HD-DVD looks like it's finally on the way out...

[Obfleur]

120 inch? We're gonna need bigger houses.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Nah, most houses are bigger than 120 inch

[Obfleur]

I don't wanna sit three or four meters from a 120 inch television.


That's only 110 inch!

[Impactor returns 2.0]

thats good, you should never sit to close to a screen!

Seriously tho, I can see rooms where one wall is a TV - it will be connected to a media hub, where you can browse the internet, watch TV, download Movies etc... all via one screen, even at the same time.
the screen will be a media center in your house, and Eastenders will be on 5 times a week!

It will be like back to the future 2, you see, they new what qwas going on when marty had a voice controlled 120 inch screen!

Its the future dammit, and as a product designer, im going to make it happen!

[Cathy_Quinn]

Digital movie downloads are in HD, they are not grainy, or reduced in quality in anyway shape or form.

Ok so I exaggerated a touch...my point was HD will make no difference on a tiny screen and if you're going to watch it on a big screen anyway is it really any more convenient than a DVD? Aside from the fact that it won't get scratched I guess, but there's a simple answer to that - take care of your DVD's.

There's less and less reason to put up with the failings of the mp3 format and other lossy encodes.

No argument here, I was just making the point that we do put up with it for now and I don't see people putting up with it on an audio visual platform when it won't be visibly more convenient.

But it does. One influence on current live music tickets is the rampant digital (perfect copy) piracy of music, an effect unlikely to go away.

But surely there is no difference between download and CD on that issue? There will always be some artists a person will make the effort to see live and others where they will think "I can't be bothered, I have the album" and this is not affected by what form you have the album in as long as you can play it.

and Eastenders will be on 5 times a week!

You mean it's not already? Oh man!

[Dead Head]

As luck would have it, this newly arrived BBC News article is close to what I was saying:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7251211.stm
'Chaos' of China's music industry
Last Updated: Thursday, 21 February 2008, 00:48 GMT

"The huge numbers of pirated CDs and high levels of illegal downloading are forcing Chinese pop stars to find alternative ways to make a living, as a Beijing-based BBC reporter finds out."

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Ok so I exaggerated a touch...my point was HD will make no difference on a tiny screen and if you're going to watch it on a big screen anyway is it really any more convenient than a DVD? Aside from the fact that it won't get scratched I guess, but there's a simple answer to that - take care of your DVD's.

This isnt the point of digital distribution - why do u think iTunes is so popular?
Its because you can have all your music tracks in one place, i dont need lots of CD's
And, more importantly, I can buy any piece of music, instantly, on a whim.
Its so much more convienent, thats why the physical music market is almost dead in the water.

The scenario of film distribution is this (and already exists via Sky Movies etc...):

Im sitting at home, and a new film is available on rental release, or to buy.

You have two choices:

A. you have to go to the shops, find the movie, pay at the counter etc...
or
B. I press a button, done.

B wins everytime. its convienent, it cost myself and the enviroment less.
Sure I dont have a plastic box to stick on my shelf collecting dust but then this hasnt bothered the iPod generation, they have embraced it!

Also, not printing all these CD's and extra travel costs of consumer and manufacturer is good for the enviroment!

And ill reiterate this other point again. if your TV is larger than 24inchs then the image how from a DV will be upscaled. hence the need for HD, especially as buying a TV above 24 inchs is incredibly cheap now.

I know some people will bang on about not liking TV or films or somthing now, or big TV's but it has nothing to do with the future of digital distribution.

No argument here, I was just making the point that we do put up with it for now and I don't see people putting up with it on an audio visual platform when it won't be visibly more convenient.

Sorry but these are two incredibly baseless facts.

1. Its cleary more convienent for me to purchase media via a digital download then it is to physically walk to the shops?
2. Its obviously more convienent, and a proven sales method because the music industry outside the dowbnload market is dying, its common knowledge. Hence why the industry is obssesed with iTunes, and MP3 players, and fighting Piracy. that is the music industry now.
3. I just snooped around on iTunes, all MP3's sold there are of the 44Khz variety, thats as good as your human ear can percive.
So they are not of a lesser quality - In the past it was true that some MP3's were encoded, and thus compressed to lower quality ranges but people dont do this anymore, there no need to reduce memory between 2 MB to 5 MB in case it takes to long to download now.

Its not just Music, and Movies, video games are digitaly distributed now as well.

Considering the waste of plastic and airmiles, surely its a good thing to cut back on all physical media!

Good Old china, they simply dont give a **** about computer piracy, they never have, much to the annoyance of other countries, and now thier own talent is paying the price

A similar situation exists in Product development. Where as most of the world accepts Patents and copyright, China doesnt, and blatently copies everyone elses products.
Recently, as China has moved forward in terms of training thier own engineers, they have started to create thier own Products. the west has happily copied them, much to Chinas annoyance.
China has finnaly started to understand Opyright infringement.

[Cathy_Quinn]

As luck would have it, this newly arrived BBC News article is close to what I was saying:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7251211.stm
'Chaos' of China's music industry
Last Updated: Thursday, 21 February 2008, 00:48 GMT

"The huge numbers of pirated CDs and high levels of illegal downloading are forcing Chinese pop stars to find alternative ways to make a living, as a Beijing-based BBC reporter finds out."

But...nobody was talking about illegal downloads...were you talking about illegal downloads Impy? I wasn't talking about illegal downloads.

This isnt the point of digital distribution - why do u think iTunes is so popular?
Its because you can have all your music tracks in one place, i dont need lots of CD's
And, more importantly, I can buy any piece of music, instantly, on a whim.
Its so much more convienent, thats why the physical music market is almost dead in the water.

True, and I do use iTunes, but I'm always wary by the fact that there is no hard copy to back them up. I say this because a certain Karl, who shall remain nameless, was very kindly attempting to make my PC run faster once and accidentally deleted a ton of my music including some £7 a throw backing tracks.

Sorry but these are two incredibly baseless facts.

1. Its cleary more convienent for me to purchase media via a digital download then it is to physically walk to the shops?
2. Its obviously more convienent, and a proven sales method because the music industry outside the dowbnload market is dying, its common knowledge. Hence why the industry is obssesed with iTunes, and MP3 players, and fighting Piracy. that is the music industry now.
3. I just snooped around on iTunes, all MP3's sold there are of the 44Khz variety, thats as good as your human ear can percive.
So they are not of a lesser quality - In the past it was true that some MP3's were encoded, and thus compressed to lower quality ranges but people dont do this anymore, there no need to reduce memory between 2 MB to 5 MB in case it takes to long to download now.

I don't know that we are obsessed with iTunes, everyone I know has professed to hate it at one time or another I do notice at times mp3s are simplified, you can be happily listening to the main bassline of your favourite song then find it disappears in favour of a different part. When that instrument is done playing you can hear the Bass again. Not noticeable unless you're concentrating quite hard, but, still cause for concern I feel.

I certainly didn't mean to say anything frustrating or annoying, my opinion may not be especially clued up but I have never claimed any of it is fact. Demonstrably you know much more about the ins and outs of this stuff than I do and I'm attempting only to comment as a consumer and as a budding artist. It sure is nice to have an intelligent conversation online though

[Impactor returns 2.0]

I wasnt talking about illegal downloads, more just how media will be distributed in the future.

I agree that not having a hard copy is always a concern, I suppose the system you use to download from needs to be aware of the account holder. So that if you did lose your copy, u can always re-download for free as u have purchased it before.

On the subject of not liking iTunes, its not my fav bit of software but its just a front end, a means to access your libary of music and download legally. What is deff apparent is the number of music downloads that take place each day far exceede actually physicall media sales.

On the MP3 front, the MP3 compressor just simplifies the sine wave of an anologue signal, but the range remains the same, so low base notes and high points are still there. the Baud rate compression can remove complexity, so perhaps some insturements can get lost.
Have you tried playing the MP3 on a different music device, it might have a different result.

If everything was encoded at 44Khz, this problem wouldnt happen...

[Dead Head]

But...nobody was talking about illegal downloads

Not true. My first reply to you was talking about digital piracy.

[Cathy_Quinn]

But...nobody was talking about illegal downloads

Not true. My first reply to you was talking about digital piracy.

Which again had nothing to do with anything I was saying. My point was that owning a recording by an artist does not usually stop people from seeing them live as well. I realise tangents are delicious but it's good to keep them to a minimum.

Seems you and I are generally in agreement Impy, btw I use iTunes on a Windows PC and a NextGen iPod Nano to play my music.

[Kaylee]

If everything was encoded at 44Khz, this problem wouldnt happen...

Sadly untrue, you lose musical data:

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm

Talking about CDs but holds true for 'lossless' encodings as well, mathematically they're meant to be identical but in practice there is a noticeable difference, I find.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Yes, there is some loss but your ear would have to be capable of hearing differences in the upper 44khz spectrum of sound - thats somthing like having bat ears

What I do understand about digital recording tho is that ambient sound can be lost. that the sound is to 'clean' as there is no feedback down the line.

A common example of this is in the use of samplers, Sony has a famous 108 sample box, that is old but has a unique fuzzy sound to it. the exact same sound can now be reproduced inside mixing software, but without the analogue feedback, it doesnt quite sound right. technically speaking there is no difference....

I think this is more a case of how recordings were made at the time or how the music was created in the first place. If the music was created on some digital drum kit then why should there be any loss. on the other hand if we were recording an orchestra, and we require a digital format at the end, ie an MP3, then the Analogue to Digital conversion best be bloody good to begin with. Sampling at a much higher rate, then reducing should pick up even the faintest of ambient sound.
but, in all reality this wont happen for your average MP3 conversion, the digital track in question will just simply be passed through some cheap software, and you have loss...

Of course were talking about convience here, id rather be able to carry my entire music collection around the planet, and download anywhere.
The odd track with a bit off loss, ill put up with it for the conveience of actually having access to it anywhere, anytime.

[Kaylee]

Complexity is the main issue AFAIK. CD audio rates (and associated codecs) work fine unless the music is complex, at which point you begin to lose fidelity noticeably compared to an analogue recording.

Convenience is definitely the driving factor, mainly as you say portable convenience. That's something that I just don't see video matching. It will exist and be a viable market but it is just impractical to carry your favourite movies/tv shows with you and be able to watch them on a sensibly sized screen, as compared to portable music where it is very convenient to have a lot of far smaller files which can be enjoyed on lower end hardware with far less overheads in terms of usability.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Yes but I think they are two different types of convience, music on the go seems to make more sense, as it only takes up one of your sense, ie your ears, and it means we can multi-task.

But home cinema for example, we already have Sky Movies, and Sky+ boxes that allow you to pause rewind and record live TV.

If we jump forward a few years, and take a look at Apples and the Xbox model (and a few others) in time its concievable to imagine that I could be sitting at home, and have access to almost any film ever made. streamed, like Sky Movies does across the network.

Then, what if, ontop of that, I can go to a friends house, access my TV account, and watch from my bought in movies?

Its that ability to watch what you want, at anytime, without having to go down the shops and buy it thats intriguing.

I dont belive we will ever get TV out of the home, as i think the cinema experience, due to the nature of using your primary sense ie. eyesight, requires you to be transfixed for a period of time, and thus a portable system doesnt really excite people.

[Kaylee]

Oh yes, definitely. I've often thought that the best evolution of 'television' would simply be a system where you can literally choose what you want to watch from a list of everything. No more channels as such, just total content on demand. The mechanics for that will need a lot of advances in HCI though (IMO). The basis for a lot of this stuff is already there, but putting it into a useable format with convenient technology is still about a decade off the point where the 'common man' (for which read shmoe) will be able to afford and use it properly (again, IMO).

On a side note I'm posting sneakily from work using a text based browser so apologies for bad grammar and lack of paragraphs, it's hard to read back what I've written before I've posted it...

[Impactor returns 2.0]

on that topic, if you have a Virgin cable box, theres this TV on demand button where you can literaly watch hundreds of Tv series, on demand, from sci-fi to commedy. all free and instant etc...

I wonder if TV will become more like the net, in the sense that, on the Net we have websites, that have 'updates' for thier content, generally on certain days.

I wonder if say, BBC will just update the latest episode of Eastenders (insert random TV show here) at a certain time, and then u can watch it whenever?

in the same sense I guess thats what iPlayer does, but taking it further, what if there was literally no TV shedual, it was just made by yourself, much like you surf the net for your own content.

[Cathy_Quinn]

I've often thought that the best evolution of 'television' would simply be a system where you can literally choose what you want to watch from a list of everything.

Awesome indeed, but you just know you and I would get committed after a 24-hour marathon of Fresh Prince

[Guest]

To Karl & Impy:

I think you might be getting into the Star Trek vision of media storage and reproduction.

Not a bad model, as models go, mind you.

Awesome indeed, but you just know you and I would get committed after a 24-hour marathon of Fresh Prince

Who wouldn't?

[Cathy_Quinn]

Who wouldn't?

I think Andy Parsons might be man enough to handle it

[Guest]

Hmm. Perhaps I misinterpreted your intent of the word 'committed'.

[Cathy_Quinn]

Seems far more likely that I am as usual making little to no sense, Rebis