“Doomsayers say DVDs are dinosaurs, but they’re dead wrong. These discs will not only make it through the digital age – they’ll thrive in it,” Chris Taylor writes for Business 2.0.
“Reports of the death of the DVD have been greatly exaggerated,” Taylor writes. “Sure, the shiny digital disks look increasingly irrelevant if you read the headlines. Industry giants like Amazon.com and Apple are going head to head in the nascent market for movie downloads. Amazon just unveiled the Unbox, and Apple’s rolling out a service that lets people watch a flick as soon as it begins to download. Apple is also trumpeting a forthcoming device, tentatively called iTV, that promises to stream movies wirelessly from computers to TVs.”
MacDailyNews Take: Amazon going head-to-head with Apple? Puleeze. Amazon’s junkbox has been universally panned:
Fortune: Amazon Unbox movie service ‘unfun,’ a horror show, two thumbs down – September 19, 2006
Amazon Unbox generates resounding yawns; analyst: ‘too little too early’ – September 11, 2006
CNET Alpha Blog: absolutely do not try Amazon Unbox – September 09, 2006
Analyst: ‘Amazon Unbox – Well that didn’t work at all’ – September 09, 2006
Analysts: Amazon’s ‘Unbox’ to be ‘Unsuccessful’ vs. Apple – September 08, 2006
Taylor continues, “So if we’re getting movies on our iPods, our computers and our TVs (via our computers), why would anyone ever buy a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ DVD again? Turns out, there are plenty of reasons why.”
“The current push by Apple et al. into digital movie downloads makes a lot of assumptions. It supposes that we all own iPods and PCs, and are more than happy to plunk down a few hundred bucks for yet another set-top box – this time called iTV,” Taylor writes. “These services may do very well, but they lack one thing: the ability to store, or ‘burn,’ a movie on a disc… there will be a truce in the tug-of-war over Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Sales of DVDs players will spike and the movie experience will outshine downloads even more.”
Full article here.
Why do you want to burn a plastic disc? Easy, for archiving, playing, and sharing. Plus a DVD player plus a disc trump a Mac or PC with iTunes and and iTV in the upfront cost and ease-of-use departments. Apple iTunes allows for archiving the data, iTV will handle the playing, iPod takes care of the sharing (you can take your iPod with you and play your movies on TVs anywhere with a $19 cable
