THE FUNNY thing about the Blu-ray vs HD DVD war is that, 1. most people would still rather buy a DVD because many of us are perfectly happy with its quality, and that’s probably gonna be true for a few more years, and 2. pretty soon, it will make more sense for a growing number of people to just download high-definition content to their hard drives or stream it rather than buy a disc.
OK, personally I was rooting for HD DVD but it looks like I might have picked the wrong format after Warner Bros. drove a stake into Toshiba’s heart and decided to go exclusively Blu-ray. Toshiba has responded (well, after first canceling their Consumer Electronics Show press conference) by slashing the prices of its HD DVD players. By the way, as my fellow tech journalists and I have discussed time and again, another major factor that would determine the outcome of this latest format war would be: which one will the porn industry support? And according to this article, the adult film industry is still backing HD DVD. (But shouldn’t a blue movie be on Blu-ray? Heh, just kidding.)
Anyway, now that Apple also wants to corner the movie rental business with iTunes, expect movie downloads to become even more mainstream. (Now, if only Apple could make the iTunes store available in the Philippines and the rest of Asia…)
Check out this Reuters video report on Apple’s movie rental service.
I’m a big believer in watching video online (obviously, since I handle our online video service) and an avid fan of services like Joost. Just imagine how far we’ve come — a few years ago, broadcast-quality online video was a pipe dream.
Oh, and speaking of Apple, for the record, I’m drooling over the MacBook Air, the world’s thinnest notebook. Yes, I love Mikaela my (well, until the office changes its mind, heh) MacBook Pro, but damn, just look at the MacBook Air!
January 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am
You’re such a fanboy toad!
January 18th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Movies are not going to move to being downloaded or streamed, and for one very solid reason: People need a hard copy. Sometimes, you want to take your movie with you, sure you can do that if you have a hard drive, but a portable one. Not everyone is going to have hard drives that they’ll want to carry movies around with. Personally, I believe movies will move to a flash based format much like a USB Stick, no moving parts, incredibly small, hard to damage (unlike discs which scratch).
January 18th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Yes because I want to wait an hour for a movie I do not own, watch it on a screen that is smaller than I have in my daughters room and listen to it in stereo sound.
Not that I am a techno Idiot (I record OTA HD brodcasts on my computer and stream them thru my PS3) But most consumers, we are talking adults here, think about downloading movies and say well I want to watch it on my TV! Do you really expect people who cant set the time on thier VCR’s to get the concept of video streaming? Most just want a box and some tangible medium to use.
With the way our current internet structure is there is now way that there would be enough people to negate a physical medium for movie viewing for quite sometime.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:48 am
HD Movie downloads in the vain Apple wants to deliver them will be vastly inferior to those stored on Optical media. I would love to hear how iTunes plans to deliver uncommpressed 1900×1080 video with full digital audio at a reasonable speed over a WAN connection.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:35 am
This is another case of “my format of choice lost so now I say it doesn’t matter who wins because downloads” or “Buh, buh, b- the downloads?! FTW?!”
Seriously get over it, Time Warner is talking about putting caps on the amount of content (in gigabytes) that we are allowed to download without paying them more money. HD Downloads are not coming right away, and if they are they are rentals and many, many people like to have physical copy of their movies. Blu-ray has won, deal with it.