Future Format To Replace Blu-Ray??

[Messiah]

So it was announced recently that Disney has agreed a deal that will see its films distributed on Micro SD card (albeit in Japan) and other companies have announced deals to release films on USB. Now at present the quality of these is certainly not up to HD standards and they are expensive but how long will it be until the costs come down??

Is this the next viable format??

How long until we just walk into any shop with a 'film vending machine' and are able to purchase a Full HD film with 7.1 audio and have it put straight on a USB stick?

 

[The_Lhc]

I'm not sure you ever will, what's the largest USB drive/memory card you can get at the moment? 32Gb? That's some way behind Blu-ray, especially with 100Gb blu-ray coming out soon. Personally I think by the time Blu-Ray dies, say 7 to 10 years from now, download speeds will be enough to allow HD films to be downloaded straight to home.

So the next format? DDD - Direct Digital Download.

 

[manicm]

Messiah I think it's inevitable - nobody will want disc-based AV content anymore.

the_lhc - indeed there are >32GB flash drives and your average Blu-ray movie doesn't fill this up I'm sure. And capacities are ever increasing.

 

[laserman16]

There was an article on BBC Click a few weeks ago that was talking of 250gb usb sticks which should solve the capacity problem.

 

[Anonymous]

manicm: Messiah I think it's inevitable - nobody will want disc-based AV content anymore.

the_lhc - indeed there are >32GB flash drives and your average Blu-ray movie doesn't fill this up I'm sure. And capacities are ever increasing.

That will be correct for watch&bin movies. But for good ones disc still will be the cheapest storage format for 10-15 years at least.

 

[Messiah]

But with the ever increasing HDD sizes for less and less money, you could go into a shop and download a film to USB stick and transport it to the HDD......

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

Messiah:

So it was announced recently that Disney has agreed a deal that will see its films distributed on Micro SD card (albeit in Japan) and other companies have announced deals to release films on USB. Now at present the quality of these is certainly not up to HD standards and they are expensive but how long will it be until the costs come down??

Is this the next viable format??

How long until we just walk into any shop with a 'film vending machine' and are able to purchase a Full HD film with 7.1 audio and have it put straight on a USB stick?

Pretending to be normal again eh.And I suppose at the end of the thread you are going to come up with the answer before it is invented.

 

[Anonymous]

Messiah:But with the ever increasing HDD sizes for less and less money, you could go into a shop and download a film to USB stick and transport it to the HDD......

Maybe... But I am sure that you still will pay the same money as for bluray disc 🙂 Unfortunately movie and music prices have nothing to do with storage format 🙁

 

[manicm]

ediots:

Messiah:But with the ever increasing HDD sizes for less and less money, you could go into a shop and download a film to USB stick and transport it to the HDD......

Maybe... But I am sure that you still will pay the same money as for bluray disc 🙂 Unfortunately movie and music prices have nothing to do with storage format 🙁

If I can fit a full HD a movie on a USB stick to take home I'd willingly pay - what's in a Blu-ray case anyway?? Some come with no leaflets anyway - and the cases are ugly!

 

[simonlewis]

I can't imagine blu-ray USB sticks & micro SD cards arriving in the post in a cardboard box from amazon.

The micro SD card is about the size of a postage stamp, how would the postman be able to read the address on it.

 

[Anonymous]

manicm:ediots:

Messiah:But with the ever increasing HDD sizes for less and less money, you could go into a shop and download a film to USB stick and transport it to the HDD......

Maybe... But I am sure that you still will pay the same money as for bluray disc 🙂 Unfortunately movie and music prices have nothing to do with storage format 🙁

If I can fit a full HD a movie on a USB stick to take home I'd willingly pay - what's in a Blu-ray case anyway?? Some come with no leaflets anyway - and the cases are ugly!

And then you will pay for a movie and for a storage space. Whats is wrong to take home bluray disc and then rip it to hdd? You can do it already today. If do not need disc or case, just sell it, will get back money. Can you re-sell movie on usb stick? No, I still think that disc (cd, dvd, bluray) is quite good as content storage and transport - cheap and easy to use.

 

[Anonymous]

i've seen 64Gb and 128Gb usb sticks around so capacity is more than there. the problem i can see with usb sticks though is the read throughput, i'm not sure it would be good enough for HD audio at a max 480Mbps on usb 2. can't see it quite catching on especially with the cost of that size of memory stick besides; it's probably some movie industry con to extact more money out of the public!

 

[manicm]

ediots:manicm:ediots:

Messiah:But with the ever increasing HDD sizes for less and less money, you could go into a shop and download a film to USB stick and transport it to the HDD......

Maybe... But I am sure that you still will pay the same money as for bluray disc 🙂 Unfortunately movie and music prices have nothing to do with storage format 🙁

If I can fit a full HD a movie on a USB stick to take home I'd willingly pay - what's in a Blu-ray case anyway?? Some come with no leaflets anyway - and the cases are ugly!

And then you will pay for a movie and for a storage space. Whats is wrong to take home bluray disc and then rip it to hdd? You can do it already today. If do not need disc or case, just sell it, will get back money. Can you re-sell movie on usb stick? No, I still think that disc (cd, dvd, bluray) is quite good as content storage and transport - cheap and easy to use.

Rip a Blu-ray disc to HDD in full HD glory? That's funny - please enlighten us - how? I'd love to know.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Messiah:

How
long until we just walk into any shop with a 'film vending machine' and
are able to purchase a Full HD film with 7.1 audio and have it put
straight on a USB stick?

Well, Universal and Sony previewed this machine at last year's Stuff show (November 2008) - it would sell you either physical Blu-ray/DVD discs or a download onto memory stick. There was talk of it being in cinema lobbies etc - can't say i've seen it yet...

 

[Messiah]

Don't get me wrong, I know there are limitations now. But with the rate technology progresses I'm sure it is not too far away.

(As an aside, does anybody know if the technology involved in getting data off a USB stick would yield better/worse results than data being retrieved from a spinning disc via a laser??)

 

[The_Lhc]

Messiah: Don't get me wrong, I know there are limitations now. But with the rate technology progresses I'm sure it is not too far away.

Well that's my point, with the rate technology is advancing, why would anyone want to walk into a shop to get a film, when they should be able to just download it, or even just watch it on demand (after all, Sky is 1080i and DD5.1, it's not THAT much of a leap to get to 1080p and TrueHD, for example), there and then? Much more convenient.

It's not just the format of the media that's in question, the whole idea of a physical media based delivery system is almost obsolete.

 

[Anonymous]

manicm:

Rip a Blu-ray disc to HDD in full HD glory? That's funny - please enlighten us - how? I'd love to know.

Do not know details because not using bluray myself, but looks that, for example, this software can do the job. http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

 

[Messiah]

the_lhc:

Well that's my point, with the rate technology is advancing, why would anyone want to walk into a shop to get a film, when they should be able to just download it, or even just watch it on demand (after all, Sky is 1080i and DD5.1, it's not THAT much of a leap to get to 1080p and TrueHD, for example), there and then? Much more convenient.

It's not just the format of the media that's in question, the whole idea of a physical media based delivery system is almost obsolete.

True, true. I think this will definitely start to account for perhaps the majority of viewing.

However, I think there will always be a requirement for physical media. What format will it take??

 

[manicm]

the_lhc:

Messiah: Don't get me wrong, I know there are limitations now. But with the rate technology progresses I'm sure it is not too far away.

Well that's my point, with the rate technology is advancing, why would anyone want to walk into a shop to get a film, when they should be able to just download it, or even just watch it on demand (after all, Sky is 1080i and DD5.1, it's not THAT much of a leap to get to 1080p and TrueHD, for example), there and then? Much more convenient.

It's not just the format of the media that's in question, the whole idea of a physical media based delivery system is almost obsolete.

Bandwidth in many countries will be a problem for years yet - and in the States carriers are already beginning to cap users - the days of infinite downloading seems numbered. So simply downloading a 30GB file simply won't be an option.

As an interim measure taking a portable hard drive/USB stick to your local store to purchase a 'soft' copy to transfer to your HDD/PC/Player at home would be a perfectly viable solution.

 

[manicm]

ediots:

manicm:

Rip a Blu-ray disc to HDD in full HD glory? That's funny - please enlighten us - how? I'd love to know.

Do not know details because not using bluray myself, but looks that, for example, this software can do the job. http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

'AnyDVD HD comes with same functionality as AnyDVD, but with additional features for full Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD support, including decryption of Blu-ray (BD+ and AACS) and HD DVD (AACS) movies.

Allows you to watch movies over a digital display connection, without HDCP-compliant graphics card and without HDCP-compilant display. No need to buy an expensive monitor. Sweet!

Playback your discs on your PC with PowerDVD Ultra, which otherwise do not run (titles released by Studio Canal, The Weinstein Company, Kinowelt, Optimum Releasing).

AnyDVD HD is the "must have" utility for the serious home theater enthusiast using a media center / home theater PC.

Another amazing feature of AnyDVD HD is "magic file replacementT". Remaster any commercial movie disc using simple XML scripts. These scripts will "magically" replace the files on the physical disc. You can customize discs as you like without even making a copy to harddisk!

AnyDVD comes with its own UDF 2.5 file ripper, no need to install 3rd party UDF 2.5 filesystem under Windows XP.
'

So if you read carefully you'd note that this software does not let you rip Blurays in any shape or form but simply bypasses copy protection on the display interface i.e. to allow one to view the movie on your PC on various displays but ALWAYS WITH THE DISC.

 

[Anonymous]

the_lhc:

It's not just the format of the media that's in question, the whole idea of a physical media based delivery system is almost obsolete.

Do not rush, still long way to go. Recently read interesting experiment in Republic of South Africa where pigeon delivered 4gb usb stick about 100km in 2 hours (including upload-download data). Upload using ADSL gave only 4% of that. It is not quite correct comparing because public servers connected to internet in different way, but anyway, you can check yourself how much time do you need to download that amount of data. And how much time it takes for bluray movie? But for pigeon that still will be the same...

Other thing is... backup. You will not want to keep your thousand pounds worth collection on a single hdd, do you? Another big hdd at least. And if we going to use cheap recordable discs (which actually not very safe), why just not get movie on them at first place?

And about playback experience, that noisy and not cheap at all computer is only transport, still need a proper decoding hardware. Best thing what industry can do will be to equip disc based hardware with usb or any other digital input. That will be smooth transfer and everybody will be happy. But there is not even cd players in market who can play wav or flac files from usb, only this ipod craziness. Do not me wrong, I am not against digital delivery, I just recently copied my cd collection to computer and can see that there are as many weaknesses as advantages. Copmuter is noisy and I need a monitor to manage songs, bye-bye late night listening. Maybe with movies this story is different.

 

[Anonymous]

manicm:ediots:

manicm:

Rip a Blu-ray disc to HDD in full HD glory? That's funny - please enlighten us - how? I'd love to know.

Do not know details because not using bluray myself, but looks that, for example, this software can do the job. http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html

So if you read carefully you'd note that this software does not let you rip Blurays in any shape or form but simply bypasses copy protection on the display interface i.e. to allow one to view the movie on your PC on various displays but ALWAYS WITH THE DISC.

All right, I am not a person who will tell how, not so much interested in movies and I do not have equipment for it. Just put in google 'how to rip blu ray movies' and you will have long list. At least torrent sities are full with movies from bluray source.

 

[The_Lhc]

ediots:the_lhc: It's not just the format of the media that's in question, the whole idea of a physical media based delivery system is almost obsolete.

Other thing is... backup. You will not want to keep your thousand pounds worth collection on a single hdd, do you? Another big hdd at least. And if we going to use cheap recordable discs (which actually not very safe), why just not get movie on them at first place?

You're STILL missing the point. YOU won't need to keep a copy at all! Take something like Sky Movies for instance, do you download the film from them and keep a copy of it? No, you just watch it, you don't need to take a backup. It'll be the same regardless of how the content is delivered, whether it's satellite or net based.

And about playback experience, that noisy and not cheap at all computer is only transport, still need a proper decoding hardware. Best thing what industry can do will be to equip disc based hardware with usb or any other digital input. That will be smooth transfer and everybody will be happy. But there is not even cd players in market who can play wav or flac files from usb, only this ipod craziness. Do not me wrong, I am not against digital delivery, I just recently copied my cd collection to computer and can see that there are as many weaknesses as advantages. Copmuter is noisy and I need a monitor to manage songs, bye-bye late night listening. Maybe with movies this story is different.

Why would anyone want to watch a movie on their computer? Do you need a PC for Sky? Of course not and you won't need one in the future. Sooner or later the idea of using a PC for watching films or listening to music is going to be looked on a ludicrous. Your screen will be able to connect to the content provider directly and you just watch whatever you want, we're only 1 or maybe 1.5 generations tops away from doing that NOW, we've already got TVs will built-in HD satellite decoders. Like I said, Full HD delivery isn't that much more of a leap. And it WILL happen, bandwidth is only an issue now, eventually legacy cabling will be replaced and with improvements in compression algorithms it just won't be an issue. Ethernet's already at 10Gbit/s. The idea of cabling the world isn't that far-fetched. We've already done it twice, after all...

 

[Anonymous]

the_lhc:

You're STILL missing the point. YOU won't need to keep a copy at all! Take something like Sky Movies for instance, do you download the film from them and keep a copy of it? No, you just watch it, you don't need to take a backup. It'll be the same regardless of how the content is delivered, whether it's satellite or net based.

🙂 No, that actually is my point, I want my collection to be here, my home, in safety and always accessible when I want it, and how often I want it, and I want to pay for it only once.

 

[Anonymous]

the_lhc:

Why would anyone want to watch a movie on their computer? Do you need a PC for Sky? Of course not and you won't need one in the future. Sooner or later the idea of using a PC for watching films or listening to music is going to be looked on a ludicrous. Your screen will be able to connect to the content provider directly and you just watch whatever you want, we're only 1 or maybe 1.5 generations tops away from doing that NOW, we've already got TVs will built-in HD satellite decoders. Like I said, Full HD delivery isn't that much more of a leap. And it WILL happen, bandwidth is only an issue now, eventually legacy cabling will be replaced and with improvements in compression algorithms it just won't be an issue. Ethernet's already at 10Gbit/s. The idea of cabling the world isn't that far-fetched. We've already done it twice, after all...

Computer here is just thing who act as player, you can call that piece of hardware in any other name.

Here we not must to mix two different things - constant traffic and generated traffic. Satelite (SD or HD does not matter) is a content with fixed traffic - you can watch it or not to watch. With internet (any network) things are different - there always will be issues, ALWAYS. Very simple reason - more service generate more users, more users generate more traffic. Think about it like that - 100 people watching movie from satelite, that is constant traffic. 100 people can choose which movie to watch - is that still will be the same traffic? No, I am not so optimistic about content on demand. As more content we will have from what to choose as more problems with traffic we get. Most of them will decide to watch something different (or maybe I am too optimistic).