When is the format war going to end?

[Warm Woolly Shee]

Why would anyone buy a movie, just download it already.

 

[Jiggah]

Why would anyone buy a movie, just download it already.

People have an affinity to have something to actually hold on to. Why do we still use paper money? Why not just use credit?

 

[Destructobot]

I don't think anyone here at GBAtemp would stoop so low as to illegally download copyrighted material.

 

[FAST6191]

Why would anyone buy a movie, just download it already.

What Jiggah said and in some ways downloads (legal ones that is) are worse: sure I might be able to visit a friend and watch a video I downloaded but that is only because my friends either know me or have the same (or better) interests/abilities as me when it comes to this sort of thing.

When the general consumer (he who pays the bills and seems to not as much be the most vocal but certainly the most persuasive) downloads a $5 TV show with lowish res and to use a phrase not my own DRMed up teh ass tries that you will quickly end up with that not happening. Couple this with the affinity for hard goods and I imagine the "digital revolution" is a bit of a way off. I seriously doubt anyone can tell me that film nights or lending is not something that has been engaged in more than once as well.

I do hope that downloading at least forces regions to disappear sharpish, if I may cite an example: CSI Miami recently started series 5 on TV over here: 11 months after the US show started: precisely zero work should be needed for that (a real time pulldown is not above the abilities of a broadcaster and for the most part English is English, a dub might take some time but subs should even be possible before airing).

"illegal" downloads: some of these are still not brilliant, sure I might be able to find and quickly obtain a nice 1.2gig (or whatever the quant is set to) "HD" H264 MKV file but lots (check torrent sites) are stuck with 350/700meg AVI (or worse) files, (up)scaled badly, chopped up aspect ratio (I do not want to think how many TV captures have done that), nasty looking (lets face it even with some post processing a lot of stuff looks crap on a monitor)

Quite why I am ranting I have no idea, I have stuff to watch.

 

[deathfisaro]

Why would anyone buy a movie, just download it already.

1.5GB (2 parts) xvid on 19" LCD monitor = good enough
same thing on 42" FHDTV = are we watching magic eye?

I download movies that don't make their way to this side of the world, with all the region crap you can't even import (region free hack or switching aside)
Or I download full series of Japanese TV drama for the same reason.
But they stay on my monitor, I'm quite stuck with at least DVD if I want quality movie in my living room.

 

[Hadrian]

Why would anyone buy a movie, just download it already.


1.5GB (2 parts) xvid on 19" LCD monitor = good enough
same thing on 42" FHDTV = are we watching magic eye?

I download movies that don't make their way to this side of the world, with all the region crap you can't even import (region free hack or switching aside)
Or I download full series of Japanese TV drama for the same reason.
But they stay on my monitor, I'm quite stuck with at least DVD if I want quality movie in my living room.

They look great on my telly, DIVX players are wonder, they're getting pretty cheap too my one cost me £49 from Asda. Reads straight from my portable harddrive so I don't have to watch on my PC or convert to a DVD. Thankfully it plays all my DVD's so its not just another box under my telly.

 

[SlyGuy]

I should have made that poll with more results in the higher end. I honestly didn't think the majority believed this war would last longer than 2 years!

IMO it can't last that long. Producers want one format to reduce costs and consumers want one format for compatibility with one player. Perhaps the two will coexist much like DVD-R and DVD+R, but I honestly doubt that. I think one will pull ahead and once one format has a clear lead, people will jump on that side of the scale and tip the balance. Then more and more will do the same and the opposing format will die out.

 

[When Im Gone]

Ill stick with good old DVDs.

 

[enarky]

"illegal" downloads: some of these are still not brilliant, sure I might be able to find and quickly obtain a nice 1.2gig (or whatever the quant is set to) "HD" H264 MKV file but lots (check torrent sites) are stuck with 350/700meg AVI (or worse) files, (up)scaled badly, chopped up aspect ratio (I do not want to think how many TV captures have done that), nasty looking (lets face it even with some post processing a lot of stuff looks crap on a monitor)

You should look out for accounts to some private torrent sites, then. There are plenty of HDDVD/BluRay rips out there, all in 1280x720 (720p, and most of the time in 1920x1080/1080p as well) resolution and ranging from 4 GByte to 16 GByte in size (depending on length, resolution and compressibility). Usually the people releasing that stuff know how to encode, too. Worst that can happen is that someone messes up the aspect ratio by a small percentage, but that usually gets corrected by a competing group quite soon.

 

[SlyGuy]

So if most of you think the format war will continue for years, what are you using with your HDTV's (assuming you have one of course)?

 

[deathfisaro]

Sharp Aquos 42" LC42D62U
Blu-ray Player (model in my sig =P)
I'm pretty satisfied with current setup. There's no need to have both for sure, just different movies come out for each format so go for your favorite movie distributors favorite format

 

[lastdual]

If it continues for more than 2 years, it's going to be a short victory for whichever format wins, since high quaility download-on-demand will be going more mainstream by then.

 

[thieves like us]

I don't think that either format is going to "win" outright.

in a year's time or so, either something new will emerge to supercede both blu-ray and hd-dvd or people will still be using their current dvd's. the biggest hurdle that both BR and HJDVD face is the fact that without a 1080p television, the benefits of either format are not substantial on regular def televisions. and with that being said, if there's no visual benefit, what motivation does "joe consumer" have to go out and spend $400-500 on a player and then $25+ on each movie (when regular dvd's are in the $5-20 range)? additionally, which player does he/she purchase. most people that I know don't want to be the one to pick the [wrong] format, and given the fact that 8 months later [now], there's no clear cut winner, I don't see either one jumping out in a sizeable enough lead to take the market share away from the other (or the legacy dvd format).

 

[cenotaph]

There's no need for another generation of disc-based optical media imo. I hate discs more than anything - they're vulnerable to disc rot/scratches and are just plain inconvenient - having to dig up some disc to watch that movie you bought years ago is an exercise in frustration considering the amount of discs I own at this point (more than 10k, easily).

I want my movies in digital format. Free from DRM. Downloadable to my file server for streaming to my htpc. Nothing else will do.