Downloadable Films... How Will This technology Impact The Future of HT?

[Robin]

So I just saw the "60 Minutes" report this past Sunday about "Netflix" and it got me thinking... In the report it was revealed that movies will be downloaded (rented) in the future over the Internet, which with current technology takes about an hour to download a (Non HD) two hour film. The report also mentioned that the slim device unit / technology download machine, which links your computer to your HT would become available in about a year or so... I have many, many questions here are some:

1). Do you plan to purchase use this new technology? i. e., have this slim device / technology intergrated in your system? And if so, do you plan to have a dedicated external or internal hard drive for this purpose (much the same as some of you do for your music collections)?

2). Do you forsee any down side to this process of downloading movies instead of renting a DVD, like power failures disrupting the download process or computer crashs etc...?

3). Which company would you expect to offer the very best slim device / download transfer machine in the next year, would it be a computer company like Apple, Dell or Gateway? or a audio company Pioneer, Acram, Anthem etc.?

4). Will DVD's become obselete? Will the films able to be downloaded be offered in HD? How long will it take to download a 25 gig HD film? Several days or what? Should I consider selling my 800 DVD's now in anticipation of having all of my films on external hard drives plugged into my HT system via the transfer device download machine connected to my computer?

5). Are you planning to purchase another computer with the movie slim device / down load transfer machine for combined exclusive HT usage? or will you just use your main home PC in combination with the special download device machine?

6). How many times would you be able to watch the downloaded film per rental?


7). How is this going to be an improvement to HT from what we are currently using today? Will it offer better picture 1080p or sound DTS-ES 10:2? Will we need to once again up-grad our HT Processors to acomidate the higher quality computer Internet downloaded films?

Check out this web-site, which already one can rent / download films:



http://www.movielink.com/store/web/help/eLanding.jsp



Can anyone refer me to an Internet site / link - with some of the "new computer connection transfer / download interconnect machines", which links your computer to your HT? How much will they cost? Are their high-end versions vs. cheapy models? I would really like to check them out or maybe they have not been developed or are not for sale yet?

Will this process of Downloading Films also apply to Video Gaming as well? Like the XBox 360 and Sony's PS3? Would Sony start offering instead of a Blue-Ray PS3 ~ a Downloadable compliant PS3 version?

 

[Munster]

I remember reading that the film will be stored on your system for a

certain period of time and then a virus kicks in and destroys it (Mission

Impossible like?)

All I know is the demand on Bandwidth in the coming years is going to

skyrocket, which is why I bought the stock LVLT.

 

[socialxray]

I remember reading that the film will be stored on your system for a

certain period of time and then a virus kicks in and destroys it (Mission

Impossible like?)

All I know is the demand on Bandwidth in the coming years is going to

skyrocket, which is why I bought the stock LVLT.

Technically it is not a virus. It is the DRM scheme and would work like the DRM we see for music where the content provider can control just about every aspect of playback if they choose to do so.

Robin, I wouldn't make any rash moves yet. The technology is there but the usability and reliability of it will take some time to sort out.

Keep your DVDs. Most likely you will not be able to view the movies that you have purchased on a permanent basis. There will be a time limit involved when it comes to most movies.

Some of this stuff is already available. Actually sometime this month Xbox 360 owners will be able to start purchasing HD and SD content via Xbox Live and playback this content on their TVs.

 

[Charliemike]

I can watch HD on Demand right now through Comcast and it looks damned good.

I don't know that this is going to happen because there's too much entrenched interest in making sure old out-dated formats and business models stick around despite better things being available or possible.

 

[IWalker]

I think bandwidth with have a lot to do with this now too. If I can't download a movie in 5 minutes, I won't download it for a rental fee. It's hard to control the download speeds people will have from their machines...you will need a TON of bandwidth to allow thousands of millions of people to be simultaneously downloading.

Also, I prefer navigating with my DVD player more than my computer (even though I have a firefly remote that works very well) Once media center pcs are more prevalent, and have a few more advancements, that will help this downloading take off more.

I personally like having a transportable medium with music or movies on it...so I buy CDs and DVDs.
I like having each one seperate (more for movies than music) rather than having some limitation by total HD space. While I could fit all the music I ever want on a large HD, this isn't really the case yet for movies...especially the higher def movies. As larger storage sizes become the norm, this should also help this take off.

I'm not sure of the quality...but I generally don't download music because the quality isn't there (it's almost all encoded to save space) if the same is done with movies, I'd rather spend the time to go rent the movie than watch a low quality version of it.


So, I think there's a future in it...but until some advances are made...I just don't feel the technology is there to do it effectively yet. It'll probably get a cult following, but not really go mainstream for a while.