An argurment for the longevity of DVD

[3db]

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/17/2230377/heres-why-dvds-wont-be-going-away.html

 

[sholling]

It's an interesting argument and I personally prefer electronic storage of my CD contents. But I wouldn't give up having media for backups unless the seller assured that I could redownload in the event of a drive crash. Finally there is the issue of bandwidth. I'm one of the lucky few with great gobs of bandwidth (35/35Mb FIOS), but a huge chunk of the US can't even get DSL much less afford high bandwidth connections. Verizon has stopped their FIOS expansion and AT&T refuses to get into the fiber to the home business. And cable companies aren't going to put up with customers downloading Netflix much longer. Not when they can force you into their pay per view. And that's just the US (carrier pigeons). If this were Korea where you can get 100Mb anywhere I'd say the DVD was in danger. But not just yet. So far I have not been impressed with Netflix's (720P w/2ch audio) online offerings but I guess I'm a picky audioholic. Wake me when it's uncompressed 1080P w/5.1 sound.

Bottom line I think DVDs (especially Blu-Ray) and CDs are the purchase/rental medium of choice for at least another 10 years. At least for me.

 

[highfigh]

It's an interesting argument and I personally prefer electronic storage of my CD contents. But I wouldn't give up having media for backups unless the seller assured that I could redownload in the event of a drive crash. Finally there is the issue of bandwidth. I'm one of the lucky few with great gobs of bandwidth (35/35Mb FIOS), but a huge chunk of the US can't even get DSL much less afford high bandwidth connections. Verizon has stopped their FIOS expansion and AT&T refuses to get into the fiber to the home business. And cable companies aren't going to put up with customers downloading Netflix much longer. Not when they can force you into their pay per view. And that's just the US (carrier pigeons). If this were Korea where you can get 100Mb anywhere I'd say the DVD was in danger. But not just yet. So far I have not been impressed with Netflix's (720P w/2ch audio) online offerings but I guess I'm a picky audioholic. Wake me when it's uncompressed 1080P w/5.1 sound.

Bottom line I think DVDs (especially Blu-Ray) and CDs are the purchase/rental medium of choice for at least another 10 years. At least for me.

Once fiber is everywhere, it will be a lot easier for high-capacity streaming to happen. Until then, the quality will be trumped by quantity and easy access.

 

[highfigh]

dsffdsdsfdfsdfsdsdfs

Oh, yeah? Well, 10001000001111001010100010010010111110010101!!!!!!!!!

 

[Seth=L]

Oh, yeah? Well, 10001000001111001010100010010010111110010101!!!!!!!!!

I determined with these users (most likely the same person) that I'm worth 6 + green and 3 - red.

 

[jostenmeat]

I determined with these users (most likely the same person) that I'm worth 6 + green and 3 - red.

I always wondered how much I can dish. I just reversed yours, and I um can't figure out the correct number. Wait, I think I'm at +12 green and -6 red.

 

[bogrod]

And cable companies aren't going to put up with customers downloading Netflix much longer. Not when they can force you into their pay per view.

I'm wondering when/if that would ever happen. Netflix is pretty well entrenched these days. It seems that if they would have had a problem, they would've brought Netflix to court years ago.

I never, ever dealt with pay-per-view, and I have read elsewhere that some cable providers won't even allow you 24 hours of viewing/re-viewing anymore.

 

[sholling]

I'm wondering when/if that would ever happen. Netflix is pretty well entrenched these days. It seems that if they would have had a problem, they would've brought Netflix to court years ago.

I never, ever dealt with pay-per-view, and I have read elsewhere that some cable providers won't even allow you 24 hours of viewing/re-viewing anymore.

I don't know if you've heard of the debates over network neutrality or not. Classically you paid for a certain speed of access to the internet and you could access anything (legal) that you wanted as fast as your connection allowed and how you used it was none of the ISP's business. That's what proposals for network neutrality laws were originally meant to preserve.

Two things changed the all you can eat of whatever you want business model. One was the former president of AT&T who liked the AOL walled garden approach to access. He felt that you should pay him for access to an AT&T walled garden and that any companies (amazon, Google, Netflix, etc) that want to do business with you should have to pay him a tribute. Never mind that you pay for high-speed access to the internet, and that those companies already pay a fortune for their internet connections and bandwidth, in his mind companies should have to pay AT&T tribute to do business with you.

The second straw was bit-torrents. To save on infrastructure cable companies sell shared access to the internet. They really want to keep their bandwidth and infrastructure costs as low as possible and to do that they need to minimize usage. Besides the last thing that cable companies what is you watching Netflix when they can force you to pay them $4 for the same videos. With internet providers in most areas having monopolies or at best duopolies there is simply not enough competition to force them to provide a good product or a better price. That's how they get away with twice a year price increases for cable TV. The cable company solution for a while was to slow torrent traffic. I've never used torrents or subscribed to cable internet access so I don't know for sure how effective that was, but there is nothing to stop them from selectively slowing Netflix to the point that it's unwatchable.