The management of music digitally is now in a solid state for me. I hardly buy CDs, instead choosing to purchase mostly online from DRM-free vendors. I take that music, put it in to iTunes and then do various things with it (listen on my MacBook, sync to an iPhone, AirTunes, etc.). MP3 is a pretty good standard, and compresses the data down to manageable rates. I’m pretty happy with the setup. It is easy to discover new music, listen and add to the collection. Overall it is a huge step up from CD collections.
The Hollywood movie experience, on the other hand, is not quite correct. There are some movies you watch more than once. If you have kids, it is mostly their video collection. Most real movies, you just want to rent. The media answer for a while has been to purchase those movies on DVD and netflix everything else.
There is one problem with the netflix model, and that’s you need to decide in advance what movies you’ll feel like watching. I’m more impulsive then that. I’d rather have this be like music: you present me with a catalog and I can choose anything I want from my couch. So we canceled the netflix subscription.
The next try was Amazon Unbox since we already use Tivo HD. This is a very sub-par experience. No HD (not even really DVD) quality, very limited selection, and horrible buying experience. After agreeing to purchase, you need to wait for it to download. Supposedly, you can start after enough has downloaded. I’m not sure what that is, but it took over an hour with my FiOS connection… not exactly on demand.
Then there is a little problem of the 24-hour window to watch once you hit play. God forbid you’d want to watch 1/2 of the movie one night, then the other 1/2 at the same time the next night. I know this isn’t the fault of Amazon, but the studios need to see how this hurts paying customers with no real upside.
The recent announcement of Apple TV improvements I think will make me want to get one. I’ll have to wait and see, but I’m hoping you can rent ANY movie from the major studios in HD for about $4. Assuming that happens here are the issues:
- It’ll still have the issue of the 24-hour window for watching once you hit play
- Your private collection (think the kid’s videos) need to be permanently on your laptop for the sync to happen to Apple TV
I’m guessing the studios will give up on point 1 (a 48 or 72 hour window makes much more sense) and with the exception of HD space, #2 isn’t that big of a deal to me. Again I don’t have a collection of movies the same way as music.
What are other people doing? Are you running out and buying a bluray player? Or is physical media dead in your eyes? I’m guessing it will die in the next 3-4 years, making bluray go the way of SA-CD (remember that sony invention?) Who really likes dealing with discs?