Are Digital Downloads the Winner of the Format War?

Ah, the spoils of war.

NewTeeVee thinks so. so does microsoft…people who own DVRs, Slingboxes, AppleTVs or 360s might also have an idea.  it started with time-shifting…you mean I can ENJOY my favorite content WHENEVER?!  sign me up.  then, it became place-shifting…you mean I can watch my hockey playoff game at my mother-in-law’s at Easter or wherever I want? You mean, I can ENJOY my favorite content WHENEVER and WHEREVER!  Ssssssmokin’!

Now, logically we should moving on to…yes, you guessed it…WHATEVER and HOWEVER.

WHATEVER — we should really have access to everything — first run movies (after 2 weeks theatrical exclusivity perhaps…and that’s GENEROUS), TV shows, Music Videos, Short films, Independent, Studio, UGC, Cartoons, News…all at variable, but “democratized” pricing).

HOWEVER — interoperable, HD + 5.1 standard (contingent upon sources), and scalable.  the technology exists and there’s no reason for sacrifice in quality or interoperability.

The LA Times recently published an article on sony’s plans to launch a xbox live marketplace clone service on the ps3 by summertime ‘08.  methinks it will have “classic” (aka “clunky”) sony proprietariness written all over it.

But it also begs the question – does Sony want to steer themselves down the digital download route when it just won an unbelievably costly, albeit politically bloody next-gen optical media format war?

How will or can they 1up apple and MS?

Full 1080p support? added value? faster downloads…more interoperability????? (ha, yeah right!)…

If there’s one thing i’m sure they’ll need…a hyper-efficient process from mastering to file viewing.

I’m at 10mbps with Time Warner Cable and I can be watching a HD feature from either xbox 360 marketplace or appleTV 1-2 minutes within selecting the download.

Don’t get me wrong, blu-ray will have a nice life, but I believe it comes down to one simple fact:

It is cheaper and more efficient to innovate CODE than HARDWARE.

On a sidenote, albeit completely unrelated…where’s Sony’s HD audio codec like SDDS-HD?

NewTeeVee