I recently started a subscription to a DVD rental service in the UK called LOVEFiLM, strictly I subscribed through Tesco DVD Rental because it was £1 cheaper and at the moment every penny counts. The LOVEFiLM service is analogous to Netflix in the US, providing DVD, Blu-Ray and game disc rental in the mail. At the moment it’s only £12.72 a month for unlimited rental, two discs at a time. That’s a pretty good deal considering a single Blu-Ray is more than that at the moment, but I still have a niggle over the fact that you have to ship physical media to the home for you to watch it. With current bandwidth in the UK reaching 50Mbit in some places (200Mbit if you’re lucky and live in Ashford!), myself I run 20Mbit and the majority of the house holds in the UK can receive at least ‘up to 8Mbit’ which in reality means anything between 2-7Mbit, how much further do we have to get until physical media is no longer required?

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Neflix on-demand into the living room

In the US Netflix has a streaming video rental service bolted onto their physical media rental subscriptions, something that I know is on the cards for role out in the UK from LOVEFiLM. The streaming service offers SD content which Netflix quotes to be on par with DVD video quality over a fast internet connection (over 3Mbit). Most people who are interested in Netflix are likely to be more interested in their HD content and in this respect Netflix offers streaming video at 720p, admittedly at a relatively low bitrate and only in stereo but with a video quality that is on par with something like Vimeo HD. It’s a decent start and something that I can only see getting better (unless bandwidth caps get in the way – here’s looking at you Time Warner Cable!). The problem I have, being fully aware that I might be in the minority here, is that I love the whole full HD home cinema experience. Watching a movie on a laptop or monitor is not something I would choose to do unless I had no choice, on a train or a plane for instance. Streaming Netflix into the living room is a lot more appealing but the quality of experience is just not there for me at the moment. Low bitrate 720p video with stereo sound just doesn’t provide the immersive experience that I crave. As I said I might be in the minority with a 46inch 1080p LCD and a full home cinema kit, but at the moment the home movie experience provided by Blu-ray just can’t be matched by anything else (legally). Admittedly this kind of setup and therefore the quality that Blu-ray provides might be overkill for a lot of people but until streaming can match the picture and sound experience provided by physical media streaming won’t be an option for me.

Streaming and digital downloads are however the way forward, there’s no doubt about it. There is no reason that we will need physical media in the future other than prohibitive costs for the ISP. Your cable or DSL provider makes money on the fact that you’re not using massive chunks of its bandwidth for extended periods of time. If users on its network started to stream high quality HD content, we’re talking 5-10Mbps video here and at least 5.1 audio, regularly it would drive the costs of the ISP up tremendously. In the UK the BBC’s streaming service called iPlayer, which streams both live channels and ‘catch up’ content from the BBC is already causing the ISPs to kick up a ruckass. They’ve said that it costs them too much to carry the amount of data that streaming TV requires across their network and that the BBC should stump up and fund it. Up until recently iPlayer only supplied content in relatively low quality SD. What happens when the streaming service makes the jump entirely to better quality HD? The BBC isn’t the only streaming service available in the UK either, with ITV, Channel 4 and Five all offering similar streaming ‘catch up’ services. In the US streaming services such as Hulu are also making grounds whilst YouTube is attempting to offer feature length content funded by adverts. Streaming video provides the ultimate ‘on-demand’ experience, allowing users to get the content where they want, on what they want (within the realms of Flash, but don’t get me started on that behemoth) and most importantly when they want. As high-speed internet connections become more and more prevalent, and I mean 10+Mbits not that ‘high speed’ 2Mbit connection your ISP is trying to push on you, streaming video has the potential to outstrip not only physical media, delivering a ‘blu-ray like’ experience with picture and sound, but also broadcast TV.

Who wants to ‘tune in’ at a particular time each week to watch your favourite show when you could get it when you want, regardless of what time, day or night, with on-demand streaming? Opponents to download and streaming services may quote storage as an issue, but that point can be quickly made moot. The cost of magnetic storage is plummeting whilst capacities rocket skyward. A 1Tb HDD costs around the £70 mark now which to put it in perspective is about 50 movies of the same bitrate and quality of Blu-ray. By this time next year we’ll likely see 2Tb drives about the same price and the price of solid state storage also falling to acceptable (by an average consumer) prices. Therefore storage even in a ‘in the living room’ box is not an issue. DRM may also be thrown up as an issue, especially from the media producer side for download files. However with ‘all you can eat’ subscription plans that are affordable and combine an easy to use consumer orientated system, what you want, where you want, when you want with the safety of knowing you’re not going to get busted piracy rates I feel would be reduced and I know I’m not in the minority with this view.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the same experience that’s provided by Blu-ray can be provided through a streaming or download service. It might take years, although the rule of thumb is normally faster than you think. Quite a few elements have to come into place before this type of service can be offered, least of which is bandwidth. Another important question is whether this is something that your average consumer is going to want. Many people are content with ‘DVD is enough’ and aren’t making the jump to Blu-ray. Does this mean that streaming in SD or low bitrate 720p is enough? If so for home cinema geeks like me there may never be a service that fully satisfies our on-demand full HD home cinema cravings. Whatever happens, the days of physical media are numbered in their current form, even Microsoft thinks so.