Microsoft dismisses Blu-ray as "historic phenomenon"

[avshaman]

Now that Microsoft doesn't have a in the HD disc battle they will focus on what they can make money on. Sony will regret not going to an agreement with Toshiba and MS.

You prepared to make a bet? I am.

[Inglix the Mad]

Key shift from disc to download will happen in next "12-18 months", predicts Lewis



"That's the future direction, and I think that's going to be the case in the next 12-18 months."

Lewis claimed that, despite Blu-ray's victory, the shift away from discs will happen "sooner than any of us think".

This is not the first time I've read comments like this - I posted a Lions Gate thread that said that they will be seeling 10% - 15% or more revenue from downloads.

Do they know something we don't? Is Netflix/LG/?? going to be dropping a bomb in 6 months?

That man is smoking or drinking something I don't know about, and I want some. It's either that or he's a complete fool and never did any las mile networking.

[Grubert]

Isn't the life cycle of an Xbox console like 5 years? 12 to 18 months maybe when we get the Xbox 720(?) with a terabyte of hard drive space and no disk drive.

18 months from now is September 2009, which would be just four years after the Xbox 360 launched.

That said, Microsoft had a 4-year life cycle with the original Xbox (launched in 2001, killed in 2005).

[ferrando]

From the Wall Street Journal:

DirecTV to Start On-Demand

DirecTV has had OnDemand since last year... July or August. It isn't exactly good. You need a broadband connection, one... and it's a slow painful download, two. We aren't talking cable-style OnDemand here where they spool it and fire it off to you and you're watching a movie/show in a matter of seconds. You also need the harddrive space on your DVR to do it, where cable OnDemand works on any and all boxes..... and shortly it will even work without boxes through the new CableCard 2.0.

Just for the record. If you've ever read anything about this on AVS or used it. The first person was using a 1.5mbps DSL line, so nothing fancy. 26 hours for a 2 hour HD movie. Of course this is a trash connection. The best I've heard is a FiOS connection that took 3 hours for 103 minute HD movie. So, in short... you'll spend more time downloading something than you will watching it.

Now that Microsoft doesn't have a in the HD disc battle they will focus on what they can make money on. Sony will regret not going to an agreement with Toshiba and MS.

Am I missing something? Is Toshiba the biggest, baddest CE manufacturer in the world? Or is a different BDA company named Matsushita earning that honor?

[Scythegpd]

"No one will ever need more than 640K of RAM" - Bill Gates

Lets not forget:
"Microsoft search technology would soon outpace that of its rivals" (2004)
"Spam will be a thing of the past in two years' time" (2004)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3426367.stm


Erm ... yeah I think we still have some time. Just goes to show, no matter how rich and powerful yoiu are drugs are STILL bad mkay.

[SRFan]

My cable internet speed has not increased in 10 YEARS, and yet this clown thinks it will take 12-18 months for VOD to dominate?
Yes I do watch TV shows from Netflix VOD, but only because it's free and old TV shows are crap quality to begin with. I would never watch a movie on it, not even close to blu-ray quality.

[checkingout]

Agree with this entire post.

Rhapsody uses a subscription model for music. Meaning you pay a monthly fee of around 10-15 bucks and have 24x7 access to their entire music library. Yes, I know that an MP3 is only around 4 meg's vs. 5-20GB is a huge difference. However, they can be used as kinda/sorta virtual storage facilitator. Personally, I really like Rhapsody's subscription model and I am more of a high-end audio freak than most of you...I'm from the day of quadrophonic systems, reel to reel and most recently SACD. But you cannot beat the awe and convienence factor that rhapsody offers. People come over and I can play just about ANY tune requested from visiting friends. Trust me, in this day of convienence...your pals will be more impressed that you have just about every obscure movie available at your fingertips, than a couple of movies with bitchin PQ and SQ.

The end-user hardware is slowly materializing to make D/L's a reality; however, the "pipeline" (as everyone is calling it) is certainly more than 18 months away, to make mass adoption a reality. Actually, I think it will be a combination of improved CODECS, Compression, and increasing bandwidth that will allow D/L's to become mainstream.

I realize that folks (on this board) can't see people accepting movie downloads, like they do music. But with the materialization and popularity of portable music devices that are starting to have video playback ability, a consumer audience is already growing.

We'll all see what the future actually holds; but personally, I would have never believed music quality would take steps backwards as it has.

After all, just being here and owning BOTH a PS3 and HDA2 and always digging HiDef ANYTHING....I won't be suprised if downloading (even standard res content) becomes mainstream. Once bitten, twice shy...as they say.

Yes can we all get some of what he's smoking?

I think it will be 12-18months before we have a platform in place to support these downloads then it will take years to grow to any reasonable size. Data pipes just are not big enough at the moment and many people still prefer physical media.

We will first have a 'new WAR' with all the content providers trying to get acceptance of their system. Also will this be another Pay-Per-View system that will fail?

A bit off topic:

Was thinking of upgrading my ADSL to: 20000 Kbit/s max (down). 8000 Kbit/s min (up). Just an extra $10 more than I'm paying at the moment (for 5000 Kbit/s max. 3500 Kbit/s min.).

The BIGGEST problem is storage, if a single movie takes say 20Gb, then 100 movies is 2Terabytes. Hard discs costs are dropping and sizes increasing, but then you have no way of backing this up and need to use RAID Arrays adding to the cost (i.e. RAID 5 with a Hot-standby). I also personally don't like the idea of having computers and all sorts of equipment running 24x7 burning power. It's not very enviromentally freindly. Where possible I turn everything completely off.

I think the solution could be a central server where you buy movies which enables you to access them at anytime, if necessary download locally to view then delete till you want it again. This way you would share the storage space and costs with other users of the system.

[javajake]

Personally, I would be rather disapointed if this came to fruition even 10 years from now.

I don't mind download content as a Pay per view replacement. If I am interested in watching a movie on Friday, it would be pretty cool to just start a download to a box next to my TV on Friday afternoon from say, NetFlix, and watch it Friday....

However, would I be willing to pay more Pay Per View costs for it? NO.
Would I use it for movies I actually wanted to own? NO.

If it was actually a movie I really liked, I would want it on a physical media, such as BD, that I can hold in my hand, and no, I wouldn't want to have to purchase a blank disk, burn it, and then make some home-made crappy labeling for it... I would want a professional looking box and disk to put in a shelf.

The only way that Digital Downloads will even get to the point that DD Music is today (Whish has not by any means replaced CD IMO), is if someone actually comes out with a box that can hold at least 500 HD 1080P Lossless Audio, no compression artifacts movies for under 300 bucks, and a service that can reach the majority of homes with a movie download nearly fast enough to start playing a download within 10 minutes of purchase. And remember, thats what I believe is required to match the current Music Download pie piece, not to replace DVD/BD as a media.

I'm not sure it will ever replace Physical Media... I hope not, at least not in my life time... even with my I-Pod, I feel kind of ripped off for all the music I've purchased via Download versus CD. Having data on a HardDrive is just too precarious for me. Especially data I've paid good money for.... Imagine having thousands of dollars worth of movies sitting on a HardDrive versus in boxes on a shelf... I shiver to think of it... Not smart... We'll all be hiring professional fireproof, bulletproof, server farm providers to back up our collections on LOL...

[Teh Purple Avenger8or]

You prepared to make a bet? I am.

Yes. I'll win. BD can't can't afford to have a series of battles it has to fight.

[Nomen Luni]

Now that Microsoft doesn't have a in the HD disc battle they will focus on what they can make money on. Sony will regret not going to an agreement with Toshiba and MS.

It wasn't Sony's call, by all accounts, but rather other (unspecified) members of the BDA who didn't want HDi. As such, your commend is quite possibly misdirected.

[Teh Purple Avenger8or]

It wasn't Sony's call, by all accounts, but rather other (unspecified) members of the BDA who didn't want HDi. As such, your commend is quite possibly misdirected.

Perhaps, but still true. All they had to do was allow it as an option along with VC-1.

[Nomen Luni]

Perhaps, but still true.

It's still false, unless you substitute "the BDA" for "Sony". It was not Sony's decision. Sony wasn't in a position to make such an agreement. And it's not a given that there'll be anything to "regret". Opinion-based assertions are all very well, but they're hardly in the category of "true".

All they had to do was allow it as an option along with VC-1.

It wasn't Sony's choice.

[Newbie]

'The shift away from discs will happen in the next 12-18 months.'
- Chris Lewis, Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business EMEA, Microsoft. March 2008.

Kept for posterity.

I hear he's dating Jody Sally.

[Micker]

Downloads will NOT fooking replace media EVER. Unless they are talking about torrent movies burnt to DVD lol.

People want to own something. I want something I can let a friend borrow or borrow from him. I want something I can watch at work, or on different players at home. I want something I can sell if I get sick of it or didn't like it. Downloads have a place, but its not replacing hard media ever. Yes, NEVER. We may be using flash drives etc, but there will always, ALWAYS be the want for physical media.

[Teh Purple Avenger8or]

It's still false, unless you substitute "the BDA" for "Sony". It was not Sony's decision. Sony wasn't in a position to make such an agreement. And it's not a given that there'll be anything to "regret". Opinion-based assertions are all very well, but they're hardly in the category of "true".



It wasn't Sony's choice.

Yes, you cleared that up and I agreed with you, but you still continue to use it for some crazy reason.