QUOTE(malformata @ Mar 13 2008, 05:50 PM)
<a>Physical digital media contains only 1s and 0s. That's what you are paying for when you buy a "DIGITAL Versatile Disc" or similar.
<b> If Blu-ray quality is what we are concerned with here than I agree that we are a years from being able to transmit that amount of data quickly. Storage is also a concern when downloading this amount of data. However, I think the P2P, torrent, newsgroups, etc. communities offer more than adequate evidence that people aren't concerned necessarily with quality over content. This has been a concern for the ever vocal music industry.
<c> Capitalism is chiefly concerned with consumers purchasing "stuff". Consumers have to be convinced to purchase said "stuff". Digital transfer across lines is easier and cheaper than going to the store. The leftover industrial attitude that everything is physical commodity will have to be overcome by these corporate entities. Whereas in the past it was necessary to reproduce things in a factory, it is now very easy to reproduce digital media. ctrl-c, ctrl-v and I have an almost instant copy of your movie. Done deal.
As data transfer becomes faster and storage space becomes less and less restricting the dying breaths of digital information disseminated physically become more shallow. That last gasp can't be far away. I haven't bought a physical cd or dvd in over a year. I probably won't again. I can't be the only one. In this respect I consider Blu-ray, etc to be short-sighted.
ps. respectful communication would be nice. we all have valid ideas. I'd appreciate not being told to shut my mouth.
You missed the point entirely on <A>. When I purchase a DVD, Blu-ray, CD, etc. I get something I can hold. Something I can look at. Something, that if my HDD gets screwed up (as is want to happen with DVR) I don't have to worry about spending hours downloading again. Something that I know will work if I upgrade my PC. Something I can take over to a friend's house if I so desire without worry that my License will be invalid on their player. Example: I've downloaded Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles from XBL. If I decide I want to go to a friends house and watch it, I either have to take my entire 360 or hope that that friend has XBL access that I can log into, spend about 20 minutes recovering my XBL account to their 360 which will, in turn, require me to recover my account again when I get home. Or I can buy a physical disc, grab the disc as I walk out the door and watch it with no hassles.
A Few Things on Point <B>:
This whole discussion is about DLC being a replacement for BD and DVD. Any solution proposed has to be of equal quality and content of the format it's trying to replace. And again, said solutions should be more convenient than the previous format. Storage space and bandwidth destroy any hope of equal quality/content and as such make the DLC less convenient.
Also, the fact that people who aren't willing to pay for content (P2P) are content with the quality offered as evidence of the lack of concern over DLC quality is ludicrous. That is a clear example of "not looking a gift horse in the mouth." The people who pay for BD, DVD, and eventually HD DLC are concerned about quality. I didn't pay $2600 (and this is a cheap system, I've seen people spend $10,000+) for my HD Theater setup to view DivX and Xvid rips at sub DVD bitrates that claim to be HD because they are 1280x720 resolution (FYI to those who don't know, bitrate means more to HD than res).
<C> There is nothing shortsighted about planning for being the standard for 5 - 10 years. DVD did the same thing when it took over for VHS. BD isn't supposed to be permenant, but physical media isn't going anywhere in the next 20 years. It will take at least that long to get FiOS connections to Rural areas and then it will take another 5 -10 years to convince everyone that DLC is the way to go. You can't start convincing everyone until everyone has the capability.
And yes, your kind is the rarity. Go look at the size of the DVD sections at CC, BB and Walmart. If so many people were giving up on physical media, the chain stores wouldn't have so many different movies available. They wouldn't stock them, just like they are stopping stocking HD-DVD movies.