Bill Gates: Both BluRay and HDDVD doomed for failure

[expletive]

Cable companies don't have to worry about keeping to 5-10mb a minute in their own closed networks, what you are talking about is basicly just the HD on-demand you said you already have. That isn't anything that can replace being able swing by the store and pick up whatever movie you like, or being able to simply have the movie dropped off in your mailbox.

Swing by the store and pay 4x what they have to pay to see something they will watch once? You mean drive to the store, find a parking space, look for it, stand in line, pay $20 for it (instead of 4.95), instead of not leave the house? Maybe the guys in here like wandering around bestbuy, i know i do, but i dont think the average person wants to deal with that EVERY time they want to watch a movie.

The best thing about netflix is that its cheap. You can rotate about 10 movies a month on average for about $15, not bad. (IT requires way more planning than the 12 hour lead time i gave in my example earlier though, at least 2 days, usually more). However, if you forget to drop that puppy in the mailbox on wednesday, there goes your friday night.

 

[expletive]

Most DVD buys are impulse purchases. You guys are way too oriented into your own tech world. You've got to think about the non-internet savy person. These people don't even own PVRs, and they don't like to program their VCRs.

They are not going to wait 24+hrs for essentially a "pay per view" equivalent, when today, they can wait <1hr to watch it scheduled on Pay Per View.

The broadcast model is far far more efficient, and for that reason, it will win out in the end. Time and time again, operators of cable, satellite, and phone networks have proven that they like to maximize # of subscribers for a given bandwidth.

Unicast downloads are simply far too wasteful.

The PVR-type service is taking off in this USA. Every TV content provider is offering them. Trust me, once my mom has one and can use it, its officially 'adopted by the mainstream'.

Yes the broadcast model is more efficient for the providers but its less CONVENIENT for the consumer.

Unicast is wasteful? How so? Theres no raw materials required or consumed to use bandwidth that would otherwise sit idle. Wasteful is 5" plastic discs and packaging and shipping boxes and shrink wrap.

Theres enough evidence that digital delivery will happen, it will deliver movies to your home. Will it kill HD DVD and Blu-ray as movie formats? If they continue to pull the customer in 2 different directions for long enough, i think it will, and may do it regardless.

 

[DemoCoder]

Netflix is so fast and convenient for me. They can get a movies to me in about 24 hrs.

I don't like the future SeanO is dreaming of. A future where inferior quality/poorly compressed HD becomes the dominant defacto standard, killing off much superior optical media.

The success of SuperBit DVD leads me to believe that all is not lost.

 

[expletive]

Netflix is so fast and convenient for me. They can get a movies to me in about 24 hrs.

I don't like the future SeanO is dreaming of. A future where inferior quality/poorly compressed HD becomes the dominant defacto standard, killing off much superior optical media.

The success of SuperBit DVD leads me to believe that all is not lost.

How can you get a netflix movie in 24 hours? You ahve more than 1 mail pickup/dropoff a day?

The way it works for me is:

Day 1: put in mailbox
Day 2: netflix gets mine, sends me a new one
Day 3: i get my new one

How can this timeline be compressed beyond that?

I dont like this possible future either, ive got a nice dedicated home theater that i want to 'feed' nothing but the best, but i see this coming.

 

[DemoCoder]

I'm talking about from the time I queue something, to the time I receive it. I have the plan that you can take out 8 at once, and I almost never have 8 out. Netflix is located close to my house.

I also have a blockbuster within walking distance.

I can literally go get a movie in 5 minutes.

 

[kyleb]

Swing by the store and pay 4x what they have to pay to see something they will watch once? You mean drive to the store, find a parking space, look for it, stand in line, pay $20 for it (instead of 4.95), instead of not leave the house? Maybe the guys in here like wandering around bestbuy, i know i do, but i dont think the average person wants to deal with that EVERY time they want to watch a movie.

Weird, we have stores where you can rent movies for a few bucks around here, if you go in the off hours you don't have to stand in line and they put the stores in statigic locations so they are handy to swing by on the way to the grocery store and whatnot.

The best thing about netflix is that its cheap. You can rotate about 10 movies a month on average for about $15, not bad. (IT requires way more planning than the 12 hour lead time i gave in my example earlier though, at least 2 days, usually more). However, if you forget to drop that puppy in the mailbox on wednesday, there goes your friday night.

I'm glad you like Netflix, they will probably be a good place to turn to when you realize that online delivery of HD content isn't gonna happen any time soon.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Aye, isn't warner the company who has time and time again that DVDs are impulse buys? As a result they tend to price their DVDs lower on hopes that the lower prices will increase demand. Far as I'm aware it's been working quite well.

 

[expletive]

Weird, we have stores where you can rent movies for a few bucks around here, if you go in the off hours you don't have to stand in line and they put the stores in statigic locations so they are handy to swing by on the way to the grocery store and whatnot.

I'm glad you like Netflix, they will probably be a good place to turn to when you realize that online delivery of HD content isn't gonna happen any time soon.

Yeah see the problem is that the off-hours are when people are usually at work, and in the on hours, the 30 copies or so of the new releases are already gone.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Yeah see the problem is that the off-hours are when people are usually at work, and in the on hours, the 30 copies or so of the new releases are already gone.

And thus the reason I haven't rented a movie since 1992.

 

[expletive]

And thus the reason I haven't rented a movie since 1992.

Yep i own about 350, have slowed down a bit since joining netflix 5 months ago.

 

[ANova]

This is quite funny indeed considering Vista is supposed to have all kinds of DRM bs along with the already present activation shit.

 

[Sean*O]

I don't like the future SeanO is dreaming of. A future where inferior quality/poorly compressed HD becomes the dominant defacto standard, killing off much superior optical media.

The success of SuperBit DVD leads me to believe that all is not lost.

My friend, I am with you, believe me. I was one of the people who actually bought into S-VHS, and Laserdisc, and 96Khz+ digital audio, and HD everything, etc. (I own several duplicate titles on Superbit DVD too, since you mentioned it,)

If I were dreaming, everyone would demand high bandwidth 24p 1080 HD content and lossless 96khz 7.1 channel audio... but the reality is that most people in the World are not as picky as I am.

Don't misunderstand me, I am happy that HD-DVD or Blu Ray will become a reality and offer much higher quality presentations than we are getting right now, and I will always be one of the people supportive of the best presentation possible. But I can also appreciate the convenience factor that some of the lesser quality presentations will offer, and I also realize that not everybody has such high expectations, or can even see/hear a difference beyond a certain point.

The more options out there, the better, but I just believe that when the day comes when people can turn on the media center PC and download the newest movies in a snap, that will be what they prefer to do, even if the quality is slightly less that optimal to discerning eyes/ears.

 

[Metal]

He's correct in a way. Digital distrubtion will be the model for the future. I'm just not sure when that will take place. All these DVD's / CD's I have are worthless to me unless I want to let someone borrow one. They just clutter up my room. Having it all on a HDD with the ability to recover it if it got corrupted would be ideal. That's a lot of storage space though. So we will have to see.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Yes, it's a lot of storage space, and also if your hard disc(s) ko kaputt, all your hard earned media will go along with it.
Could be possible to dl them again without charge, but would be very inconvenient and time consuming.
Physical media for me thankyou, with managed copy in case I ever would want to build some media server with all my media on harddisks, but I want the actual discs as a back up in case something goes wrong.

 

[DemoCoder]

400gb of storage in my HDTivo only holds 50 hours, or about 20 movies. Which H.264, they might be increased to 40 movies. 40 movies on DVD today x $20 = $800. 400gb drive = $230 today. So the cost to just to *store* 40 movies is $230. The movies would have to sell for <$14 to make it less costly than owning discs.

Then there is the issue of the space taken up by all those hard disks you have to keep adding to the system.

You have two options to avoid this:

1) burn and delete
2) delete oldest and redownload when needed

 

[Powderkeg]

Yes, it's a lot of storage space, and also if your hard disc(s) ko kaputt, all your hard earned media will go along with it.
Could be possible to dl them again without charge, but would be very inconvenient and time consuming.
Physical media for me thankyou, with managed copy in case I ever would want to build some media server with all my media on harddisks, but I want the actual discs as a back up in case something goes wrong.

I would hope that if you were going to store that much data on a HDD, you would be smart enough to use a proper RAID array setup for the job. That way, if a HDD fails, you don't lose your data.

 

[Carl B]

I would hope that if you were going to store that much data on a HDD, you would be smart enough to use a proper RAID array setup for the job. That way, if a HDD fails, you don't lose your data.

What do you think the percentage of the population is that has set up their own RAID arrays? On top of that, what is the percentage of the population do you think that even knows what a RAID array is? Certainly saying "Oh, shoulda had a RAID array..." is not going to cut it on the 'consumer experience' side of things.

Not saying digital distribution isn't a part of our future, just saying that user set-up RAID arrays will play a miniscule part in it.

 

[expletive]

400gb of storage in my HDTivo only holds 50 hours, or about 20 movies. Which H.264, they might be increased to 40 movies. 40 movies on DVD today x $20 = $800. 400gb drive = $230 today. So the cost to just to *store* 40 movies is $230. The movies would have to sell for <$14 to make it less costly than owning discs.

Then there is the issue of the space taken up by all those hard disks you have to keep adding to the system.

You have two options to avoid this:

1) burn and delete
2) delete oldest and redownload when needed

There are people who like to own media and some who just rent. I don't know if the distribution model replaces some of the 'collectors' but it certainly replaces the 'renters'.

At worst people no longer rent and the buyers buy less because they can always get what they want when they want it.

I cant tell you how many DVDs ive purchased becuase it was cheap (like $18) and it was all out at the rental store. Ive purchased a LOT less since i started using netflix and i think digital distribution could have the same effect on others as well (lets call it the the 'netflix effect' getting the movie you want at a rental price on its first weekend released ).

 

[rabidrabbit]

I would hope that if you were going to store that much data on a HDD, you would be smart enough to use a proper RAID array setup for the job. That way, if a HDD fails, you don't lose your data.

Oh yes, and double the money I'd have to put in the hard disks.

Sorry, but that would be too costly for me just to store my media.

Shelf space is cheaper, and convenient enough for me.

How many PC motherboards support more than four hard disks (am I right you cann ot mix ide and SATA for raid?)? I'm not going to set up a very expensive server rack.

 

[kyleb]

There are people who like to own media and some who just rent. I don't know if the distribution model replaces some of the 'collectors' but it certainly replaces the 'renters'.

At worst people no longer rent and the buyers buy less because they can always get what they want when they want it.

Only in some magical world were bandwidth grows on trees; but, as has been pointed out to you many times in this there, we have a long way to go before we get there.