Comments on: Hollywood video kiosks replaced at Cub

By: tw

tw — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:00:53 +0000

DVD download will not be available to millions of household that do not have access to fast broadband access.

U.S. is so far behind the world in internet access that I can’t even say we are one of the leading country in internet technology. Hong Kong and South Korea gets much, much faster broadband network at a very low price.

Don’t get me started on the sorry state of mobile phone market in U.S. also. I was in U.K. a few weeks ago – my unlocked GSM phone just work locally by putting in a local prepaid SIM card, at about 1/5 of the cost of anything comparable in U.S, That is, if you can take your phone to another network.

By: tw

tw — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:59:21 +0000

Penetration of DVD download will not be available to millions of household that do not have access to fast broadband access.

By: mnblrmkr

mnblrmkr — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:21:02 +0000

I still don't think the bandwidth issue is a bunch of bananas.

There's still the issue of the ISPs push to switch to a pay-per-byte service. It's not going to be too difficult for a user to bump up against their monthly limit. Not when you throw in music downloads, on-line gaming, all the software updates. Throw in a couple of movies, and your third movie is going to end up costing another $30 or so.

I also never addressed the DRM issue. With a DVD, you can grab it and go over to a friend's house, and watch it there. Good luck trying to transfer a download you purchased to your friend's set up.

And finally, I don't get why people think I should support something that I can't use. The internet USED to be an inclusive place. Unfortunately, the new services being introduced are inaccessible, with the aim (or at least the very real effect) of killing off real world alternatives that I can use.

The real world does a good enough job on it's own of isolating me. I don't like seeing technology that further isolates me in both the real world AND the internet.

By: edkohler

edkohler — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:04:34 +0000

Thanks for conserving bandwidth for the rest of us, mnblrmkr.

By: mnblrmkr

mnblrmkr — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:59:34 +0000

Still going to be a long, long time before I support downloads.

By: joanie

joanie — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:22:54 +0000

Oh, and as far as the ‘there won’t be enough bandwidth’ argument, that’s a bunch of bananas. 10 years ago, we were all on dialup and downloading an MP3 took a good hour of your time. Webpages back then were very conscious of how long their pages took to download and would be careful not to put too many images on one page. Today, we’ve got pages like ESPN that fires up streaming video when you load up their page. 10 years ago, that page would’ve taken 30 minute to load.

Internet speeds will only get faster and technology will only get better. Down with the video stores!

By: joanie

joanie — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:12:33 +0000

The last time I was at a video rental place (last May), it was like I’ve stepped into a time machine back to the ’80s. It’s all so old fashioned. They’re inconvenient, expensive, you have to fill out lengthy applications to become a member, and half the time they never have the movie you want anyway. Prior to that, I haven’t been in a video rental place since about 2002, maybe? DVDs are so cheap to just buy outright – $5-$7 for a lots of movies, with the price of renting it, which isn’t exactly cheap, who wants to be hassled with going to a video store and having to return it by their deadline, and possibly faced with a fine? Might as well just buy the movie.

In 5 years, video rental stores will a thing of the past. It’s only a matter of time before we can just download the movie in a few seconds. Hollywood Video and Blockbuster should start writing their eulogies.

I don’t know much about Redbox/Hollywood Video kiosks. I’ve never used one, nor have I’ve ever seen anyone using one. If it’s only $1/night and you can return it to any Redbox, that’s a pretty good concept.

By: edkohler

edkohler — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:07:02 +0000

I’m a Netflix subscriber. I pay $8.99/mo for two DVDs/mo (I have to send the first one back before I get the 2nd). And I get unlimited content using Watch Now. I watch a ton of stuff on the watch now, although the selection doesn’t match their DVD library yet. It’s also only PC compatible right now.

The quality of the picture varies depending on your bandwidth. On my Comcast modem, it’s almost – but not quite – comparable to a DVD picture.

As mnblrmkr mentioned, it also doesn’t provide bonus materials like extra scenes, interviews, outtakes, or captioning (expect on foreign films).

By: mnblrmkr

mnblrmkr — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:05:40 +0000

Like I said though, wait until everyone in the neighborhood is trying to download movies too. Cable internet slows down as more of your neighbors come online.

It also doesn't address the problem of areas with no access to broadband. You get out to places like rural western ND, heck even my cousin in rural Bloomington Illinois, your options are dial up or satellite.

It's also DOA if the ISPs are successful in switching to a pay per byte service.

Haven't tried Netflix Watch Now, don't foresee that being an option any time soon.

Nor do I anticipate making a switch to digital for several years at least.

By: mulad

mulad — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:17:31 +0000

Has anyone here tried Netflix's instant viewing? I have no idea what the quality's like since I've only got Linux at home. But yeah, I'd much rather watch stuff full-screen on my HDTV, so I'll just get my Netflix Blu-ray videos for now.

I'm not sure bandwidth is really an issue. I just downloaded a video from a UMN webserver via my Comcast cable modem. The download rate translated to 20 Mbit/s. At that speed, I could get about 2.2 GB downloaded in 15 minutes, which would be enough for a roughly DVD-quality movie. An HDTV video would be roughly six times the data, or an hour and a half to download. Of course, I don't trust some of the more aggressive compression schemes out there, but even a full 50 GB from a dual-layer Blu-ray disc would take less than 6 hours.

Of course, these numbers are completely unrealistic because this apparent speed is an artifact of Comcast's "PowerBoost" stuff, where you get a lot of bandwidth at the beginning of a download, and then watch it disappear shortly afterward. So yeah, one to six hours for a DVD.