Spidey BluRay sales disapointing.

[pixelthis]

What would be cool is if you could set the projector up to where the screen was on the ceiling so when you layed down in bed you see the picture in front of you. Maybe you could just paint the ceiling in a certain way to where no screen was needed.

Laying on your back and watching vid is not cool, trust me on this.
A mirror might work better, depending on the state of your marrigage.
I have a friend who likes his TV WAYYY up the wall, tilted down, thinks its "natural"
to lay back and look up, but its actually irritating as hell, gets old in a hurry, so much for amateur ergonomics engineers.
And happy new year to you Mr p, may your tubes glow bright.
Tell me, do you have a horse because youy like the ride better?

[Mr Peabody]

No horses here. Happy New Year to all. We have CES coming up soon, hopefully there will be some news and gedgets to catch our interest.

[pixelthis]

No horses here. Happy New Year to all. We have CES coming up soon, hopefully there will be some news and gedgets to catch our interest.

You know the CEDA was canceled, dont you?
That was the dealer show.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I WONDER if its a comprehension problem, or maybe we're not speaking the same language or something.
When I refer to VOD I am , for the LAST TIME , talking about CABLE SYSTEMS!!!
You want to talk about "bandwidth"?
The ENTIRE cable modem service (1,5 mps) is located BETWEEN channel 3 and 4!

Cable systems are no more immune to bandwidth issues than the internet itself. When you speak of the ENTIRE cable modem service at 1.5mhz located between channels 3 and 4, you are only speaking about standard definition signals only. HD requires 3-4 times the bandwidth of standard definition signals. VOD of HD signals requires from 200mbps to 1.5gbps, far more than analog cables 1.5mbps. The amount of spectrum required by a cable system in a medium to large city with a 40% customer base is about 750mhz. When you add 10 channels of HD signals to that, it goes up above 1.5ghz effectively doubling the bandwidth. Increasing bandwidth to accomodate the increased bitrate is neither cheap, or easy to do.

My Cable service has installed a state of the art fiber-optic system in the last few years.
When you buy (or rent a free one) movie the picture is every bit as good, or better than a DVD, most but not all have DD 5.1, all have at least DD 2.

Unfortunately your assertions just are not correct. The amount of compression applied to these signals far outstrips that of DVD. Also the average television size in americans homes has gone from 25-32" to 40" to 50"+. Compression problems that normally would not seen on a 32" 480i/p are much more visible on a 40-50" 720p or 1080p/i

You get access to the product you buy for 24hrs , you can fast foward , rewind, pause,
whatever you like, and the HD product is every bit as good as broadcast, doubt its as good as Blu or even HDDVD, but it doesnt have to be.

Unfortunately the resolution of bluray and HD DVD is the new benchmark. Broadcast is not something you want to compare anything to, much of what we are currently seeing does not even come close to using the full bandwidth of the system(19.4mbps). That bandwidth is currently being split between two and three digital channels effective giving only a average of 14.4mbps for both audio and video to their main channel.

I am not familar with the playstation, dont care to be, but the fact that its as good as it is speaks vollumes.
And you talk about a 130" screen? Where do you live... MARS?
I dont know ANYBODY who has a screen that big, I dont know that many with a screen
bigger than 50", you need to get back to the real world, where a 32" screen is the norm.

Just because YOU do not know anyone that does not have a television over 32" does not mean everyone has a television that size. This is a big country, and you could not possibly know what the percentage of users use a larger screens. According to NDP there are more televisions 40" and over being sold than 40" and under thanks to falling flat panel prices. The most popular size appears to be 42". So your assertion that 32" is the norm is only accurate in YOUR house. Statistics do not agree.

I havent used the vod much lately, working a lot over the holidays, and enjoying SCI-FI HD,
which looks pretty amazing. But I did watch a few a week ago, and enjoyed them greatly
I know you're a Sony/ Blu-ray shill, nothing wrong with that, but stop insinuating that when I talk about VOD I'm talking about downloading over a 56k modem or something.

I am no more a shill than you are, so I would appreciate you putting some panties on the name calling. That trick is for kids, unless that is exactly what you are. What looks pretty amazing to you may look like ****e to me. Your perspective does not set the standard for quality. Those of us that have both the monitor size and necessary resolution know that VOD is not the end all when it comes to video and sound quality. Now if it is for you, great, But I have seen VOD, and it is no competition to 1080p 24fps video on disc, and that is the standard it must reach to get folks like me to embrace it.

If you're in the industry like you claim , then you know just how good a VOD offering over
a fiber-optic cable system can be.

I am in the industry, but I do not agree with your assertion at all. If agreeing with your perspective is a lynchpin to you believing I work in the film industry, then do not believe that I work in this industry. I have seen FAR too much good video to reach downward and embrace resolution that is barely as good as downloads from XBOX live or ITunes.

I know that VOD is a direct competitor for market share with your product, at least as far as rental of movies is concerned, and that its a fantastic product NOW, and its just getting started.

Bluray is no more MY product than VOD is yours. VOD is not a competitor of any disc based format. There are far more titles released on disc than VOD. The people who use VOD are not disc purchasers. And VOD has been around exactly 10 years, and only represents $200 million dollars in revenue that it shares with downloads. Bluray and HD DVD disc generated 3.5 times that much revenue, and has a player/disc infrastructure roughly 7 times that that revenue after only a year and a half of existance. This is not a apples to apples comparison.

STOP trying, for the last time, to compare it to a net download, as far as I am concerned
you're being so disinformative that it borders on being propagandistic.

Both net downloads and VOD have roughly the same comparative specs. They both offer nothing in terms of true HD programming(1080p/i). Both only offer a maximum of 720p HD, low bitrate DD(320kbps), and are both offer VERY heavily compressed video and audio that its only comparison is broadcast television. Most programming offered on both is 480i. Based on this, it if far more propagandistic to even mention that one is better than the other. Only a ignorant fool would believe this. So you understand completely, and 32" television is not good enough to make a meaningful comparison, especially at the distances that most folks sit from the device. Even DVD with all of its warts looks good on a 32" television.

VOD over my CABLE, repeat ...CABLE (hear that) CABLE SYSTEM is great, and if your masters in the Blu ray camp and the oppossing side in the HDDVD camp dont get your
collective acts together your going to wake up one day and find that , except for collectors, VOD has stolen your lunch

My master is God himself, now cable may be yours, but neither bluray nor HD DVD govern my actions. VOD over YOUR cable is still only offering 720p HD, and 320kbps DD. The studios are not providing special video masters to your cable company which makes it look any better than any other cable company. The quality starts at the mastering and compression level, not at the fibre optic level, so there is nothing special happening with your cable company that net downloads cannot equal. As a matter of fact, net downloads have the potential to offer much better resolution than VOD HD, as a number of compression tools can be used for net downloads, and most cable boxes can only support either MPEG2 or MPEG4 but not both. As confused and muddled the HDM on disc is at this time, it is providing far more revenue to the studios than VOD and downloads combined, once again 3.5 times. The studios understand completely that VOD will not supplant Bluray or HD DVD(if it survives), and there is no way they are ready to abandon disc to VOD, there is just not enough revenue generated to make that happen. VOD is not growing, and neither is downloads. They have been hovering around $200m for about the last three years. DVD did 10 billion dollars for the studios, and the HDM on disc is pretty close to 2-2.5 billion. The customer base of cable may be growning, but it does not appear that folks are using VOD any more than they did in 2004. I do not think VOD is any threat to any disc based media, that is for sure.

So rather than get your overly emotional butt in a knot, you should look more at the statistical evidence than the little world that surrounds your living or bedroom as a basis for your claims.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

OH, I am "relaxed", there are people who cringe when they recall, a few decades ago, when I got UNRELAXED.
aND I know all about sir t, he doesnt bother me, the disinfo hes spreading bothers me.
Hes an industry "insider"? I hope that means he takes care of the coffee, and plugging in the projector for meetings.
Because if hes' telling his masters that that stuff like VOD will never be a threat,
well, it'll get funny in a few years.
And not everyone has a projector, for good reasons, if you think theres a "projector"
rvolution you're delusional, sorry.
Most will wait for wall size LCD, most wont want to bother with a projector.
AND a HT without a projector isnt just a "TV", snob, my 37in is in a small room, and my HT is every bit as good as yours, better because its not a major operation to check the weather

Pixel, use correct information to support the bull**** you spout. When you look at the evidence, research, and revenue generated VOD has NEVER been a threat to any disc based media. The laserdisc in 1994 generated more revenue than VOD has done in the last three years combined, and the laser disc was truely a niche product.

Cable has a looooooooooooooooooong way to go before it will even be in the same country as disc based media let alone the same ballpark in terms of revenue. That is a public fact, and because you spent three pennies to get suped up cable does not mean it is all of a sudden the bees knees. The studios will NEVER leave their cash cow for a clipped pig with lipstick. I am sorry, but your little testimony about how good cable is does not reflect the perspective of the majority of Americans, the facts, or hometheater hobbyist, or the DVD would be gone already, and HD DVD and Bluray would not have ever been released. You really need to get a grip on reality.

[Mr Peabody]

Several months ago I posted a thread in "news & rumors" that CEDIA was cancelled. CES is still happening. I know several dealers who plan to go and it will probably gain more interest this year since CEDIA was cancelled. The story I read said it was cancelled due to the expense of the thing and the dealers/manufacturers were opting for personal training and meetings. Yet, the Rocky Mountain show still goes big guns.

VOD is just a sales option for cable. No one really cared about the PPV portion until the recent advent of VOD where you can go in and pick a show to watch. If my kids wanted to see Sponge Bob at 8 pm just go to On Demand and find it. It was a nice feature. I never watched any movies like that because my cable company was lucky to have the movie in stereo and it wasn't any better than 480i. Cable varies from city to city in quality. There would be a lot of obstacles to over come for VOD to be any threat. One of the big ones is not everyone has, or wants, cable. They'd have to provide so many times the variety they do now and get it offered quicker. You can rent the video long before it ever hits PPV.

The only people who would pay for downloaded movies are computer geeks and maybe gamers. The biggest obstacle here is not everyone has a computer, and those who do either don't know how to download or don't care to, I fall in both catagories. I couldn't even get my firmware upgrade off Samsung's website, and, I really wanted that. Dealing with music on the computer is cumbersome. Be for real, downloading movies will not be mainstream even if all things were perfect. The only way downloading may work is if those behind it come up with another box. Something you can hook to the TV and plug into the wall and all one has to do to get a movie is push a button. Then I might be interested. This going to a website, finding it. clicking this and that hoping it downloads and once it does then knowing what to do with it and how to get it to my TV, forget that crap. I just think if this is my opinion what would be the opinion of most of the people who don't even have a HDTV. I don't see downloading replacing a disc either. I will rent a movie to see if I like it. If I feel it has enough entertainment value that I might watch it again, then I will buy it. The same if I ever downloaded, it would only be for a one time preview. Come on, you are talking about a country that needed a product to make using the VCR easier. You think downloading a movie will be mainstream? Do you think people are going to pay the Geek Squad a couple hundred bucks an hour to come out and download their movies?

[pixelthis]

Several months ago I posted a thread in "news & rumors" that CEDIA was cancelled. CES is still happening. I know several dealers who plan to go and it will probably gain more interest this year since CEDIA was cancelled. The story I read said it was cancelled due to the expense of the thing and the dealers/manufacturers were opting for personal training and meetings. Yet, the Rocky Mountain show still goes big guns.

VOD is just a sales option for cable. No one really cared about the PPV portion until the recent advent of VOD where you can go in and pick a show to watch. If my kids wanted to see Sponge Bob at 8 pm just go to On Demand and find it. It was a nice feature. I never watched any movies like that because my cable company was lucky to have the movie in stereo and it wasn't any better than 480i. Cable varies from city to city in quality. There would be a lot of obstacles to over come for VOD to be any threat. One of the big ones is not everyone has, or wants, cable. They'd have to provide so many times the variety they do now and get it offered quicker. You can rent the video long before it ever hits PPV.

The only people who would pay for downloaded movies are computer geeks and maybe gamers. The biggest obstacle here is not everyone has a computer, and those who do either don't know how to download or don't care to, I fall in both catagories. I couldn't even get my firmware upgrade off Samsung's website, and, I really wanted that. Dealing with music on the computer is cumbersome. Be for real, downloading movies will not be mainstream even if all things were perfect. The only way downloading may work is if those behind it come up with another box. Something you can hook to the TV and plug into the wall and all one has to do to get a movie is push a button. Then I might be interested. This going to a website, finding it. clicking this and that hoping it downloads and once it does then knowing what to do with it and how to get it to my TV, forget that crap. I just think if this is my opinion what would be the opinion of most of the people who don't even have a HDTV. I don't see downloading replacing a disc either. I will rent a movie to see if I like it. If I feel it has enough entertainment value that I might watch it again, then I will buy it. The same if I ever downloaded, it would only be for a one time preview. Come on, you are talking about a country that needed a product to make using the VCR easier. You think downloading a movie will be mainstream? Do you think people are going to pay the Geek Squad a couple hundred bucks an hour to come out and download their movies?

I guess this is the way its going to be, I talk about downloads over CABLE and people respond by talking about downloads over the friggin NET.
The space between channel 3 and 4 is the ENTIRE space allocvated to cable modems.
Thats it. What I meant by this is that the REST is available for regular channels, VOD
(what used to be called PPV ) and the like.
The fiber optic system being installed by cable companies has huge bandwidth and is upgradable, my system went fiber less than a decade ago, do you think they spent
millions of dollars for a system that is outdated already?
And mr p you talk about getting the "geek squad" to help with movie downloads, then talk about using the ondemand service, which is basically VOD.
And sure the quality isnt quite up to Blu-ray, who cares? ITS FINE FOR MOST.
Sir t, you old dinosaur, just keep chewing your cud, dont pay attention to that big rock
coming in over the horizon.
Downloading has changed the entire music industry, the only difference between
music and movies is bandwidth.
And maybe the average size of a screen is 40" now instead of 32" , again, who cares?
Its still a far cry from 130", which is almost eleven feet!!!
The quality of my VOD (again, OVER CABLE) IS VERY GOOD, AND THE hd IS 1080I
Really shows what you know when you denigrate HD vod by saying its "only" 720P,
WHICH is actually higher resolution than 1080i
Rear projection TV (with CRT) used to be a major player, I had a panny 47in, paid two grand for it, about what a 15" LCD cost. Who would want one of those?
The time? the distant past? Try FIVE years ago.
HD was a "gimmick" ten years ago, now its the coming thing.
They sold 300 million CD's in 1992, how many did they sell last year?
The future of rental is summed up by one word, SERVERS.
There will always be movie collectors, just like collectors of other things.
But oil has hit over a hundred bucks a barrel, the optimistic prediction for gas this spring is 3.50-4.00 a gallon, if you think they will keep making shiny discs out of this precious
resource so it can deliver something you can get over a wire, you're dreaming.
Movie collecting is going to be the major market for "hard copy" media, and a lot of people who do keep movies will keep them on Harddrive or solid state.
They already have solid state camcorders and laptops.
What I am saying basically is that digital wasnt just the CD, the CD was just a harbinger
of the future, a radically new way of processing, storing, and displaying information.
And the digital revolution is far from over.
Gone are the days when there will be a form of media that everybody will use, like VHS
and DVD, HARD copy media will be strictly for libaries and collectors.
What I have been saying is that the "format" war is like the Falklands war was described,
"two bald men fighting over a comb".
In other words being the next DVD isnt going to be like being the LAST DVD, and after spending hundreds of millions the "winner" isnt going to be as rich as he thinks.
And the phrase , Sir t, "company shill" is a totally acceptable way of describing company spokespeople, get you heart off of your sleeve and pull your lower lip back in.
And finally, you may be surprized that unlike you, most men , including myself, don't wear "panties"

[JSE]

I guess this is the way its going to be, I talk about downloads over CABLE and people respond by talking about downloads over the friggin NET.
The space between channel 3 and 4 is the ENTIRE space allocvated to cable modems.
Thats it. What I meant by this is that the REST is available for regular channels, VOD
(what used to be called PPV ) and the like.
The fiber optic system being installed by cable companies has huge bandwidth and is upgradable, my system went fiber less than a decade ago, do you think they spent
millions of dollars for a system that is outdated already?
And mr p you talk about getting the "geek squad" to help with movie downloads, then talk about using the ondemand service, which is basically VOD.
And sure the quality isnt quite up to Blu-ray, who cares? ITS FINE FOR MOST.
Sir t, you old dinosaur, just keep chewing your cud, dont pay attention to that big rock
coming in over the horizon.
Downloading has changed the entire music industry, the only difference between
music and movies is bandwidth.
And maybe the average size of a screen is 40" now instead of 32" , again, who cares?
Its still a far cry from 130", which is almost eleven feet!!!
The quality of my VOD (again, OVER CABLE) IS VERY GOOD, AND THE hd IS 1080I
Really shows what you know when you denigrate HD vod by saying its "only" 720P,
WHICH is actually higher resolution than 1080i
Rear projection TV (with CRT) used to be a major player, I had a panny 47in, paid two grand for it, about what a 15" LCD cost. Who would want one of those?
The time? the distant past? Try FIVE years ago.
HD was a "gimmick" ten years ago, now its the coming thing.
They sold 300 million CD's in 1992, how many did they sell last year?
The future of rental is summed up by one word, SERVERS.
There will always be movie collectors, just like collectors of other things.
But oil has hit over a hundred bucks a barrel, the optimistic prediction for gas this spring is 3.50-4.00 a gallon, if you think they will keep making shiny discs out of this precious
resource so it can deliver something you can get over a wire, you're dreaming.
Movie collecting is going to be the major market for "hard copy" media, and a lot of people who do keep movies will keep them on Harddrive or solid state.
They already have solid state camcorders and laptops.
What I am saying basically is that digital wasnt just the CD, the CD was just a harbinger
of the future, a radically new way of processing, storing, and displaying information.
And the digital revolution is far from over.
Gone are the days when there will be a form of media that everybody will use, like VHS
and DVD, HARD copy media will be strictly for libaries and collectors.
What I have been saying is that the "format" war is like the Falklands war was described,
"two bald men fighting over a comb".
In other words being the next DVD isnt going to be like being the LAST DVD, and after spending hundreds of millions the "winner" isnt going to be as rich as he thinks.
And the phrase , Sir t, "company shill" is a totally acceptable way of describing company spokespeople, get you heart off of your sleeve and pull your lower lip back in.
And finally, you may be surprized that unlike you, most men , including myself, don't wear "panties"

While I agree downloads will take over "hard" formats one day, we are clearly not there yet.

You do understand that VOD (cable VOD) in it's current state is limited in qaulity due to bandwidth, right? Without going into all the specs since Sir T. has already stated them, Cable VOD and Internet VOD are both subject to bandwidth limitations. More channels does not equal greater bandwidth. Everything goes down the same "pipe" and the pipe is only so big. I am betting that will change in the future. I am certain of it. How long? That's the big question. "Hard" formats like DVDs, CDs, Cassettes, etc will all be a thing of the past one day but technology has to catch up. That will take some time.

You might go back and read Sir T's post again. I think you are letting your anger and dislike of Sir T get in the way of the facts.

[bobsticks]

... More channels does not equal greater bandwidth. Everything goes down the same "pipe" and the pipe is only so big...

Ding, ding, ding...and the judges score a perfect ten!

[Mr Peabody]

Pix, if the cable company hasn't made an impact in 10 years with their fiber optics and butt load of bandwidth I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. Charter probably don't even know what fiber optics is. I'd guess that a very small percentage of cable is provided by fiber optics.

Get for real with the price of oil, do you realize how much stuff is plastic or petroleum based? Next you'll be telling me I can't buy plastic spoons for my spring picka-niks. I don't think it's a real concern for any disk.

Coincidently, after my rant, I heard this morning that LG is coming out with some type of box for downloading. The story was basically that, no details, I'll have to try and find more information about it.

[pixelthis]

While I agree downloads will take over "hard" formats one day, we are clearly not there yet.

You do understand that VOD (cable VOD) in it's current state is limited in qaulity due to bandwidth, right? Without going into all the specs since Sir T. has already stated them, Cable VOD and Internet VOD are both subject to bandwidth limitations. More channels does not equal greater bandwidth. Everything goes down the same "pipe" and the pipe is only so big. I am betting that will change in the future. I am certain of it. How long? That's the big question. "Hard" formats like DVDs, CDs, Cassettes, etc will all be a thing of the past one day but technology has to catch up. That will take some time.

You might go back and read Sir T's post again. I think you are letting your anger and dislike of Sir T get in the way of the facts.

What "facts"?
Sir t (for talks a lot?) says that 1080p is the "new standard".
While this "standard " is in how many homes? The first 1080p sets couldnt even input 1080p, only the ones from this year can.
Sure if you have a 1080p 24fps set Blu ray is spectacular, but my set is 720p (1366 /766)
and a lot of people are still buying 720p sets.
1080p has a long way to go before becoming mainstream, a long way.
And that is the only advantage that the disc formats have over VOD.
again I dont have the specs, but a standard fiber optic system has plenty, whenever I watch HD over this system its totally as good as broadcast HD, sometimes better.
And if you think that VOD is "years away" then you are dreaming.
And Blu and hddvd are far from perfect, While watching one today the picture was great, sure, but it wont look as good on my or most other peoples sets.
If others at Sony are thinking like sir talky they are very delusional, the real world is nothing like Sir T's "facts" you talk about.
Even HDTV only has 50% market penetration! And how many of these can enjoy the full potential of Blue ray.
And the player is slow, glacier slow, and while "searching" the word "earching" was on the display.
This is a computer based device, its basically a computer, much more so than even DVD,
WHILE using it the fragility of the operation was apparrent.
The only thing I was saying was that what sir talkys view of the world is somewhat rosey,
just like your typical company shill.
But the truth is that it will take years to even approach the market penetration of DVD,
all the while cable and telephone companies are laying cable, fiber-optic cable.
the REAL world is one where most dont even have a need for a high def disc playback system, half have SD TV, and most are happy with their DVD players.
I have been involved in this stuff for decades, and I can tell ya, quality is way down the list of requirements for most consumers, its just not as important as sir t would have you beleive, not to the mass market, anyway.
Did quality sell DVD ? Nah, as a matter of fact a lot of rental stores were set to snub it pretty much like they did laserdisc, they didnt want to obsolete their inventory.
What changed their minds? DIVX.
Not the current internet file format for dling movies, but the play once lawyer inspired
scheme that was born at the birth of DVD.
This would have killed the video rental business, they took it very seriously , and only
started stocking DVD when DIVX players hit the market.
In fact, DIVX probably was some help in making DVD more than just a smaller version of laserdisc.
My one point, and its major, is that we live in a different world, and the dinosaurs of that world, the hugh electronics companies, dont seem to understand that.
They are wasting time with a silly "format war", and for what?
I paid 400 bucks for a 800 mb harddrive a decade ago, saw one today , 750 GIGABYTES, for 265 bucks. The shelves were stocked with all kinds of digital portable storage devices. The world is changing, and fast.
But HT and audiophile types are a one track bunch, quality of picture and sound is all they care about, god bless em, and they pursue it usually without paying much attention to whats going on around them.
The near future wont be like the near past, with one video format (DVD) dominating the landscape, hard copy media is going to become a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.
Weather sir whatever likes it or not

[JSE]

What "facts"?
Sir t (for talks a lot?) says that 1080p is the "new standard".
While this "standard " is in how many homes? The first 1080p sets couldnt even input 1080p, only the ones from this year can.
Sure if you have a 1080p 24fps set Blu ray is spectacular, but my set is 720p (1366 /766)
and a lot of people are still buying 720p sets.
1080p has a long way to go before becoming mainstream, a long way.
And that is the only advantage that the disc formats have over VOD.
again I dont have the specs, but a standard fiber optic system has plenty, whenever I watch HD over this system its totally as good as broadcast HD, sometimes better.
And if you think that VOD is "years away" then you are dreaming.
And Blu and hddvd are far from perfect, While watching one today the picture was great, sure, but it wont look as good on my or most other peoples sets.
If others at Sony are thinking like sir talky they are very delusional, the real world is nothing like Sir T's "facts" you talk about.
Even HDTV only has 50% market penetration! And how many of these can enjoy the full potential of Blue ray.
And the player is slow, glacier slow, and while "searching" the word "earching" was on the display.
This is a computer based device, its basically a computer, much more so than even DVD,
WHILE using it the fragility of the operation was apparrent.
The only thing I was saying was that what sir talkys view of the world is somewhat rosey,
just like your typical company shill.
But the truth is that it will take years to even approach the market penetration of DVD,
all the while cable and telephone companies are laying cable, fiber-optic cable.
the REAL world is one where most dont even have a need for a high def disc playback system, half have SD TV, and most are happy with their DVD players.
I have been involved in this stuff for decades, and I can tell ya, quality is way down the list of requirements for most consumers, its just not as important as sir t would have you beleive, not to the mass market, anyway.
Did quality sell DVD ? Nah, as a matter of fact a lot of rental stores were set to snub it pretty much like they did laserdisc, they didnt want to obsolete their inventory.
What changed their minds? DIVX.
Not the current internet file format for dling movies, but the play once lawyer inspired
scheme that was born at the birth of DVD.
This would have killed the video rental business, they took it very seriously , and only
started stocking DVD when DIVX players hit the market.
In fact, DIVX probably was some help in making DVD more than just a smaller version of laserdisc.
My one point, and its major, is that we live in a different world, and the dinosaurs of that world, the hugh electronics companies, dont seem to understand that.
They are wasting time with a silly "format war", and for what?
I paid 400 bucks for a 800 mb harddrive a decade ago, saw one today , 750 GIGABYTES, for 265 bucks. The shelves were stocked with all kinds of digital portable storage devices. The world is changing, and fast.
But HT and audiophile types are a one track bunch, quality of picture and sound is all they care about, god bless em, and they pursue it usually without paying much attention to whats going on around them.
The near future wont be like the near past, with one video format (DVD) dominating the landscape, hard copy media is going to become a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.
Weather sir whatever likes it or not

Do you have a learning disability?

[GMichael]

Do you have a learning disability?

Great! Thanks. There goes another keyboard.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Hey I'm not complaining. At least he's doggin' Sir T's a$$ and not mine for a change. T's got as much thicker skin than I.

[JSE]

Great! Thanks. There goes another keyboard.

Sorry.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir t, you old dinosaur, just keep chewing your cud, dont pay attention to that big rock
coming in over the horizon.

Since you called me out specifically, I will respond. Pix, first you would have to be in your early teens to call me a dino. Secondly, you are a very stupid naive person who has absolutely no knowledge of what you speak. You haven't a clue to how cable transmission works or you would not be making statements to the effect that existing bandwidth is enough for future needs. Anyone with a fingernails worth of knowledge knows that expanding cable's bandwidth needs is neither cheap nor easy.

Downloading has changed the entire music industry, the only difference between
music and movies is bandwidth.

Thanks for making my point. You do understand that the operating models of the music industry and the movie industry are quite different right? What works for one could be an utter failure for the other. Since I work in both of these industries, I can tell you that the downloading model for the music industry would not work at all for the movie industry.

And maybe the average size of a screen is 40" now instead of 32" , again, who cares?

You may not, because real quality is not your goal. You are one of those its good enough little kids that made MP3 popular. 40" is very important because if you sit close enough to it, you will see alot of video artifacting that will be totally missed on a 32" screen from the same viewing distance. That is why DVD's with compression problems can still look good on a 32" screen, but look like crap on anything larger. Your approach to this is much too compartmentalized, when the reality is a much larger picture.

Its still a far cry from 130", which is almost eleven feet!!!

You would really be surprised how many folks hometheaters use 100-130" screens.

The quality of my VOD (again, OVER CABLE) IS VERY GOOD, AND THE hd IS 1080I
Really shows what you know when you denigrate HD vod by saying its "only" 720P,
WHICH is actually higher resolution than 1080i

A few things here. What you have in your hood, is not what 98% of this country has. It will be a loooooooong time before what you have is nation wide. The Cable companies are already behind the timelines they have announced for urban roll out of fibre because of the cost to do it.

It may be very good to you who's standards are much lower than mine, but what I have seen is only slightly better than a average mastered DVD. Secondly, cable companies do not transmit 1080i signals. They are most commonly transmitted at 720p and upconverted within the box to 1080i to match 1080i displays. 720p is one mega pixel, 1080i is two mega pixels. Since when is one mega pixel greater than two mega pixels? You have to do better than this bud. If you just stop and think rather than becoming overly emotional like a woman and shooting off the cuff, this would be easier to understand.

Rear projection TV (with CRT) used to be a major player, I had a panny 47in, paid two grand for it, about what a 15" LCD cost. Who would want one of those?

Anyone looking for the ultimate in quality would not be looking for a DLP, LCD or a DILA device. Do you know that inspite of the dearth of panel televisions out there, movies are edited and mastered using professional CRT monitors with resolution that is much higher than any panel could come close to. My CRT with its 9" guns and digital processing is capable of resolutions up to 2500x2000 lines. I know of no digital based panel or projector on the market capable of that resolution. You need to take a trip over to AVSforum and go into the display area. Alot of guys in that forum are calibrators, repair and maintainence guys. In my reading over there it is universally stated that CRT based RPTV still outperform flatpanel displays in many critical areas. Things are changing and flatpanels are catching up, but they are not there quite yet.

The time? the distant past? Try FIVE years ago.

Nope. AT&T digital cable was offered PPV (which really is VOD) in my area 10 years ago. I had DSL 10 years ago. Maybe in your area you only had it five years ago, but not in mine. Which just makes my point more profound.

HD was a "gimmick" ten years ago, now its the coming thing.

HD was never a "gimmick". Interactive television was a gimmick.

They sold 300 million CD's in 1992, how many did they sell last year?

More than double the amount you listed at 618.9 million CD in 2006.

The future of rental is summed up by one word, SERVERS.

No doubt, that is were we are headed. But we are not there yet, and still have a long trip before we get there.

There will always be movie collectors, just like collectors of other things.
But oil has hit over a hundred bucks a barrel, the optimistic prediction for gas this spring is 3.50-4.00 a gallon, if you think they will keep making shiny discs out of this precious
resource so it can deliver something you can get over a wire, you're dreaming.

This comment is a red herring. The amount of oil/gas in a disc is so miniscule that the price is not an issue. If this sorry point even had a small amount of traction, we would have already seen the prices of DVD's rise. This is truely grasping at straws.

Movie collecting is going to be the major market for "hard copy" media, and a lot of people who do keep movies will keep them on Harddrive or solid state.

Sorry, but this is just your perspective. All one has to do is visit other boards where this topic has arisen, and you will find absolutely no consensus that people trust their movie collections to a computer hard drive. Alot of folks do not have data lines in their hometheaters, and alot of folks do not trust hooking up computers to their hometheater equipment. What if it crashes? How do you get your movies back? Will they charge a fee? People want the disc because they know that day in and day out, it will work.

They already have solid state camcorders and laptops.

Yes, and they are in everyone hands now aren't they?

What I am saying basically is that digital wasnt just the CD, the CD was just a harbinger
of the future, a radically new way of processing, storing, and displaying information.
And the digital revolution is far from over.

Thanks for the mini lecture, but can you tell me something I do not already know? Just because a technology is there, doesn't mean people will embrace it. PPV, Interactive TV, and DCC are prime examples of that.

Gone are the days when there will be a form of media that everybody will use, like VHS
and DVD, HARD copy media will be strictly for libaries and collectors.

This is overly dramatic and not reality at all. You have a long way to go before this is reality. This will become the reality decades from now, not tomorrow. You have been watching far too much Blade Runner.

What I have been saying is that the "format" war is like the Falklands war was described,
"two bald men fighting over a comb".
In other words being the next DVD isnt going to be like being the LAST DVD, and after spending hundreds of millions the "winner" isnt going to be as rich as he thinks.

You know, they said this very thing about the DVD, and history proved it very wrong. We have heard this through every video product cycle since I was a kid. Bluray is already being adopted at a faster rate than the DVD was back in 1997. And if Bluray is the next video format, it will crossover to games and music as well. I think you digital chirping may just be a hair early.

And the phrase , Sir t, "company shill" is a totally acceptable way of describing company spokespeople, get you heart off of your sleeve and pull your lower lip back in.
And finally, you may be surprized that unlike you, most men , including myself, don't wear "panties"

It is rather obvious your ability to communicate on an adult level is profoundly challenged. Second, I am no more a shill for bluray than you are for VOD. You support what you like, I support what I like. There is no need to use the word shill to describe support. In case your third grade education didn't tell you, a shill has to benefit DIRECTLY from the products they peddle. I do not receive a dime for supporting bluray, I am just like any other supporter of the technology.

Funny, I never knew that anyone could see anyone else through the internet. I find it rather stupid that people make comments like "get your britches out of a knot" or something even more stupid like get your heart off your sleeve and pull your lower lip back in when they cannot actually seeing you doing any of that. Perhaps your penchant for inflammatory non event wording is a symptom of either poor language usage, or a profound lack of communication skills. Don't be a kid, stay on topic and stop focusing on me.

[johnny p]

not to contribute to the chaos, but simply to ask a question, as I am the first one to admit my ignorance in every subject imaginable. If I updated my home with the finest cables available, fiber optic or otherwise, to run the cable into my home, even out to the pole outside itself, isn't my cable's resolution etc. limited by the cables that the cable company have already run, years in advance, that is running up and down the street that my neighbors tap into as well? I understand HD signal is available from the cable company, so I would have to assume the cables already there are capable of carrying those signals. I just don't know how fiber optic etc. would be beneficial to convert a signal that is being sent with coax..... I can't wait for the big "revolution" to occur where cable companies and satellite will offer the same HD programming with no up-charges, but that may be wishful thinking.

I guess I understand the whole DVD thing..... you're getting info in a compressed format, decoding it with the player to the best of its ability, transmitting it in a manner as lossless as possible with the type of cables, into the T.V. which can receive the info and display it at its best output level.

Since Cable comes from the street, I guess I don't know what's going on in the underground/above-ground cables the companies have run.....

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

not to contribute to the chaos, but simply to ask a question, as I am the first one to admit my ignorance in every subject imaginable. If I updated my home with the finest cables available, fiber optic or otherwise, to run the cable into my home, even out to the pole outside itself, isn't my cable's resolution etc. limited by the cables that the cable company have already run, years in advance, that is running up and down the street that my neighbors tap into as well? I understand HD signal is available from the cable company, so I would have to assume the cables already there are capable of carrying those signals. I just don't know how fiber optic etc. would be beneficial to convert a signal that is being sent with coax..... I can't wait for the big "revolution" to occur where cable companies and satellite will offer the same HD programming with no up-charges, but that may be wishful thinking.

I guess I understand the whole DVD thing..... you're getting info in a compressed format, decoding it with the player to the best of its ability, transmitting it in a manner as lossless as possible with the type of cables, into the T.V. which can receive the info and display it at its best output level.

Since Cable comes from the street, I guess I don't know what's going on in the underground/above-ground cables the companies have run.....

Johnny,
The switch to fibre optics increases the bandwidth and capacity of the cable system overall. However the real problem here is it is only fibre until it gets to your curb, and then it is transferred to regular old coaxial cable just like you have now. This may help the cable system overall, but I am not sure there is a increase in bandwidth within each home.

[Tailwind]

Thanks musicman. After a while you get tired of explaining things to people who cannot grasp even the most basic of information.

I ditto the thanks to musicman. Some people are only here to show that they are more knowing or more intelligent or more informed than others. It makes them feel superior. I wont say what it makes others think of them. It was pretty obvious that there was not a direct comparison with a pie chart type of comment there but just that blu ray is selling faster sooner. Whatever the reason its still a fact. And considering the fact that its as new as it is that is pretty amazing. That fact now may have some to do with more people being on the net and looking for answers and info and feeling more comfortable with their decisions to go ahead and buy rather than wait and watch the market for a while like used to be the case in most areas of any new technologies. Anyone that wasnt anti social would never have even made that comment.

[Tailwind]

Johnny,
The switch to fibre optics increases the bandwidth and capacity of the cable system overall. However the real problem here is it is only fibre until it gets to your curb, and then it is transferred to regular old coaxial cable just like you have now. This may help the cable system overall, but I am not sure there is a increase in bandwidth within each home.

If the system was overloaded due to too many customers on any given supply line from the cable company then the bandwith to the customer would at times be less than optimal. With the addition of Optics the overall bandwidth is greater so the saturation of the line would be less likely. It would definatly seem to be an increase of bandwidth available to the home through his existing cable simply because it was not the line from the house to the pole that was saturated. I dont think you would ever be able to get enough data from the internet at any time to make the cable from the house to the pole the problem at all.

[Scott W]

Perhaps the relatively sluggish sales could be thought of not as a resultant of any format issues but a sign that Topher Grace shouldn't ever be cast as anything more manly than his Mr. 70's Cotton Candy Ass role.

Reminds me of Ronny Howard(Opie,Richie Cunningham)

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

If the system was overloaded due to too many customers on any given supply line from the cable company then the bandwith to the customer would at times be less than optimal. With the addition of Optics the overall bandwidth is greater so the saturation of the line would be less likely. It would definatly seem to be an increase of bandwidth available to the home through his existing cable simply because it was not the line from the house to the pole that was saturated. I dont think you would ever be able to get enough data from the internet at any time to make the cable from the house to the pole the problem at all.

Tailwind,
When we look at history since when has an overall bandwidth upgrade every meant increased performace to the customer? Any gains in bandwidth have always been for the cable companies to increase their revenue by adding more channels. As they add more channels, that comes at the price of bandwidth offered to the customers. Also as they add more bandwidth, they are adding more customers as well. The net effect actually zero's out any benefit in the end.

If I had a house full of teenagers downloading music and data on seperate computers in different points in the house, you certainly could present some problems from the house to the pole. I have heard this happening to one of my co-workers. It was to the point the cable company put caps on their downloading.

[pixelthis]

If the system was overloaded due to too many customers on any given supply line from the cable company then the bandwith to the customer would at times be less than optimal. With the addition of Optics the overall bandwidth is greater so the saturation of the line would be less likely. It would definatly seem to be an increase of bandwidth available to the home through his existing cable simply because it was not the line from the house to the pole that was saturated. I dont think you would ever be able to get enough data from the internet at any time to make the cable from the house to the pole the problem at all.

the cable from the house to the pole isnt a problem at all, no way will a single household
be able to hit the capacity of a coax cable, before fibre optic this one cable would supply an entire neighborhood.
And in spite of sir talkies protestations the new fibre optic systems cable is upgrading to
is decades away from being "obsolete", like these guys spent a few hundred mill on
a system that is obsolete out of the box.
THE BANDWIDTH of fiber is amazing, you can fit thousands of channels on one cable,
and with proper compression even more, it will be decades before these new systems even approach capacity.
As for quality mine is fine, exelent as a matter of fact

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

the cable from the house to the pole isnt a problem at all, no way will a single household
be able to hit the capacity of a coax cable, before fibre optic this one cable would supply an entire neighborhood.
And in spite of sir talkies protestations the new fibre optic systems cable is upgrading to
is decades away from being "obsolete", like these guys spent a few hundred mill on
a system that is obsolete out of the box.
THE BANDWIDTH of fiber is amazing, you can fit thousands of channels on one cable,
and with proper compression even more, it will be decades before these new systems even approach capacity.
As for quality mine is fine, exelent as a matter of fact

Oh yes, and the cable companies can have it everywhere in the next ten days, and it is not going to cost them very much to roll it out. It has taken years for cable to get service in urban America. They still have not gotten the rural areas yet, and now you think this is going to be a piece of cake for the cable companies? You may have fibre, but it is not even being mention in my area. Analyst are already questioning whether the cable companies can roll out fibre quick enough to take on the phone companies plans. So if you think this is in the bag already, then your ignorance amuses me ($1 to Lara Croft)

Secondly, my friend has 7 teenagers in his house. All of them have their own computers. When they come home from school, they all jump on their computers and start downloading music. When you combine that with the activity of the neighborhood, it was cause severe traffic jams slowing down all traffic. It became so bad that their cable company cut the amount of downloading they could do monthly without incurring extra expense. P2P traffic is causing alot of problem for the cable companies. I am sorry you are too ignorant to understand this.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...hrottling.html

http://www.mediageek.net/?p=1590

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont....2f343f3d.html

If all was going so peachy keen, we would not see this kind of thing would we?

Based on your past statements, the PQ is excellent to you, would probably mean it is barely passable to me.