Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems BR Is the King OF HD.

Jerry,

Do you not think global internet bandwidth from country to country, coupled with the larger gigabyte based file sizes will make movie downloads a rather restrictive market though for (at the very least) another half decade? Storage becomes another issue. I just don't see it becoming a realistic outcome in the mainstream market like music has because it would actually command a high level of investment from the user.

In addition, iTunes has shown how content providers can restrict sales to specific territories. For example, I can't access any of those TV shows currently available on iTunes in the States because I am in the UK. Similarly, those using the iTunes store in one country cannot make purchases from the iTunes store of another country. As someone who has always enjoyed legitimately importing content (films, music, games…etc), and believing I have every free right to do so, being lumbered with a future where I`d have no choice of content other than that which is directly marketed to my country does not thrill me. To take a recent movie example, they censored Casino Royale here. If the future was downloads chances are I wouldn`t be able to legitimately access a US download service and get an American copy of the movie which might force my hand to *gasp* seek out unofficial means of obtaining what I want. The reality is online downloads are more restrictive than they appear on the surface.

For music, downloads work well enough however. Small file sizes of content adequately suit a portable medium like an iPod, yet there has in fact been recent evidence showing that sales on iTunes are not exactly as strong as people expected. On average, reports suggest they`re not actually being perpetuated by sales of ipods to any great extent and that the average number of songs paid for and downloaded in accordance with ipods sold is really rather slim.

Many, like myself, might buy an iPod for use as holding music already in my CD collection. I find no more purpose in an iPod than I would a cassette or CD based walkman. It`s just more convenient in being able to hold more music for me to take with me when I am out and about. It was a perfect evolution for such portable devices. I won`t buy music online as I like a hard copy, plus I refuse to pay for compressed audio content, and although many won`t decide against buying from itunes for similarly pedantic reasons, I do think - and indeed hope - people do have a great fondness for buying a physical product as I personally believe it contributes to a consumers perception of value and that this might be another factor contributing to why I feel movie downloads will not take off to any significant degree.

Jerry - I assume you will be using your kscape as you music and video source, when you have had the time aclimate, could you report on how you compare it to your 800 in terms of pure audio performance?

I will be ordering mine on January, and will most probably be the basic setup as I will not need zones; my home all concrete walls, so it woulsd be a nightmare to do multiple room wiring - besides 99% of the time we wtach movies in the family/theater/audio room. I do not have near 100 DVDs, so I think the basic K is all I need. In terms of the remote the dealer suggested Creston (as they all do), but have not decided on it yet. I will check out the site you mentioned; I haven't had the time to do much research.

Anyway keep in touch, and very nice talking to you...

Javier

Raid 1 or Raid 5 happens if you value the data. If you don't, it's tough luck for not respecting the likelihood of failure and losing on the coin toss.

With either of these you can tolerate a single spindle failure and repair the missing drive without data loss.

Neither of these solutions protects you from user error though

Cheers,

I love the way some have interpreted my comments as being "anti-HD". Uhh yeah, that's why I have a Marantz VP11S1 hanging on my ceiling, because I'm anti-HD.

I have shared what I consider to be genuine concerns about the potential success of both formats and apparently that's frowned up. Life is tough. And I guess my saying "I hope I'm wrong" on multiple occasions isn't good enough.

BTW, many people might have misinterpreted JRS' statements with respect to HD and SD video. In speaking with him, this is what I believe his message was:

We all have collections of SD video that will be much larger than our collections of HD video for the forseeable future. M's choice for the moment is to get the best out of their SD products. When the time is right, they'll introduce an HD player, assume the time actually becomes right at some point

Cheers,

I think your gut is likely correct. According to Iger, Disney sold 125,000 iTunes movie download in the first week at $1M revenue - projects $50M rev first year ;
Assuming that rate over the last weeks, they are well over 1M movies to date. Not sure what the HD disk rates are, but wouldn't think they would be at this level...

Apples and oranges comparison even so - iTunes only has 1 studio and you can only watch the downloads on a pc or 2" iPod.
2007 should be a very interesting year for both of these markets.

ken

My PC based music server (all CD rips) is RAID 5 and is currently mirrored every couple of days to another RAID 5 server. How's that for redundancy! I suspect the average user does nothing and is in for a particularly nasty surprise when their storage device fails. I've had maybe two or three CDs/DVDs die due to disc rot over the years...

Mark

I am certain that, as broadband speeds increase, average user storage will be somewhere in the internet cloud. Managing storage and backup is beyond most people.

Does iTunes keep a record of tracks you've paid for and allow you to re-download at any time in the future?

Personally speaking there is no way I'm storing any data on a remote server. Having been a victim of identify fraud twice already I might as well just open my firewall now and let people roam around my personal documents at will.

Mark

Probably 3 times now. There was a guy masquerading on here as you on Saturday giving away free HD-DVD players.

OMG!

Hey what do I know, you're the Geek and then again you're the one that invented the Internet not Al Gore.

And so it continues.