"Everybody claims that downloads are going to win out in the long run. That may be the case in 10, 20 years or more but I see myself as pretty tech savvy (I'm reading the register, right?) but I'm giving downloads a wide berth."
These big discs use MPEG2, but for downloads they use MS Media Player Codec 10 (11?), MPEG4 or DIVX, which are 5x better compression. Note also you're taking the max capacity of the disc in your calculations not the size of the movie on the disc.
DIVX 720p is 4Mbps, which is low enough to stream now (I have France telecoms 20MBps connection at home), so the download delay in that case is 0 seconds, 1080p is not such a long download either.
But of course you're missing the most important part. Microsoft has already announce HD for XBox Live back in Nov 2006, the XBox live support is built in, the HD DVD is optional extra....
So the guy is not hypothesizing about some fanciful future, he's pointing out what he believes is the game Microsoft is playing right now.
You have to wonder why Microsoft is involved in the format war at all, it doesn't make movies, it doesn't make discs, it doesn't make PCs, so where's the gain from all that money? The only place where it has an interest is XBox360, even then it could support Bluray and it would make zero difference to them (perhaps make XBox a bit more popular since it would neutralize one Sony advantage).
Register
Downloads are here now
"Everybody claims that downloads are going to win out in the long run. That may be the case in 10, 20 years or more but I see myself as pretty tech savvy (I'm reading the register, right?) but I'm giving downloads a wide berth."
These big discs use MPEG2, but for downloads they use MS Media Player Codec 10 (11?), MPEG4 or DIVX, which are 5x better compression. Note also you're taking the max capacity of the disc in your calculations not the size of the movie on the disc.
DIVX 720p is 4Mbps, which is low enough to stream now (I have France telecoms 20MBps connection at home), so the download delay in that case is 0 seconds, 1080p is not such a long download either.
But of course you're missing the most important part. Microsoft has already announce HD for XBox Live back in Nov 2006, the XBox live support is built in, the HD DVD is optional extra....
So the guy is not hypothesizing about some fanciful future, he's pointing out what he believes is the game Microsoft is playing right now.
You have to wonder why Microsoft is involved in the format war at all, it doesn't make movies, it doesn't make discs, it doesn't make PCs, so where's the gain from all that money? The only place where it has an interest is XBox360, even then it could support Bluray and it would make zero difference to them (perhaps make XBox a bit more popular since it would neutralize one Sony advantage).
So why are they involved in the format wars?