[QUOTE=askeptic]
Quick question: I was just given a Panasonic HD Camcorder that records to 8GB SDHC FlashMemory. It came with a DVD Burner. Does the Blue Ray standard make my newest toy already obsolete?
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It makes the DVD burner obsolete. Sorta. Right now, you can’t find any Blu-Ray burners or recordable discs for a “reasonable” price. When you can then your burner will be obsolete. As for your camera, that may or not be obsolete, depending upon which HD spec it is. However, if you’re a “normal” person (i.e. not a professional, or someone who has to buy “prosumer” gear), then it won’t be obsolete for a good number of years.
[QUOTE=pizzabrat]
History was against the format. Every previous Sony attempt to introduce a consumer media format has failed, and those attempts are numerous (minidisc, umd, betamax, atrac, memory stick (well, the last two are still around, but they aren’t at all acknowledged outside of Sony CE products themselves)). HD-DVD seemed like the obvious bet.
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Minidisc was a big winner in Japan. They just never bothered advertising the thing in the US or Europe until MP3 players were released (a full decade after the Minidisc had been invented.)
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Minidisc was a big winner in Japan. They just never bothered advertising the thing in the US or Europe until MP3 players were released (a full decade after the Minidisc had been invented.)
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Actually, they tried shortly after they were introduced in Japan, but botched the marketing, and then did a bigger push at about the same time MP3 players were starting to appear.
The HD-DVD people should try to corner the nitch markets instead of just marketing Hollywood movies. The PC market still needs viable options for disc storage, and Microsoft and Toshiba have a good grasp of those market dynamics. They should start subsidizing blank HD-DVDs and HD-DVD burners. They should start putting them in high-end PCs as stock items. They can also “avoid discouraging” piracy of HD-DVDs. I know plenty of people who like the fact that they can easily burn DVD movies for “backup”, etc. If it becomes cheaper and more efficient to do that using HD-DVDs as opposed to Blu-Ray, people will gravitate toward that format. The Xbox360 HD-DVD player can already be attached to a computer, which makes ripping easier. If Microsoft releases a 360 compatible HD-DVD burner, I think they can sell a lot a people on its longterm viability in some markets.
[QUOTE=MrFloppy]
Comcast is promising HD downloads in 4 minutes.
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That sounds like a pipe-dream to me.
I have a (Cablevision) cable modem, and it gives me download speeds of up to around 1.2 megabytes per second. Nice and peppy.
A high-def movie is at least 20 gig, which would require throughput of over 80 (eighty!) megabytes per second to download in 4 minutes. Does anybody anywhere have that kind of bandwidth?
20 gigs in 4 minutes sounds closer to harddrive-copying speed than it does to download speed.
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
That sounds like a pipe-dream to me.
I have a (Cablevision) cable modem, and it gives me download speeds of up to around 1.2 megabytes per second. Nice and peppy.
A high-def movie is at least 20 gig, which would require throughput of over 80 (eighty!) megabytes per second to download in 4 minutes. Does anybody anywhere have that kind of bandwidth?
20 gigs in 4 minutes sounds closer to harddrive-copying speed than it does to download speed.
[/QUOTE]
You would be suprised at the quality of network infrastructure in places like Europe. When I was doing my research for a Net Neutrality speech, I came across figures that claimed some European countries were running on 40mbps+ internet for about half of our cost. It was possible because of the amount of competition available for customers, IIRC.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Sony may win the HD disc battle, but lose the war if they concentrate on that and ignore the couch-potato downloaders with increasingly fast internet connections and big, big hard drives.
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This might be an idiotic question, but why should Sony care? They’re delivering a physical product because that’s the best thing for the consumers, now. They’re in a competition for a physical format; if the consumers truly want streamable or downloadable content, that’s the publishers’ worry, not Sony.
[QUOTE=Surbey]
You would be suprised at the quality of network infrastructure in places like Europe. When I was doing my research for a Net Neutrality speech, I came across figures that claimed some European countries were running on 40mbps+ internet for about half of our cost. It was possible because of the amount of competition available for customers, IIRC.
[/QUOTE]
40mbps = 5 megabytes per second, which is quite a bit faster than my 1.2 megabytes per second, but still nowhere near the necessary 80 megabytes per second (640mbps) to download a high-def movie in four minutes.
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
40mbps = 5 megabytes per second, which is quite a bit faster than my 1.2 megabytes per second, but still nowhere near the necessary 80 megabytes per second (640mbps) to download a high-def movie in four minutes.
The speeds I’ve heard quoted for Comcast to be able to do this are around 100 mbps. They have to do something, however, as Fios is cleaning their clock.
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
The DVD players themselves are always some cheesy assed fake-silvery-grey-plastic color, something that I despise (with VHS, I can have a woodgrain unit that doesn’t clash with all my furniture.)
[/QUOTE]
Wait, fake wood paneling isn’t cheesy now? Is this your idea of a flashy car?
Well with Warner dropping HD-DVD and Universal shuffling its feet, the mainstream pundits are declaring the battle over.
What I’m curious about more is if Apple will start to move into the “Apple-inside” HD-TV market? Apple, part of the Blu-Ray consortium and cozy with Disney, is ripe to sell higher end HD TVs with Blu-Ray, basic Mac functionalitity, and easy access to downloads from iTunes integrated into one sleek package that communicates with the rest of the home network and syncs with your iPod (instead of the fairly cloddy AppleTV concept)?
[QUOTE=MrFloppy]
I think that both formats will be short lived anyway. Comcast is promising HD downloads in 4 minutes. In 5 years time, that row of Blu Ray disc on your shelf will be as outdated as CDs.
I’m sticking with my $80 upconvert player.
[/QUOTE]
For rentals, that’s fine, but I also have an extensive library of my favorites.
I want to own my content, not re-rent it every time I want to watch it.
