Blu-Ray has 5 years left - Samsung

Digital Distribution just doesn't seem that feasible.
Most people don't have THAT great of internet connection that would benefit from it.

Downloading something here, or there is nothing.
Relying on it as a sole means, hell no.

If Blu-Ray kicks the bucket in five years, DvD will still have it all.
DD will not be anything for a long while. A LONG WHILE. Certaintly not in 5years time.violent_spinal

explain steam and d2d then. for the devs dd is far better since no extra costs of putting the game/movie on a disk and into a box, and with 1tb hdds you can have a huge amount of movies and games a click away. btw a 1tb hdd is less than 1.5 360 20 gb hdds and cheaper than a 120gb 360 drive :lol:

[QUOTE="violent_spinal"]Digital Distribution just doesn't seem that feasible.
Most people don't have THAT great of internet connection that would benefit from it.

Downloading something here, or there is nothing.
Relying on it as a sole means, hell no.

If Blu-Ray kicks the bucket in five years, DvD will still have it all.
DD will not be anything for a long while. A LONG WHILE. Certaintly not in 5years time.imprezawrx500

explain steam and d2d then. for the devs dd is far better since no extra costs of putting the game/movie on a disk and into a box, and with 1tb hdds you can have a huge amount of movies and games a click away. btw a 1tb hdd is less than 1.5 360 20 gb hdds and cheaper than a 120gb 360 drive :lol:

Would you like to store all games and movies in an HDD which is prone to being wiped out?

Would you like to store all games and movies in an HDD which is prone to being wiped out?

tmntPunchout

if you could redownload them (ala Steam) why not?

Samsungs actual quote: "We are butt-hurt we didnt make enough money off of it" DVD has exactly been the norm for decades, hell it VHS outsold it until 2002!! So DVD has been the norm for a whopping 6 years!! Blu-ray will be dominate for circa 2010 or so I bet. I dont think digital distribution will be a contender until broadband becomes faster and cheaper. POJO_MOFO

[QUOTE="darthogre"]

Anyone thinking digital distribution will overcome physical media in the next 5 years is really fooling themselves. People like the shiny discs........most are uncomfortable with the idea of storing all their media on a harddrive.

If the future is hidef, digital distribution has a LONG ways to go before it competes with physical media.

markop2003

i don't think they will store it on their hard drive, itll be storred on their acounts and they'll simply unlock it by buying it and then they'll stream it, much more casual friendly

STEAM works alot like this at the moment as you can download your games to any computer in the world and they're already looking at brining movies and music to the platform

yeah, digital distro has already begun... look at steam and xbl for good examples, and it dosent matter if you loose the physical content because they are tied to your identity so you can get them wherever you go. i think digital distro will set in after the blu-ray/flash era which should last a good 5 years by which time internet whill be up to scrath( no more DL limits... PLZ)

I can guarantee you people digital distribution is not replacing Blu-Ray. There's too many problems that can arise out of digital distribution. Not to mention, its not very casual and friendly. Its still a looong...and I mean looong time before digital distribution is casual entertainment.

The Wii's success should teach a few people about casualness.

True-Legend86

Whats not casual about, select a game, pay, download, play?

Samsung is one of Sony's biggest competitors, would you expect them to rave all about their rival?

No.

Downloadable media will be the norm one day, but right now for HD you have the choice between Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray.

TenP

Online HD movies and upscaling HD (1080p).

There are other options besides Blu-Ray.

this is why i told people not to buy in to BluRay.

it's like an expensive Laser Disc, aka as a 'middle format' - which means it's not a true market dominating format due to incredibly low adoption rates. it'll be gone and bargain binned in the years to come.

there are already other formats that trounce it (prototype) that are due to market before BluRay is expected to make it's exit.

this is why ima sticking with upscaled DVD, no sense replacing a multi-thousand dollar collection with something that'll be gone in a few years.

For the people who are on top of technology already know that BLu-Ray is dying right now. People know are using Media Centers which look like dvd players that have a hard drive inside and can connect to the PC. I have a Media Center with a Terabyte inside and have about 25 blue ray movies I can fit on it and I can switch them out on my PC anytime. The quality is just as as good if not better then a disc. Technology is moving into memory not discs.NismoNissan41

And how do you think they will counter pirating movies then?

[QUOTE="chikenfriedrice"]

But digital distrubution doesn't have the same picture quality as Bluray and HDDVD and that's what I care about

imprezawrx500

says who? a 1tb hdd could have a much better looking movie than blu ray

1tb? i'm talkin about what's available now via cable, dish and xbl and good luck dl'd that 1tb file

[QUOTE="NismoNissan41"]For the people who are on top of technology already know that BLu-Ray is dying right now. People know are using Media Centers which look like dvd players that have a hard drive inside and can connect to the PC. I have a Media Center with a Terabyte inside and have about 25 blue ray movies I can fit on it and I can switch them out on my PC anytime. The quality is just as as good if not better then a disc. Technology is moving into memory not discs.Bebi_vegeta

And how do you think they will counter pirating movies then?

why does that really matter? i mean its not like BluRay or DVD were well protected to begin with.

I assume the way it will move is that new OS for PCs will have aggressive DRM - but who knows.

this is why i told people not to buy in to BluRay.

it's like an expensive Laser Disc, aka as a 'middle format' - which means it's not a true market dominating format due to incredibly low adoption rates. it'll be gone and bargain binned in the years to come.

there are already other formats that trounce it (prototype) that are due to market before BluRay is expected to make it's exit.

this is why ima sticking with upscaled DVD, no sense replacing a multi-thousand dollar collection with something that'll be gone in a few years.

3picuri3

Blu-ray will prevail when the hardware will be cheap. It would also be stupid for someone to get blu-ray if the output (TV) is only a 480i.

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="NismoNissan41"]For the people who are on top of technology already know that BLu-Ray is dying right now. People know are using Media Centers which look like dvd players that have a hard drive inside and can connect to the PC. I have a Media Center with a Terabyte inside and have about 25 blue ray movies I can fit on it and I can switch them out on my PC anytime. The quality is just as as good if not better then a disc. Technology is moving into memory not discs.3picuri3

And how do you think they will counter pirating movies then?

why does that really matter? i mean its not like BluRay or DVD were well protected to begin with.

I assume the way it will move is that new OS for PCs will have aggressive DRM - but who knows.

He just said he could pack 25 HD movies in his 1TB hard drive... I think it matters.

[QUOTE="3picuri3"][QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="NismoNissan41"]For the people who are on top of technology already know that BLu-Ray is dying right now. People know are using Media Centers which look like dvd players that have a hard drive inside and can connect to the PC. I have a Media Center with a Terabyte inside and have about 25 blue ray movies I can fit on it and I can switch them out on my PC anytime. The quality is just as as good if not better then a disc. Technology is moving into memory not discs.Bebi_vegeta

And how do you think they will counter pirating movies then?

why does that really matter? i mean its not like BluRay or DVD were well protected to begin with.

I assume the way it will move is that new OS for PCs will have aggressive DRM - but who knows.

He just said he could pack 25 HD movies in his 1TB hard drive... I think it matters.

um. how? how does it matter. how is that any different than someone having 25 illegal HD DVD or BluRay from your local Chinatown vendors?

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"][QUOTE="3picuri3"]

why does that really matter? i mean its not like BluRay or DVD were well protected to begin with.

I assume the way it will move is that new OS for PCs will have aggressive DRM - but who knows.

3picuri3

He just said he could pack 25 HD movies in his 1TB hard drive... I think it matters.

um. how? how does it matter. how is that any different than someone having 25 illegal HD DVD or BluRay from your local Chinatown vendors?

Exaclty it just makes pirating easier.

enjoy donwnloading 50 gig to watch a film :lol:rgame1

comcasts new policy of a 250gb cap certainly flies in the face of this..unless theyre just going to get rid of the cap or raise it significantlyschu

And thats a big cap! most have way less, down to even just 5 gigs a month..LOL

[QUOTE="tmntPunchout"]

Would you like to store all games and movies in an HDD which is prone to being wiped out?

Hewkii

if you could redownload them (ala Steam) why not?

If you think about it, if you are able to redownload them, you could just download your movies into multiple harddrives. Theoretically you could just share one account with all your friends, family, etc. with so much ease, hackers wouldn't even need to do anything anymore. Steam is different because you pretty much have to be online to play the games especially if it is multiplayer (1 person on the account at a time) and as far as I know, making it a requirement to be online to watch a movie on a harddrive connected to some sort of medium would be ridiculous; eg: what if you want to watch a movie while on a road trip, at a hotel on a portable player etc.

The only way I can see them preventing this from occuring is you'd have to have to sync a single harddrive with the account you plan on buying the movies for and you can only redownload the movies into that same harddrive if the movie got deleted. If not, I'm sure people would buy one copy of the movie then download the movie into multiple harddrive to sell or mass distribute it freely.

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml

I think he's hinting at downloadable media replacing it personally, I defiitely think Blu-Ray won't enjoy the sucess and longevity of previous formats. A lot of people assume it is the new format and is here to stay simply because it beat out HD-DVD but it's definitely not out of the woods yet imo.

speedsix

So Is Physical storage going to die??

It never Will

Even If you're Downloading stuff, Where are you gonna save it?

A Harddrive?

Better Make that Two since you're gonna need a Back up for that one.

Now how about moving it?

A Portable hard drive?

LOL, It's to easy to simply Have a BD in that equation

Either for Back Ups of Portability

[QUOTE="speedsix"]

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml

I think he's hinting at downloadable media replacing it personally, I defiitely think Blu-Ray won't enjoy the sucess and longevity of previous formats. A lot of people assume it is the new format and is here to stay simply because it beat out HD-DVD but it's definitely not out of the woods yet imo.

Blinblingthing

So Is Physical storage going to die??

It never Will

Even If you're Downloading stuff, Where are you gonna save it?

A Harddrive?

Better Make that Two since you're gonna need a Back up for that one.

Now how about moving it?

A Portable hard drive?

LOL, It's to easy to simply Have a BD in that equation

Either for Back Ups of Portability

Why would you need to download on to anything? The movie studio's are going to be smart about DD. The most likely path they'll take will to have you set up an account with them that tracks what movies you own. When you want to watch one you'll go online and the distributor's servers will stream the movie to your television/monitor. Nothing to backup, no hard drives to mess with, and you never have to worry about losing your movies. Cable companies and businesses like Netflix have already started this model, why would anyone expect them to suddenly give us free reign to download as we please?

[QUOTE="Blinblingthing"][QUOTE="speedsix"]

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml

I think he's hinting at downloadable media replacing it personally, I defiitely think Blu-Ray won't enjoy the sucess and longevity of previous formats. A lot of people assume it is the new format and is here to stay simply because it beat out HD-DVD but it's definitely not out of the woods yet imo.

myke2010

So Is Physical storage going to die??

It never Will

Even If you're Downloading stuff, Where are you gonna save it?

A Harddrive?

Better Make that Two since you're gonna need a Back up for that one.

Now how about moving it?

A Portable hard drive?

LOL, It's to easy to simply Have a BD in that equation

Either for Back Ups of Portability

Why would you need to download on to anything? The movie studio's are going to be smart about DD. The most likely path they'll take will to have you set up an account with them that tracks what movies you own. When you want to watch one you'll go online and the distributor's servers will stream the movie to your television/monitor. Nothing to backup, no hard drives to mess with, and you never have to worry about losing your movies. Cable companies and businesses like Netflix have already started this model, why would anyone expect them to suddenly give us free reign to download as we please?

That makes it prone to many people using one account and sharing movies..

[QUOTE="myke2010"][QUOTE="Blinblingthing"][QUOTE="speedsix"]

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml

I think he's hinting at downloadable media replacing it personally, I defiitely think Blu-Ray won't enjoy the sucess and longevity of previous formats. A lot of people assume it is the new format and is here to stay simply because it beat out HD-DVD but it's definitely not out of the woods yet imo.

tmntPunchout

So Is Physical storage going to die??

It never Will

Even If you're Downloading stuff, Where are you gonna save it?

A Harddrive?

Better Make that Two since you're gonna need a Back up for that one.

Now how about moving it?

A Portable hard drive?

LOL, It's to easy to simply Have a BD in that equation

Either for Back Ups of Portability

Why would you need to download on to anything? The movie studio's are going to be smart about DD. The most likely path they'll take will to have you set up an account with them that tracks what movies you own. When you want to watch one you'll go online and the distributor's servers will stream the movie to your television/monitor. Nothing to backup, no hard drives to mess with, and you never have to worry about losing your movies. Cable companies and businesses like Netflix have already started this model, why would anyone expect them to suddenly give us free reign to download as we please?

That makes it prone to many people using one account and sharing movies..

Not if they do it like Netflix and most cable companies, which seems most likely. Put a box in your home and let the streaming begin. Unless you know a way to share your cable with friends.

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"][QUOTE="OhSnapitz"]

Sounds about right... (maybe even less)

For those talking about internet connections... wifi and lan lines are available almost everywhere in some shape or form. Services like Itune's and Netflix are exploding right now with no signs of slowing down. In the next five years DD will be the norm and disc's will be the thing for collectors.. I always reference this when someone knocks DD...

VG related.. Last gen how many movies, games, theme's ect.. did you purchase online/DL..

This gen how many movies, games, theme's ect.. did you purchase online/DL..

Exactly!

mattbbpl

DD will never work with HD content! I have a 20gig max download per month, and then I pay 7$ more each gigs added... nobody in his right mind is gona pay for that.

And people forget that those restrictions are there for a reason. Our infrastructure can only support so much bandwidth, and upgrading it is very costly and time consuming.

And if you're in a rural area, heaven help you.

Exactly.

So even with a High Speed connection you have download caps

A one TB HDD, How Many People have those? Call HD movies 25 Gb, Thats 40 Movies

Where are my new ones to go???? What about a backups???

40 Movies on one HDD is basically having all your Eggs in one basket

Also, HD movies require processing power

I've downloaded 2Gb HD content rips before, On my AMD 2.2 Ghz dual core, 2Gb ram, NVidia 6400 Card.

That movie better be the only thing I am doing

I don't really see people getting gaming PCs and High Sped connections for there HD content

Not if they do it like Netflix and most cable companies, which seems most likely. Put a box in your home and let the streaming begin. Unless you know a way to share your cable with friends.

myke2010

But that's renting movies. How are you going to watch it in your car if you're on a roadtrip. What if you go out of town/state/country etc to visit friends/family, how would you watch it if your box is at home. Will there be any portable form of this is what they do? How can you let people borrow the movie which you own if it's streamed to one thing? What if you don't have an internet/cable connection? Renting would work through streaming but owning probably wouldn't because that greatly reduces the portability, accessability, and point of wanting to own a copy of a movie.

[QUOTE="Blinblingthing"][QUOTE="speedsix"]

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml

I think he's hinting at downloadable media replacing it personally, I defiitely think Blu-Ray won't enjoy the sucess and longevity of previous formats. A lot of people assume it is the new format and is here to stay simply because it beat out HD-DVD but it's definitely not out of the woods yet imo.

myke2010

So Is Physical storage going to die??

It never Will

Even If you're Downloading stuff, Where are you gonna save it?

A Harddrive?

Better Make that Two since you're gonna need a Back up for that one.

Now how about moving it?

A Portable hard drive?

LOL, It's to easy to simply Have a BD in that equation

Either for Back Ups of Portability

Why would you need to download on to anything? The movie studio's are going to be smart about DD. The most likely path they'll take will to have you set up an account with them that tracks what movies you own. When you want to watch one you'll go online and the distributor's servers will stream the movie to your television/monitor. Nothing to backup, no hard drives to mess with, and you never have to worry about losing your movies. Cable companies and businesses like Netflix have already started this model, why would anyone expect them to suddenly give us free reign to download as we please?

Stream it, Even worse

So I am gonna Stream What, SOme 2gb HD content every time I want to watch a Movie????

Imagine your movie Library at youtube.

No real sense of ownership, Poor quality movies.

And I can only Imagine the Client - Server Cost you encounter running this operation

Not to mention the sad customers when they get those "Your processor has been deemed unsuitable to decode HD video content"

[QUOTE="myke2010"]

Not if they do it like Netflix and most cable companies, which seems most likely. Put a box in your home and let the streaming begin. Unless you know a way to share your cable with friends.

tmntPunchout

But that's renting movies. How are you going to watch it in your car if you're on a roadtrip. What if you go out of town/state/country etc to visit friends/family, how would you watch it if your box is at home. Will there be any portable form of this is what they do? How can you let people borrow the movie which you own if it's streamed to one thing? What if you don't have an internet/cable connection? Renting would work through streaming but owning probably wouldn't because that greatly reduces the portability, accessability, and point of wanting to own a copy of a movie.

Renting, No Portability.

Don't forget those Band with caps!

[QUOTE="tmntPunchout"][QUOTE="myke2010"]

Not if they do it like Netflix and most cable companies, which seems most likely. Put a box in your home and let the streaming begin. Unless you know a way to share your cable with friends.

Blinblingthing

But that's renting movies. How are you going to watch it in your car if you're on a roadtrip. What if you go out of town/state/country etc to visit friends/family, how would you watch it if your box is at home. Will there be any portable form of this is what they do? How can you let people borrow the movie which you own if it's streamed to one thing? What if you don't have an internet/cable connection? Renting would work through streaming but owning probably wouldn't because that greatly reduces the portability, accessability, and point of wanting to own a copy of a movie.

Renting, No Portability.

Don't forget those Band with caps!

Uh huh.. Got that right.

Any one who says DD will never happen in the next 5-7 years is an idiot. Its already happening right now and it's very successful. Does Steam, I-tunes, and such ring a bell?

I believe both Digital distribution and Physical media will coincide with each other....Consumers are not that easy to recondition.... Physical media has been driven to consumers for to long...so to change the way consumers think about their media is going to take longer than 5 years....

Sounds about right... (maybe even less)

For those talking about internet connections... wifi and lan lines are available almost everywhere in some shape or form. Services like Itune's and Netflix are exploding right now with no signs of slowing down. In the next five years DD will be the norm and disc's will be the thing for collectors.. I always reference this when someone knocks DD...

VG related.. Last gen how many movies, games, theme's ect.. did you purchase online/DL..

This gen how many movies, games, theme's ect.. did you purchase online/DL..

Exactly!

OhSnapitz

[QUOTE="myke2010"][QUOTE="Blinblingthing"][QUOTE="speedsix"]

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml

I think he's hinting at downloadable media replacing it personally, I defiitely think Blu-Ray won't enjoy the sucess and longevity of previous formats. A lot of people assume it is the new format and is here to stay simply because it beat out HD-DVD but it's definitely not out of the woods yet imo.

Blinblingthing

So Is Physical storage going to die??

It never Will

Even If you're Downloading stuff, Where are you gonna save it?

A Harddrive?

Better Make that Two since you're gonna need a Back up for that one.

Now how about moving it?

A Portable hard drive?

LOL, It's to easy to simply Have a BD in that equation

Either for Back Ups of Portability

Why would you need to download on to anything? The movie studio's are going to be smart about DD. The most likely path they'll take will to have you set up an account with them that tracks what movies you own. When you want to watch one you'll go online and the distributor's servers will stream the movie to your television/monitor. Nothing to backup, no hard drives to mess with, and you never have to worry about losing your movies. Cable companies and businesses like Netflix have already started this model, why would anyone expect them to suddenly give us free reign to download as we please?

Stream it, Even worse

So I am gonna Stream What, SOme 2gb HD content every time I want to watch a Movie????

Imagine your movie Library at youtube.

No real sense of ownership, Poor quality movies.

And I can only Imagine the Client - Server Cost you encounter running this operation

Not to mention the sad customers when they get those "Your processor has been deemed unsuitable to decode HD video content"

You do of course realize that you can already stream HD movies near instantly? DD is already happening. It's been happening for years and is growing every year. It's only going to get bigger.

[QUOTE="tmntPunchout"][QUOTE="myke2010"]

Not if they do it like Netflix and most cable companies, which seems most likely. Put a box in your home and let the streaming begin. Unless you know a way to share your cable with friends.

Blinblingthing

But that's renting movies. How are you going to watch it in your car if you're on a roadtrip. What if you go out of town/state/country etc to visit friends/family, how would you watch it if your box is at home. Will there be any portable form of this is what they do? How can you let people borrow the movie which you own if it's streamed to one thing? What if you don't have an internet/cable connection? Renting would work through streaming but owning probably wouldn't because that greatly reduces the portability, accessability, and point of wanting to own a copy of a movie.

Renting, No Portability.

Don't forget those Band with caps!

Netflix is renting, yes, but the scenario I described is not. You own the rights to watch the movie whenever your want. It's the same thing Steam does with games. You pay once and can redownload/restream as needed.

Why would streaming be different then owning the movie, you still get to watch it whenever you want. Why wouldn't there be a way to create a portable device that you can take to a friends house, plug it in and watch the movies through their access point? I can log onto Steam on any computer and play the games I bought off it, why can't they do something similar with movies? As I stated in another post, DD is already happening and it's growing every year. Do I think it will completely replace hard copies? I don't know and I don't care. But saying it's not the future is like saying mp3's will never overtake CD's as the major music medium.

If DD takes over imagine all the bandwith flowing through the internet:(

It would slow down everything with people buying 50 Gig movies all the time

This is what I told you guys before the PS3 even released. Blu-Ray (or any disc format, for that matter) is a legacy technology. There is no future where you will buy disks - the question is "when" not "if". Rising piracy, rising distribution costs, the growth of small developers / publishers, microcontent, and rising internet speeds all point to a future where you shop for games in the same way you'd browse for music in iTunes.

But digital distrubution doesn't have the same picture quality as Bluray and HDDVD and that's what I care about

chikenfriedrice

Digital distribution can offer whatever picture quality you want :| - I've downloaded 1080p movies, and the visuals were far better than many of the downright *terrible* Blu-Ray transfers I've seen.

[QUOTE="chikenfriedrice"]

But digital distrubution doesn't have the same picture quality as Bluray and HDDVD and that's what I care about

Dreams-Visions

otherwise, DVD-A would be the choice for music and we'd probably STILL be using BETA tapes for video.

The people who are generally arguing for Blu-Ray are two groups - Sony fanboys, and home movie buffs. To the Sony fanboys, I must simply say "what do you care?" - it has next to zero effect on the games you'll be getting, the people who dive on the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player might buy madden and that's about it.

To the home movie buffs, Dreams has just handed you the reality here - people *don't* care. The average person is happy with YouTube quality video - if they get 480p they're thrilled - if we say "here, 720p movies, you *push a button* and they play, whatever movies you want, whenever you want" they're going to say "damn, that's cool". The alternative to companies building that is for them to watch it happen *without them* whether they like it or not, having to constantly fight their stuff getting put out on the internet, and winding up simply losing money and viewership.

The companies who don't jump on digital distribution over the next decade are going to wind up having the same success rate as a 15 minute cartoon show that is only available in VHS format would if it released today. We'd laugh, we'd be like "this isn't on TV? this isn't on the internet? This is on VHS only? WTF".

Hell, how often *now* do you miss a show and say "this isn't on HULU? this isn't on YouTube?" - hell I stopped watching TV on my TV months ago - I seriously forgot that I had cable until tonight - it wasn't *relevant* to me anymore, it had no bearing on my seeing my shows. So - that's the future for movies. Like it, don't like it, doesn't matter - Samsung is right - there's not a hell of a lot of a future in proprietary disc formats.

so waht's next after blu-ray?wiiwillwiiwill

Technically holographic disc formats.

For general consumers? Nothing. It's like saying "what's next after CD?" Sure, you can buy music on DVDs, it has higher quality - if you have a good sound system and the players, it sounds better than CD - how many times have you ever bought music on a DVD? Hell, when was the last time you bought a CD?

Digital makes the concept of a "disc format" rather meaningless - the future argument is really "file format" and even that's a bit trite as they'll be interchangeable and universally playable.

too much hassle in downloading, much easier to just buy a disc.XenoNinja

Yet piracy exists.

[QUOTE="XenoNinja"]too much hassle in downloading, much easier to just buy a disc.SpinoRaptor

Yet piracy exists.

Because piracy is free.

Trying moving data from one television to anotherMisterEngilsh

I can push a button on any screen in my home and view anything I want instantly. Might I add that this occurs *wirelessly* to put the icing on the cake? Can you access thousands of TV shows, movies, and clips instantly from your couch, without ever putting in a disc?

If your hard drive is damaged, you lose all your moviesMisterEngilsh

That would only be true if we existed in some magical fantasy universe where the only copy of each movie in existance resides on *your personal hard drive*. The tens of thousands of terabytes of music and movie data out there are stored in multiple locations - the majority of movie and TV services uses instant streaming.

That means while you can cache the content for personal storage, you don't have to - your ability to view that content would be unaffected by personal hard drive failure - oh, and any content you would like begins playing *instantly* the moment you queue it up - no wait, no "it's downloading" - push and play.

If your DVD gets scratched badly, tough cookies, you're out of luck. If my house is leveled by a meteor, no problem, my movie, music, and TV collections are still intact.

DD is anti-consumer. Plain and simple.MisterEngilsh

Yes, something that allows me to download rather than driving to the store, gives me access to a digital backup copy of my data, allows me to instantly stream movies, TV shows, and music, and gives content producers access to their customers without having to get approval from multi-billion dollar publishers is CLEARLY anti-consumer.

We should only view content which has been approved for mass-consumption by the big corporations, screened by the FCC, censored, rated, and test-marketed. :|

Digital distribution is the most pro-consumer technology in existance. It cuts out the middle men (retail, traditional publishing / production, marketing) creates an even playing field where content rules, encourages healthy competition, allows content-consumers closer access to content-creators, lowers costs, allows sharing of entertainment across devices, and puts you content in a format that is device / OS / platform independant - rather than giving you yet another format, limited player, etc that will wind up in th garage.

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DD is the future - and it's not because Samsung said so, and NO the people vouching for it aren't 360 fanboys - PC fans were the first to explain how digital would be the future. People argued - and then this generation EVERYONE realized they were right, with Wiiware, PSN, and XBLA - funny how that worked out - but it's not the point. Unless you're arguing that you'll never used YouTube, that HULU is a terrible idea, that AdultSwimFix is a "ripoff" and that somehow a future where we get tons of movies, tv shows, music, and some developers have even said *games* for free (the death of TV / movie theaters/ newspapers / etc has left them looking for a way to advertise, and that means big bucks ten years from now) is somehow a "ripoff"?

[QUOTE="SpinoRaptor"]

[QUOTE="XenoNinja"]too much hassle in downloading, much easier to just buy a disc.MisterEngilsh

Yet piracy exists.

Because piracy is free.

DD will be free or extremely low cost for the majority of content.