Quote:
Originally Posted by kujoe
I'm sure the technology will get to that point significantly. We'll get there, but it won't be happening anytime soon. (Unless something else replaces the optical media before digital downloads/distribution does.)
But the irony is, it's also about the consumers in this case. In other words, people who may or may not have the know-how of handling such tech. Not everybody is "nerdy" enough to go through all that digital networking stuff. Physical media's greatest strengths have always been the idea of "plug and play" mechanics, and the ease of borrowing and lending among friends.
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That is the main design drive behind all of the digital homes. It shouldn't even be tadpole nerdy, it is meant to be like going home and switching on your TV. If it misses that simplicity then the product just missed one of the main design goals.
Lets stick with storage. What is the big issues behind upgrading? For example with BR you need to make sure you have a BR player, but then how about your old DVDs? The consumer will need to make sure their player is backwards compatible too. Now in the ideal (yeah its vapour ware) digital home, your UI at that time will inform you that you are running low on space and via current trends you will out in blah days. Now without reaching too much I would guess it will offer you upgrades xyz from GoogleBay which it can automatically order for you if you so wish. These additional storage devices will hook into the network with no technical knowledge from the user and the device will automatically migrate data across to take advantage of newer technologies, or to retire devices that are coming to the end of their life.
It sounds a bit Star Trekie neh? But big corps having been pushing for this type of interoperability within the home for a quite a while now, and one of the initial design goals of the PS3 from what I gather was to act as the hub of the digital home. So really it is not that far off. The main issue I think right now is how the big media companies and the telcos are going to deal with it.