The TV Addict 

your not very well informed are you.

all your disks are backward compatible and you obviously only buy new disks for shows that you have not got yet.

for someone who owns a blu-ray the picture quality is unreal and you will never go back to normal tv.

you really should try thinking before posting in future.

Dear Jenny,

I’m well aware that you can play all your regular DVD’s on a regular Blu Ray or HD player. My point is that the network’s will invariably release ’special edition’ seasons with new amazing features on HD and Blu Ray — thus ensuring TV Addicts everywhere will want to replace our old movies with new HD or Blu Ray versions.

I already own far too many movies on VHS and DVD.

Well, I could also say that I think they’ll move right into brain implants, where you just think of the episode and it appears in your eye sockets. So, how long do we wait, really?

Gudlyf… I’m pretty sure Brain Implants are slated for 2010.

I agree with the TV Addict.

What people here don’t seem to get is that there is no reason that downloadable content can’t be in hi def! Hi def doesn’t have anything to do with MEDIA (Blue Ray or HD DVD), it’s about video content complying with the 1080i and 1080p standards. Blue Ray and HD DVD disks are just file storage devices. Once you have the data on your TiVo or PC, it doesn’t matter what media you are using to store the files. Disk space is cheap, so hard drives are fine! I have room on my TiVo for 100 hours of hi def.

In terms of how to get the video files, so what if it takes an hour to download them from iTunes (to a PC) or Amazon Unbox (to TiVo) via broadband. Even now, with the broadband speed I have, when I buy from Amazon Unbox I can watch hi quality (although not hi def) video right away, as it downloads, on my TiVo. That will be true for hi def in a year.

TV stations, networks and DVDs are going to go the way of VHS. If you aren’t drowning in dollars save your money. Don’t buy Blu Ray or HD DVD until you can get a player that will play BOTH for $50. It will happen soon enough. You’ll only need the discs so that you can watch hi def in your car.

Joe Mama Says:

November 29th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
“Tony Rogers… come on man. Listen to yourself…”

You seem to think this is hackery, like downloading from BitComet or something. I can understand that, but it really is simple. Most of our grandmothers already have broadband, and many already have TiVo connected to it (that’s how TiVo works). If they don’t, their 15 year old grandchildren can set it up for them. Downloading from Amazon Unbox takes 15 minutes to set up. It’s no harder than ordering a DVD to be mailed to you. You enter your credit card number, TiVo account number, order, and it shows up on your TiVo’s “now playing” list right away. I was amazed how easy it was. After that you don’t even have to go to Amazon to order the movies and shows–you can do it using your remote, like “On Demand” on cable. This isn’t in the “someday” future, it’s right now.

Terrible read. who ever wrote this needs to be put to sleep.
no offence.

This whole thing is a repeat of the CD vs. music download argument 10 years ago. Now I wouldn’t even consider buying one of the plastic things. They just take up space, get lost, etc. Most of mine aren’t even in their case anymore. I never even use them–all my music is on my PC, and I put it on my MP3 player if I want to take it with me. CDs are still around, but most people are heading the same way as me. It’ll be the same thing with video downloads and video disc media.

Right now high def video takes a monsterous amount of space. So does music on CDs. Now we fit it a thousand songs on our MP3 players, and don’t even think about it. Video compression gets better every year, and disk space gets cheaper. Can you imagine having a high def video player loaded with shows and movies that you can carry with you? I can.

Right now I get my TiVo HD content from my cable company, and it is 1080i, not 1080p, has 5.1 sound instead of 7.1, is more heavily compressed, and you rarely get any extras with the movies. The 8 GB/hr it uses is less than the 10-15 GB/hr on hi def discs (right?), but it still give me a stellar picture, and I can store around 100 hours on my 750 GB High Def TiVo, the rough equivalent of 50 movies or more than 100 TV shows. The ability to have that large a short-term library, in very good (although not excellent) quality video, is good enough for me, for now. I do miss the DVD extras, but I’m hardly feeling deprived, and neither would most other consumers. We will get better quality and extras with downloads down the road. This will take some time, but it won’t be long.

A big factor is that disc media doesn’t feed people’s appetites for immediate access to TV programming, and streaming video and video downloads do, so most people will want TiVo/Unbox setups like I’m talking about anyway. That’s what is getting streaming and downloaded video going right now, not movies. Once they’ve got the setup, why not use it for movies as well?

Regarding people’s compulsion for ownership, I agree that’s a big factor, and it’s enough on its own to keep hi def disc media around, just as it’s kept CDs around. I have suffered from the ownership ailment in the past, and as a result my apartment is absolutely overflowing with CDs and DVDs. In my last place I covered 2 walls with shelves, floor to ceiling, to accommodate them, but now I’ve got a smaller place so I had to leave most of my CDs in moving boxes. I don’t even miss them though, so I’ve gotten the cure on that one. I’m happy to continue buying more and more disk space for my music, and deleting movies and shows after I watch them, and I think most other consumers will feel the same way once they see this all played out. Look how many people are happy with Blockbuster, Netflix, pay-per-view and on-demand. I think the direction things are moving is pretty clear.