MusicGiants launches VideoGiants, with HD movies from Paramount
By Richard Lawler 
posted January 9th 2008 3:18PM
posted January 9th 2008 3:18PM
The HD digital distribution club just got a little bigger, as lossless audio distributor MusicGiants is launching its VideoGiants service with 250 movies from Paramount, and additional content from HDNet. Available in 1080p or 1080i WMV format, users can purchase the movies in 10-packs for $159 delivered via Seagate hard drives or, in a few months, one at a time via direct download to a home media server. After that, it can be viewed via the media PC or Media Extender (including Xbox 360). MusicGiants has been selling HD audio tracks to high end home theater owners via its network of dealers and installers for about two years, with plans to make this type of service available to the mass market soon. Still think the future of HD content is on shiny discs?
When my hard drive fails my "shiny discs" don't disappear.
Yeah. I'd rahter buy my "shiney disc" than a Seagate Hard drive thant can fail anytime (and at $159 - gotta make some dough on the price of the HD eh?).
As per the future Download services, wake me up when an entire neighborhood can Stream 40mb/s 1080p losless audio without dropping a frame or a single block in the picture, in a small to average town in the middle of the US, eh?
If Cox can't even deliver blockless video on 480i when the weather 's bad, can't imagine how it's going to be with tons of people streaming HD.
Not that it's not going to happen, it will,but please people. Stop trying to make people think it's going to happen for Joe Schmoe within 2 years.
VoD and DVRs have existed for 12 years or more, and only now start to be popular. Mp3 players were started by Rio in the mid 90's and only in the mid 2000s Ipod made it really popular.
There's a long road between inovations and popular adoption, as most technical savy people know :)
You make a really good point Greg about Rio and their mp3 players, but it's sort of a flawed point. Yes Mp3s were great back in the day. I gladly waited 30 minutes to download a 3 minute song (dial-up was a bitch back then) you also didn't find the music industry bitching about piracy back then as much as they did only a couple years later. With the arrival of broadband my 30 minute wait turned into 30 seconds for that 3 minute song. Then p2p services made it easy to share your collection with hundreds of other people's collections. But the real piracy stink was caused easy software for turning those mp3s into custom audio CDs.
As far as mp3 players not taking off right away was more of a hardware limitation than anything else. Early mp3 players could only hold 16-32 megs of mp3s. They also took a good bit of time with USB 1.0 to transfer and it was almost not worth it as it fit less songs than the average audio cd. Then came the ipod with mass storage capacity (thanks to the hard drive), USB 2 or firewire speeds, and easier to use software bundled with a music store. It was quite a simple equation to equal a winning product that I had dream of years before I even got my first Rio mp3 player.
When the ability to readily and easily fill the consumer needs for movie content in a non physical way with the appropriate terms of usage, delivery and what not arrive the service will take off faster than you think! Whoever fulfills this task stands to make a TON of money. Currently it looks like Apple, and Microsoft are in the best situation to take advantage of digital downloads. I wouldn't doubt the whole "conspiracy theory" the by Microsoft supporting HD-DVD was really only an attempt to stall both Blu-ray and HD-DVD from becoming very successful in the market so that they can present a digital download system capable of meeting the markets needs.
Broadband speeds are only going to get faster. I see in the near future the ability to totally rely on digital distribution of media content. Imagine being able to not worry about hardware failure b/c your account has all purchases logged and you can just re-download a previous purchase. I mean the "shiny discs" don't disappear when a hard drive fails, but what happens when those same "shiny disc" get scratched up? That practically the same thing as a hard drive failure as you still won't be able to watch the content you purchased.
There is always the argument that we like to have a physical copy, at least with older generations, but as I look at it now I have come to the conclusion that I like having a physical copy as well, but imagine having all the same content without having to actually store the cases and disc. Have them get lost, scratched, damage, borrowed and forgotten, etc... I could go on. The future isn't blu, or hd-dvd... it's digital!
Another possible great example would be for recalls similar to the recent Blu-ray Pirates of the caribbean movie. instead of having to recall disc they could just offer up a new download and instantly fix the framing issues in the movie (even though that should have never been missed and allowed to happen).
"Imagine being able to not worry about hardware failure b/c your account has all purchases logged and you can just re-download a previous purchase."
I can imagine that, but the current crop of music stores can't. Neither iTunes nor Amazon allow you to re-download music you've already purchased. I doubt if they will let you re-download movies.
Actually, amazon does let you re-download. itunes only lets you once - at least the last time I checked.
...for movies.
disappointed, thats one big advantage the live ecosystem has. im really surprised they dont advertise it more because you can do that now on both xbox live (tv shows,game videos) as well as zune content.
Yeah its all great i say .. but when will thees *beep* stores realize that there are others than just Windows and Internet Explorer users in this world .. jeeeez ..
That $16 a movie, which isn't a bad price for HD at all. Too bad they will be DRM'd to the hilt.
Marshall
The Real HT Info Podcast
Yes and frankly you guys are sounding more and more like HD-DVD fanboys all the time. Now I don't know about you but I don't know too many people who tell their child "I bought this hard drive for you, go install it and the relevant software and you can watch the movies on it".
That won't fly, even if it would the cost is ridiculous while it would actually cost MORE in the short-term to buy them on disc the prices will lower and few people will lay down $159 at movies in one go, especially with a limited selection.
Another thing, how do you watch it on your TV (which is still and still will be how the vast majority watch movies), a home media server? More expense nobody will pay for.
The straight digital distribution angle makes no more sense, even assuming the problems with playback above are solved you've got licensing issues, likely incompatible DRM schemes, transfer bandwidth limitations, storage limitations, availability problems, and more issues that I'm sure nobody has even though of yet.
If digital distribution of movies it to happen it would require entirely different categories of technology and business practices than we currently have available and companies utilize. Theres more to argue against it than for it, though I'm not sure discs are the future either I expect physical media is.
BTW, whoever brought up scratches and such..look up Durabis sometime, it will take a lot more than a child with long nails to damage a Blu-Ray disc.
More obvious fud from another blu-ray fanboy. Why does any technology that would compete with your beloved god sony/phillips BD always get attacked by you guys?? Digital downloads are coming, 4k is coming, flash distributuon is coming, Blu-Ray has at most 5 years and it will ride off into the sunset with HD-DVD.
If you think HD DVD has 5 years to live, you are not just delusional, you are bat-sh* crazy.
Blu Ray will co-exist with Online services for the next 6-10 years, easily.
At which point, we will have cell phones that store dozens of Terabytes, can insta-stream wirelessly 1080p HD to display devices, and displays that are 2mm thick and weigh 1.5 pound for a 100" surface, and can show 4K.
"More obvious fud from another blu-ray fanboy. Why does any technology that would compete with your beloved god sony/phillips BD always get attacked by you guys?? Digital downloads are coming, 4k is coming, flash distributuon is coming, Blu-Ray has at most 5 years and it will ride off into the sunset with HD-DVD."
I've explained the technical and economic issues with the kind of distribution you (and some others) would propose will occur. There is no company out there with the kind of monopolization that Apple has in the music space or the kind of killer product to really launch digital distribution of movies.
Odd as it may seem people like watching movies on big screens which is the reason iTunes is still does most of its sales in music and why Amazon Unbox hasn't exactly been a phenomenon.
Look at the electronic books business, many of those problems it faces are in all likelihood the exact same kind of problems that video distribution will face.
If you can't make a reasonable argument against my assertions on this, don't even bother to reply. It was my prediction from the beginning that Blu-Ray would win and that is coming true very quickly now, so don't presume that you have a greater knowledge of how things are going to fall than I do.
In closing, you either have no idea what you are talking about or are to lazy to elaborate a reasonable argument. I'm favoring the first one given your mention of 4K which will only make the possibility of widespread digital distribution of videos even more remote.