On the weekend I set up my Marantz CD player and my NAD amplifier in my study and hooked up my computer via a firewire card. I listened to some of my old CDs and was again wowed by the musical thrills of the marantz player I'd loved for ages. But then after listening to one or two CDs I listened to my computerised collection of AAC and MP3 files and realised that I wouldn't really be using the Marantz at all anymore. The key here is that one gets almost the same quality as the original with high compression rates so that your 700MB of CD data becomes compressed 7-10x!!

That's what has fuelled the whole music download model. The ability to compress files to small sizes 10x compression even.

The problem is that video on Bluray and DVD is already highly compressed to their high file sizes as it is. Any more compression equals noticeable loss of quality. Downloading 5 gigs takes a while let alone 25-50 gigs. Whereas CDs have almost become irrelevant because they were distribution of a lossless format, HD video is already compressed.

That's why I think that it will be a long time before the optical disc will disappear as a medium for distribution. There's no way you're going to get decent quality through downloads. Compression of 10 fold will ruin a HD video in no time.

I just can't stomach the idea of highly compressed HD video downloads.

Get used to it, because the 720p (or less) 'HD' of iTunes and Netflix will be the norm whilst BD will be more and more this gens LD.

Until someone's grandmother can fish around for a $5 bargain in Target for a download, then I predict the disc will be with us for a while

QUOTE (Muaddib @ Nov 24 2008, 08:22 PM)
I just can't stomach the idea of highly compressed HD video downloads.

Get used to it, because the 720p (or less) 'HD' of iTunes and Netflix will be the norm whilst BD will be more and more this gens LD.



I'd have to say these statements are all correct to a degree.

720p will be the norm from Netflix + iTunes for a while. This is pretty good quality - noticeably better than DVD and u can download a whole movie in like 3GB on a fast connection this only takes a short time. TV episodes can be like 1 - 1.5GB. 720p DivX, .h264 etc on a 46inLCD up converted to 1080p while not in the class of a Blu-ray still looks pretty good and kills DVD for quality.

So for top of the line u will get a blu-ray, but, for on-line TV shows 720p will keep everyone happy for a while yet.

The only problem we have in Oz is we just gotta actually have the 720p on-line TV option...

Like how many ppl here want HD SciFi TV but cant get it, while the US sit back and enjoy all their SciFi in HD?

^ Reported.