Quote:
Originally Posted by jakethedog
too bad it will all be moot as soon as we cross this next threshold into all media coming through the net ..
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People that make these statements live in a bubble. Maybe in 2018 you might start to see downloading start to take over physical media.
1/3 of Americans has ZERO internet access. 1/6 only have dial-up( which you could only theoretically download up to 16 GB a month max ). That's 50% of American households not being to download over the net. Of the 50% that do have broadband, half of those get 2 Mbps or less speed. That's not very fast for downloading HD content. And don't expect these numbers to improve anytime soon. Not in America at least.
Xbox Live has it where you can download movies and Tv shows even in HD. It's 720p though. Both blu-ray and HD-DVD are 1080p. The movies are rentals while the TV shows are purchases. However the content can only be stored on a XBOX 360 hard drive. Sorry but if I'm paying $2 per episode for just the SD version of a TV show I'd better be able to play in on whatever I want. Amazon has their video download service too. Once again some restrictions.
So ok I can either pay $2 per episode for say the latest season of South Park from XBOX Live and be limited for watching it from my xbox 360. So if I want to watch it at my friends house I either have to take my entire 360 or if he has one remove my hard drive and take that over there. Real fucking convenient. And if my hard drive gets full I either have to erase a show I have purcahsed or buy another overpriced XBOX 360 hard drive.
Or pay $2 per episode from Amazon and watch it on my PC, though I can stream it to my TV if I have a device that can do that or hook my TV to my PC( a pain ). You can burn them to DVD but only for back-up they won't play on a DVD player.
Or for about $2.50 an episode I can buy it on DVD and play it on whatever the fuck I want. DVD player, HD-DVD player, blu-ray player, PS3, XBOX 360, PC, laptop, portable DVD player. Having choices is nice. And a DVD is much more portable than an XBOX 360.
So downloading video over the internet has a LONG LONG fucking way to go before it overtakes physical media for many reasons.