I am amazed that you can write the article above without mention at all about the content providers. The deals the content providers sign with the content delivers will have a lot to do with who is successful in this space. It has often be said that content is king. One of the big differences between Netflix streaming service and Apple or Amazon is that Netflix has much older movies. Recent, big studio, DVD releases are no where to be found. Right now Netflix customers need to get the DVD to get these titles. I do not see this changing any time soon. Ask some studio heads what they think of Netflix. See what they say about their new releases coming to a Netflix unlimited streaming service. I do not think they will want to give up their current VOD or DVD business model. They will use their copyrights to keep this from happening as long as they can. Any analysis who does not ask questions about this problem also do not know what business they are covering.
My TiVo DVD recorder died. I was not using it to burn DVDs or to watch and record TV. I was only using it as a DVD player. This means I need a DVD player.
There are a lot of directions I can go to replace my DVD player. Do I go Blu-Ray? Do I go with a Home Media Center? Do I forget physical media all together and just go with a VOD service? There are lots of things to look at here.
Here is where I am coming from.
I have a DVD collection of about 250 DVDs. I do not watch them all that often, but it would be nice to watch them more often. I rarely buy new DVDs. It has mostly been DVDs at Comic Con or movies that are really special.
We subscribe to Netflix. We have used it to this point for TV shows that we missed before. Shows like Rome and Weeds. We also use it for Movies that are not on VUDU yet.
I use an iPod to watch listen to music in the living room.
1. Home’s multimedia center PC with Blu-Ray
To me this would be the ultimate answer. I could view every kind of Media I want this way. It would make the best use of my internet connection and by HDTV.
Pros
Can watch Content from anywhere. There is a lot of free content from places like, You Tube, Podcast, Website, Hulu, Joost, and ABC.COM.
Good answer for both physical and none physical content.
Not limited by in the ways other products are.
Would have to worry about Microsoft DRM
Con,
Price. PCs with Blu-Ray DVD players start at $750 and go up from there. When I customized on at dell.com it cost $1100 That is a lot of money to throw at something like this. I could get several other of the items on the list for this cost.
2. Media PC with DVD
This answers all my needs except for HD DVDs. I could view every kind of Media I want this way. It would make the best use of my internet connection and by HDTV.
Pros
Can watch Content from anywhere. There is a lot of free content from places like, You Tube, Podcast, Website, Hulu, Joost, and ABC.COM.
Good answer for most physical and none physical content.
Not limited by in the ways other products are.
Easy to upgrade to Blu-ray if I get the right video card.
Con,
Price. PCs start at $450 and go up from there. For this price I can get something else off the list that can do more.
Would not play Blu-ray Disks
Would have to worry about Microsoft DRM
3. Mac Mini
Using a Mac Mini would be like using a media center PC, but with a couple of drawbacks. Many of the services that use Microsoft DRM, like Netflix and Amazon Unbox will not work on Apple.
Over Ideas 4. Blu-ray player 5. PS3 6. X-Box 360 7. Upscaled DVD Player 8. Roku Player 9. All Region DVD player 10. apple tv
Bluray might have won the format war, but it looks like customers are not buying bluray players. This is not really that surprising to me. People are still not sold on Bluray Players. I think people are not sold that they need that level of HD content. The picture might be better than Cable HD or VUDU HD, but most people cannot tell the difference.
I think that Blurays will need to come down to about $200 a box and $25 a disk before they take off. Right now most people are still good with their old DVDs. It will take a while to change that.
The Hi-Def DVD format fight is going on right now, but few people out side of the consumer electronic industry have really noticed so far. I have not heard a huge cry from consumers for this to be solved. I read that DVD sales are starting to lag, but it is hard to say if there is any connection to the state of HD DVDs.
I have to think that Sony might be making a bad choice with No Adult Content on Blu-Ray. This is one of the reasons that Betamax failed. Porn has always been known for moving Technology forward. If Sony does not want adult content on Blu-Ray that opens the door for HD DVD. You think all those guys who spend all their time playing
The problem is that DVDs and future DVDs might already be dead. Everyone is working on the download solution for movies. Will people want DVDs at all. The problem with HD content is that Americans have slow broadband connections and HD content is so big. On top of that, it is cheaper to put it on disk and ship it rather than to let someone download it. Maybe none of this important.
The Format war might not be solved. LG is offering a player that will play both HD DVD and Blu-Ray. Warner Brothers is going to sell movies on a disk that will be both HD DVD and Blu-Ray. I have an HDTV, but I do not plan on buying an HD DVD player any time soon. This Christmas was called the Christmas where HDTV broke though. Lets see if it true and how it impacts DVDs.
I was walking around Best Buy the other day. Walking through the DVD section showed me how much buying an HDTV has changed my approach to home theater. I looked at the HD-DVD and BluRay DVD players. They are too much money to buy and I am worried about the outcome of the format battle. If I pick one now, I know it will lose.
I realize that means that I should not buy another DVD until the whole HD-DVD/HD Movie Download Service gets figured out. To be honest, I am not sure how this will be worked out.
People might wonder why would I care about this. There is a very good chance that any new DVD format would be backwards compatible. The problem is that everything Standard Defination even DVDs look pretty crappy on my TV. I really want to watch as much as I can in 1080i or 720p.
I would suggest that anyone who buys an HDTV just stick with Netflix. I do not think buying an HD-DVD player is worth it for anyone right now. I have a pile of unwatched DVDs as it is. I should watch those DVDs before I buy any new DVDs anyway.
I do realize that in another few years DVDs may be dead. We might be doing everything via download. I think there are still a lot of kinks that need to be worked out there.
You can watch the movie at home or at the office, but the license agreement prohibits you from watching it in 'hotel rooms, motel rooms, hospital patient rooms, restaurants, bars, prisons, barracks, drilling rigs' and certain other locations.
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Sometimes it takes a new technology like video downloading to make old technology, like renting a DVD from Netflix (Charts) or Blockbuster, look really good. In comparison to Unbox, a DVD rental is faster, cheaper, easier, more flexible, and delivers more choices and a better picture.
The review talks about how it takes a long time to get the program, how the quality is not as good as a DVD, and how restrictive the DRM is. I think that this is going to be the problem with download services for a while. I hope that these drawbacks get figured out before illegal downloads break the market.
But I also inserted the DVD versions of the two movies in my laptop, and the difference was stark. The DVD versions, in both cases, were noticeably sharper. The lower video quality of the downloaded movies would have been especially obvious if I'd connected my computer to a big-screen TV -- a move Apple and many others see as the next step for online video.
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The few dollars I'd save with Unbox or iTunes movie downloads aren't enough to compensate for all these shortcomings. With DVDs, I can easily move from players attached to my home TV sets to the DVD-ROM drives on my computers to the $89 portable player I bought to keep my 6-year-old daughter Sara amused on long car trips
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The transition to digital downloads won't ``happen overnight,'' Jobs told the Wall Street Journal. ``It takes years of investment,'' he said.
I'm happy to let Apple, Amazon and others make that investment, as long as they don't expect me to help that investment pay off until downloads are faster, video quality is better and prices are lower.
I am not sure how much control the download services will have on speed or price. If the price is too low the movie companies will say no. Speed is all about your internet collection. I wonder how much Apple and Amazon will be able to effect these things.
Replacing CDs with iTunes was a no brainer. The iPod and iTunes made listening to music easier for most people. It looks like the movie services make it harder than a DVD to watch movies. I think this is going to be the hard thing to overcome.
I also think that Apple and Amazon need to get companies to allow movies to be ripped into people's collections. Right now this is a major problem. Maybe they should work with rental companies to make discs that cannot be ripped and the ones I buy from the store can. I think that will be a barrier for these services to take off.
I know that I am getting to the Friday Five a little late this week. I have been working on too many things.
1. You've just won a complete collection of movies starring one actor - what actor would you pick? Steve Buscemi. Not only is he a great actor. He has been in lots of great movies.
2. What was the last movie you saw in a theater? Lord of the Rings. I was surprised how good this movie is. It really lives up to the hype.
3. What was the last video or DVD that you bought? Stepford Wives. What can I say, It is a classic.
4. What movie could you watch over and over again and not get sick of? Airplane! It is full of timeless jokes.
5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? I went to see Fellowship of the Rings and I hung out with some friends.
For all you Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans out there, here is the perfect reason to buy the Sixth Season when it come out on DVD. It looks like the sex scene between Spike and Buffy was a little too hot for TV. We can expect it on the DVD. Amazon is currently taking orders for the first season on DVD. I did not realize that the first season was only 12 episodes long.
