VUDU and
Xbox Live, welcome your new competition in the 1080p movie streaming arena, now that Sonic Solutions has announced its
CinemaNow service will offer "Blu-ray Disc resolution" (3D is
already on the way) with buffer-free playback thanks to its new Cinevision Adaptive HD encoding and delivery system. Sonic claims to have a leg up since the system is already used for Blu-ray disc production, and it's teaming with Widevine for the adaptive streaming backend. As usual, even if you're not directly a CinemaNow user, its wide compatibility and position behind
Blockbuster's store and upcoming ones from Best Buy and
Zip.ca should mean 1080p streaming to an ethernet equipped home theater device will be available no matter where you are, whether you're ready to ditch the discs (and downloads) or not.
posted Jul 29th 2009 3:45PM
Bet the bit rate is rubbish compared with Blu-ray. Res ain't everything.
And notice they don't say anything about audio. So it will probably sound like shit, too.
Reminds me of the good old days of the processor wars. Intel sold p4 3.8 ghz monsters solely because they said 3.8 ghz on the box.
Although, pretty much everyone in the industry relies on the 1080p buzzword to sell new tech. Does John Q Public really even KNOW what 1080p means? Doubtful - they just know 1080p is larger than 720p and the guy at best buy told them that 1080i is like... less than half the detail!
I hate misinformation. But hey - if you enjoy watching pixelated 1080p content encodes - be my guest. I will enjoy my 40 mbps AVC stream coming off my blu ray discs.
Well that was unexpected...
random sexy rant!
Is this actual 1080p or blocky, super low bitrate "1080p"?
probably the latter, because do we really expect cinemanow of all companies to revolutionize streaming?? highly doubtful
BYAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!
Here's the issue:
http://www.widevine.com/digitalmedia/dm_overview.html
That stuff aint getting on my system and if it does somehow I'll set fire to it and start anew.
It's just CAS, standards based encryption would you rather have vera matrix or one of the other few.?
I also doubt they can stream 1080p it will be a buffered signal at best and a VOD system most likely.
This will eat the major SP's alive.
The thing is they put things on your computer to limit it AND can spy on you, who would do that to themselves? And it's also available for linux, what insane linux user would even consider putting DRM crap on his/her system?
I'm not familiar with your examples incidentally, I'd have to read up on that, but anyway I'd rather pirate stuff than have rootkits and spyware, or simply not watch HD at all.
Hmm, well obama is closing quantanamo isn't he? Or did he get overrun on that too the poor defenceless guy.
White or rye?
I know I know, I should not encourage, but you gotta wonder.
Where the heck did that come from? Quit hating. Just because some people in a country are bad, doesn't mean we all are. Also, there are ignorant/terrible people in every country on this planet!
Great! More ultra-compressed blurry "High Definition" video! I'd rather have a 6MB 480p stream than this. It would probably look better.
Well uhm, a policy of torture and kidnapping isn't quite the same as 'there are terrible people in every country', there's a difference between bastards walking around and bastards running the country and getting re-elected and getting global cross-parties support you know.
lol, all my comments are replying to removed comments it seems, I feel like kim il yong ;)
@Wwhat
Please be aware that not all of us Americans support Bush/Obama, and their willingness to torture, kidnap, and start/continue endless idiotic and meaningless wars, along with stealing all of our money through inflation and taxes, and arresting and filling our prisons full of non-criminals for petty BS such as using a recreational drug while not hurting anyone else. Although we are a small percentage, we are here, and as it stands now, I don't see any country in the world that is much better off as far as freedom is concerned, except for maybe Switzerland, but I wasn't born there.
Did anyone else see this and immediately think "more bars in more places"?
Folks,
You have to see this to believe it. Widevine was showing the HD Adaptive streaming at Cablelabs last week.
It was amazing to see. The clip was 1080i it was encoded in H.264. It seamlessly adapted from 2.5 Mbps to 10Mbps ...I think there were 4 or 5 different bit rates. The quality was amazing. It was playing back on Windows, Mac and a Blu-ray player.
What was even more amazing then the HD adaptive technology was that the 1080i Mbps H.264 clip played back on the PC/MAC. They attemptd to play back the low bit rate version using a Flash player and silverlight and the CPU maxed out, stuterd and lost frames.
Sonic and Widevine really have something here.
- Morgan