have downgraded your 40GB movie to 16GB is it really high bitrate anymore? And don't forget audio, the vast majority of these Blu-ray movies have HD audio as well.
The model I bought also has built-in WiFi and streams Netflix, Pandora, and CinemaNow. We watch streaming Netflix shows and movies pretty regularly.
The player cost $130.
It replaced a HTPC that we were using to pretty much do the exact sasme thing: watch Netflix and DVDs. Now the HTPC has been put to better use.
I'm with those who like to have a physical, "original", full quality copy of media on-hand for several reasons.
I'm extremely finicky when it comes to quality. Most people either don't care about or can't tell the difference between MP3 quality and CD quality, but I can. Same with video.
Now sure, I own an iPod Touch and I enjoy watching videos and listening to music on it even though they're not original quality. With an iPod, it's about convenience and portability, anyway.
But there are times when I want to watch a movie or listen to a song in all it's "original glory". It makes a world of difference to me.
I also like having a physical copy as a backup. Sure, you can backup digital copies on hard drives, thumb drives, etc. But in most cases you're backing up a copy that is not original, lossless quality. And if you are backing up all your media in its original quality to a hard drive, you'll need an awful lot of space depending on the size of your media library.
Someday, if on-demand digital and streaming media can be delivered at lossless or near lossless quality and internet bandwidth can accommodate it, I may change my mind!
Lastly, much media simply cannot yet be obtained via the internet and the physical media must be acquired in order to enjoy it.
For example years ago I wanted the Japanese edition of soundtrack to a PSOne video game (Wild Arms). For all I know, it may now be available as a legal digital download somewhere, but it wasn't back then. And I don't condone media piracy. I scoured the internet, finally found an online CD store that sold it at a fair price and ordered a copy.
Jolly good, another mistake for Wikipedia...
Here it is: iMac DV/SE
We have ondemand sites now, the quality is terrible, the data usage is terrible, and one network tries to charge you for the use.
Yes on demand existed in the US before Netflix and Hulu existed. What they did was organize the business model into something that works and is popular.
And like I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, digital downloads (even rentals) are not currently matching the shortfall either
I'm not ignoring that. Its not my point that download/streaming will be as popular as DVD. None of the distribution methods will ever replace DVD at its height. Home movie distribution is splintering among several different options. DVD, Blu-ray, downloading, streaming, cable television, video on demand.
They are still missing the interoperability, I don't want to be locked to one vendor for purchasing or renting movies
Interoperability matters more for ownership than renting and I think the distinction between them is important. I would say Blu-Ray is ideal for ownership but you don't need to own every film. If you watch a film less than 3 times, you will save money renting over owning. This will apply to the vast majority of the media you consume.
So is Blu-Ray better for rental? I don't think so. The quality is comparable:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/art...he-comparison/
Sure if you watch each one side-by-side, frame-stepping through each from 12 inches away on a 60" TV, you will see the differences but at a reasonable viewing distance, watching each separately, you will get a pleasing experience with both and streaming is more convenient.
I can play DVDs or Blu-rays on a number of devices from manufacturers, digital downloads (or renting), if I choose Apple, I have to use an Apple product to use it.
Realistically, how many devices can you watch a Blu-Ray or even DVD movie on? Netbook? Not without another external drive. Mobile phone? No, not unless a version is provided on the disc and you have the facility to copy it off the disc. This pretty much limits you to your TV system in the case of Blu-Ray.
No one is denying that digital downloads are going to the be market leader product one day, it just isn't today, and won't be tomorrow.
But is it soon enough that we can ignore Blu-Ray in the near-term? Blu-Ray is fine for ownership and data archiving but there's no urgency to support it, especially if the licensing is unreasonable.
Unless I am reading you wrong, it was the initial Blu-ray releases that were MPEG2, the initial HD-DVD releases where VC1
In that case, the bitrate measure would be the 35-50GB movies on Blu-Ray but the required bitrates for streaming are in the same range.
If you have downgraded your 40GB movie to 16GB is it really high bitrate anymore? And don't forget audio, the vast majority of these Blu-ray movies have HD audio as well.
But I can use the same line of thinking to say that Blu-Ray isn't good enough. 1080p30 8bpc isn't good enough. I want the full 4k 60FPS, 10-bit original movie in uncompressed format at 8GBit/s. There's always going to be a compromise up until you reach the original version. The question is at what point do you stop caring about quality?
Usually it's when the quality comes at an inconvenience or expense. Blu-Ray is already an inconvenience and expense IMO because the files are huge and the discs are slow and noisy and a lot of people have had to upgrade hardware. Say you don't get a mobile format on your BD-R disc, ripping and encoding can take over 3 hours, assuming you even have a Blu-Ray drive for your computer and a way of running Windows. The same process from a DVD takes 15-30 minutes.
If you have downgraded your 40GB movie to 16GB is it really high bitrate anymore? And don't forget audio, the vast majority of these Blu-ray movies have HD audio as well.
Out of 40GB, about 15-20GB is video file and rest is versions of HD audio (compressed and uncompressed), other language audio tracks, and other junk in most cases, unless the disc is encoded with MPEG2.
The HD audio is possible with 1.5Mbps DD+ track and only adds about 1-2 GB of data. DD+ is compressed, but it still is HD audio.
So, yes, you can have high bitrate HD video & audio experience with about 15 to 20 GB of data for most movies in 1080p. Now, if you can compromise to 720p or 1080i, you can reduce to 1/2 the required data size to 1080p fromat at the same bit rate.
Sure if you watch each one side-by-side, frame-stepping through each from 12 inches away on a 60" TV, you will see the differences but at a reasonable viewing distance, watching each separately, you will get a pleasing experience with both and streaming is more convenient.
I only have a 40" TV, I can tell without issue if I am watching TV, DVD, Apple TV, or a Blu-ray, it isn't that hard.
Realistically, how many devices can you watch a Blu-Ray or even DVD movie on? Netbook? Not without another external drive. Mobile phone? No, not unless a version is provided on the disc and you have the facility to copy it off the disc. This pretty much limits you to your TV system in the case of Blu-Ray.
I can take my Blu-ray to any other place that has a blu-ray play and play that movie, I can't do that with the current digital download systems.
But is it soon enough that we can ignore Blu-Ray in the near-term? Blu-Ray is fine for ownership and data archiving but there's no urgency to support it, especially if the licensing is unreasonable.
You need to update your sayings, they licensing argument was solved a long time ago.
But I can use the same line of thinking to say that Blu-Ray isn't good enough. 1080p30 8bpc isn't good enough. I want the full 4k 60FPS, 10-bit original movie in uncompressed format at 8GBit/s. There's always going to be a compromise up until you reach the original version. The question is at what point do you stop caring about quality?
For me it is easy, why would I pay more for a product of lesser quality. Digital downloads are more expensive and poorer quality than Blu-ray, as a consumer it doesn't make sense for me to support it.
Usually it's when the quality comes at an inconvenience or expense. Blu-Ray is already an inconvenience and expense IMO because the files are huge and the discs are slow and noisy and a lot of people have had to upgrade hardware. Say you don't get a mobile format on your BD-R disc, ripping and encoding can take over 3 hours, assuming you even have a Blu-Ray drive for your computer and a way of running Windows. The same process from a DVD takes 15-30 minutes.
You may need to purchase smarter if this is your impression of Blu-ray, my Blu-rays players are not noisy, they are not slow, I have owned one for 3.5 years, still works fine, plays all movies. They are not expensive (players are NZ$150 now), the movies are not expensive (Apple HD movies are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to rent).
If you want to go the portable route, then maybe blu-ray isn't the right choice for you, but I don't really want to watch all my movies on a 2-4 inch screen.
Out of 40GB, about 15-20GB is video file and rest is versions of HD audio (compressed and uncompressed), other language audio tracks, and other junk in most cases, unless the disc is encoded with MPEG2.
The HD audio is possible with 1.5Mbps DD+ track and only adds about 1-2 GB of data. DD+ is compressed, but it still is HD audio.
So, yes, you can have high bitrate HD video & audio experience with about 15 to 20 GB of data for most movies in 1080p. Now, if you can compromise to 720p or 1080i, you can reduce to 1/2 the required data size to 1080p fromat at the same bit rate.
While Dolby Digital Plus is an advancement over DD, it is not HD audio, and shouldn't be confused with HD audio. I think you will find movies that contain HD audio formats like DTS-HDMA or TrueHD have a slightly larger audio track than your suggested enhanced audio formats.
I only have a 40" TV, I can tell without issue if I am watching TV, DVD, Apple TV, or a Blu-ray, it isn't that hard.
If you are sitting close enough, sure. The further back you go the less noticeable the difference.
I can take my Blu-ray to any other place that has a blu-ray play and play that movie, I can't do that with the current digital download systems.
I can plug an iPod, iPhone, iPad into any television with AV ports and the play video. Every television has AV ports, not every television has a Blu-ray player.
Once they make AirPlay an open API. You will be able to stream video content to any device that supports it.
For me it is easy, why would I pay more for a product of lesser quality. Digital downloads are more expensive and poorer quality than Blu-ray, as a consumer it doesn't make sense for me to support it.
As I said this will change when you guys receive Netflix and Hulu type services. Paying Netflix $12 or Hulu $10 a month is a great deal cheaper than buying Blu-ray discs.
Apple HD movies are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to rent
You keep bringing this up as though it is the only online content service.
You keep bringing this up as though it is the only online content service.
Exactly! I just discovered Vudu's selection of $.99 movie rentals. That's cheap enough to lure cheapskates like me into renting movies again. Wow does HDX look good, especially for just one dollar!
I only have a 40" TV, I can tell without issue if I am watching TV, DVD, Apple TV, or a Blu-ray, it isn't that hard.
The main difference between 720p ATV and Blu-Ray is the sharpness. The following is a scan showing XVid, DVD, 720p and 1080p from top to bottom:
1080p is at best slightly sharper than 720p. 720p is 2/3rds the picture size of 1080p. It may be that some streaming services show other visual artifacts but the bitrate Apple use should be high enough for 720p.
I can take my Blu-ray to any other place that has a blu-ray play and play that movie, I can't do that with the current digital download systems.
Of course you can. You can take your iPad that you rent a movie on round to someone else's house who has an Apple TV and view the movie or even plug a device into the TV. I've played iTunes movies off my iPhone on a TV. In the case of iTunes rentals, you need to have an Apple device to stream it to but it's not the case for all rentals.
You need to update your sayings, they licensing argument was solved a long time ago.
The licensing was changed a while ago but no one said their changes made it acceptable.
For me it is easy, why would I pay more for a product of lesser quality. Digital downloads are more expensive and poorer quality than Blu-ray, as a consumer it doesn't make sense for me to support it.
It makes perfect sense because they are more convenient and the cost and quality difference is negligible to most people. You can buy/rent a movie and start watching it within seconds without leaving your seat.
You may need to purchase smarter if this is your impression of Blu-ray, my Blu-rays players are not noisy, they are not slow, I have owned one for 3.5 years, still works fine, plays all movies. They are not expensive (players are NZ$150 now), the movies are not expensive (Apple HD movies are more expensive to purchase, more expensive to rent).
That's just for the Blu-Ray player attached to the TV though. When you get the Blu-Ray player for the computer in order to get the ability to play anywhere, that's when the price gets higher and you notice the noise. For a slight improvement in sharpness it's not worth it. Some streaming services are instant-on too, Blu-Ray can take as much as 25 seconds to load the disc.
If you want to go the portable route, then maybe blu-ray isn't the right choice for you, but I don't really want to watch all my movies on a 2-4 inch screen.
Me neither but I want to be able to watch any of them on a mobile device when I go away for a break and it's all I have with me. Also, a lot of people are portable now - 70% of all computer owners are buying laptops/netbooks now and I don't have to say how popular mobile devices and tablets are. I would be shocked to see tablets supporting Blu-Ray, which means that you have to find an alternative way of watching movies on them.