Another day - another person saying that: Direct Downloads Will Kill Physical Media

It's just not going to happen anytime soon in the movies area. In 10 years from todays date I would not argue against it happening as the hardware would be in place for at least decent speeds to homes for HD content. I still have issues with it even if the hardware is in place though.

   Now I am sure some one will point out Steam is doing a great job of digital distribution and I would agree with that. But Games are definitely different from Movies in two important aspects. 1) games generally (at this point) are less then 5 gigs in size 2) the wait for the game is less then the time spent in the game. Where as 1) movies can hit 30 gigs + in size with decent audio and good quality compression and 2) waiting 6-10 hours for a 2 hour movie is insane. 

    I would say that for it to be at least effective (and streamable) a movie would have to be of equivalent quality to a Blu-ray or HD-DVD  and take at least 20% less time to download then the runtime of the movie for 50% of the market before it could start surpassing physical media as the medium of choice...
Even for games I think that if the trip to the store and back is faster and you have the physical media it will still be the medium of choice.


1) Network Neutrality needed  _{(sorry for the wikilink)}

Without it ISPs will filter their traffic and slow down large files that are not paying their extortion fee. (and since a file crosses many ISPs this can lead to a slow down in any link of the chain)

Network neutrality refers to a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. Precise definitions vary, but a broadband network free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, that does not restrict content, sites, or platforms and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams would be considered neutral by most observers.

2) MUCH Faster speeds needed - to hit good quality 1080p 5.1 with
VC-1 you need approximately 30 gigs for the file

Telstra if they can deliver fiber to each house is a step in the right direction - but the capital expenditure and the labour requirement is high and therefore will not be a tomorrow or even a 2 year thing.

3) True ownership - do you really own the copy or is it more of license? that is if you have downloaded it - how many times can you? a Limited number?

This is a big issue for me. Currently this limit is 5 for both xlive and psn - you pay and then you have the ability to download it a max of five times...

4) physical media is more reliable and portable - if your Console crashes have fun redownloading all your movies

this will count against your max downloads. it definitely is not as portable - I can carry a blu-ray or hd-dvd to my friends house in under 5 mins... I can of course pack the console (but why risk it) or I can spend 6 hours (at a very high speed connection) to download it there. (again using up one of the activations)

5) storage requirements for a decent library (or will you download each movie only when you want to watch it?)

[Jinxstar]

Agreed. Its a long way off still despite what some companies say. Rentals are ok if you dont mind lower quality.

One thing I have hoped for is in the future have cable boxes/tv's with a port of some kind. Such as a memory stick or something. You get a number on that stick for every movie you buy like a bar code. It is small and portable. Keep it on you key chain or whatever. You go to "Fred's" house and plug it into his TV and watch whatever movie you bought via DL using his cable box.... We do however need much faster internet speeds in the US way before this occurs though imho. I think its a good solution. Maybe put the barcode/serial number of whatever movies you currently have on DVD / BR and they will auto save to said stick as well... That wont happen though as they will want you to re buy it all... Still though. Would be a cool solution when the day comes. Hacking and pirating will run rampant though... Then when servers fry or are down for "Maintenance" People will be pissed... One virus and everyone is screwed...

[hokiebonoz]

tell me the last time grandma bought an appletv over a dvd player....she cant even check her e-mail let alone download, save, and find a movie file for later use.

[JoelR]

Honestly my grandmother has not made it past VHS yet....

[LJWooly]

Haha, my Nan just about made the jump to DVD, I wouldn't want to put the poor dear through another technical revolution :)

[Empyrean_Eclipse]

personally, i would like to OWN it Physically. It makes me feel good in a way

[JoelR]

many of us do that as well..
It's why people still buy magazines vs eblogs. A hard tactile feedback system is totally wired into the human brain... you don't own something unless you can feel it.