Why invest in Blue Ray or HD-DVD???

[Advanced Dark]

Internet downloads and having a video server attached to your computer and Plasma TV is the way to go. By the time your rebuild your HD-DVD or Blue Ray collection up...it'll be useless. You'll basically have a huge video server to hold thousands of films on your drive which can be organized quickly and accessed quicker than DVD's. This technology is available now and it's the way of the future. DVD's are useless. Sucks for me as I have over 700 DVD's but I'll be uploading them all onto my video server in the future so for now I'm just renting films till I'm set.

In the meantime there's an in between soloution:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr...s/columns/e3i83cf9e28085acde13d8bffc235698677

Key to movie rentals: to a flash, in a flash

By Andrew Wallenstein

Aug 29, 2007
When Mark Cuban proclaims that "the Internet is dead and boring," as the entrepreneur did recently, it's easy to dismiss such a histrionic assessment. But there's no denying a grain of truth to his underlying rationale. As he explained soon after whipping the blogosphere into a frenzy, there is so little investment in the Internet's infrastructure that the bandwidth for DVD-quality film online will be unacceptably slow for a long time to come.

But if Cuban happens to find himself this fall in Galway, Ireland, he could stumble upon a promising workaround solution to the problem. Dozens of kiosks will begin popping up in that city, the backyard to a small technology company, PortoMedia, that is attempting an interesting end run around the Internet. IBM, Samsung and Toshiba have come to the aid of Porto in the development of a DRM-friendly rental alternative to Blockbuster or CinemaNow that is starting to get noticed by the major studios.

Porto's kiosks, which will be installed in retail locations all over Galway, allow consumers to download movies to a flash memory card in just 15 seconds (at a rate of 1.5 gigabytes per second). The so-called "movie key" can then be plugged into the USB port of a computer, television monitor or mobile screen for viewing on the go or in the home.

Founder and CEO Chris Armstrong sees Porto establishing a third business model for movie distribution. "Online downloads will definitely be in the future, and the physical DVD will last longer than people anticipate," he says. "But you'll also have a kiosk model. I think we will live on as a part of the business long after the online download has arrived."

There's some clear advantages to this mode of transaction. It not only laps Internet-borne delivery, but it also moves faster than a similar crop of new businesses that enable kiosks to burn DVDs, which can take as much as 15 minutes per disc. Porto kiosks are also easier to disperse than entire brick-and-mortar operations, not to mention the fact that they can offer more inventory without chalking up steep overhead costs.

Best of all: no late fees. There's no need to even return a film because it will expire after a predetermined period. Porto even could become more than just a rental mechanism, with electronic sell-through also possible for allowing consumers to purchase titles.

Could minuscule memory sticks become a fixture on a movie lover's key chain? Perhaps. In time, Porto could offer consumers titles available day-and-date with home video releases, and at a price point competitive with DVDs.

Research firm In-Stat noted the potential of what it refers to as "luggable" media to become a $25 billion business worldwide by 2010, singling out PortoMedia as an "excellent example" of the technology.

That said, Porto is looking to elbow its way into a distribution picture that also includes cable VOD and mail services like Netflix. These are tricky times for movie studios, which are carefully considering their options.

Porto has lined up high-profile technology partners to stay in the mix: IBM is providing back-office technology, Toshiba is producing the kiosks, and Samsung is constructing the flash key.

Armstrong also has some industry veterans on its board of directors to press the case for Porto, including Lindsay Gardner, former president of affiliate sales and marketing at Fox Cable Networks, and Tim Shriver, a film producer whose credits include "Amistad."

If tests are successful, Porto's kiosks will make their way from Galway into the rest of Ireland, the U.K., Scandinavia and eventually the U.S.

I so want to invest in this:

http://www.portomedia.com/

http://www.portomedia.com/fla/IBC PortoMedia.html (video tour)

 

[DorkyFresh]

when i read the title of the thread i thought you were gonna post this story...

How to fit 1TB of data on one CD-sized disc
http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertai...cd-sized-disc?articleid=1665250963&source=rss

"Blu-ray and HD DVD have pushed the limits of optical storage further than anyone thought possible. But a new technology has emerged which makes Blu-ray's 50GB capacity look tiny. Mempile in Israel says it's able to fit an incredible 1TB of data onto one "TeraDisc" which is the same size as CDs and DVDs. That's 20 times the capacity of a maxed-out dual-layer Blu-ray disc.

The incredible capacity achieved using this new technology is made possible by employing 200 5GB layers, each one only five microns apart. The discs are completely transparent to the red lasers which are used in the associated recorder.

Prototypes have already been made to store up to 800GB of data, and Mempile says it will crack the 1TB barrier before moving on to build 5TB blue laser disks.

Dr Beth Erez, Mempile's Chief Marketing Officer says that the first 1TB disks have a lifespan of 50 years and could be on the shelves in two to three years.
Advertisement
Highest capacity discs ever

"The TeraDisc is made of a material which is highly responsive to two-photon writing and reading. This allows us to write anywhere in that we can focus a red laser onto the disc, e.g. multiple layers," Dr. Erez told TFOT.info.

"However, many other properties of the material have to be optimised to allow this to work properly. Especially the written points, and written layers have to remain transparent after writing, without which it would be very difficult for the reading process to see the 200th layer through 199 written, non-transparent layers.

"When a red laser is focused to a small spot inside the TeraDisc, we can choose if we probe the state of this material (reading , low power) or alter it (writing at higher power). This is very similar to the way a regular CDR works, except for the fact that this is now done in 3D," she said.

It's hard to imagine that a disc format not invented by one of the world's big technology firms could become a future industry standard. But it's perfectly conceivable that these discs might one day be used in libraries to archive digital copies of books and so forth.

On a 1TB disc, you could store:

* 212 DVD-quality movies
* 250,000 MP3 files
* 1,000,000 large Word documents"

But that story sounds pretty practical. it's are getting to the point where more and more people are hooking the net up to their TVs anyway.

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Wow. See that's the problem. Discs are good for moving info physically from one destination but honestly a video server is the way of the future. They can't be scratched, easy to organize, faster loading, etc...

That disc tech above will be great for the new video game systems though. Jesus imagine the next X-Box with that disc tech? Yikes.

Look what else it can do:

PortoMedia has developed a high speed flash memory card (Movie Key) that enables a fully secure DVD quality movie to be downloaded from retail Movie Point in less than 15 seconds. Each Movie Point is loaded with between 500 and 5,000 titles and is refreshed regularly via satellite/DSL with the latest movie and TV content.

The consumer has the option to rent or purchase content. The content is protected by Windows DRM, guaranteeing both security and compatibility with a wide range of playback devices. We will offer a low cost reader/ set top box that attaches to a TV allowing the consumer to simply plug in the key and press play to view the movie on the big screen TV.

The content can also be played back on any PC, compatible MS set top box or portable player, or on the Xbox 360*.

*Subject to MS Xbox 360 allowing Direct Licence Acquisition

Perhaps you can get video games this way too.

 

[Figs]

Thanks!! I'll keep buying my DVD's for now but at least I haven't wasted money on Blu-Ray or HDDVD.

 

[Panophobia]

What happens when your HD crashes?

 

[DorkyFresh]

^ Wow. See that's the problem. Discs are good for moving info physically from one destination but honestly a video server is the way of the future. They can't be scratched, easy to organize, faster loading, etc...

true. i'd love to see an HD version of Youtube or something...

That disc tech above will be great for the new video game systems though. Jesus imagine the next X-Box with that disc tech? Yikes.

i'd rather not. i'm not very fond of Microsux.

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ Well that wasn't the point. Imagine any video game system utilizing the tech.

 

[DorkyFresh]

that would be nuts. they would be able to make a Lord of the Rings video game where you could explore literally every inch of Middle Earth...from the Shire to Helm's Deep to Mount Doom.

 

[Figs]

So their expecting this to be released in 2010?

 

[Catman]

hooking the net up to their TVs

but...wouldn't DVDs still be around so people can have hard copies of their movies?

 

[AhabTheArab]

imagine having access to millions of movies... all at your fingertips... oh wait... its the internet.. we already have that.

 

[turtlefocker]

What happens when your HD crashes?

lol

 

[Borax]

I doubt this will take off anytime soon so I'll stick to DVD

 

[Advanced Dark]

What happens when your HD crashes?

Hopefully you're smart enough to have a back up drive.

 

[Advanced Dark]

I doubt this will take off anytime soon so I'll stick to DVD

I'm sticking to DVD for now too but I'm not buying any more. I'll just rent them. HD and Blue Ray are useless to me except for game machines. The tech above is just in the interim. Soon it'll only take seconds to download HD movies onto a hard drive.

 

[StrainedEyes]

Hopefully you're smart enough to have a back up drive.

I already have a backup drive... It's called DVD. I don't see this catching on very well. You have to market to the average joe, and the average joe has no idea what any of that stuff means.

 

[Advanced Dark]

^ He won't have to because in the end there will be set top boxes with huge drives in them that make TIVO's look like gameboys. The average joe will just flip through a list of movies an choose which one to download with remote. Stop thinking that you're smarter than the rest of the World. It's simple stuff. It will catch on just like IPOD's do. DVD's will be uselss. You'll have these servers and key drives. Besides a DVD won't be able to hold 10,000 movies on it though key drives could be used to carry your films back and forth between media devices or locations. It's so obvious this is the future it's ridiclous.

Even movie theatres will be trashing film soon enough and streaming content directly to the projector. It's in process.

 

[Panophobia]

Hopefully you're smart enough to have a back up drive.

Yes, but you can't expect the average person to.

I already have a backup drive... It's called DVD. I don't see this catching on very well. You have to market to the average joe, and the average joe has no idea what any of that stuff means.

Exactly. There's no way in hell this will catch on within the next 5-10 years.

 

[StrainedEyes]

^ He won't have to because in the end there will be set top boxes with huge drives in them that make TIVO's look like gameboys. The average joe will just flip through a list of movies an choose which one to download with remote. Stop thinking that you're smarter than the rest of the World. It's simple stuff. It will catch on just like IPOD's do. DVD's will be uselss. You'll have these servers and key drives. Besides a DVD won't be able to hold 10,000 movies on it though key drives could be used to carry your films back and forth between media devices or locations. It's so obvious this is the future it's ridiclous.

Even movie theatres will be trashing film soon enough and streaming content directly to the projector. It's in process.

Whatever you say.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

I've never thought the future would be HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, it never seemed like enough of a leap to me, always thought it'd be the next LaserDisc, cool for the big techies, but never making it to the mass market. Always felt downloading would be the next dominant form of video, much like it has been for music. TiVo and OnDemand is already paving the way, now Netflix is also using it. DVD still has a lot of life left in it though. It'll be more like the transition from CD's to online music, than VHS to DVD.

 

[StrainedEyes]

I've never thought the future would be HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, it never seemed like enough of a leap to me, always thought it'd be the next LaserDisc, cool for the big techies, but never making it to the mass market. Always felt downloading would be the next dominant form of video, much like it has been for music. TiVo and OnDemand is already paving the way, now Netflix is also using it. DVD still has a lot of life left in it though. It'll be more like the transition from CD's to online music, than VHS to DVD.

Exactly.. It will be a cold day in hell when DVD's finally stop being produced.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Yeah, there will always people that want the hard copy of the DVD, like people still want the hard copy of a CD.

 

[Advanced Dark]

Yes, but you can't expect the average person to.



Exactly. There's no way in hell this will catch on within the next 5-10 years.

I'd imagine it'd be built into these drives. They're not gonna make a storage device like that where there's no back up. I imagine if you get the movies downloaded from the same service there would be a record of the movies you purchased so if your drive crashed you could call up customer service and have them send them back via the internet directly into your new drive or fixed drive once it's back online. Just like if your computer crashes. You can prove what software you paid for that was downloaded off the internet and get it back. Or just reinstall the software.

This will surely catch on with in 5-10 years no doubt at all. I'm not investing a penny into anymore DVD's for movies with a few exceptions. Otherwise I'm renting. This is in it's infancy now but it's the only way to go.

 

[Advanced Dark]

Yeah, there will always people that want the hard copy of the DVD, like people still want the hard copy of a CD.

What's a CD? That's like an 8-track to me now. How long have IPODS been out and look at their growth. It's taken over CD sales.

 

[StrainedEyes]

I'd imagine it'd be built into these drives. They're not gonna make a storage device like that where there's no back up. I imagine if you get the movies downloaded from the same service there would be a record of the movies you purchased so if your drive crashed you could call up customer service and have them send them back via the internet directly into your new drive or fixed drive once it's back online. Just like if your computer crashes. You can prove what software you paid for that was downloaded off the internet and get it back. Or just reinstall the software.

This will surely catch on with in 5-10 years no doubt at all. I'm not investing a penny into anymore DVD's for movies with a few exceptions. Otherwise I'm renting. This is in it's infancy now but it's the only way to go.

You imagine alot don't you? Do you honestly think this small company will be that efficient? S*** itunes isn't as good as you're thinking this will be.