Digital Distribution

[Peter Paltridge]

Some think that in the future, the same fate will come upon movies that came upon music. Nowadays, people store all their tunes as digital memory in handheld devices and hard drives. So it stands to reason that as connections get faster, we'll be doing the same with film, right?

I kinda hope not.

I don't mind the iPod craze because I never cared what music was stored in to begin with. I've never been "into" music and all I've heard I've gotten from the radio--so I've basically been an iPod person since 1987.

But video is different. I like what DVDs have brought to the world. I want things like commentaries, documentaries and behind-the-scenes features to stay. I like getting a big colorful box stuffed with over six hours of material. And I like the fact that it's permanently pressed and is a longer investment than a DVR stolen off a torrent site would be.

If we start seeing movies available for $3.99 a download on some corporate site in the future, and that takes off, studios will have less incentive to produce extra bonuses to get us to buy their latest offerings. Everything that DVDs have brought to cinema would be taken away by the direct download system. And I'd be a saaaaaad panda.

 

[Wanted]

I doubt it would happen. Serious collectors want to be able to watch a movie on a huge screen, and not on some 3 inch toy. And, whoever's got the time to watch a movie on the go should have a portable DVD player... or a PSP. As of right now, the only things that appeal to the mainstream are movie clips... not whole movies themselves.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

I doubt it would happen. Serious collectors want to be able to watch a movie on a huge screen, and not on some 3 inch toy. And, whoever's got the time to watch a movie on the go should have a portable DVD player... or a PSP. As of right now, the only things that appeal to the mainstream are movie clips... not whole movies themselves.

I was speaking in terms of the future. When downloading movies, real-size, would be as fast as downloading music.....what then?

 

[Wanted]

Well... you wouldn't really be able to do much with it other than play it... sure, there's the option of "logging in" and accessing your purchased videos (wherever that may be... there's no current technology like that), but I'd say there'd be nothing to worry about. People will still want to be able to record their sports and TV shows, and that's what's going to keep DVD / Blu-ray (most likely the latter) in the game.

 

[Swordfish_II]

I'd much rather have some portability to my movies, rather than only being able to see it on a computer or a single TV. Plus if a hard drive crashes, I wouldn't want to lose all my stuff.

 

[Mynd Hed]

Another thing to take into account, though, is that hard drive space is getting cheaper all the time. All an iPod really is, is an external hard drive with a headphone jack, a relatively simple interface, and (most recently) a dedicated video screen attached. The sizes of those hard drives will just get bigger and bigger while the prices get smaller and smaller, and it certainly wouldn't be too terribly difficult to slap an S-Video-Out jack (and, later on, whatever the heck the current high-end digital video out jack is) as well so that you can plug it in to a big-screen TV rather than watching it on the little iPod screen or your computer monitor.
In fact, there are external hard drives available now that do pretty much what I've just described, and while as of right now they're still pretty expensive even by iPod-loving-tech-geek standards, that'll change. It might come sooner or it might come later, but it'll happen.

I don't see why that has to mean the death of special features, though. I mean, right now, for most movies you can buy a barebones DVD for ten or fifteen bucks, or you can buy the deluxe edition for twenty or twenty-five. So what's stopping distributors from releasing a barebones movie download with just the movie alongside a more expensive deluxe download with commentaries, behind-the-scenes, etc?

 

[Roman Legion]

Hard drives aren't a problem at all, right now. Bandwidth is the killer.

--Romey

 

[FredNash]

Here's an article you guys might find interesting:

Switched On: All the President's Discs

"Waswitchedon Post news desk. Karl Burnstein speaking."

"I know all about Microsoft and HD DVD."

"Who is this?"

"Call me… 'Disc Bloat.'"

"Yeah, well, whoever you are, that's yesterday's news. Everyone knows that Microsoft went with HD DVD in order to cause grief for Sony, and especially wanted iHD for interactivity since the equivalent Blu-ray specification is based on Java."

"You're wrong, Burnstein. Microsoft doesn't want HD DVD to win."

"Huh? Then why are they backing it?"

"Follow the money."

"What do you mean?"

"Microsoft wants both Blu-ray and HD DVD to lose. You see, before Microsoft and Intel backed HD DVD, Toshiba was just about the only major consumer hardware brand backing HD DVD. Now, since Microsoft and Intel have hopped on to the HD DVD bandwagon and at least dragged HP part of the way there, HD DVD has become a much more viable option."

"So, like I said, Microsoft wants HD DVD to win."

"No. Microsoft knows that even with its and Intel's support, the standard isn't strong enough to beat Blu-ray in the marketplace per se. However, with them on board, HD DVD is just strong enough so that there's a good chance that neither standard will be able to claim a clear victory..."
"How is that good for Microsoft?"

"Simple. Microsoft really has nothing to gain from either format winning. Just listen to any of Gates' recent interviews and how he talks about discs as a necessary evil until the world is ready for media-free distribution. That said, Microsoft has much to gain from both formats losing. Think back to the format war between DVD-Audio and SACD. Both formats lost and it was a computer company that stepped in to become the new center of the digital music universe.

"Microsoft was a bit late to the game for that one, but it's making a big investment into securing Windows Vista for Hollywood as well as ensuring that Portable Media Centers work with DirecTV set-tops. Microsoft gets to sell DRM software and Windows Mobile licenses so that consumers can take this stuff on the go. All of that is a lot less likely if the content is trapped in a 5-inch round jail, regardless of which camp is the warden.

"Once video is distributed completely digitally, Microsoft and Intel benefit by it being managed through the PC and Microsoft gets to sell its own codecs to optimize quality versus compression. On a 50 GB disc, Sony and others have the luxury of using older, less efficient codecs such as MPEG-2."

"Wow, that sure is in an interesting theory you've got there. How far up Microsoft does it go?"

"All the way to the big man."

"The big man? Ballmer? Gates?"

"Sasquatch."

All rumor and heresay of course, but still an interesting perspective...

 

[MDawg]

Hard drives aren't a problem at all, right now. Bandwidth is the killer.

--Romey

Give it 10 years or so. Verizon is already pushing their FIOS service in the US, which has a huge level of expandibility, and other countries have up to gigabit speeds for home users. And then there's Google, which is supposedly buying up thousands of miles of dark fiber networks in the US for something. This would allow for terrabit speeds should it come to fruition.

10 years and digital distribution could be the rule, not the exception. Sure people will still want packaged media, but I see that more for a collector's market. Extra features can easily be included if you have the proper bandwidth. It's just a matter of the technology catching up is all.

 

[Silly McGooses]

I guess I'm already a cranky old man at 16, but I kinda...don't want this to happen, though I guess it is indeed inevitable. I like having something tangible, like a DVD in nice packaging. I like enjoying the wait for a DVD to come out then driving the store and getting excited to watch it. Somehow...I don't know, this whole thing wouldn't feel right to me. I guess it would be very convenient though, to download movies to your TV. Another excuse to stay on your arse and never move.

 

[Swordfish_II]

I'd still rather have discs or whatever they're using by then.

I mean, what if whatever company I use to download movies from goes out of buisness? Does that mean I lose all the movies I bought? I'd need assurances like this before anything.

 

[Bones Justice]

I'm all for it assuming I could actually transfer the data to my own storage. Once I buy it, it's mine to keep or delete as I see fit.

Personally, I don't care about extras but I think this would be the best of both worlds. People like me that just want the shows could get them with no delay. People that want the extras could download them as they came out. And you know how these things are -- anything that was a popular download, they would be trying to sell you filler, er, sorry, extras after that.

I think the greatest thing about this idea is that hopefully, even obscure video that has no real chance for a DVD release would be available for download.

 

[Wanted]

If that's the case... I'd be all for it. As long as I can move the shows around... say, watch shows stored in my hard drive on my television and other portable devices (like Windows Media Center), I'm not against such a thing happening. Though, it really would take some of the enjoyment of keeping a physical media collection away.