BluRay: Studios Benefit Not Consumers

[erikill]

The thing about streaming HD is they are doing it now with ATT Lightspeed/U-verse IPTV. People think it is so far away, when in fact it's here just not on the large scale that it would need to be. I am on the waiting list for ATT U-verse when it is available in my area so I can dump my cable co, but the only thing I've read is that you can only watch HD on one tv at a time w U-verse (they provision enuf video bandwidth vs your data bandwidth).

Too bad I'm not on the Verizon footprint with FiOS you can get 30/15 which is nicer than what ATT can offer in terms of data but no IPTV / downloading anything wouldn't be so bad.

[wally flick]

Here is an interesting take on HD downloads from David Pogue, New York Times technology columnist. I’ve read Pogue for years, way back to his MacWorld days so I respect his opinion. The article is timely (2/21/08) and reviews several of the more popular download services Apple TV, TiVo/Amazon Unbox, Xbox 360, and Vudu. David’s prediction is wide spread adoption of downloadable High Def movies is years off.

His closing sentance reads, "Clearly, spinning silver discs will remain the dominant movie-delivery method for years to come."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/technology/personaltech/21pogue.html/?_r=3&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

[Guest srobak]

The thing about streaming HD is they are doing it now with ATT Lightspeed/U-verse IPTV. People think it is so far away, when in fact it's here just not on the large scale that it would need to be. [...] Verizon footprint with FiOS you can get 30/15 which is nicer than what ATT can offer in terms of data but no IPTV / downloading anything wouldn't be so bad.

The Verizon system will evolve to include tv services... that has been in the plan since the beginning.

Now - while it is in fact "here" - you do realize that the majority of the people in the US do not live in the major metropolitan areas where this service is offered or expected to be offered in the next 2 to 5 years, right? I know those of us who have had high-speed cable or dsl for the last 12 years are quick to forget that there is still a very large portion of the country that is still using technologies as antiquated as dialup. Yes, it sucks - but it IS a fact of life. Many areas have only recently brought on DSL service in the last 3 to 5 years - and at very low speeds I might add, compared to other places. No matter what "technology" does and evolves to - it is still up to the telecom companies to pony up the $ to implement it, and then the customers to pay for it afterwards. It takes time - a LONG time - for massive infrastructure technologies to roll out. The Internet has been around since the mid 70's, but unless you worked for the government, a major university or were a student there - you didn't touch it until April of 1995 at the earliest. DSL technology has been around since the 80s, and used in major commercial enterprises and cost a bloody fortune. Only in the last 8 to 10 years has it been rolled out to the point where people nowadays usually settle for it if they can't get high speed cable.

Don't expect DSL to fall into the minority until at least 2015, and at that time the existing cable technology will have the largest foothold, and fiber probably still will not have the penetration that cable does today.

[erikill]

Don't expect DSL to fall into the minority until at least 2015, and at that time the existing cable technology will have the largest foothold, and fiber probably still will not have the penetration that cable does today.

No disagreements there - and FiOS today offers tv service via RF not IP (which allows for multiple HD channels same as many cable-cos).

In terms of footprints - Verizon is definitely sticking to major metropolitian areas. I'm not sure if you follow Telco - but the FairPoint / Verizon deal gives Verizon a lot of cash to be able to invest in more fiber. Companies like FairPoint specialize in rural DSL, ADSL2+ has helped them a ton by allowing farther DSL quals. I think the Satellite highspeed option is helping to bring high-speed to ultra rural area.

Cable fiber is another option too -most providers are switching to it since with the increase in demand they need bigger pipes to support it. I think in 10 yrs either Wi-Max will become a new defacto standard or Fiber will be pulled to most areas.

[mas]

It amuses me to see the issue of alternative sourcing of "HD" content deemed a failure unless it is 1. Streaming 2. 1080p 3. Ubiquitous.

In other words, unless it achieves that which neither BluRay and HD-DVD have even come close to doing!

The fact remains that the VAST majority of the country as well as the larger world market lacks the ability to even display 1080p.

And NONE of the commercial entities have even expressed an interest, let alone a commitment to it.

And dispite that the broader "HD" market is doing just fine!

And the notion that ALL must have access to a service as a prerequisite to its being successful, is absolutely ridiculous. Thus cell phones are a failure. Cable TV is a failure. Existing DSL (developed in 1989!) is a failure. Large cities are a failure Professional sports teams are failures. ANYTHING that is not readily accessible to every person is a failure. And as such few things qualify as market successes.

Interestingly enough, None of that matters. In order to be a success, all that is required is the ability to make a profit within the designated marketplace. After all, it IS a business and not some altruistic moral campaign as some here might wish.

So, in order for alternative HD sourcing to be successful in the real world marketplace, NONE of the previously mentioned conditions need be met. And the fact that some Yahoo in rural Nevada or Montana may not have 50MB/s online access is superfluous. All they need do is to satisfy a sufficient market demand for acceptable HD content. And if they want to focus on high density regions and cherry pick locales based upon disposable income, they are welcome to do that as well. In any event, the requirement that EVERY person have the service capabilities is a fantasy.

After all, the MASS market has NOT refused to watch a movie or show as a result of their feeling that SD, upscaled DVD, 1080i or 720p are "unacceptable".

Oh sure, a few here will lament how "$h!tty" SD and anything less than 1080p is as they continue to watch it. But who cares. They don't determine market success any more than the DVD-A, SACD or 1080p folks do - despite their fanboy bravado and chest pounding..

I think stating the future of HD solely in terms of streaming and 1080p – a format the vast majority of folks who
have bought a new 'HD ready' TV (not because they simply REQUIRE HD, nope!, but because the government has mandated that we buy a new set - so much for market demand! LOL! ) do not even have a TV capable of displaying – is
a red herring. But as mentioned, there is more driving the adoption of
alternative formats than simply high resolution.

The fact is that HD comprises a
MUCH broader market than simply 1080p. And the majority of folks are already
finding alternatives to 1080p quite satisfactory. And 720p is quite streamable.
And Apple TV offers it. Now.

But even so, the notion that
downloads must be streamed is simply incorrect.
Convenience comes in many forms, from ordering a movie after viewing a movie
the night before or ordering a movie in the morning and having it ready to go
when you return home from work later the same day – thus avoiding a side trip
and standing in line during rush hour.

It could consist of stopping by a
kiosk and downloading the content to a flash or HD key. Or it can take the form
of cable pay per view. And many more are content to simply receive it via
satellite and cable and off air via scheduled programming - and it need not even be 1080p!. So it can come in many
forms, and as we have already seen by the widespread acceptance, 1080p is not a
pre-requisite.

Just think, more than a few folks enjoyed watching the SuperBowl in "HD" on their new giant screens, and NONE of them saw it in 1080p! So I guess that it was really a failure. But where are the complaints. Not even the Patriot's fans complained!!!

Compared to the preponderance of
the mass market, 1080p is at most a niche market – if for no other reason than
the technical capabilities of the monitors possessed by the majority of the
market. And a still larger percentage of the market is content to have existing
formats streamed to ‘convenience’ devices. And while some may complain, they
nevertheless constitute a large and
growing percentage of the market.

The market will continue to evolve,
and judging from the increasing investment and research activity, online
deliverables point the way to the future, whether one likes it or not. And the potential for alternatives to hardcopy deliverables, including but not limited to online delivery, no more requires that everyone have access to it, then does the success of the PS3 require that everyone have a console at home.

So in the spirit of Anachronism's absolutely hilarious "Write something original"... "and not an argument
of your own invention."
(I'll let you ponder the idiocy of the illogic as I ROFLMAO!!!); here
is a pretty good article regarding the BUSINESS that will determine
the advancement of alternative distribution technologies, as such
concepts seem to befuddle many who still think that mere technological
capability necessarily detemines market growth.

Its an interesting article from The Economist that looks at many
business aspects of the movie marketing business: (Gee, is it a business? Go
figure! Next we will be told that they even try to make a profit! I guess that
means we will be again subjected to the tirades of those for whom all business (except theirs of course) and profit are bad, and that all new technologies are a step backwards...

And to think there is more to the
market than just BR fanboys (but whatever you do, don't let them here you say this!). It is interesting in the article to note that the ONLY reference to
BluRay and HD is with reference that “high-definition discs are unlikely to
bring growth back to the home-entertainment business.”

Hollywood and the internet




Coming
soon

Feb 21st 2008

The
internet could be a boon for Hollywood—but only if it can conquer its fears

TO
SEE what the future of film distribution might look like, go to a website
called ZML.com.
It offers 1,700 films for download to personal computers, iPods or other
hand-held devices, or to burn to DVD. It is inviting and easy to use, with
detailed descriptions of each movie, editors' picks, customer reviews and
screen stills. And the prices are reasonable: “Atonement”, for instance, costs
$2.99.

There
is one small catch: ZML.com is a pirate site. Hollywood's movie studios, which
are used to dealing with scruffier crews like Pirate Bay, a Swedish outfit,
are aghast at how professional the newcomer is. “It looks like a fabulous legal
website,” says one studio executive.

The
existence of ZML.com illustrates why Hollywood is in two minds about the web.
On the one hand, the internet has brought a potent threat: pirates are
plundering films and carrying off booty that rightfully belongs to the studios.
Online piracy costs Hollywood less than the physical variety, ripping off DVDs,
but the gap is closing. “We are more concerned about internet piracy than
physical piracy, because controlling it is harder,” says Ron Wheeler, head of
anti-piracy efforts at Fox Entertainment Group. Some in Hollywood believe that
internet theft could even be the death of America's film industry.

On
the other hand, the internet offers Hollywood a great opportunity—which it has
so far been slow to exploit. There is every reason to think that people will
want online access to films, just as they do for music, newspapers, television
and radio. ZML.com is proving that people will pay to download films to see at
home when it suits them. And once people can buy or rent films on demand, the
chances are that they will watch more of them.

The
web is already making its presence felt in the heart of Tinseltown: this year's
Oscars extravaganza, which is due to take place on February 24th, nearly fell
victim to a strike by writers over pay for the distribution of their work on
the internet. But for the time being Hollywood is mostly stuck in the physical
world. Every year it sends thousands of heavy, expensive reels of film to cinemas
by road. Only in the past year or so has it started an effort to send out some
across the ether as ones and zeros. The DVD is a digital format, to be sure,
but it comes in shrink-wrapped plastic.

Some
studios are enthusiastic about the internet. “In 2008 we will move full speed
ahead online,” says Thomas Lesinski, president of digital entertainment at
Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. “It's the great hope for new revenue for the
movie business.” But the industry has by and large been slow: studios have only
tentatively backed legal online film-download services. Television, by
contrast, has been much faster to embrace the internet.

On the buses

The
choice of what is legally available online today is patchy. For instance,
London buses are carrying ads for FilmOn.com, a new download
service. It promises “tons and tons of great movies”, but you will not find
“Mulva 2—Kill Teen Ape!” near the top of many people's lists. The internet has
lots of legal sites like this, which promise thousands of top-class titles but
in truth resemble the worst shelves of a bad video-rental store. ZML.com has a
far better collection than most legitimate services do.

Another
legal site, MovieFlix,
based in Los Angeles, makes its money from independent films, student movies,
straight-to-video titles and other eclectic fare. Its founders, Opher Mizrahi
and Robert Moskovits, stay away from Hollywood studios because of their high
fees. MovieFlix, which had revenues of $1.2m last year, is rare among download
sites: it turns a profit. “We are the cockroaches of this space,” says Mr
Mizrahi, “and we are survivors.”

Many
better-funded services have fared far worse. Movielink, which the studios
themselves set up in 2001, with about $150m of start-up capital, was sold last
August to Blockbuster, a video-rental chain, reportedly for less than $20m. CinemaNow, which counts
Microsoft and Cisco Systems among its investors, started offering movies online
in 1999 and is not yet making a profit, to the surprise of its chief executive,
Curt Marvis. Back then, he says, everyone thought that selling films online
would be a huge business by now.

Nor
are the studios making much money online. They have dozens of deals with
internet services around the world. Warner Bros, for instance, supplies small
selections of its films to 38 separate digital-distribution services, according
to Screen Digest, a research firm in London. In 2006, estimates Screen Digest,
online distribution of movies generated a total of $58m in America and western
Europe. Screen Digest expects this to rise to $1.2 billion by 2011. But that is
still below 5% of its forecast for total home-entertainment revenue.

Consumer-electronics
firms are longing to supply Hollywood films. According to Screen Digest, online
viewing is most likely to take off on services based on their devices. So far,
people have been most interested in buying films for gadgets such as Apple's
iPod or Microsoft's Xbox 360. Apple's iTunes has captured almost 80% of the
download-to-own market; the Xbox has won more than 70% of online rentals.

At
the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January,
everyone was waiting for Apple to announce that iTunes would start selling new
movies from all six leading studios. Hitherto, only Disney had granted Apple
access to new releases (Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, sits on Disney's
board); a couple of other studios were giving it older titles. In the event,
Apple's deal was disappointing: it got the go-ahead from all the studios only
to rent their films, not to sell them. According to a person familiar with the
negotiations, however, this was because of the Hollywood writers' strike over
new media. Now the studios are waiting to see whether actors walk out over the
same issue. When the labor troubles are past, Apple is likely to get a proper
download-to-own deal with all six studios. For Hollywood, this would be a big
step towards the internet.

The color of money

There
are two broad reasons for Hollywood's tardiness. The main one is the industry's
aversion to making big changes to its business model. In part this is because
it takes so much risk in its day-to-day operations. “Every weekend, we sit on
pins and needles watching to see if our films will flop,” explains a studio
executive, “and that doesn't encourage risk-taking in the business as a whole.”
There is a less defensible explanation too: “Hollywood's value system is not
necessarily about growth,” says Dan Jansen, who runs the Boston Consulting
Group's media practice. “It's about recognition for films.”

For
the moment, most people are still happy with DVDs, so the studios have had
little incentive to switch to an unproven new format. The DVD business is huge,
bringing in $23.4 billion in America last year, against $9.6 billion from the
box office. The studios are terrified of damaging that source of revenue. In
2006, when Disney made a deal with Apple to sell movies via iTunes, Wal-Mart,
America's biggest retailer, reportedly threatened to retaliate: the internet,
after all, bypasses it. Wal-Mart accounts for about 40% of DVD sales in the
United States and if it sharply cut shelf-space for DVDs, the lost sales would
far outweigh new digital sales in the near term. At the end of last year
Wal-Mart shut its ten-month-old movie-download site. Now that it no longer has
a foot in the internet camp, studios expect it to take a harder line against
any further efforts they may make to favor online distribution.

Not
everyone agrees, however. Wal-Mart and other big retailers rely heavily on DVDs
to bring higher-income people into their stores, says a studio executive. “So
they don't have a leg to stand on threatening to pull shelf-space.” For this
reason, he believes that Hollywood should be able to cultivate online revenues
without greatly disrupting its existing businesses.

In
any case, there are now signs that the DVD boom has come to an end—which should
also encourage the studios to worry less about Wal-Mart and to move faster
online. After its growth slowed in 2005 and 2006, spending on DVDs fell by 3%
in 2007 (see chart 1). Some in the industry are pinning their hopes on fancier,
“high-definition” discs—another physical format—rather than on the web. But so
far, sales of such discs have been minuscule—largely because of a war between
two formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray. Although the war ended this week, when Toshiba
said it would abandon HD DVD, high-definition discs are unlikely to bring
growth back to the home-entertainment business.

Indeed,
Hollywood's desire to preserve its existing business rather than embrace a new
one echoes its misgivings a few years ago about the DVD itself. In 1997,

when
the new format was about to be born, three studios, Paramount, Disney and
Twentieth Century Fox, came out against it, remembers Warren Lieberfarb, who is
widely credited with having fathered the product as it is today. They were
worried that selling DVDs for $18 apiece would cannibalize their sales of video
cassettes to rental stores for $65 each. None of the three studios is proud of
that episode now.

Moreover,
as well as boosting sales overall, the internet will make it easier for the
studios to make money from their libraries—bricks-and-mortar retailers, after
all, have limited shelf-space, and mostly stock new releases. Digital sales
yield a higher profit margin too. Virtual distribution does away with
manufacturing, packaging, transport and inventory costs. At the moment, the
studios get $18 per film from a Wal-Mart or a Best Buy and about $16 for a
digital sale, but because of the lower costs they make about $3 more on each
film when sold electronically.

A
bigger risk than angering Wal-Mart is that Hollywood will be undone by internet
pirates. Imaginative, reasonably priced legal products are the best antidote to
piracy: anti-piracy heads at the studios, indeed, clamor for well stocked,
convenient movie-downloading services. Fox's Mr Wheeler says that content
owners should offer people “ubiquitous access to our products online at
reasonable prices”. Mr Wheeler also hopes that internet-service providers can
be drafted into the fight. In November France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy,
backed a proposal to require ISPs to detect and cut off conspicuous pirates.
Britain's government is said to be considering a similar law.

The
second reason for Hollywood's sluggishness is that the studios and the
consumer-electronics industry have not overcome three technological hurdles.
Downloading a film still takes a long time—in America, about 30-40 minutes on
average (see chart 2). Movies in high-definition format would take about four
times that. But broadband speeds are increasing all the time. In Japan and South
Korea it now takes between five and ten minutes to download a film in standard
definition.

Another
obstacle is that most people want to watch films on television, not onpersonal
computers—especially if they have wide, “home-theatre” TV screens

Products
connecting PCs and televisions have been available for years but have not
caught on, because they are hard to install and operate. That is changing.
Apple has just overhauled its linking gadget, Apple TV, to make it easier to
use. At the CES in Las Vegas, says Alan Bell, Paramount's chief technology
officer, new televisions and set-top boxes that connect directly to the
internet were on show, “so the PC is not the bottleneck in getting digital
content from internet services to the TV screen that people saw a year ago.”

The
last hurdle, and perhaps the highest, is the lack of common standards among
websites and devices. “Imagine if you went to Wal-Mart to buy a new DVD player
and then found that your DVDs from Best Buy didn't work on it,” says Mitch
Singer, chief technology officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Movies on the
internet, he says, are “a format war on steroids”. Each download store sells
different usage rights. Hollywood is trying to do something about this. Late
last year a group of studios, retailers and consumer-electronics firms met to
discuss an idea of Mr Singer's for a standardized electronic movie product
called Open Market. But the talks are at an early stage, and it will be tricky
to get companies such as Apple and Microsoft to agree to common standards.

Hollywood's
dealings with the consumer-gadget companies also betray its habitual caution.
The studios fear that Apple could become the Wal-Mart of the internet—a giant
with power to push them around, continually pressing prices down. Maintaining
pricing online is a particular worry. “People think that if it's online it
should be free,” says one studio head. One answer to pricing pressure online,
though not a complete one, would be to experiment with putting advertisements
around films. Last year Paramount gave a selection of films to a service called
Joost that streams them
free, supported by advertising. Movies are doing very well on the service, says
Mr Lesinski. Paramount plans to conduct more online experiments in 2008, he
says. The lion's share of its library and all its new releases will be on the
internet within a year or two.

Short
of selling films on it, Hollywood certainly knows how to use the internet to
its advantage. Its use of viral online marketing is one of the most
sophisticated of any industry. Jeff Berg, chairman and chief executive of ICM,
a talent agency, says that about 8% of the total marketing spending on films
goes to the internet; in five years' time, the web will take 20%. Paramount's
“Cloverfield”, a low-budget monster movie shot as if by an amateur with a
camcorder, earned $40m in its opening weekend in American cinemas last month,
crushing the competition. It built its audience on the internet: a mysterious
trailer for another, unidentified movie led to a website and started an online
treasure-hunt for more clues. Popular movie websites such as aintitcool.com buzzed for months
about the mystery film.

How the web was won

Creatively,
too, Hollywood is harnessing the internet. Studios are using it to find global
pockets of interest. “If there's 1m people around the world who are interested
in ice-fishing,” says Jeremy Zimmer, co-founder of United Talent Agency, “we
can make a movie for them.” Studios are using their customers' opinions to
shape their films. “Snakes on a Plane”, for instance, started off in
development as a horror film. As the project got attention online its maker, New
Line Cinema, listened, and changed the plot to be more comic in tone.
Blowtorch, a young media company making video content for 18- to 24-year-olds,
is pushing this further. It will allow audiences to influence its movies via
the web. They will be invited to vote on elements of a film's soundtrack, an
actor's wardrobe, or even character development.

Don't lose it in your popcorn

ICM's
boss believes that the internet will lower barriers to entry for new
film-makers. “Sites will spring up specializing in independent films and short
movies,” says Mr Berg, “and these will be showcases, similar to film
festivals.” Jaman.com,
a download service for independent films from around the world, is a good example.
The makers of “Indoctrinate-U”, an independent film about a lack of free speech
at American universities, have used the internet to build an audience. The
movie's website
invites people to sign up with zip codes; if enough do, local screenings are
arranged. United Talent Agency has set up a special internet unit, UTA Online,
to find and develop new talent. The new unit encourages people to get in
touch—unheard of in the original “don't call us” business.

In
the long term, many people expect that the internet could undermine Hollywood's
system of exclusive “windows”. Cinemas get a film to themselves for a period of
weeks, then it goes to DVD, then to video-on-demand and online services, then
pay-cable television, and so on. And many films are still released in different
countries at different times, usually starting in America. The system is a gift
to pirates. But the studios are wedded to it, especially the cinema window.

The
internet creates immediate global awareness of movies, says Reed Hastings,
chief executive of Netflix, a DVD rental-by-mail company, so the studios are
increasingly choosing to release films at the same time everywhere. They have
already shortened their windows, he says, and that could be a step towards
getting rid of them. As people buy home-theatre systems and the convenience of
the internet makes it even harder to get people out of their homes, the cinema
window will come under ever greater pressure.

It
will doubtless take Hollywood a few more years to work out how to deliver films
over the internet. Meanwhile, studios and retailers are poised to introduce
movie-download kiosks, using flash memory. Several companies, such as MOD
Systems, of Los Angeles, have cut download times to a few minutes; Ireland's
Porto Media claims a time of 17 seconds. The idea is to put kiosks in such
places as shops, airports and gas stations. Using Porto Media's system, films
are downloaded onto a tiny device (pictured) which plugs into dock attached to
a television. Kiosks could hold more titles than physical video shops and would
never be out of stock. Twentieth Century Fox is looking at several competing
kiosks, says Mike Dunn, head of the studio's home-entertainment unit. It will
test them this year.

“The
flash-memory-enabled kiosk is an interim solution which overcomes many of the
weaknesses of the present model and the current deficiencies of the internet,”
says Mr Lieberfarb, who is on the board of MOD Systems. Customers will get used
to downloading films and transferring them between devices, which will prepare
them for proper online distribution. Kiosks will make money for retailers too,
so that they could help the studios keep Wal-Mart and others sweet. That is the
kind of careful step forward that even Hollywood can dare to take.

.

[anarchist]

So in the spirit of Anachronism's absolutely hilarious "Write something original"... "and not an argument
of your own invention."
(I'll let you ponder the idiocy of the illogic as I ROFLMAO!!!); here
is a pretty good article regarding the BUSINESS that will determine
the advancement of alternative distribution technologies, as such
concepts seem to befuddle many who still think that mere technological
capability necessarily detemines market growth.

Perhaps I need to speak in simpler terms because you missed the point and demonstrated it simultaneously. You write something original by cutting and pasting an article while attempting to insult me by inventing an argument I didn't make.

You are right, it is truly hilarious but frankly, you are beginning to bore me.

[mas]

[*-)][|-)]

[skonopa]

Oh yes, the never ending HD/BluRay debate!

For what its worth, I scored one of those Toshiba HD-DVD players on the cheap (HD-A30 unit). I more or less got it for it's upconverting abilities plus with the added benefit of watching the occasional HD-DVD disk. What few "regular" DVDs that I've already tried in it looked pretty darn good. I've yet to try an actual HD-DVD in it (althought I have the two that came with the unit, "300" and "Bourne Indentity"). I have an 'older" 55-inch Mitsubishi Diamond Series HD-TV - yes one of the big "old-fashioned" CRT models. Hell, the thing only has a single DVI input (not even HDMI), but everything I tried on it looks really good to this pair of eyes. I have not plans on replacing the TV anytime soon. I did end up having to buy one of those HDMI input switcher units, though as I now have two devices that needs HDMI - the HD-DVD and my DirecTV HD-DVR. I do still have my "regular" DVD player in my system, since it is actually a DVD recorder (with it's own built-in 160-gig harddrive as well - really nice for editing out commercials before committing it to DVD). The only way I'll even begin to consider BluRay is if a BR recorder eventually comes out that is fairly inexpensive, preferably one that also has a harddrive to allow staging and editing of programs before going to the disk. I don't see that happening for quite a few years. The only other way is if I ever decide to break down and buy a PS/3 system (probably if/when Final Fantasy XIII comes out!)

Yes, I do have and still kept my DirecTV subscription and upgraded to the full HD package (although I didn't bother with getting any of the "premium" channels or any of the "sports packages"). Yes, I can and do get terrestrial HD signals, and it actually looks really good, both through the TV's built-in HD tuner as well as through the OTA tuner on my DirecTV unit (which has the added benefit that I can "DVR" up programming from the OTA channels). To bad that, other than the occasional football game, and sometimes the local news, there isn't really anything that is worth jack-$hit to watch over-the-air as far as I am concerned. Thus why I wanted to get the HD DirecTV service, as I do most of my TV watching from channels such as GSN (Game Show Network), Discovery, National Geographic, History, Sci-Fi and so forth, which I cannot get on regular terrestrial service. Since I just don't give a $hit about politics, I don't even bother with watching the news for the most part and what news I am interested in, mostly local happenings, I just read off the fredericksburg.com website. With what TV I do watch, I pretty much just "TiVo" up anything I am interested in and watch it at my leisure whenever I have time to kill (plus gives me the added benefit of being able to skip past the commercials! That little feature right there is dang nearly worth what I paid for the technology!). As for the downloadable movies, I'll have to admit that the Vudu thing has me very intriqued. According to thier website, to get decent performance on streaming HD movies, you need at least 4 megabits per second (last I tested, my own connection allows 8+ megabits/second downloads). I think they only offer up to 720p resolution on the "High-Def" movies. I find my self that I just don't watch that many movies anyway, and find myself borrowing quite a few from friends/co-workers (such as all the Stargate SG-1 DVDs).

It is a crying shame the the HD-DVD ended up being on the raw end of the deal. I personally thought it was the better, plus more mature of the High-Def DVD technology. Once I got it all hooked up the way I wanted it, this little Toshiba unit worked perfectly. I was even able to grab the latest firmware updates for it directly off the network! From what I've heard and seen of the current crop of the BluRay players, I am not impressed. Yes, the picture does look really good (as it also does on my Toshiba unit), but I've seen to many stories of slow start ups, players locking up, features missing/non-functional and so forth. Plus, all that fiasco with rootkits in CDs and so forth has left a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to anything Sony (Yes, I know that "Sony-BMG" is supposedly a seperate entity from "Sony Electronics", but it is all still "Sony" as far as I am concerned and seems to me that was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing).

As long as my system continues to plays the CDs, DVDs, tv shows, etc that I am interested in, and does so looking and sounding good, in the end I really don't care about all this technological, war-mongering, back-n-forth, business.

Like what was previously said, I'll buy, and continue to buy, whatever technology that ends up serving what I am intending to get out of it.

[anarchist]

I picked one (a Toshiba HD-A2) up today myself skonopa along with 5 free movies and the HDMI cable. Although I have several (4) DVD players currently, I figured for the price, I can get a better picture, newer features, and upscale my current collection. Figure I will pick up some additional movies via the firesale that is going on. Eventually, I will pick up a BluRay after the prices drop and since I have the room for multiple components... I will have plenty of choices.

[el jopez]

IMO, the best deal out of the HD-DVD fiasco is the 50 USD Microsoft 360 HD-DVD addon. With instant PC compatibility to read, software to rip and hard drive and server costs at extremly low and configurable prices these days, setting up your very own HD media server is almost a no brainer.