Why I Don’t Buy Digital Movies

With the availability of iTunes and other digital video services, I hear a lot of people talk about how they don’t buy DVDs any longer.  I hear things like “I don’t want to take up space with all of those cases” or “my kids destroy DVDs” – which make sense, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to give up my physical media.

For me, though, digital video distribution (DVD?) plays a supporting role rather than the primary role in building my video collection.  I don’t purchase movies digitally – I buy the discs.  Almost always Blu-ray discs, actually, since normally when I watch movies they’re being projected on a 100” screen, and DVD can fall apart at that size.  So do streaming services, to some degree, as well, but this isn’t the reason I choose not to invest in digital.  It’s more basic than that.

The main reason is that I don’t trust that these services are going to be around in ten years.  And I don’t want my investment to be lost.

History already tells us that we can’t rely on these services, no matter who is backing them.  Several big players have already tried and failed, including Wal-Mart and Target.  And when they fail, you lose what you’ve bought.

I know what you’re thinking… that Apple’s iTunes isn’t going to go away.  Maybe not.  At least not now.  But can you actually believe that Apple, if they’re still around in 20 years, is still going to be supporting a service that old?  They don’t support any services more than a few years old now.  There’s just no way that they’ll actually still make your movies available to you that far in the future.  Technology changes too fast.  Twenty years in the technology world is an eternity.  Very few tech companies make it that long. 

Owning the discs ensures that I’ll be able to watch them 10, 15, or more years in the future.  Even if (when) manufacturers stop making Blu-ray players in the future, the players I own today will still play those discs moving forward.  Yes, we’ll see improvements in picture quality with new tech like 4K and HDR moving forward, but Blu-ray is pretty good – it’s virtually the same level of quality currently projected in your local theater – and many movies have actually been shot in HD-like resolution, so in those cases a higher quality version usually doesn’t even exist.  And unless you’re sitting really close to very large screen, newer technologies won’t even provide any additional discernable picture detail. (Though HDR, if it catches on, has the potential to improve things considerably.)

The other big reason I still buy discs is convenience.  I don’t want to be without a way to watch a movie if my Internet goes down, I’m travelling somewhere where I don’t have Internet access, or it isn’t fast enough to stream a movie reliably.  Maybe in 5-10 years our Internet access will be more reliable and high speed will be more ubiquitous, but I just can’t count on it.  And will the streaming service you’ve invested n still be around at that time?  There’s no way to know.

That said, it isn’t like I don’t use digital video services, because I do.  They’re just my backup.  Most movies I buy come with a code to unlock digital versions.  And if they don’t, I’ve really found Vudu’s Disc-to-Digital program to be very handy.  (Tip: If you use the service, do the conversions at home on your own computer, and convert more than 10 discs at a time for a 50% discount.) I can’t convert all of my movies to digital, but I can certainly convert enough of them that I’m generally not left wanting when I want to stream a movie. I’ve got 241 on Vudu right now, so I’ve got plenty to choose from.

In any case, I know that everyone’s situation is different.  But I would encourage you to think about the future when making your video purchases.  Would you care if your selected service shut down in 5 years?  Would it bother you if you lost your investment because they’ve gone belly-up, or choose not to support it any longer?  It’s something to consider.

Digitally Transitioned: Really?

So the Digital TV transition happened today at noon.  Uh, yeah…

Only the major mainstream network stations disappeared here.  I’m still picking up analog TV from 6 stations.  So that means we only lost about half of the analog stations previously available in my part of Utah.

Supposedly exceptions to the digital transition requirement were going to be pretty hard to get.  If half of the stations here got them, what makes them so hard to get?  And why did we bother?

The main reason for the transition was supposed to be so we could free up some frequencies (TV channels 52-69) for other services like digital communication (“mobile internet access”) and emergency services (homeland security, etc.).  In truth adding those services only required that SOME TV channels go away.  Okay, I’m fine with that.  The frequencies allocated for TV years ago occupy far more space than we have been using, and they are considered “prime real estate” because of their ability to travel long distances with relatively low power.  Taking some of that away sounds logical and reasonable.  But taking away those frequencies really had nothing to do with digital TV at all. 

You won’t hear me complaining about the fact that we have added digital TV.  Not at all.  High definition is a wonderful thing, and our picture quality is vastly superior to anything we ever had via analog, not to mention some of the other added benefits.  My complaint is with the way that this has been pushed by the government as a “need” to discontinue analog TV.  That’s really a lie.

In theory existing stations could have been allowed to keep their analog transmissions in parallel with their digital transmissions.  The channels they have been using aren’t even being reallocated for any of the new services that are going to be offered.  This has just been an excuse on the part of the broadcasting industry to not be required to transmit two signals simultaneously and equipment manufacturers to sell more equipment, and doing it by pressuring government officials to mandate that by law.  If we truly “needed” to move away from analog, nobody would have been granted an exception to keep using it.

Most of the frequencies being vacated in the VHF band are the sort that they aren’t really considered to be that valuable any longer.  They won’t carry the large amounts of data that higher frequencies can, and they require larger antennas (though the signals will travel longer distances).  The FCC is discouraging (but not disallowing) their use for digital TV, yet they’re still allocated for television broadcast, so nobody else can use them.  Nobody wants to put their digital signal there (for good reasons) but these frequencies are still reserved for television.  I don’t think this whole thing was very well thought out.

To sum up:

• We made this transition to add new services on existing higher TV frequencies (52-69).  Fine, I guess.
• Existing wireless microphones use channels 52-69, so they are no longer legal, and those that own them have to buy new ones.  Stupid.
• Analog broadcasts are being shut down, except when they aren’t.
• Digital transmission is being made a requirement, except when it’s not.  Huh?
• The frequencies being vacated by shutting down analog transmissions are going to be unused. 

Like most government-run programs, the whole thing has turned into a big mess.

Anyone else see any problems in this?

Zune, Zune, Zune!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love electronic gadgets. And anyone who knows me might be surprised to know that I don't own an iPod, and until now, I haven't had what I would consider a real MP3 player. Sure I bought a Toshiba Gigabeat a couple years ago, but it was too limited and ended up not being used aside from occasionally on a plane when the music I wanted to listen to wasn't on my phone, and it will soon be going up on eBay. But as of this week, I finally dived in and bought myself a music/video player… an 80GB Zune.

People have asked me over and over again why I don't have an iPod, and well, there are many reasons. But the primary being that I ripped my CD collection using WMA format before the iPod was even on anyone's radar, and Apple has chosen to disable WMA support in the iPod (it's actually there, they have just turned it off), leaving them virtually useless to me. I'm not about to re-rip 1100 CDs, and conversion to Apple's AAC format is out of the question due to loss in quality in the process and the amount of time it would take. The other big issue is that the professional audio applications that I use (Adobe Audition, Cakewalk's Sonar for example) don't support AAC. If you're happy to live in the iTunes/iPod/iLife world, the iPod is probably fine for you. But I do far more with my music, and the whole Apple "i" world is way too limiting for me. (For example, the structure that iPods use to store music makes it nigh impossible to copy music back off of the device, a capability I need to have.) Long story short, I would never be happy with an iPod.

Every other device I have looked at has had deal-breaking limitations. The most common is storage. The portion of my music library that I would like to keep with me is about 60GB, and most manufacturers have chosen to not create a device with this capacity. And most of the ones that do make large (almost unwieldy) devices. But when the Zune 80 was announced, I was intrigued. I didn't like the original Zune at all; Microsoft typically doesn't do well with a 1^st generation product, but they typically are able to get it right on the second or third version. I suspected that they had probably fixed most of the problems with the original Zune with the new version. And Indeed they have. The new device isn't perfect, but it is very well done. Microsoft got it right this time.

The new 80GB Zune is nearly identical in size to the 80GB iPod, making it small enough to not give you trouser bulges, but at the same time it is built with enough heft to feel like a robust product. The screen is beautiful: bright and colorful, and compared to the screen on the iPod Classic is absolutely huge (64% larger, with it approaching the size of the screen on the iPod Touch)! The new "squircle" control is sensitive to both directional pad-style button pushes, and also to touch; you can swipe your finger over the squircle to scroll through music, adjust volume, etc, and it is very fast. Some may still prefer the click wheel of the iPod, but the touch interface of the Zune is as good; it's a matter of preference, not capability. The WiFi feature to "squirt" songs between Zunes, inherited from the original version, is still there with a few limited additions, but they have added a really neat "WiFi sync" feature that allows me to synchronize the Zune with my desktop computer without plugging it in to the USB cable. It even synchronizes each time I place the Zune in its (optional) dock, which isn't even connected to a computer (in my case its just connected to an AC power source for charging). Very cool trick; there isn't really any reason to connect to a computer any more.

Navigation on the device is fast and easy, and is more flexible than the iPod. For example, after you select an artist, you can very quickly move to the next artist with a single right/left click of the squircle. You don't have to go "back" to the previous menu to choose another artist. Also, when selecting an artist, the Zune displays both the albums and tracks in a single list, with the albums listed first, making it easy to find a song if you don't know which album it is on. Of course you can drill down to individual albums, but you don't have to. Using these two features simultaneously effectively allows you to navigate through albums or tracks by artist with only a single button press required to change artists. This is very powerful and makes navigation very fast.

The included headphones are quite good for earbud-style 'phones, though they don't really compare to the Shure E3's that I usually use for listening to music. They are, in my opinion, better than the ones included with iPods; the sound is more full with more accurate bass and clearer high frequencies. They have an unusual characteristic, however, in that they must be inserted a little farther into the ear canal than other earbuds I have used in order to get the best sound. Fortunately they are comfortable when inserted properly.

The software has been completely rewritten from the ground up compared to the first Zune, which is definitely a great thing. The original software was basically a hacked version of Windows Media Player, but the new Zune software is a brand-new product, and it is very well done. Not only is it easy to navigate, it is very pretty to look at, complete with high quality animations while navigating. They have added Podcast support in this version (a major omission previously), a very welcome addition. It uses a three-column view for artists, albums, and songs, which gives some interesting navigation options. For example, clicking an artist shows you all of their albums in the center column, and songs in the right column, so you can very easily and quickly get to the music you are trying to find. But if you click on a blank area in the artist column, it goes back to showing all albums and tracks again. The search feature isn't especially fast, but it is effective, dividing search results into artists, albums, and tracks, eliminating the need for separate searches, or filling in multiple fields in a search screen. Marking music for synchronization is easy; just drag the album, artist, or track to the Zune device logo in the lower left corner of the window. Viewing, playing, and managing music already on the Zune is done on the "device" screen, and it again uses the same 3-column view. Very simple and very easy.

There are a few things about it that aren't obvious, though. If you play a video, the navigation interface disappears and the full window is used for video playback. This is fine, but after clicking the Exit button to get back to the navigation screen, it isn't immediately obvious how to get back to your video, even though it is still playing in the background. There is an equalizer-looking icon in the lower right corner that you click to restore the playback screen.

One thing that nobody has done right yet in device synchronization software is a simple one-click sync option. In my opinion, the best way to handle synchronization would be to place checkboxes next to each artist, album, and song, with a checked state indicating "yes, I want this on my portable device." The Zune software at least shows a small device logo next to anything that is on the player; it just doesn't allow this to be toggled on and off with a single click.

There are other things missing, too, and one or more of these may be a deal breaker for some people. The Zune Marketplace software, does not, for example, have any video (TV shows or movies) available for download like iTunes does, and Audible does not currently support the Zune for its audio books. As far as I know there are no ways to make a car stereo control a Zune.

A few final "plusses" before I go, though. The hard drive based Zunes (30, 80GB) do not require a special cable to connect to a television unlike the iPod Classic; any standard 1/8" A/V cable will work. The A/V dock comes with component video outputs for connection to a high definition television. Very cool.

Overall I think Microsoft has done a great job on the new Zune. Anyone who bought the original Zune would have had good reason to be a little sheepish when telling others of their audio player choice, but with V2 I think Zune owners can finally be proud of their purchase. (Fortunately, for the original Zune owners, they can be firmware upgraded to incorporate the new features and use the new software, all for free!) Compared to the iPods, feature-wise it comes in somewhere between the Classic and the Touch, but it is priced identically to the Classic (or Nano, if you are talking about the 4/8GB Zunes).

Apathy, Ignorance, and Sound Quality

I may not be a purist audiophile, but I do consider myself a mainstream audiophile. What I mean by that is that I enjoy good quality sound, but not to the point where I blow tons of money (defined "tens or hundreds of thousands") on each stereo component getting the best sound possible like some people do. I think I still can understand what the average Joe on the street wants from their electronics, even though what I want may be a little different.

What blows my mind, though, is what content providers ("music companies") and electronics companies are trying to pass off as "high quality" sound these days. Things are being advertised as "CD quality" that aren't anywhere near the quality that we get out of CDs. MP3s are so common place that many consumers think that the sound of MP3s is normal, or even good, while at the same time those of us that have been exposed to good quality sound cringe at the sound of a typical MP3 file. While some attempts have been made to improve upon what is considered good sound (Apple, for example, uses AAC for iTunes/iPods, which is better than MP3, though it is still lacking), for the most part things have gone downhill—and done so very quickly.

I invested in an XM satellite radio several years ago, near the time of the initial public launch of the service, and it was one of these products being touted as "CD quality." And at the time, it was quite good considering the technology they were working with. Not stellar, by any means, but certainly better than the average FM broadcast, and I knew it wasn't going to be stellar, so I was happy with it at the time. It was definitely closer to CD than FM radio in terms of it sound quality.

What has happened since then is nothing short of appalling. As XM has added more and more channels since that time, they have gradually taken bandwidth away from the existing channels, reducing the sound quality of those channels to something that only a half of a notch above pathetic. (I presume that the bean-counters decided they could make more money by appealing to a wider audience by offering more channels, assuming that the average Joe is Ignorant to sound quality issues.) And yet they continue to market it as "CD quality." These days FM radio sounds better. Things got a little better two weeks ago with a new upgrade to the XM encoding systems, but they are still far from spectacular, or even acceptable if you ask me. These days both the low and frequencies are pretty much gone, and what is left is compressed so badly that it all gets merged into one big jumble of wishy washy highs, muddy midrange, and come-and-go lows, leaving everyone guessing what instruments are actually being played and what lyrics are actually coming out of the lead singer's mouth. And they have effectively taken away our stereo image, sending us back into the 1940s with what is, essentially, monaural sound. Yeah, great technological innovation.

If XM was the only company that had fallen into this trap there would be no issue. The problem is that this reflects the attitude of just about everybody.

Because some of this transition has taken place over the course of a period of time, a lot of consumers are just ignorant of it. And then there is another group that is aware of it, but is apathetic. Shame on the penny-pinchers behind it, and shame on those that are apathetic. Those of us in a third segment that actually care about the quality of our audio are suffering. Our voices are not being heard, or are being drowned out by the shouting of the wallets of the poor ignorant and apathetic consumers. We can't even get good quality sound when we try.

Music is all about conveying thoughts and emotion. And a lot of that emotion is missing when the quality of our sound is taken away. Have you ever noticed how much more exciting it is to see a band perform live than it is to listen to a recording? A lot of that has to do with the faithfulness (or lack thereof) of the recording we are listening to. Listening to a good recording on a good quality sound system is an emotional experience. By taking away our high quality recordings and reproduction, the "emotion" half of the music equation is being stripped away from us. It's no wonder that a lot of the music that is coming out today lacks emotion, because if it was ever there in the first place it wouldn't make it to our ears anyway. A hundred years ago we didn't have the option of listening to music in our homes; we had to listen to a live performance, and it was a much more enjoyable experience. That begs the question, has current technology really improved our lives musically?

I don't have any sort of answer to the problem, but it is, indeed, a problem.

Ironically even though products are being marketed as being "CD quality," CD quality isn't that great to start with. Not only because the human ear can detect nuances of sound that CD simply isn't capable of recording (part of the "emotion" of it all), but also because the CD players that most of us own (or with the prevalence of iPods and such these days, the CD players we once owned) don't do a very good job of maximizing what is there. The two formats that have been designed to take care of that problem, SACD and DVD Audio, have pretty much failed at this point. The CD format has now been in consumers hands for 25 years, and it was designed within the limitations of technology at the time. We should expect far more than what CD has to offer, not be comparing other products against it.

The driving factor behind all of this is, of course, money. We, as consumers, want the most out of every dollar that we spend. And those that produce the products that we own want to make as much profit as they possibly can. And that means cutting corners.

I know I'm a little bit fanatical about all of this, but I don't think I'm that far off from someone in the mass population if they were exposed to the high quality stuff that is out there. The problem is that we keep having low quality products and content shoved down our throats, keeping us away from what can truly be a grand experience. A very dangerous precedent has been set.

I'll step down off of my soapbox for now… but next time you have the opportunity to listen to a good piece of music on a good sound system, take the time to actually listen and enjoy it. It just might open your eyes ears to something you might really love. And take a minute to drop an email to a music company, or service, and let them know that you don't appreciate the shortcuts that are being taken. For right now they might still be able to hear you, but if things keep on going downhill like they are now, it might not be long before your words turn into the same total mush that they are already trying to shove down our throats.