My BFH (big f'ing hammer) would like to take that up with you.. lol.

The issue here isn't about streaming and the future, it's about you having the right having bought and paid for a movie, cd or whatever in the form of physical media and simply having the right to enjoy it in your own home however you see fit. The movie studios are doing nothing other than making a power grab and telling us to F'off and there will be "no soup for you"!

I personally have installed dozens of kaleidescape systems and was installing them when they were still considered a prototype. To this date I know of only 1 client that has done what the movie studios fear the most of copying movies they do not own.

Just because a better means of distributing media is at hand or coming down the pipeline doesn't mean that we should abandon our rights to enjoy something we paid for nor does it invalidate the previous method of delivery. You can argue all day about what's better streaming or hard disc it's not going to matter. Someone is always going to prefer a BMW over a Chevy and vice-versa.

Besides, all of these court rulings are all leading to one end and that end will be that the movie studios will have you pay every time you wish to watch a certain movie. This is what they have been fighting for since the 1st day of the advent of the DVD with the DIVX fiasco and it will only be a matter of time before they digitally tie every stream to a credit card. There will be no "owning" of any kind of media by anyone other than the studios and you will be paying for the "privilege" of being able to listen or watch.

I live in Nassau county, Long Island ( For those of you not familiar, densly populated, affluant area. I use Cablevision with BOOST ( fastest service from Cablevision ), and I have yet to watch a complete movie on VUDU in HDX without it buffering a few times. Im sure at some point, broadband will be a more reliable source of movie streaming but for the present time it is not a reliable answer for movie viewing. Those who think it is must be enjoying the enveloping experience they get watching Avatar on their IPhone. And just try to hold a Panamorph lens in front of your IPhone for 2 hours.

Bring two and lets see whos done first!


The studios are fighting tooth and nail AGAINST digital downloads because they want to control the what/how/when/where. They would like nothing better than to have sheep line up at best buy every weekend so they can take their disc home and use software that rips it while breaking the end user agreement.


I have a client like that too. My attitude towards piracy is that people were doing it before DVD existed and they will continue to do it forever. Some people steal stuff. Some steal office supplies. Some buy bootleg movies. Some well to do soccer moms are stealing makeup at a walmart right now. Technology wont stop this behavoir and i think the kscape court issues are a joke. They have to defend the technology while thousands of others just bypass the laws all together. I can go download movies that are still in theaters for free. But for some reason hollywood is trying to put kscape out of business. Idiots.


I never said a disc was better than streaming. I said that a disc is old technology now that we can download and stream video. As technology improves in ripping software, pc hardware, broadband etc the gap in quality difference will narrow. Once hollywood finally removes their dug in nails from the disc things will speed up significantly.

I dont believe that digital=more control for studios.


The irony here is that the Disc that some prefer, is their (studios) best chance of controlling us. Once we get our file in a digital format we can use it whenever we want. The moment they try and charge a per use is the moment everyone switches back to stealing it.

I will take a number 4 with a diet please.

I'm not so sure of that.. All they have to do is tie your IP and machine to the current stream that was purchased and if it doesn't authenticate with the server it doesn't play. There are many more ways to control what you can and cannot watch or listen to when the feed comes right from their server rather than a disc that is floating out in the netherworld.

The best thing Kscape can do now is open up the OS to allow content in and out of the HDs as a basic NAS works. Would be the perfect slap in the face.

I was thinking more a long the lines of skipping them all together and just torrenting content. Or using 3rd party "jail breaking" software to capture and "clean" the file. You just know the software will exist if the content makers try to do something like that.

Being that most of the movies that I have bought over the years rarely was watched more than once, and almost never more than a second time, I think the studios may make more selling digital content than renting it. And I am not going to pay per use every time my daughter starts dora and only watches for ten minutes.

Even though I fear stamp getting riled up, itunes has the best option. I can rent a movie for 24 hours, buy it if my kids watch it over and over, let them watch it on an itouch or ipad, take it on the road, or throw a $100 apple tv in their room and let them pick their own movie. And I don't have to worry about finding it under the couch covered in something that some form of sugar as its main ingredient or did it out from under a car seat with a new satin finish.

I remember an article I read on Slate back when BDPs and HDDVDs were gearing up for the format war. The author made the point about how silly the coming battle was going to be since both were dead before they even started due to digital content.

This is laughable and sad if it really took you a whole day to find the movie you wanted to watch with 1000 DVDs. Personally I have over 3K DVDs and close to 1000 BDs And even if I went and read through all the titles it would not take anywhere near an entire day to do so.

Personally I find if I want a particular title it takes a minute to get it and put it in the player (If I want to watch Zodiac I don’t need to go through all of them or start from the A’s but I go to the other end where it is Z, if I want to watch one of the Harry Potter films I know it is between the G and the I titles on the shelf so I don’t look at either extreme like the A or Z.

Now if I am by myself and I just want a film and I need to decide what I put on, again it is equally as easy, if I want a Horror title I go to the shelf where the Horror titles are situated, if I want a Comedy I go to the Comedy shelf instead ..... Last month when I wanted a Christmas themed film there was no use looking through the comedy or Horror titles, just went to the Christmas themed movie section. My personal rule, no genre will continue on a second shelf, if it does it gets split up to smaller sub-genres ( for example in BD I have Horror, Mega Horror series and apocalyptic films right now, for comedy there is comedy and romantic comedy....)

The worst case scenario is when a large bunch of people are given a choice and some want one title while others don’t, and honestly in this case I find shelves and disks are better for that. why? In my experience with shelves, one person can be looking at some of them, while another person at other films (possibly elsewhere in the library), if someone sees a film they might like to watch they can pull it out and ask “anyone else interested” and if they all say “yes I want to see it” it is done, if someone says “no I don’t want” it, it goes back in its place and everyone moves on but if it is “not sure I want to see it” you put it on the side and if another film is not chosen (usually soon) you go back to the “maybe” films that were taken out. In the end no one wants to spend a lot of time searching for a film, worst case I have seen with a lot of people has been around ½ hour tops doing it this way.

On the other hand in the above scenario without a library, at least in my experience. You all sit down looking at the same screen/list, someone will ask “what is that film, and so now you all get side tracked explaining it for the next 5-10 minutes (don’t get me wrong someone can ask the same question with a physical library but the rest of the people can continue looking while someone is talking), that probably won’t get picked to be watched. There are a few titles on screen, someone has gone through them and sais “let’s move on” to the next set but you go to turn the page or move down the list (depending on the interface) and all of a sudden someone else that reads more slowly or taking too long because he is reminiscing on at least one of the films says “go back, I missed some of them” and so you take a step backwards. And what happens when on screen you go through all the movies and there was no unanimous decision of “yeah we all want to really see that film” so now you need to go through them all a second time because no one remembers which films where “OK” to some and “don’t know if I want it but I don’t object either” to others?

As for a small space I don’t get that either. My guess is that most people have ceilings that are at least 7.5’ tall and a plastic movie case is what, 5” deep, are you saying people have homes/apartments so small that adding a shelving unit that is 6” deep will make the place unliveable. Each of my shelving units is around 2.5’ long, floor to ceiling (I used 10” deep to look nicer but this is immaterial) and it can fit 500-650 items each(an item might be a normal case with a single movie or a season or a collection of films...) are you telling me people hiring CIs (or even most everyone else) have homes so small that there is no place in the home where they can enter the room and be farther than a foot from the walls? Alo I know this guy that is anal and different packaging bugged him, he threw out all the cases and puts the disks in binders, personally I don’t find them as good, but if space is an issue one shelf that is several feet would most likely fit your whole 1000 DVD collection (after all each disk is 1.2mm (0.05”) thick and 120mm (4.75”) radius.)


Now don’t get me wrong, I think media servers do have benefits over a physical library on shelves used and a single disk player: if you can stream to other rooms you don’t need to go where the content is held to get the copy and bring it back to watch; if people are messy/unorganized they don’t need to look around for the film (i.e. someone else watched it in their BR and it is now there and you can’t find it); if you decided on 2+ films, continue a season of TV shows that are on multiple disks or watch a movie like the LOTR EE which are split on two disks you don’t need to get up and switch the disks when the first is done; if someone is bed ridden and changing films would require them to call the care giver.... But lack of space in the home and complexity/time taken to choose a film don’t make any sense what so ever.

I know that you keep on repeating it but every time I ask you you never answer. Where can I go for that high quality DL that makes my BD useless?

You might as well keep saying you can buy a flying car today so a horse and buggy is useless. Because your imaginary service is as real as your flying car.


Yes and do you realize that no one is saying that it won’t continue increasing but it is immaterial if it is not high enough or cheap enough because that means that there will be many situations where it does not work. And so physical media will be a better choice for those people?


So who cares, only fools care about old or new and corporations and sheep care about the masses. The question is what is the right technology.

as for your cell phone holding your collection, I guess I missed where they make a 100 TB cell phone.

[quote] The studios are fighting tooth and nail AGAINST digital downloads because they want to control the what/how/when/where. [/quote]

What the hell are you talking about? When have they ever fought them? If they did not want DD none of the legal DD services would exist. Actually in theory wouldn’t it be MUCH easier to control DD. Let’s face it I can take a CD or BD and play them in any player, I can lend them out and I can sell them if I don’t want them anymore...... How easy is it to take an itunes song and sell it to someone else because you don’t like it any more? Can someone buy a film on Vudu and call up a friend and say “I just bought and saw ____ it is an excellent film, I will lend you my copy”. Can a friend of mine that is watching a film on Netflix streaming say we will watch my copy at your place together like he can with a Netflix disk rental since I am not a member of Netflix streaming service?

Do you understand that nobody is arguing with you about the quality?  What we are saying is that the masses don't care about the difference in quality.  They will gladly trade the quality for convenience. (Now take this to your mommy and have her read it and explain it to you.)


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 And so physical media will be a better choice for those people?
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Yes, physical media will be better for all 12 people who live in cottages year round.


I'm not a rocket surgeon, but from what I know, corporations prefer to sell to the masses. From my understanding of masses, there is more people in a mass. That means more customers. Corporations like customers, that's how they keep the lights on.  Again, not rocket surgery here.


No, your cell phone won't hold 100TB.  But most people don't have 100TB music/movie collections. But I'm sure you have a petabyte don't you?

Holy crap dude. Do your customers a favor, for the next month everytime you hang a TV, connect the TV to the internet and show the customer the apps.  Sign them up for a Pandora, Netflix, Vudu.  Watch their faces light up.  Then come back here and give us an update of what your customers think the future is.

You are missing the point. First to your question “Does it matter if quality is not as good as the physical media?” for the guy that goes to a CI firm in order to get a big ISF calibrated image it obviously does. Now if we are discussing the trailer park trash on welfare that wants to waste 50h a week watching movies on their 20” TV the answer is most likely no but then they don’t really need a CI, Wal-Mart is what they want.

As to your red-state, blue-state stuff you are missing the point, OK let’s say you say FU to the people in the more rural part of the red states, what part of the pop of the US is that? What happens to the red (or blue) state person that has a second place in the country (a cottage as it is called here, like my sister and several of my friends)? The snow birds with places in Florida (or the Carolinas) (like the condos, my friend as well as many retired people I know own) , how about people, like my dad, with an apartment/house/villa in the old country, the guys with an RV (I don’t know any) that drive around or move their vacation spot every year ..... now you have to eliminate that part of the population because they might not be willing to pay high prices for high speed internet in more than one location. Now how about the poor that might be willing to pay for internet but not for the highest speed possible (why pay 150$ a month for 120mbps (the highest my ISP offers) when for 3mbps it is 30$. The issue is that by the end of it you eliminate way too big of a percentage of the population and from absolutely all walks of life and colours (red or blue).
Now don’t get me wrong, maybe some of these people will rent using Netflix streaming when at home, but if they buy and want to bring it with them on their brake streaming/DL might not make sense.

Streaming can be mainstream but before physical media disappears all of that needs to be resolved and that won’t happen any time soon like 39 thinks

DirecTV. Many VOD movies are 1080p.

Apple TV. Granted only 720p, but it's really good enough for the unwashed masses, plus the rumor mill is hinting about a 1080p version to go with the iPad 3.

Could the average person really tell the difference between 720p and 1080p?

Anthony is standing at the edge of his driveway waving his fist at the guy installing fiber in his neighborhood right now.

You literally have no idea what you're talking about.  You need to leave this industry immediately, you are doomed for failure.  Please send me a list of all of your customers so I can sell them what they actually want.  I'll send you all of the customers who call me to connect a VCR and a CD player.
 

I don't know the number, but it's not too many. Hence the term "rural". 


|What happens to the red (or blue) state person that has a second place in the country (a cottage as it is called here, like my sister and several of my friends)? The snow birds with places in Florida (or the Carolinas) (like the condos, my friend as well as many retired people I know own) , how about people, like my dad, with an apartment/house/villa in the old country, the guys with an RV (I don’t know any) that drive around or move their vacation spot every year .....
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RV parks have free internet access. As for snowbirds and retirees, they'll be dead soon.  They're not the market. 

|now you have to eliminate that part of the population because they might not be willing to pay high prices for high speed internet in more than one location.
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Let's see, you can pay $50 per month for internet, pay $8. per month for Netflix, and you watch a movie every night for a month. (and you get full internet access)  Your monthly bill is $58.00.  If you rent the movie from Blockbuster, you spend $2.99 per movie x 30 days. That's roughly $90 per month, + travel expenses.  If you buy the movie, you'll pay approx. $15. per movie x30 movies, that's $450 per month+travel expenses.  Which one makes more financial sense to you?



|Now how about the poor that might be willing to pay for internet but not for the highest speed possible (why pay 150$ a month for 120mbps (the highest my ISP offers) when for 3mbps it is 30$.
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I've got a speed of 8mbs.  It's the cheapest service my provider offers.  I watch movies on Vudu at least twice a week. No problem.


|The issue is that by the end of it you eliminate way too big of a percentage of the population and from absolutely all walks of life and colours (red or blue).
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You haven't really eliminated anybody because the people you're describing are not movie renters.  They're NCIS viewers.