[78-L] New Fienstein American Songbook series

[Michael Biel]

On 2/5/2012 3:58 PM, Steve Ramm wrote:
 >  BTW, even Bluerays will go away. Based on Home Media mag the new 
thing is Ultraviolet:
 >   
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/tks-take/complaints-are-short-sighted-regarding-ultraviolet
 >  Steve

This is a cloud-based system where you access the program you "own" from 
storage which is controlled by the rights owner you "bought" the program 
from.  Do you REALLY trust the stability over time of these companies?  
Sure, our videocassettes can deteriorate and people might not have 
machines after 20 years, so past experience shows that for the average 
public itmight not be a problem when 20 years from now the video you 
"own" becomes unavailable. Butto US, it matters.  You need high-speed 
internet access.  There will be fees, or if there aren't now, there 
might be in the future -- watch them try to pass a law requiring 
periodic "renewals" of "ownership".  Plus, as of now none of the 
distribution services has as high a video resolution as Blu-ray.  It is 
1080p.  Broadcast is 720i.  Cable and satellite "might" be 720i, but not 
necessarily for all channels.  They never cite their resolution figures 
-- never have, never will.  It's digital -- why do you need to know 
more?  Same for Netflix, Hulu, etc.  I doubt the UV service is 1080p.

Of course, we are at the mercy of the popular market.  If anyone wanted 
to stay with Betamax, tough.  Same with VHS although blanks are still 
available -- for now.  If the stop making DVDs everybody will have to 
switch to blu-ray for new content.  So if the industry abandons blu-ray 
for UltraViolet, that would be it.  But until the U.S. is COMPLETELY 
wired for high speed internet (and the Republican'ts will never allow us 
to be like France) we can't move to an internet-based distribution.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com