Comcast HD offerings shot across Bluray and HD-DVD's bow?

[Genx87]

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/p...7-comcast_N.htm?csp=34

I would have posted this in the BluRay vs HD-DVD but thought it deserved its own thread. This plan is ambitious to say the least but doesnt surprise me as the cable and telco's have been building infrastructure like mad.

Comcast in 2008 will offer Internet speeds as fast as 160 megabits per second, up from its current top of 16 mbps. "We're going to download a two hour-plus movie in high-definition in three minutes and 56 seconds," he says. The price will depend on demand.


I think at that kind of speed it wont be painful for people to get HD content on demand.

The article also outlines other HD content moves. I for one have said there is a real possibility of services like this hurting adoption of physical media formats in the HD arena.

I also understand Netflix is also offering the ability to download their movies or have it spit to your cable box. For 15 bucks a month and the ability to get any movie on demand. Who the hell needs to buy the physical media for 35 bucks a pop?

As anecdotal evidence. I found it amazing when I had friends and family over for the NC game Monday night. And when we got on the topic of HD-DVD or BluRay because I was telling them about my aborted attempt at getting a plasma + bluray player. They seemed to believe on demand or downloading movies was how it was going to be in 18 months. And they know nearly nothing about anything when it comes to this.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I agree that this would be sweet if the cost is reasonable and the media is not ridiculously compressed. This is one of the main reasons I am going to hold off until summer before I decide what to do now that we have a disc format winner. I'm not completely convinced that the disc winner is necessarily the HD content delivery winner yet.

 

[spidey07]

I have HD on demand now. It's sweet.

And for comcast's moves, this is where it's going. And the technology is already here, it's just up to the cable companies to start to deploy and build out. 100+ Mbs internet service, HD on demand, advanced voice features. It's going to be sweet. And with telecom and cable duking it out the real winner is the consumer.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: spidey07
I have HD on demand now. It's sweet.

And for comcast's moves, this is where it's going. And the technology is already here, it's just up to the cable companies to start to deploy and build out. 100+ Mbs internet service, HD on demand, advanced voice features. It's going to be sweet. And with telecom and cable duking it out the real winner is the consumer.

Well, but HD On Demand really isn't what it needs to be right now. The selection is limited, and the picture quality is heavily compressed. With the far faster connection they're touting, they should be able to transmit at quality at or near what's on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, which is what would ultimately lead to it being a very viable option.

 

[Schadenfroh]

I enjoy Comcast's HD and SD On Demand (the no extra charge ones, I do not want to pay what they charge for HD rentals on new releases, netflix's bluray is cheaper).

Comcast needs to work on getting their DVRs up to Tivo Series 3 or Tivo HD quality (software wise) as their main priority.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I enjoy Comcast's HD and SD On Demand (the no extra charge ones, I do not want to pay what they charge for HD rentals on new releases, netflix's bluray is cheaper).

Comcast needs to work on getting their DVRs up to Tivo Series 3 or Tivo HD quality (software wise) as their main priority.

Actually, if you recall, Comcast signed a deal with Tivo several years ago to bring the Tivo software to their DVRs, and in the past month or so they've FINALLY begun rolling it out. Initial reports are mixed, most seem to agree its better than their old DVR software (which is terrible in my opinion), but still a bit wonky. I was thinking of calling my local Comcast office and seeing if I could get my box swapped or upgraded to the newer software just to try it out.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Thank god for DirectTV, they really kickstarted the cable companies into action. Gotta love competition, cable co's are scrambling to find ways to compete with DirectTV's massive HD lineup.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

The key thing to remember here is that BD/HDDVD are static technologies. Comcast/IPTV providers can always tweak their codecs or even overhaul the entire process (a la DTV's move to mpeg4) so theoretically an "on demand" solution should always have the edge in terms of compression efficiency. Also, if they setup a p2p mode they could greatly reduce the stress on their back end. Lets say the day "Hollywood Blockbuster" goes live on their on demand service and they have no peer to peer sharing the server gets bombed and they need a massive amount of resources to make it viable for everyone, but even 5~10% of the outbound bandwith of each user's "slice of the aggregate pie" can be dedicated to a bittorrent type solution, Comcast or whoever wouldn't need to sink as much cash into servers and backbones. If we can really get 20MB (sorry I hate referring to anything in megabits) downstream this could all work out AMAZINGLY.

 

[spidey07]

no P2P needed. There are distributed content/media servers all over the network, closer to the edge to provide the content. They are all synched together.

 

[jpeyton]

Vaporware.

If Comcast offers affordable (less than $100/month) 160Mbps broadband anywhere in my state in 2008, I'll give you $1000.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Vaporware.

If Comcast offers affordable (less than $100/month) 160Mbps broadband anywhere in my state in 2008, I'll give you $1000.

Quoted for future use.

 

[spidey07]

jpeyton, it will all depend on the cable system they have in your state. But it is coming this calendar year. Other cable companies are already testing it.

 

[Wuzup101]

I've been happy with Comcast's service thus far. We have Comcast in our apartment at school and the on demand service is pretty cool (though lacking in content). I have actually used it more than I thought I would. That being said, I probably would have Direct TV installed in a house/apartment that I was planning on living in for more than a year.

In any case, I'm quite excited to see improvements over the current cable service (and internet service!). I would definitely subscribe to a service that had reasonable quality HD on demand (with a larger catalogue). I would rather pay a monthly service fee than a pay per view price. I would still like to have optical media available, but I would likely only buy it for my "favorite" movies. I can deal with some compression and lack of 19 channel audio when the trade off is convenience.

Ironically, I've been thinking that neither BR or HD-DVD would be the next "format" for quite some time. It doesn't seem like either format is going to make it to maturity (partly because of the war).

 

[Fardringle]

I don't have $1000 to put on the bet but I agree with jpeyton. Our state spent more than a half billion dollars recently to run fiber lines to a portion of the larger residential areas but even with that it's nearly impossible to get anything better than a 6Mbps/356Kbps Comcast cable line or a 1.5Mbps/256Kbps DSL line from the phone company. The lucky folks that actually get to make use of those fiber lines can get up to 15Mbps/756Kbps connections.

My neighborhood didn't get access to broadband of any kind until three years ago and we have the second highest population density in the state (i.e. more people willing to pay for service in a smaller area).

I will be extremely surprised if any residential areas in our state (and definitely not anyone within 15 miles of where I live) has access to 100+Mpbs connections before 2010.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Vaporware.

If Comcast offers affordable (less than $100/month) 160Mbps broadband anywhere in my state in 2008, I'll give you $1000.

Quoted for future use.

Heck, make it your signature for all I care.

I'm paying $43/month for 6Mbps from Comcast. The fastest Comcast offers for under $100/month in my state is 8Mbps, and it's been that way for 3 years running. If you think it will be 160Mbps in 12 months, feel free to step up and take my bet.

Maybe (and it's a big maybe) they'll have it by late 2009/2010. Blu-Ray players have gone from $1000 to $300 in under two years; by the time 160Mbps broadband is ready for it's first at-bat, we'll have $99 players and $15 media.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Vaporware.

If Comcast offers affordable (less than $100/month) 160Mbps broadband anywhere in my state in 2008, I'll give you $1000.

Quoted for future use.

Heck, make it your signature for all I care.

I'm paying $43/month for 6Mbps from Comcast. The fastest Comcast offers for under $100/month in my state is 8Mbps, and it's been that way for 3 years running. If you think it will be 160Mbps in 12 months, feel free to step up and take my bet.

Maybe (and it's a big maybe) they'll have it by late 2009/2010. Blu-Ray players have gone from $1000 to $300 in under two years; by the time 160Mbps broadband is ready for it's first at-bat, we'll have $99 players and $15 media.

You didn't say it was a bet. You said if they offered it, you'd pay up $1000. You're the only one with something to lose here.

 

[BigJ]

I find this very hard to believe. Sure they may offer it, but how much is it going to cost? The 50mb FiOS costs about $80/month right now in my area, and as much as $150 in other areas.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
You didn't say it was a bet. You said if they offered it, you'd pay up $1000. You're the only one with something to lose here.

Well I said "I'll pay you $1000", not Comcast.

But if you want me to clarify, yes, I'll bet anyone on this forum $1000 that affordable 160Mbps broadband from Comcast will not be available in 2008 in my entire state.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Vaporware.

If Comcast offers affordable (less than $100/month) 160Mbps broadband anywhere in my state in 2008, I'll give you $1000.

Quoted for future use.

Heck, make it your signature for all I care.

I'm paying $43/month for 6Mbps from Comcast. The fastest Comcast offers for under $100/month in my state is 8Mbps, and it's been that way for 3 years running. If you think it will be 160Mbps in 12 months, feel free to step up and take my bet.

Maybe (and it's a big maybe) they'll have it by late 2009/2010. Blu-Ray players have gone from $1000 to $300 in under two years; by the time 160Mbps broadband is ready for it's first at-bat, we'll have $99 players and $15 media.

Not to mention it will probably be at least 10 years before an internet pipe + playback device will approach the reliability of physical media + set-top player. Also, Comcast market penetration even at the most wildly ambitious possibilities is miniscule compared to the market penetration probability of a well-priced HD set-top player.

I think HD on demand will be nifty, but stay in the same boat as PPV movies are now. Consumers will still pile movies into their shopping carts at WalMart, BB, etc, until the day inevitably comes where physical media no longer exists in any distributable form (15-25 years?).

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Vaporware.

If Comcast offers affordable (less than $100/month) 160Mbps broadband anywhere in my state in 2008, I'll give you $1000.

same here, in Ohio offerings are slim for any highspeed link today (FIOS, super high speed cable, etc etc).. but jesus, if they start that, OSU needs to jump up the alloted bandwidth of each student to the internet a whole LOT faster. Typically, I mean, having 5mbps (on a excellent day of luck, really) is a nice connection.. but some days streaming videos, if a lot more people would be doing it.. would just clog up the net immediately. I think that kind of link (160mbps) is about what OSU has right now for campus wide internet connectivity (as in, the speed of the link from OSU's network to their ISP).
But regardless, our local cable company in Toledo typically matches the speeds of all other common offerings relatively soon after the others... maybe they could get those speeds soon then too. If so... hell.yes.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I enjoy Comcast's HD and SD On Demand (the no extra charge ones, I do not want to pay what they charge for HD rentals on new releases, netflix's bluray is cheaper).

Comcast needs to work on getting their DVRs up to Tivo Series 3 or Tivo HD quality (software wise) as their main priority.

Actually, if you recall, Comcast signed a deal with Tivo several years ago to bring the Tivo software to their DVRs, and in the past month or so they've FINALLY begun rolling it out. Initial reports are mixed, most seem to agree its better than their old DVR software (which is terrible in my opinion), but still a bit wonky. I was thinking of calling my local Comcast office and seeing if I could get my box swapped or upgraded to the newer software just to try it out.

Signed up to be notified a while back, still no go in my area

Although, that might be a good thing, the things that I am hearing about Comcast's implementation of TIVO does not sound pretty.

 

[Kadarin]

Even if Comcast actually rolls this out, and that's a big if, they will still find a way to screw it up.

 

[Muadib]

I'm tempted to get in on jpeyton's action. No way will Comcast have this in my area in the next year. Heck, I don't get what I'm paying for now most of the time.

 

[Xed]

I get about 16mb peaks and averages around 12mb, so I guess it is possible for my area. Packet loss and such is the main issue here since 05'

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Muadib
I'm tempted to get in on jpeyton's action. No way will Comcast have this in my area in the next year. Heck, I don't get what I'm paying for now most of the time.

Why not? If you have an older system you may be one of the first to get it. It all depends on how many subscribers and the demand. You could always send comcast a letter letting them know you're interested. They take that stuff seriously.

I bugged my cable company for two years to get HD. I was met with an opportunity to be a beta tester for it.