Jay said:lordjedi said:Ziz said:The "next generation" of media player is already here - flash memory cards. It's a matter of waiting for cost vs. capacity to come down. That's the ideal "player" when you think about it - no moving parts to break down.
Yeah, but the cost for the amount of storage is insane. A "media player" of any size is going to need a terabyte or more of disc space. Flash memory cards aren't anywhere near that size yet and they won't be for the foreseeable future.
I think he meant "media player" being a device in which you insert a flash card containing a movie, not a mass storage device containing your whole library.
I think that'll be far to small then. For the people that like to display their collection, they'll either have these giant boxes with a little flash card in them or they'll have a bunch of tiny boxes that have no artwork.
Downloads and HD on demand are much more likely to end up being the long-term solution, as much as I hate to admit it. As a collector, I enjoy maintaining my own library and would miss owning the physical media.
Personally, I wouldn't miss it at all. The current situation that they're trying to pass off though is unacceptable. I'll do the broadband download thing when I can:
1) Copy the movie anywhere I want it with no limitations.
2) Pay less than the full price of a DVD (or Blu-ray) with box and artwork. If they aren't paying for printing, boxing, and shipping, then I shouldn't have to either. I'm willing to pay maybe 2/3 of the price right now. So if it's $25-$30 in the store, I'll pay $20 or so at the most. But I have to be able to take it wherever I want and burn it on a DVD if I choose.
3) No activation and any media player I want to use.
4) The movie should be able to start playing as it downloads.
Once they can do all of those (the 4th is kind of optional, I can always set it to download and watch it the next night), then I'll support downloads. Until then, I'll continue to buy DVDs in stores and online and just rip them to the hard drive.