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Defining the Definition of HighDef

Written by: Andy Marken

Article Overview: Like the CERN collider everyone is rushing to define high definition video and to take ownership. Content owners, content distributors, content pipelines, hardware/software producers all want to sell folks who have had a tough day an escape with fantastic HD content. They all have the best HD answer. Lots of these folks offer you their interpretation of HD video and say the rest is "a world of hurt." In a lot of ways, their statements are partially true. BD is in the hurts the way they are trying to force their solution on the rest of the world. The option providers aren't much better with their HD flavor and walled gardens.

Defining the Definition of HighDef

When the Large Hadron Collider (HDC) is in full operation scientists hope to see the precise moment, image when our universe began.

Then everyone will begin viewing…studying…analyzing…interpreting… defining/redefining.

Suddenly we’ll be right back where we started.

10,000+ scientists/engineers from 100+ countries, hundreds of universities/labs giving us “their version” of the beginning.

And you think determining how folks will get their high def content is tough?

It’s great in theory.

It sucks in interpretation.

The CERN team has one common goal.

Everyone involved in the video arena has his/her personal goal.

Suddenly we’re a world/universe of content.
It feels like everyone is developing it, pushing it around just waiting for …you !

Success Ferments
It took more than 30 years for color TV to be in nearly every home…the fastest adoption rate for any consumer electronics technology was five years for DVD…it took nearly 10 years for VCRs to be yesterday.

But many say BD technology is defunct even before it gets out of the chute!

P2P folks say they’re already downloading and sharing high def movies.

Experts say CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) like Hulu, Unbox, Amazon, iTunes and every dog ‘n cat is already doing a booming business giving folks instant movies over broadband.

Today’s service providers complain that even the low volumes of streaming video are chewing up huge amounts of bandwidth.

AT&T says it’s usage increases at a pace of 76 percent a year.

German officials complain that it won’t be long before Internet video will be half of the bandwidth usage to the homes.

Japan, Korea where they have a heckofa lot more bandwidth than the US is already there.

ISPs and cable folks have the solution… choke off the all-you-can eat content access.

Why those greedy SOBs!

They emphasize that the top one percent of users consume 225GB of data a month (bottom 50 percent use 1GB or less).

Rather than make “everyone” pay for the gluttons, they (cable and ISP) are considering:
- tiered pricing – pay for usage just as with other utilities
- throttle you back after X amount of usage
- fire you! Oh yeah they do…too many customer support calls, too many hours online watching too many web or whatever videos and BAM!!! you’re gone.

They are in this for a buck ya know.

Think about the bandwidth sucked up downloading 30GB of HD movies.

Where’s Joe The Plumber
Multiply your download by a couple of hundred…thousand…million people.

Get real.

If everyone hits that download button at the same time the huge sucking sound will be louder than when the protons or lead ions go ssswwwiiissshhhiiinnnggg by.

Even then, CDNs aren’t giving you true HD content, you know 1080p content for your new 42-in LCD set.

It’s “something else.”

According to studies by George Ou of ZDNet and so eloquently explained by gizmodo http://tinyurl.com/5jhvl4, folks downloading their “HD” content are getting the Lite version.

Whooppee!

Our kids are OK with the quality.

It’s about as good as the stuff they pull down off YouTube and other social net sites.

It’s good enough to throw on their mobile devices.

Maybe good enough is…good enough?

Nope!

They also watch DVDs and that quality is … better.

Especially upscaled on a 42-in set!

It must be a lot better for a lot of people.

Download, Disc
Netflix offers both disc and download delivery and still does a huge business sending movies to your mailbox.

We’ve also seen RedBox boxes in more grocery stores.

Someone always seems to be choosing a movie.

Sounds logical…pick up a six pack of drinks, popcorn, other snacks and…a movie all in one stop.

But that certainly doesn’t make it a sure thing for BD.

Of course the “one more thing” guy said BD has its own set of problems.

He’s right…kinda!

But don’t believe he’s delivering the solution (check http://tinyurl.com/5jhvl4 again)!

Discs succeed when there are a lot of entertainment options available.

It succeeds when there are players in tens, hundreds of thousands of homes

Don’t let anyone kid you…that takes time.

That takes lower prices.

For indies and everyone but the huge studies that’s tricky right now.

The BDA uses the same sort of formula that produced billions of dollars in profits for CDs…they license the logo (in BD’s case it is $3,000 per provider + X cents per disc + $1,300 per AACS license).

That’s BS!

Pass out the BD logo like popcorn to anyone who produces a movie to the format spec – Hollywood, Bollywood, indie, who knows/who cares.

The more discs on the shelves..the more hardware, software, titles sold.

Ok so you levy some “reasonable” per disc charge based on sales – maybe.

AACS license?

Who gives a rat’s behind?

Time for Copies
We have 2000 music CDs at home. Love to have them on our MP3 player but ripping them and copying them to the player?

Too much of a hassle…we’ll just throw them on our “ancient” 400-disc CD player.

We just completed a huge family project of copying our purchased and family VHS movies to DVD using Pinnacle’s Dazzle DVD Recorder.

Never bothered copying movies before but doing it now?

It’s insurance.

Tapes are almost gone.

Deck is on its last leg.

There’s a world of CSS (Content Scrambling System) decryption software on the Web but we never bothered ripping any of our DVDs.


AACS doesn’t stop anyone who’s into stealing…Doom9ers rip apart the player protection all the time…lazier folks go to Slysoft’s web site…thieves go to the source.

Silly boys!

Don’t worry about the freakin thieves…worry about the customers!

Don’t worry abut the early royalties…worry about the volumes!

Prices Arriving
This holiday season BD players tiptoed below the $100 price.

BD burners limboed below the $250 barrier.

Now if they knock off most of the overhead for content developers the cost of movies – purchased or rented – might get down to the same level of DVDs.

That’ll make a huge difference.

Of course BD isn’t just about movies – don’t tell Hollywood that – it’s also about archival storage.

That’s an area that is of interest to individuals and companies concerned about data integrity and green IT.

You could leave everything on your 1TB hard drive but sometime, someday it’s going to fail on you.

No sweat unless it’s got all your tax and email records and the government wants to examine them the next day.

Then you are so *****ed!!!

What about all your family/friends photos/videos?

Lose the drive and you’ve lost something you can never replace and never put a price on!

Yeah but the disc only has a life of 50 +/- years.

Yeah…so ??

Yeah but 50GB means you’ll need a ton of discs?

There’s a next generation disc in the wings from a company called Memphile that already stores 1TB.

Tell the BD folks to talk to them so you have a migration path!

Downloading HD content sounds fantastic, even Steve’s version of HD.

Problem is, high def delivery is way slower than the speed of the CERN collider.

When the collider folks figure out what the beginning of time looked like and content delivery systems have unlimited ultra high speed bandwidth for us…things are going to be so fantastic!

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Article Tags: adoption rate, bandwidth usage, cern, color tv, common goal, consumer electronics technology, content delivery networks, german officials, hadron collider, hdc, high def, japan korea, large hadron, personal goal, precise moment, sobs, unbox amazon, usage increases, vcrs, world universe



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