[mdlug-discuss] Software Download vs Physical Media was Re: [mdlug]Suggestions for games for an elderly parent? Starcraft

[Peter Bart]

On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 11:33 -0500, Ingles, Raymond wrote:
> > From: Peter Bart
> > > Music will go first, it's smallest. It's already dying fast.
> > >
> > 	Interestingly enough I prefer to buy the music cd's, don't know
> why.
> 
>  I mostly do that, too, but un-DRM'd music's becoming more common.
> 
> > 	I heard somewhere else that Blue ray's life is allready limited due
> > to streaming players like the Roku Netflix player I have.
> 
>  Sort of. The net infrastructure isn't capacious or reliable enough to
> deliver full HD content on a regular basis, yet. So, for high-end HD,
> Blu-ray's close to the only option right now. For F/X-heavy,
> 'spectacle' movies, Blu-ray does make a difference.
> 
>  Of course, it's still an open question if that's really going to make
> a difference in the market. You need a good-sized HD TV to really get
> the benefits of Blu-ray, and even then a lot of people don't care
> about the increase in quality. (Compare how many people find 128kbit
> CBR mp3s to be 'good enough'.) Even for me, dramas, chick-flicks, and
> comedies don't really gain anything from Blu-ray, an upscaled DVD is
> fine.

	Same here, but I'm still watching on a rather old Sony Trinitron.

> 
> > I pay a monthly membership fee for Netflix two at a
> > time dvd service and the Roku stream is included.
> 
>  We subscribe to the similar Blockbuster service. Blu-ray's the same
> price as DVD, which is nice. I'll be curious to see how their
> streaming option shapes up.

	I can say since I went to the ATT 6Mb/s DSL supposedly I've been
getting better quality video, like I can tell. There's four little dots
on the screen, next to the progress bar when first starting a movie. All
of them are now checked vs only one or two on my previous plan. The more
that are checked the better your movie quality. I can say when the Roku
streams it does get about 5.5Mb/s. It uses that for a a short time then
it apparently plays from a buffer for the same short time, and so on. ie
It's an on off connection all through the movie. Now with dropping
prices on HDTV's and the Roku being able to stream HD we'll probably get
one, I'm not looking forward to trying to wade through the hype. So
we'll see if that makes a difference

Best Regards,
-- 
Peter Bart <peter at petertheplumber.net>
Peter The Plumber