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Content Delivery Questions

R

Ridley

New member
Question,

Who's doing content delivery well today, and what are the consistent roadblocks to a great user experience?
Also wondering what you would rather have; PPV, purchase or both? (Especially if you didn't need to manage the storage locally.)

Just wondering what other Kaleidescape users want in their media moving forward.

Ridley
 
I want purchase, not PPV. I feel PPV has its place in hotels and such, but personally I prefer to outright purchase my videos with no restrictions on future use. If the content owner had the ability to prevent me from watching my video in the future (like Disney's Song of the South) or was able to alter the video without my consent (a la Star Wars' Han Solo/Greedo scene) I would be LIVID.
 
Not sure. Delivery systems have improved, but the bitrates are still not high enough for me. If someone can show me a true high speed 40mbs (approx. BR), I'll consider it, but ONLY if I can download and own the content. There is still a lot of HD "lite" content out there, and I'm not interested.

Like Mike, and for similar reasons, I prefer to own the content.


Jim
 
Ridley said:
(Especially if you didn't need to manage the storage locally.)
Click to expand...

ACK!! Begone foul cloud!

While it might be more convenient to just stick a disc in, have it recognized, and then be able to watch without taking the time to import it yourself, I agree with Jim's points of ownership and bandwidth. In fact, I would take the ownership point one step further and require that a physical copy be stuck in a properly setup archival room at time of purchase (if not just "swiping" a retail disc) with a $10-bill taped to the front, so that when the service terminates, the provider could fulfill their agreement without any concerns of a title being out-of-print or [the more likely option] not having any capital to do so. Then as long as they hit send before the injunctions start flying, nobody has to get screwed.

Given how incredibly front-loaded this would be (more so than usual) I would shudder at the subscription rate required to make this profitable.
 
cinelife said:
Not sure. Delivery systems have improved, but the bitrates are still not high enough for me. If someone can show me a true high speed 40mbs (approx. BR), I'll consider it, but ONLY if I can download and own the content. There is still a lot of HD "lite" content out there, and I'm not interested.

Like Mike, and for similar reasons, I prefer to own the content.


Jim
Click to expand...

Well in that case, you wouldn't even need to stream, just download correct? So the streaming bitrate wouldn't matter.
 
Well, the bitrate will matter somewhat. Even if not streamed, it still has to be downloaded and not everybody has fat internet pipes, so the worry is that even downloads will have a reduced bitrate to cut the distribution costs for both bandwidth and storage.

If they could use bit torrent technology on the existing server base, that would help offset a lot of the cost of the service plus greatly increase the overall throughput for new releases. World of Warcraft uses that same technology to push out all their content patch updates and it works quite well to increase bandwidth of downloads as they have all their user base trying to get the patch on the same day. I suspect it would be the same when a blockbuster has its release date.

Download systems could also start downloading the titles early with the last bit to unlock the title released on the street date so a person only has to download a tiny file.
 
Heres what I would love:

Download of the full resolution movie and extras the same that is on blu ray and the ability to move the content to a portable player/ burn a dvd via computer.

There are lots of reasons why this is not a viable model but you asked. I dont need to own the physical disc- the truth is the disc is just a delivery medium. I will get it into a server and on to computers/ ipods/ etc. I don't need to be a warehouse with boxes filled with optical discs. But I do want to own the media- so PPV wouldn't work for me. However perhaps a model that allows rentals would be interesting.

Great point by Mr.Poindexter (is it Mike?) on the DLs. I like that. Anyway thats just my opinion. Id also like to see an anamorphic 1080P for those of us with CIH setups but thats not gonna happen...
 
Yes, it is Mike.

I got all my collection together as I am going to renovate my garage and install some additional storage and I see now how rediculously large my collection is. I could shave a lot of space by ditching the cases but it is still a large amount of stuff to store. Going digital download would fix that but I have to trust the studios to let me redownload everything should catastrophy strike and that means trusting the same music industry that has sold me the ENTIRE collection of The Police 4 times now, 5 times on some albums (cassette, vinyl, CD and SACD) and trust the film industry that has sold me Terminator 2 a total of 6 times (LaserDisc, Special Edition Laser, DVD, Special Edition DVD, D-Theater and now BluRay). The RIAA has already stated in lawsuits that if you buy a CD and then download the same tracks off a pirate site, you are a pirate - even though you are "stealing" the music you already purchased. And people in Hollywood are not much better, including the VP or Pres from TNT who stated that people who use DVRs are stealing content because when you watch a TV show, you are entering into a contractual agreement where you are promising to watch the commercials. (Um, what?!)

I don't really trust those people, so having a physical disc is a nice fallback and if I burn it once, the cost is on me. Still, I think there are far too many of them that think they can protect digital content from being copied. A quote I heard about that was that digital files can be made uncopyable no more than water can be not wet.

Anamorphic 1080p content would be nice, but I don't see that happening. It would be more likely to get 4Kx2K resolution than special anamorphic runs for the ISCO III crowd.

The key to selling Hollywood on it is increased revenue and new security features (ugh!), but I think the best way to work on the security is not to push harder on the protection but more on the tracing. If you could embed hidden files to watermark the video on the fly so each pirated copy can be traced to the person that purchased it, there would be fewer people who are willing to release those copies into the wild instead of draconian HDCP restrictions that force legit users to buy a new $1000 fiber optic HDMI cable because their projector is 2 feet too far from their video source for fear there might be a $60,000 real time encoder like a Harris Flexicoder on the other side stealing the video instead of some $5 program downloaded from a server in China ripping it on the computer side.
 
Good points made, you have Mike. (yes I've got multiple versions of StarWars). If we enter into a contract when we watch tv shows then I've got some legal theories which cannot be as tenuous as that: 1- they are obligated to show good things which in this case good things are defined by Victorias secrets fashion show in HD and 2-my multiple purchases of Star Wars means we get to go back and redo the prequils! :)
 
Mr.Poindexter said:
and trust the film industry that has sold me Terminator 2 a total of 6 times (LaserDisc, Special Edition Laser, DVD, Special Edition DVD, D-Theater and now BluRay).
Click to expand...
Wait, you only bought one of the two (so far) BD releases? Maybe we should throw an optional extra dollar or two onto the cloud's purchase price as a lifetime content assurance fee. Whenever the studios bump up a release to what it should have been in the first-place (either the quality or features,) then our copy automatically upgrades, while still retaining any original features not included in the new version of course.
 
I bought the BD release last week for my grand re-opening of my home theater (I remodeled the entry and equipment room/snack bar). I am just tired of repurchasing my stuff over. Did that on the LaserDisc to DVD thing. Going to skip that on BluRay as it would cost me a lot of money with my DVD collection ~850 or so titles.

And Hollywood does not believe in lifetime content assurance any more than Nancy Pelosi believes in Reaganomics.
 
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