It sounds nice but the thing i Like about DVD's is that i have the phisycal media and as long as i don't step on it i can repoduce it. what would happend if the iTv get's damage?, what about space, i have 100 Dvd's in my collection doe iTV can hold it? can i download the movies i bought again whitout paying if my HD is full or it get's damage?. Can i bring a movie to a Friend's house with a Even bigger TV and THX in his room?

Originally posted by:
Oliver

iTV will never replace dvd or blue ray for the same reason that schools will always have paper...why not just use a computer? because paper is easier. Anything with mechanical moving parts WILL fail, it is inevitable. The best consumer harddrive has a shelf life of 10years, and thats assuming you dont have any outside trouble. DVD or BluRay media has no moving parts, so they is much more stable. Shure, it can still be damaged, but Bluray will not be as easy to damage as dvd's were and are. And don't bother with the "the actual bluRay player has moving parts" because we are talking about the content being lost/damaged.

Originally posted by:
Tim

I have to admit that Hamid makes some good points. I am about to install a plasma TV in my home. to do it correctly, at least in my mind, it means a wall mounted installation with wall mounted speakers that actually appear to go with the TV...in other words a nice clean look. This also means that the Denon tuner will not be anywhere near the TV as it is a monster. I plan to remote everything which highlighted the problem of how do I change DVD's without walking to the DVD Player. I have looked at large volumn DVD players but who wants to spend another $1000 for a technology that is on the verge of going obsolete. I have been looking into setting up my computer to download and play movies from. It is by far the best solution and saves the space of all the DVD's. This is something that I will definitely look into further

Originally posted by:
James

The problem I have with any type of hardware storage is FAILURE. So you remove the physical dvd/cd from the equation and all you have now are files on your computer that will play through iTV or any other hardware/software system, yes physical storage is gone now, you have more space. You can back up the drives containing the files but what happens when they get full? I guess you buy a larger drive and then use the back up to restore them and you can also change out the back up drives to higher cap ones. Now here's the fun part, you get a fire, a bad power surge or any other act of god/nature if your drives are toast they're gone, at least my dvd/cd collection can survive water, smoke or a bad OS. Oh yeah I wonder how fat you'll get by not needing to move anymore from you're couch? You can now order food, a nurse to wash/clean you, an escort to keep you company, videochat with your friends if you still have any from lack of physical contact. You know why people find old pics, newspaper clippings and movies? Because they're a physical medium, who knows if all your old vacation, friends, family photos will survive if not printed out .......

Originally posted by:
stevie martinez

First off, the anti social behavior you talk about is not a by product of technology. Technology is actually supposed to give us more to to socialize.

Aside from that iTV sounds like an interesting product useful technology for the technology literate not really a product for the masses,.... yet. . I agree that discs with their packaging take up a lot of unnecessary space. That would be the fault of entertainment industry, while everyone else is trying to intergrate the 3 R's (reduce, recycle, reuse) they don't. I have 250+ movies in a couple of books and I've recycled the plastic boxes. It takes up alot less space than another computer. So, although space is an issue it really isn't an issue to kill the new formats.
The reason that Blu-ray and HD will become the new standard iTV (at this point Blu-ray looks like an early winner) is because of user friendliness. With a disc I simply turn on the player insert disc and press play and the new hdmi cable makes is ultra easy setup. There's no downloading (can you imagine the download time for a high definition movie), file searching (which sometimes is quite a pain if you're not exactly sure of the filename), or online purchasing (which many people are still nervous about) The creation of disc technology opened new options to add to the home entertainment experience. Interactive menues, special features, commentaries. Are all these things going to be available with iTV? Or, is it just the movie that is downloaded without the extras. Many of us still like to see what kind of exciting opening the main menu is going to have. Sounds more like apple's idea of the TIVO, the only thing missing from is the downloadable aspect.

So, iTV replacing new high def technology? Not a chance. As, a useful addition to a really good home theatre? Possibly. More likely though just a new gadget for techno junkies to show off to their friends with.

Originally posted by:
Dee

Interesting topic. Albeit a rather rash assertation.

First off, iTV sounds like a nifty little product, however to say that it's the wave of the future is a bit premature. First and foremost, is your internet running of fiber optic cable? Any of you? Yes, there's a small chance some of you are (I would, but it's not in my area yet), but I might assume most are running off DSL or Cable. Past that, as odd as it may seem to some people, many don't have the internet at all... or *gasp* still running dial-up. Ever try downloading 1.2GB of anything. Depending on the server, it could take awhile. Plus, FYI, 1.2 GB is not a DVD. A regular DVD-R holds about 4.7GB and mind you most big Hollywood DVD releases come out on Dual-Layer... so now we're dealing with over 8GB. Shall I go on to quote Blue-ray and HD-DVD file sizes?

So let me clear up my point. A 1.2 GB file, despite advances in compression technology, is probably not up to par with a DVD in terms of quality. Mind you that's standard definition. If all you care about is watching a movie on your 55" plasma.. I might rethink the scenario. Granted if you really don't care about that quality, it's not as much of a problem. But many people do... particularly if it straight up looks bad, which is a possibility for a 1.2GB file.. at least in terms of pixelation and compression artifacts. As far as moving it around on an iPod.. that's great. Because a video iPod screen is one of the few places that quality lost might not matter. Plus, there's licensing dynamics to concider, in regards to being able to transfer it to your friends computer.

Also, as many have mentioned, there are issues of convenience. Yes, in a manner of speaking all some people care about is watching the movie on their, regardless of how it's done. Though this is just as easily a case AGAINST iTV. This being because many people would probably look at the downloading of a movie on your computer and playing it from there onto your TV; as more of a hassle then just popping in a disc. I mind you, I'm talking about the general public here.. not uber techy el-deweebo (a.k.a. someone like me). There are dynamics to concider like how many people have compatble computers. Not to mention how many have computers anywhere near there main TV screen. Another fact to concider is many people live in a busy rushing around kind of world. Often watching a movie is a spontaneous choice, involving rushing out to Best Buy to buy a new movie or Blockbuster to rent a new movie. There's a big difference in picking up a DVD (blue-ray or whatever) from a store to bring to a friends house, compared with pick a movie... waiting for it to download... then waiting for it transfer to your mobile device, which might take a few even with a 1.2GB file, depending on the device and your computer. THEN.. there's whether or not the movie will stream from your portable, to their computer, to their iTV.. or do you need to wait again for it to upload onto their hard drive. If we were suddenly talking HD file sizes, just multiply the time all that took by at least 2... maybe 3 or 4.. depending on the method of compression.

Plus, some people just prefer having something physical to hold onto (as people have already mentioned). Some people like holding that DVD in their hand or showing off their DVD collection on their shelves. DVDs also tend to be a hit in the gift giving department as well. Granted there'd probably be iTV gift cards available.. but it's not quite the same for some people.

Anyhow.. I'm not knocking iTV, just putting it into prespective.. and keeping disc formats from being knocked. As has also been mentioned, downloadable movies are nothing new. Methods of connecting your computer to your TV is nothing new. So whats exactly gonna make something like iTV change the world?

But that's just my opinion... which I hope is based on accurate facts and assumptions. Thanks for sharing yours. I'm a bit tempted into getting into how MAC-centric it might be, but I'll pass. For the record, I have nothing againsts Macs or Apple products. There actually quite great.. but I think a bit overrated... in terms of how some people swear by them and against PCs. They both have their ups and downs. I'd say PCs CAN work just as well (and for cheaper), but they also require a bit more love and technical attention at times. But that's a whole other debate. :)

Mike

Originally posted by:
Michael F. Grgurev