BD = BluRay Disc. It's an appropriate abbreviation.

all 1080p downloads are compressed.. the quality is not equal to BD (what up bitch) or HD-DVD.

We will certainly have a lot of 1080p downloadable and on-demand material in short order, but the quality will NOT be the same.

You think xbox is going to give equal quality? Think about it.. say you have a 6mbps connection.. the MAX speed you can download at is 750kb/s.. So, if you want to basically download a 20gb bluray movie, you're going to have to wait 7.76722963 hours hours assuming you can max out your connection (which you wont).

 

Netflix can also be a great deal. My wife decided she wanted to catch up with Heroes. She had not watched any episodes. Yeah, we could have purchased both seasons from itunes for $98 for the HD versions. Or we could rent the blu-ray versions from netflix and watch much higher quality copies and pay for more than six months of netflix for that $98. That $98 will get us unlimited online viewing and the ability to rent a bunch of BD and DVD movies.

We also get the flexibility of watching when WE want to watch as opposed to the ridiculous 24 hour viewing windows you get with PPV and downloaded movies. I would much rather pay $15/month for netflix instead of paying $5-6 to rent a low quality downloaded movie that I only have 24 hours to finish once I start and I have to start within so many days of downloading. Netflix has a distribution center in our state so turnaround is almost always two days from when we mail a movie in. We mailed in two discs on Monday and got the replacements on Wednesday.

 

That assumes that the movie itself is 20g which they are not, they are full of many gigs of features that most people do not watch and rarely use the entire disk.

Secondly, downloadable movies are great because of conveneince. I could care less if I am getting a compressed 1080p version of 27 Dresses to watch with the wife, or the Young at Heart documentary. If I want Cloverfield I would go with a disk. But since the quality of eye candy movies plotwise has gone to sh*t, I only want a true top notch video source on rare occasions.

So if I am watching some lame chick flick or average drama why do I want to wait 2 days to get a disk when I can get a pretty darn good stream right now?

 

Uhhh. Why are we discussing spec when this sounds like an economics issue?

The pricing should allow for a certain level of shrinkage. With an impaired ability to make copies, shrinkage may be up. I suspect the price is allowing for that.

Either that, or, like many businesses, they're trying to shore up cash, and are probably soliciting the markets (namely, folks who have BR players) that can absorb it.

 

Just curious why you say that. I already have HD on-demand channels via Verizon FIOS, and they look and sound as good as BluRay material on my system. I'm sure it's possible that they *aren't* as good of quality in reality, but I see no reason that it's not possible for them to be the same. Over fiber, I've got plenty of available bandwidth.

 

A lot of movies are well over 20gb just for the movie and audio track. Transformers from HD-DVD is 26gb for example.. just for the movie and audio.

I have HD on demand too with comcast, but its 1080i. I actually think FIOS gives 1080p? I know Dish does.. but it's compressed. No one is delivering uncompressed 1080p. There is a difference whether YOU can see it or not. To me, the difference between 1080i on demand/hbo movies/etc and BD or HD-DVD is evident.

 

I'm ok with it, its only $1 extra, and i'm getting the most out of my tv!

 

If you were getting the most out of your TV, you wouldn't have Netflix at all, and just sticking to http://www.sugardvd.com/

 

LOL!!!

 

I dunno why you are waiting--you can download mediamall's PlayOn and stream from Netflix on both the 360 and PS3. The program will cost $30 after 45 days, but I think its worth it since you can also stream cbs and hulu as well.