CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[cbertra2]

Think about this and give your comments. If the CED format had survived, what would it be like today? Keep in mind that it would have to be backward compatible to play the original discs.

[7jlong]

Had CED survived, I suspect the best we might have seen is an upgrade to DVD-quality (480 or 525 lines of resolution). The backwards compatibility thing would always be a problem, I reckon - old players might choke on the denser signals coming out of new, relatively "hi-res" titles. But the industry never really cared about that - see S-VHS, Hi8, Blu-Ray, etc.

The best move would have been shifting the data to digital and employing compression schemes. New players would be able to automatically discern on load whether it was looking at an analog or digital title and route the signal appropriately. But again, old players would not be able to deal with the new digital signal - unless they developed it to the point that a digital CED could also contain an analog signal to humor older players, as they did when Laserdisc gained digital audio tracks in addition to the standard analog tracks.

Digital would also be able to help the irritating problems associated with a delicate stylus-based media, as the player could not only employ oversampling but speed up a little bit to get through the next few minutes (like those anti-shock portable CD players) and sort out any problems before the viewer reached the same segment.

Digital CED is not as far-fetched as it sounds: a while back Tom made me aware of a guy at MIT who did his Master's thesis on using the current (1978) half-hour development version of CED for storing data. He concluded that the system as it was then could store ~4.5 gigabits on one half-hour disc, or 576 MB. Enough for an MP4-compressed movie. The capacity could easily have been developed well past that.

But, alas, I honestly don't believe CED could possibly have survived. The only chance it had would have been if videotape had been the realm of sci-fi for another twenty years and optical media even more "out there". I'm not sure they could ever have gotten past the challenge of making CED recording available to the home consumer, which was ultimately the nail in CED's coffin. Even Laserdisc - had that survived - could have been made recordable considering all the advances that have been made in the last 15 years re: home optical media.

There is also no need for the average consumer to tolerate media that is as bulky as CED. In fact, the writing is on the wall for all physical video mediums - the ability to store every title ever released on CED on one external hard drive is cause for pause for those who just don't want discs/tapes/DVDs laying around anymore. Streaming makes it even easier - especially considering that the easiest movies to find streaming happen to fall pretty much within CED's range (80s titles that few people give a damn about anymore and can be licensed cheaply).

Don't get me wrong. I harbor vinyl, CED, Laserdisc, and an enormous CD collection (despite them all being carefully ripped into iTunes using Apple Lossless). I still find physical media to be a lot of fun. But many just don't see the point anymore, and I can't say that I blame them.

[Alchemy]

No possible way it could or should have survived past the 90's. Look at today's society- we want it smaller and smaller and holding more and more data.
How many songs can you put on an MP3 player? My Zune 120 has around 17,000 songs. I have tons of movies in .avi format 1 dvd= 12hrs worth of tv/movies on average (depending on resolution)
OR you can have 1 CED with 2hrs max and is about 6 times as big.

CED's and other formats had their time and are just steps along the path- where will we be in 50 more years???
78rpm ended roughly 50 years ago- think about it
_________________
Scott
SGT-200, CLD-79
http://bcw.utnij.net <--- CED/LD collection

[RT9342]

Yeah, I'm sure that even if CED hadn't have died in the mid 80's, it would be dead by now. But I think if at least one company had supported it, like how Pioneer supported the laserdisc format (when just about every other company, including the company that invented it, dumped it), it could have possibly rivaled laserdisc in the 90's. I know that the specs show laserdisc to be a lot better, but I also know that all of my early laserdiscs look worse than my CEDs with the same movies (and I don't think the difference is in the telecine or the master tape, because I've noticed that the CEDs and laserdiscs have some of the exact same defects in the film and the master tape). I could see the possibility of having come out with CED players with S-video jacks, and maybe digital sound or surround sound.

Bottom line, I believe it could have rivaled laserdisc, but I doubt it would have ever prevailed over VHS, and I'm sure it would be dead by today, regardless of whether it could have survived longer.

[Beetlescott]

Well, in a way, RCA had the idea right, it was the simple disc that made things simple, the crisp sound, clarity of picture. Yes VCRs came along and stole the center stage but only briefly. But think about it, what survived was the VIDEO DISC! We started with the CED Video Disc. All we had to do was to drop the CE and keep the DVD:). Honestly, I don't think it would have been feesilbe to keep the stylus driven format around. I thiink the CED would of eventually gone over completely to laser and we would prolly ended up with about what we have. I don't think the Discs would of stayed so big, because of how unhandy they were.
_________________
1000 titles
SGT-250
SJT-400
Montgomery Ward
SGT-100

[TheLaserdisc]

I doubt CED could have survived into the 90s in the form we know it. But if it had been a success, I imagine it would have gone the direction of VHD by 1993 (Japanese Equivalent of CED, but the disk is groove less, and the needle was flat), then eventually a totally digital format, like DVD, but in a caddy, by 1999. Now we'd have the RCA High Definition Video Disk....capable of 1080p video resolution.

In all fairness, DVD is not a video disk. Its a Versatile Disc, it can be used for anything. Data, Music, Video, games, etc.
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[7jlong]

Uh, not trying to start an argument, but arguing that VCRs stole center stage "briefly" is just a wee bit disingenuous when you consider that CED's run was ~5 years, Laserdisc was always considered a niche market, and DVD is stumbling badly after about 10 years of success.

From the introduction of VHS in 1977 (let's leave Beta aside) to the introduction of DVD in 1997 tape reigned supreme. Even the introduction of DVD was not the end for VHS - it took a bit of time to catch on (having a DVD player was still new and unusual in the early 2000s), and even heavy hitters like Spielberg and Lucas held back on releasing their biggest films in DVD in its first few years.

Not even DVD (as a "commercial" movie carrier) is going to stand its ground that long, methinks - digital storage/streaming/etc is cleaning its clock. Movies that were out last year are in DVD bargain bins. They are worth nothing. Blu-Ray was pushed in the middle of a wretched economic period (shades of Laserdisc) and is not looking like its going to be the "wave of the future". Streaming will be (already is).

Disc-based media is fun and all, but as people warm to the idea that they do not have to set aside a corner of their living room to store movies - physical media dies a slow death.

[TheLaserdisc]

[7jlong]

I think you're vastly overestimating the general public's desire to have a collection of discs laying around (wrong forum to argue that in, I realize, but this forum is beyond niche. It's like sub-niche.) Physical-media music sales have demonstrated this trend quite clearly. People want convenience, they want instant gratification, and now that they've realized that they don't have to house things like CDs in their minimalist post-modern living rooms, they're getting used to the idea.

I also think you're underestimating the price structure. For $10/month I can subscribe to Netflix streaming and watch a lot more movies than buying used DVDs at 7-11 for $4 each. The price structure will increase over time, of course, but if I took a month off right now I could watch 360 movies for $10 (while going quickly insane). DVDs are also bought back for just about nothing - hardly a worthwhile "investment".

Hard drive failure diminishes in importance when you consider that a 1TB drive can store upwards of 1000 movies and costs less than $100. Tivo and cable-provided DVRs have not suffered in popularity due to hardware issues. Not having an external backup (either on-network or physical) for downloaded content is known suicide, and entirely the fault of the consumer. Even iTunes warns you now that you have not backed up. Streaming is only buffered on your hard drive temporarily and therefore unaffected by a HD crash.

At ~3-4 Mbps to stream video - and improving as compression schemes improve - the network is already robust enough for most consumers to stream without problems. This situation will only improve as customer demand increases (and pays for more network improvements via their ISP and subscription fees). People are now streaming over cell service - that has to tell you something. Plenty of people stream at home over WiFi to their DVD/Netflix combo players. The burden is not as great as you describe. Certainly not 10 years away - it's happening now. As the demand grows, the suppliers will fill the gaps on bandwidth, believe you me.

I think the only reason there will be any fight for physical media will be based on the movie studios - much like the record labels - panicking and pushing "Legacy Collectors Editions" until they finally accept reality and adapt to it.

Will physical media disappear completely? Of course not. CDs are still pressed. Vinyl is still pressed. Hell, you can even by audiophile reel-to-reel tapes. New ones.

But will it be a dominating force in content delivery in five years?

No chance.

Gaming and Sony's paranoid proprietary nonsense is a completely different topic, and not at all what I was talking about.

[Jesse Skeen]

I always thought had CED survived through the late 80s, they would have started using clear caddies. Audio cassette tape shells and cases were clear by then, they made them look a little more high-tech.

The worst thing about CEDs is they're ridiculously heavy and a pain to store! I've managed to store every title in my apartment, but how would the 'average' consumer have dealt with them?

If I can ever figure out how to use Photoshop (I'm rather computer illiterate) I'm going to make some CED covers of current movies
_________________
Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[TheLaserdisc]

[7jlong]

"You are wrong."

Oh? If you've got the data to back that up, feel free to send it along.

Many people - industry experts - agree with me, if you are willing to do the research. [search: google, "streaming will kill dvd"] Netflix already distributes many, many more movies via streaming than their mailing system at this point - another nail in the physical media coffin. [search: google image, "streaming vs dvd"] Everybody is gearing up for the takeover. Everybody. Even the latest wave of advertising for new phones is flaunting the ability to stream Netflix to them. The bandwidth problem is becoming less and less of a concern by the day (not the year).

Mom-and-pop video stores died ages ago. Blockbuster is like a dying fish flopping around on the shore. Borders is bankrupt. BestBuy keeps shrinking their physical-media sections. Titles that are only a year old sell for smaller and smaller pricetags, new - because very few people are still buying them.

By the way, thanks for pointing out the difference between megabyte and megabit, but I already was aware of that. It's capital M, incidentally. Small m is "milli".

But what do you mean by slow? Netflix's top HD streams clock in at 4.8Mb/s. The rest is below that. Like I keep saying: most of the country is ready for this. The ones that aren't? Just like electricity, telephones, cable TV or the internet in general, it will come soon enough (hint: within 5 years, not 10).

Perhaps you should consider a new service provider. It is a fascinating coincidence that on every post you leave you illustrate that your service provider is slower than 75% of the USA. Depending where you look, the average download speed right now is ~4-6Mb/s. Average people are equipped to stream, right now. 3 years ago that was ~2Mb/s. It has doubled in three years. It will not take ten years. It is already catching on, and service is improving exponentially. Other countries in Asia; France, Canada, Sweden - are already much (much) faster. [search: google, "average download speeds"]

As consumer demand grows the internet providers will yield as far as bandwidth goes. The more people that are streaming what they want to see when they want to see it, the less the available bandwidth is being used by cable television, for example. There are easy ways to work this out - once they get over outmoded methods of content delivery and step up to the plate [see: the music industry]. They know it's coming. Why do you think Comcast is so worked up about Netflix? [search: google news, "comcast netflix"]

If you use a service like Netflix it automatically scales to your bandwidth accordingly. Would you see a dip in quality? Of course. And while I find that unacceptable, the people who really decide these battles - the average consumer - generally don't.

To address your hard drive concerns - again, the whole point of streaming is that you don't download to your hard drive. That's why they call it streaming - no pre-downloading. If my hard drive blew in the middle of a movie, I'd make the repairs. If by the time I'm done I wanted to get back to the middle of the movie I had been watching, I simply do so. Sign in to Netflix, start up the movie, and click on the time bar right about where I think I left off. The server starts sending data from the point in the movie where I tell it I want to start - not all over from the beginning. No downloading; no bandwidth-bogging.

Simple.

[cbertra2]

I don't have Netfix but a friend of mine does. He has 12 Mbs service. He demonstrated it for me and I must say I wasn't impressed. If the download speed is that fast why the need for dropped frames on very quick regular intervals. When I watch a DVD the info from the player tells me the transfer rate I think, is around 3 to 5 Mbs and my Blu-Ray player is over 25 Mbs. So why doesn't 12 Mbs provide a constant uniterrupted stream of DVD quality video with no dropped frames.

I enjoy owning and collecting physical media, I always have. My first video player was a Sears CED player bought in 1982. I had this long before I owned a VCR. Two stores I shop at here in Indianapolis are Half Price Books and Disc Replay. I buy used DVDs for between a $1.88 and $3.00 and used Blu-Ray for between $8.00 and $15.00. Occasionally I will buy a new Blu-Ray movie, I like the ones that are Blu-Ray+DVD. Sometimes you get a digital copy as a bonus but I don't watch movies on my computer. I have two sony 400 disc changers and am going to add a 400 disc Blu-Ray changer. I like not having the need for all the disc storage shelves. I just call up a movie from my Logitech remote that controls all my equipment. If one of my 400 disc players goes bad I'll just buy another, but I didn't lose my media due to some hard drive crash.

I am not knocking all the new ways of delivering media because that is just the way things evolve. CED was the first practical disc player to provide a cost effective means for movie ownership that now has evolved into Blu-Ray just as the Edison cylinder evolved into the CD. The next step is downloadable media whether we old timers like it not.

[TheLaserdisc]

4.8 mb/s is not sufficient to stream HD video (4.8 mb tends to equate out to a 400 kB/s download speed) now a 4.8 mB/s would be more than enough (but that is Cable internet streams, and Cable internet providers tend to cap your bandwidth).
_________________

[7jlong]

4.8 Mb/s = 600k (not 400k)

Extend that outward, and 4.8 Mb/s can pass 4.3 GB in two hours. That's a lot of data. Approximately the size of a regular DVD.

I did not make up the 4.8 Mb/s number with regards to HD. That is directly from the article I linked to at Netflix, written by the director of content delivery there. Perhaps he was lying? Or perhaps not. iTunes' HD bitrates work out to be about the same.

Is 4.8 Mb/s optimal for HD? No - but I never claimed that. Is it done? Yes.

But HD wasn't the thrust of the debate that started several posts back. I was using it as an example.

The real debate has been physical media's future as compared to streaming. This evolved into "the network can't handle it". My inserting the figure about Netflix's HD streams was to point out that if it is 4.8 Mb/s for an HD stream - pseudo-HD or not - regular video falls far below that. (In fact, it is about 2 Mb/s.) It most certainly can handle it, right now. Not in 10 years. Now. 15 million people subscribe to Netflix as of July, 2010. 60% of them stream. That's a lot of streaming going over the "not-ready" network.

But if the next point is going to become "well, streaming HD isn't real HD, it's a compromise, and therefore not ready for prime time", again: it is not video aficionados and/or purists who are going to decide this outcome. If that were the case, Beta would have survived (as the marginally better format) while VHS died, and Laserdisc would have been much, much more popular.

It is the average consumer who will vote with their dollars. And the average consumer doesn't notice dropped frames, and tends to say things like "I just don't see the difference with Blu-Ray". Don't believe me? Chat it up with your friendly neighborhood electronics dealer. They hear this all the time.

VHS ruled the roost for 20 years despite the availability of better formats (LD, Hi8, S-VHS). Why? Because it was cheap and very few people cared that it looked like garbage. Folks were taping weeks of their favorite shows on 8 hour tapes (we all remember how that looked - bleah!) and loving every minute of it. What does that tell you? In general they are not going to grumble about some color banding or random compression artifacts. They are more than happy to stream "pretty good" instead of "earth-shaking" if it means they don't have to trudge out on a cold, windy night to the video store to buy or rent titles - never mind return those rentals. On time. As soon as they're done watching a stream, poof. Nothing else to think about.

By the way, in honor of this thread I spent the bulk of yesterday watching 4 movies. Via streaming. I didn't have to go to the store or rental place (I don't even know if I could find one); I didn't have to check the mail - just pointed and clicked, and great-looking movies popped up on my screen. No fuss, no muss.

It was great.

[cbertra2]

What about 4K or 8K video that is used in Digital Theaters. Will this be the next pysical media. It could be incorporated into a Hi-Def TV just as easy as 1080P was which is not the ATSC standard. It will get to the point where those pixels get so small that you can't tell the difference anymore. I doubt if most people could tell the difference in 720P or 1080P on a 32" or maybe even a 40" TV. These high pixel numbers would only be noticeable on larger screens.

[7jlong]

I am tempted to say "no, of course not, no one needs that much resolution at home unless they have a wall-sized TV" but I suspect sometime in the future it might be added to the list of Famous Bad Predictions. I am typing this using a 24" monitor, which seemed like an excessive, expensive, unobtainable luxury just 10 years ago, when I was pretty damn proud of my 17" CRT.

The only thing capping home screen sizes is that as the technology sits right now it generally makes no sense to have an enormous screen in most living rooms - you'd be swiveling your head around too much (though some people like sitting in the front row at the cinema, true).

However, this does not take into account - and imagine this if you will - replacing an entire wall with a huge panel. "no way!" you say "too big!" But what if the movie you were watching didn't take up the whole thing? What if around the perimeter you had your news feeds, your weather, a gallery of family pictures to replace those 30 little frames that always need straightening... or you turned it all off while watching something. Imagine the possibilities!

Then if home resolutions reached the point that cbertra2 described, sure - you could scale it to however big was comfortable for your space and still have a mind-blowing video experience.

Also: there is plenty of room for the dot-pitch of screens to get smaller. In my opinion 72 or 75 dpi is a big compromise. Imagine 150 dpi!

Our perception of the film/video experience is going to change and evolve with this trend. Even classic films have much more detail than we are allowed to see by old-school video or even Blu-Ray.

We have miles to go.

[Beetlescott]

[7jlong]

DVDs still selling like crazy? Yep, 14 billion is a lot of money, it's true. But: DVD sales peaked five years ago and have been dropping ever since. You'd think as more archive films are put on DVD and more new films are added to the shelves (not to mention TV shows, etc - and a global population always on the rise) that number would be going up.

Not quite:

2006: $20.2 billion
2007: 19.7
2008: 18.4
2009: 15.8
2010: 14.0

Prices have not changed dramatically enough in the last 5 years to account for $6.2 billion. In the last 10 years, maybe. But not the last 5.

"But wait!" you say "that's because Blu-Ray is taking over!"

Same period, Blu-Ray:

2006: 0
2007: .3
2008: .9
2009: 1.5
2010: 2.3

... not quite the savior of the industry that it is being touted as.

(source: The Digital Entertainment Group)

In DVD's formative years the growth in sales was explosive (jumped $4.5 billion from 2002-2003). Relative to that, Blu-Ray's has been something of a whimper.

That said, the figures for digital have been just as pokey as Blu-Ray (highest jump: $.5 billion, 2008-2009). Perhaps, as TheLaserdisc points out, that is due to network issues. On the other hand, Netflix subscribers (and by constantly going back to them I am ignoring all the other streaming carriers like Hulu, Amazon, Blockbuster, etc - but so be it) jumped from 6 million in '06 to 15 million in '10. That's a lot of people climbing on the bandwagon to either not bother owning their own collections via Netflix's mail-in service, or stream.

I'd just like to take this moment to remind folks of a few things: 1) I'm a collector, too. I like physical media. 2) I'm not sure I like the trend either. I hated the digital switchover in music even more, but could not help but accept it as the hard reality (and don't get me started on the amazing decline and fall of traditional photography, though digital and I have made our peace). 3) Despite a figure of speech ("dies a slow death"), I also maintained that I didn't think physical media was going to die completely - as evidenced by the vinyl resurgence. A closer parallel: sure, you could still make a home movie on Super8 film stock if you wanted to.

But are discs going to be a strong market force in the near future, or ever again? I maintain: no chance.

I've been hanging around this forum for 7 years now, I guess I'll have to stick around 7 more so we can compare notes then on where this has all gone.

[Beetlescott]

[Beetlescott]

Here is another thought about "What If"
Just imagine for a moment how different things would of been if RCA hadn't of drug their feet, and got CED movies to the market when they first started with them. RCA was leading the way with technology, with Televisions, Records had been around since the late 1800, The next logical step would of been to put a picture with the sound! If RCA had of gotten CEDs out in the late 60s, (as was the plan) or even the first part of early 70s, VHS prolly wouldn't of gotten as good of a staart as it did. Picture and sound quality wasn't even comparable between Tape or Disc. I remember my brother in law bought the first VCR I had ever seen the year before I purchased my SGT250. he paid 2000 bucks for it, and it covered the top of his "floor model" 25" TV. I bought my player for less than 500 dollars, if memory serves, i paid bout 450 for it, and I got to take STAR WARS home with me for 39.95. I also got 4 movies of my choice with my player! At the time I didn't even have a remote with my TV and I remember how fascinated I was with a wireless remote! My bro in laws 2000 dollar VCR had a remote too, it was a button that was wired.
_________________
1000 titles
SGT-250
SJT-400
Montgomery Ward
SGT-100

[Beetlescott]

[cbertra2]

[Beetlescott]

Actually, I think it comes down to the reason this site is still up and running. We are collectors, we like to hold the tangible movies in our hands! I have Netflix, I love it, I use streaming online almost every weekend. However, Streaming only movies isn't nearly as much fun as collecting these movies! The reason all the players sell so quickly on Ebay, Craigs List and other places, is because people love nostalgia, they love collecting! a few weeks ago, I put a movie in, and the very second the movie started it swept me back to a place in my past that I had forgotten. It was such nice memories. Another time last week, I put in Psycho II, I realized that was the first time I had watched the movie since the last time, I watched it, in 1984! I guess I'm in the minority, but I love collecting movies. I've talked to people right here in CEDmagic who have hundreds of DVDs in his collection, somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 movies! Why not just sell them and get Netflix? Many people ask me that question, including my son. I say, I love to collect movies, expecially CEDs because they are so unnique, they are fun, I've made some new friends in here that I wouldn't take anything for. And we spend hours talking about collecting movies:).
_________________
1000 titles
SGT-250
SJT-400
Montgomery Ward
SGT-100

[Jesse Skeen]

My TV has Netflix streaming built-in, and can also get pay-per-view movies from Vudu, Amazon and Blockbuster Online. My parents already subscribe to Netflix for the discs (I don't have time to rent movies) and they don't use the streaming, so they let me activate it on my TV. I've watched a lot of good movies, the best-quality ones looked almost as good as a DVD, but most look closer to an MPEG-1 VideoCD or typical online video, plus they can't deliver 5.1 sound like DVDs can.

Quality aside, Netflix streaming can't replace collecting because movies are only available for a limited amount of time- some only stay up for a few weeks, others a few years. People complain about not being able to watch every movie on it all the time, but if that were possible then it really would put a big dent in purchases. The studios are smart to have them up for a limited time because then you'll check them out, then buy the disc if you like it.

Blu-Ray discs have great picture quality (and so do HD-DVDs; I have almost every US title!) which still isn't possible over the internet- Vudu has "HD" but there are still noticeable compression artifacts (plus my internet service can't support its highest-quality mode, and I can't even watch regular HD in prime-time hours without the movie pausing several times to buffer.)

Streaming video is definitely a good replacement for broadcast and cable TV since it lets you watch what you want, when you want it without having to go out and get it, but it can't replace collecting since the movies are always stored somewhere else and can be taken off-line at will. Meanwhile I'll always be able to watch my CEDs as long as I have working players around.
_________________
Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[Beetlescott]

[cbertra2]

[7jlong]

Beetlescott: indeed, had CED appeared a bit sooner things might have been a little different. For an excellent analysis of why that didn't happen, I highly recommend Margaret Graham's terrific book The Business of Research: RCA and the VideoDisc if you haven't read it already. You can find it cheap used on Amazon here.

Though it looks like a dense academic tome, it is relatively short and actually a fascinating and lively read - and, in my opinion, a "required text" for any serious collector of CED or even Laserdisc, or techno-history fans in general.

It covers some RCA history, the background leading up to CED, the entire development cycle, and bringing it to the market. I haven't picked it up in a while, but if I remember correctly it concludes just as it was clear that CED had failed. I'll have to add it to my summer reading list and revisit it.

[7jlong]

Heh. Folks: again, at no time did I suggest that people should toss their collections and stream instead (mentioning that all CEDs released could fit on one 1TB drive was an illustration for scale that we could all easily relate to), any more than I would tell a collector of player-piano rolls that they should give up, buy an automated MIDI piano, and get with the times. It's fun for them, collecting's fun for us, great. Go to it.

Only pointing out that the average home-movie consumer (which, I must point out as adherents to dead formats (amongst others): we are not) is voting with their dollars as disc sales fall and other delivery methods rise. The numbers are pretty clear on that.

That's all.

Jesse: back at the dawn of MP3/iTunes/etc people were making much the same arguments - the selection is limited, the quality isn't up to snuff, etc. But the compression schemes improved, Apple signed more and more deals with labels (even finally landing the Beatles, which is an impressive feat indeed), and became the powerhouse platform for music content. These days when I see someone carrying a portable CD player on the subway I'm actually stunned (and I adore CDs - especially now. everyone is ripping and dumping their collections so they're cheeeeeap used.)

As the same "revolution" takes place in movies, well... OK. I'll leave it alone. But here's my challenge:

I'll "bump" this thread in 3 years. Not 5, not 7, and certainly not 10. We'll see how it has gone. I'll gladly stream a clip of myself eating my hat if I'm wrong: and remember, my thrust was always that movie-content physical media (DVDs, Blu-Ray, whatever else they're hatching) will be marginalized relative to streaming/downloading - not eradicated completely.

[Beetlescott]