Downloads vs. Discs - An Analysis

[admin]

There seem to be two camps in the AV field in regards to content - downloads or physical media. The download camp says that physical media is quickly becoming a thing of the past. The other side holds their discs up high and scream, "You'll take my disc from my cold dead hands!" So, who will be right? An analysis.

Discuss "Downloads vs. Discs - An Analysis" here. Read the article.

 

[Djizasse]

Good article.

But Blu-ray may be digging it's own grave by relying on people to be willing to pay more for quality. In times like these, it may be better to take the financial hit just to make sure that your base doesn't try the competition and realize that your advantage isn't as great as you make it out to be.

I don't think they're hearing you (us).

I don't understand their business model. They would make more money if they just lowered the disc's prices. More discs sold for less make more profit than less discs for more money.

As for CDs, they don't fit into any cellphone I know

 

[DTS]

I like cold hard discs. I like knowing its the best quality possible. I like going to the shelf and picking out a movie to watch. And besides, do they just assume everyone has the means or access to screamin' internet? We have Wild Blue with a relatively fast { for satellite } download speed, but there is always the F.A.P. to consider. Even if we were ever to get cable out here in the "sticks", I wood be tempted do get it for the high speed internet for gaming reasons and faster downloads and such, but I will keep my DISH for TV and keep buying the neat little discs.

 

[skizzerflake]

Physical media still have a few good years left in them. Not everybody has broadband and if you do, you might have one of those companies that sticks you with a fee for heavy downloading. When they do, it's dubious whether it's cheaper to stream or download a movie, especially in HD. Personally, I like owning some, but not a large number of disks, so I can watch them when I please rather than on Comcast's schedule. In the long run, however, on-demand selections will grow, connections will get better and the balance might shift.

 

[sperho]

Does anyone know what percent of revenues of Blu-ray and/or DVD physical disc sales are for the majority of companies? I rarely buy a disc and have only a very, very small collection of discs, yet I love to watch movies and I probably enjoy the whole hi-fi AV experience more than the average Joe. In other words, does the fact that not purchasing to own vis a vis renting physical media really matter to the success of a format? I remember a time when VHS releases were truly cost prohibitive and was like that for many years. It didn't seem to matter much then, did it? Or maybe I'm just living under a rock and my perception is skewed as a result.

 

[Wayde Robson]

I'm in between.

For music I'm streaming radio (SomaFM is my fav while I work) and my computer is connected to a Denon receiver and an NHT 5.1 speaker system in my "office". I download/stream TV shows I don't get with my basic cable subscription.

I use the Squeezebox to send my digital music collection to my main a/v system in the living room. But I still have a Cambridge Audio disc player that is seldom used. Occasionally (usually when it's late and I've had a couple of gin and tonics) I'll pop in an old DVD-Audio discs. It blows me away!

I have long since ripped all my CDs to Apple Lossless (I regret not having done FLAK or something else but it's done) - and sold my CDs.

Movies

I couldn't be a bigger evangelist for Blu-ray. I'm all about the lossless audio codecs and the quality. That includes music on Blu-ray which IMHO even has DVD-Audio beat. We just need more made.

I totally agree they're too expensive right now. I'll be gosh darned if I'm going to pay $30 for a movie... although I have done it the odd time. I've even spent up to $50 for a box set of a TV show or movie collection.

Here's the principle at work I believe is most important to any media... how it was put together at the studio.

As much as I've loved the audio quality of an uncompressed CD or DVD-Audio disc, SACD - I've bought a few discs online in recent months and found they sound crappy! No dynamics in the sound - lazy separation - no immersion factor whatsoever. A CD, although uncompressed, isn’t always what it used to be!

So, it's not always the 'format' per-se. Sadly as compressed digital crap becomes the norm I think studios might be inclined to get a bit lazy.

However - Blu-ray is the total antithesis to that. I'm seeing multi-channel lossless audio, not just movies but concerts, that sound AMAZING. It's as if there is this hive of audiophilism still working for these studios cranking out Blu-ray discs.

I'm loving that fact and I hope it stays around a long-long time. Blu-ray may be the final hope for the Audioholic.

 

[GlocksRock]

I'm still all about physical media, especially for movies. Music, I like having a disc so I can rip it to my hard drive however I see fit, but I do generally only listen to music via my ipod in my car, but at least I'm not using the headphone jack, my Alpine CDA-9887 has a high speed ipod cable that uses the balanced connector.

 

[MidnightSensi]

I like the digital realm. I don't really see much of a benefit to physical media anymore. Just seems like a wasted middle-man to me now. Get the material, press it, ship it, stock it, store it, buy it, drive home, upwrap it, throw away the plastic ... the case, the media... I'm not even that "Green", but, physical media is something I could for sure do without. Apple TV I can rent a movie in HD and it downloads while I watch it. I have NetFlix, but, truthfully, that's kind of a waste too.

I love vinyl and have a ton of it, but when I buy something on vinyl I listen to it digitally and then just call the distributor or record label to buy it. That's how CDs should be. If you really want something physical, then you can buy it direct. But, since CDs are digital, I don't see any advantage to it other than having something to touch and feel...which, is important to a lot of people.

To me, having the ability to search my record collection and pull anything up from a 4tb collection in a few seconds, is bloody awesome. I have so much stuff in Lossless now too, that I've either gotten in lossless or ripped from my vinyl.

 

[rnatalli]

Provide me with DRM-free lossless, downloads and I'll never buy a disc again.

 

[GlocksRock]

The thing with downloads, is you eventually run out of storage space on your device, and the next time you want to watch/listen to whatever, you have to download it again. And with some high def movies, this could be a very large file and take a while to download, and what if you have internet issues, then you are out of luck. But if you have a disc, just pop it in and you are off. Both mediums have their place, but I think physical media will still be here for a while. But I am interested in seeing how will this thing xbox live has coming up with supposed no wait streaming movies in 1080p, but even that will likely still only have standard dolby digital 5.1 and no lossless TrueHD or dts-hd master audio.

 

[MidnightSensi]

The thing with downloads, is you eventually run out of storage space on your device, and the next time you want to watch/listen to whatever, you have to download it again. And with some high def movies, this could be a very large file and take a while to download, and what if you have internet issues, then you are out of luck. But if you have a disc, just pop it in and you are off. Both mediums have their place, but I think physical media will still be here for a while. But I am interested in seeing how will this thing xbox live has coming up with supposed no wait streaming movies in 1080p, but even that will likely still only have standard dolby digital 5.1 and no lossless TrueHD or dts-hd master audio.

Well, bandwidth and storage are an issue, but its becoming less so. I have AT&T U-Verse which has 18Mbit/s download speeds, and I have just over 4TB of storage not including my computer (which has another 1.5TB) or any of my portable drives.

A Drobo, which is an expensive way to get storage, is only 900 bucks for the Drobo unit and 4 terabytes of storage. Someone who wanted to spend some time shopping could get 4 terabytes muucchh cheaper. A decent looking piece of furniture to store movies in costs more than 900 bucks.

Last night I watched Gran Turimo on AppleTV in high-def. No wait at all.

I can't even watch regular TV anymore because I just watch stuff off AppleTV, the Internet, On-Demand, etc. I still get Blu-Rays from NetFlix, but if I run out AppleTV here I come.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I'm all about the Netflix blu-ray renting and the physical disc.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Well, bandwidth and storage are an issue, but its becoming less so. I have AT&T U-Verse which has 18Mbit/s download speeds, and I have just over 4TB of storage not including my computer (which has another 1.5TB) or any of my portable drives.

A Drobo, which is an expensive way to get storage, is only 900 bucks for the Drobo unit and 4 terabytes of storage. Someone who wanted to spend some time shopping could get 4 terabytes muucchh cheaper. A decent looking piece of furniture to store movies in costs more than 900 bucks.

Last night I watched Gran Turimo on AppleTV in high-def. No wait at all.

I can't even watch regular TV anymore because I just watch stuff off AppleTV, the Internet, On-Demand, etc. I still get Blu-Rays from NetFlix, but if I run out AppleTV here I come.

Yeah, I have a total of 20TB @ $200 per 2TB (including S/H).

 

[GlocksRock]

but who says all your content will end up on your pc? I'm sure there will be net enabled tv's that you stream or download right to your tv, then what, you can't copy it to your PC when you are done watching it. And what about the DRM too that has always been an issue? All that storage space on your PC is great for when you rip a disc to your computer, but if you can't get the data to your PC, then what good is all that space?

 

[MDS]

Opinions on this topic are always pretty evenly split between those who want physical media and those who think it is a waste and downloads are all we need. There are advantages and disadvantages to each.

I want physical media to be available and the main reason is that music simply goes away after a period of time. Think about vinyl enthusiasts that collect records - much of what was available on vinyl does not exist in a digital format anywhere for downloading or streaming and never will be! Same with music on CD. If you don't get a copy of it and preserve it for yourself, it is gone forever.

I have yet to purchase a single song from iTunes or any other download service and yet I never play any of my CDs. I buy CDs, old and new, and rip the songs. I keep both the uncompressed WAV as well as transcode the WAVs to lossy formats like MP3. Having your music in a digital file is very convenient because you can put it on any device you want or stream it around the house. However, I want a physical media copy to preserve as kind of an archive - like books in a library. I have dozens of CDs of '70s and '80s Rock that are long out of print, have never been available on iTunes or anywhere else, and like I said Never Will Be.

Physical media does take up a lot of space to store but so does digital media, just in a different way. What often seems to be overlooked is the larger your collection grows so too does your storage requirements and with that the need for an effective backup strategy. It's not once and done with digital media - it is a constant 'upgrade' process to buy ever larger discs, transfer all the files to the new discs, and back it all up on a regular basis. Anyone who believes all they need is a few terabytes of disc space and they'll have the music they love to enjoy forever will change their mind the first time a drive fails and all that precious audio is gone forever.

 

[lsiberian]

The article is a nice overview, but this is really an old computing war from the dawn of the computer.

It boils down to the thin vs fat client model of computing.

CD/DVD's, Hard Drivers, Tapes are all information storage devices. used to support fat client computing.

As long as we are downloading our information will be stored on something and there will be the need for high storage devices such as Blu-ray(etc)

Someday we may see a thin client model take over. Where a centrilized system has all the data in humanity. Such a moment would be a momentus ocassion and lead to rapid technological improvements. Imagine every genius having access to every other genius. The possibilities are insane. Still the network capacity required for this is also insane. And wireless technology is the best way to acheive this in most cases. In order to improve wireless speeds we will need a breakthrough or to add more towers. I haven't seen this in our country but in densely populated overseas nations it's taken off like wildfire.

The future is bright and I won't wave my discs like a fool. Sound quality and video quality have improved continously since the invention of the speaker and tv. Don't think they won't continue to improve.

Much has to be done some of it will be accomplished through the passing of generations resistant to change. We have a lot of work to do to unite the world but we must strive to do it. This is where humanity is at it's best when we unite to improve everyone's life.

Don't resist technology seek to help make it better. If you don't like the movie quality then try helping them improve it. Let them know we can make better quality downloads. We've come a long way guys and the technological explosion has just begun. Where were you 20 years ago. Wow the world's advanced a lot.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

To me, one of the fun things about this movie hobby is COLLECTING the blu-rays. I like to physically OWN the blu-ray movie.

I don't like Streaming because I don't really OWN it. It's just not as fun to me.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

but who says all your content will end up on your pc? I'm sure there will be net enabled tv's that you stream or download right to your tv, then what, you can't copy it to your PC when you are done watching it. And what about the DRM too that has always been an issue? All that storage space on your PC is great for when you rip a disc to your computer, but if you can't get the data to your PC, then what good is all that space?

Hey, FYI, DVDFab v6!!!

 

[Adam]

It boils down to the thin vs fat client model of computing.

CD/DVD's, Hard Drivers, Tapes are all information storage devices. used to support fat client computing.

Exactly. You phrased it better than I would, and you made it so that I didn't have to try. Thanks!

As for the concept of freely shared knowledge, we keep things secret for several reasons - and those reasons would need to be addressed before sharing everything with everybody would be a good idea.

"Jimmy seems depressed, but we think that building that fusion bomb will help cheer him up."

 

[fredk]

Whenever somethign is centralized there will be a desire to control it for one of two reasons: Money, power.

In the academic world, services like Elsiever (sp??) seek to control access for profit. Universities have been fighting back as the original 'content developers' by making the information available on their own servers.

Its the same driving force as thin/fat client: who gets control.

As to physical media vs download/streaming, I bet that if you look at the two groups it will largely be an age divide as well. I grew up in the world of physical ownership so I like discs. My daughter thinks I'm nuts to pay for anything.