Today, I read an article over on IGN (read it here: http://gear.ign.com/articles/110/1108505p1.html) on how Sony is developing/has developed a new disc-based medium that could eventually replace the Blu-Ray disc as the highest capacity disc-based storage medium (I refuse to say it's the standard, as, even though I have and love my PS3, DVD movies still seem to see the biggest sales). In the article, Sony claims that the discs may hold up to one Terabyte of information, which would be approximately 20 times the capacity of Blu-Rays (there are some Blu-Ray discs that can hold 100 Gigabytes, though most I have seen are somewhere between 25 and 50). Now, I didn't think much of the article itself, just thought it was kind of neat the amount of data they'd be able to fit on one disc, but some of the comments caught my attention.
The one(s) that really got me were about digital distribution and the fall of physical discs. Most of these comments seem to be a single person, as the mannerisms in the posts were similar to the point where I would've pointed and cried foul had I taken the time to care enough to comment myself, but they (he) raised an interesting point. Will streaming video/downloading data ever replace physical media? I tend to believe no, it won't. And here's why:
1) Most consumers tend to feel a bit better about having something tangible they can hold onto in case something goes wrong. It's the same principle (pal?) behind my company's selling tactics for our Protection Plans. The consumer is much more likely to purchase something if there is something they can hold and take with them (in our case, it's a lil brochure with their contract number on it, but it still seems to placate the customer).
2) Networks aren't anywhere near setup for that kind of traffic. Sure, your cable, super-high speed internet is fine now for streaming a movie off netflix and you say, "So what? It's awesome!" Yes. It is. But all of that awesometastic movie streaming your doing? It uses bandwidth, something your internet provider would claim there is a limited amount of. So imagine if every single person in your neighborhood, your city, county, state, country, world was doing the same thing? Not to mention the fact that there're still areas that don't have high-speed internet access. And those people that want a tangible disc to hold in their hands? Some of those folks probably don't have/haven't heard of wireless networks in their homes.
I know, some of you are thinking, what kind of person is stupid enough to stream a high-def film over a wireless network, anyway? Running hundreds of feet of cable to every video game, computer, and internet-capable device in your home is where it's at. But, and most of you who have read this thus far, also know that there are companies that purport that their wireless routers/adapters are capable of handling that sort of task. But again I ask, what happens when you have a kid's PS3/360, your other kid's Wii, five laptops, two desktops, and a media server all on one connection? According to one customer (this is what he reported he had on one network, though I do have the feeling he was exaggerating), it doesn't handle it so well (the customer in question was in the store buying, and grumbling over, a new, close-to-$200 router (one of the simultaneous dual-band extreme range/speed Wireless N devices). Which leads me to my next point.
3) Cost of setup. Now, some people may have a shit-ton of cash to throw around to purchase the equipment necessary for this kind of thing. One person on the IGN boards said he had hundreds of movies on his two Terabyte external harddrive. Ok. Cool, I guess. But those cost between 150-200. Add in the cost for the high-speed internet, optional wireless networking, or if you want to use a decent PC, PS3, 360, or Wii to stream movies from, say, NetFlix (not sure if any of the systems even support Amazon's VOD) and you have a system that could cost anywhere from $200-there's no symbol for infinity but it's infinity. I know, that's a huge range, but everyone's setup is different and can drop in/out different components based on needs/wants. And that's not even getting into the cost of TVs. Some people haven't even made the jump to LCD/Plasma/LED/etc. (it's true, my parents have a pretty kickass 40" Sony tube-TV) and then there's the whole 3D-HD TVs.
So yeah, eventually digital storage and distribution will probably replace physical media, but based on the factors above, I don't think it's going to be anytime soon.
I was going to write up a review for the Under the Red Hood animated film (I implied pretty heavily in the title about it), but I need to get to bed. I have a long day of sweating my ass off at work ahead of me. I also need to get my ass in gear over editing 'Zero' and finishing the third book. If I don't finish book three by the end of the summer/year, it will have been the first time in four years I'd have gone a summer without writing a book. Now, if I could only get some of that published.
In an entirely unrelated to anything note: I bought a used copy of Uncharted 2 back in late March (or early April, can't remember exactly) and just got around to popping it in. After forty minutes of updating, the game doesn't work. I thought maybe it was smudged, since a lot of the games and movies I got from this retailer had a problem with that, but I cleaned the disc off and it still won't load. I get to the point where I start a game, it goes to the loading screen, and then it stops. I'm really disappointed. There aren't any scratches that I can see, but I still might try taking it to another store I frequent and see if they can't fix it for me (it's a longshot, since I didn't buy it there, but maybe they'll be nice).
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