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I'd hate to tell you that you're in a bit of a minority buying bluray and using bluray medium. The future isn't physical disks that you lose. Linux runs my med

• cgh 13y ago
  Like the OP says, for people serious about audio and video quality, they will buy Blu-ray (or whatever physical media replaces it) for a long time to come. The bandwidth simply isn't there otherwise. That said, I agree with you that the future is not with physical media - that's very obviously the case. But the future isn't here yet. > Linux versions of most games, isn't some far away dream, it's here. That's absurd. There are no AAA titles available on Linux. Newell's prediction might seem more realistic if Ubisoft, Rockstar, etc. jump on board. Maybe it will happen if a viable Linux-based console came around.
  • jeltz 13y ago
    > There are no AAA titles available on Linux. Other than the Valve games Linux will soon get Metro: Last Light and Football Manager 2014. Almost no AAA games so far, but it is to be expected that AAA producers are generally slower and more conservative.
    • adwf 13y ago
      Not to mention that AAA games take 2-3 years to produce, whereas Steam Linux has been out for only 6 months. There's a lot of inertia to overcome.
      • ekianjo 13y ago
        Exactly. You cannot expect AAA games to come anytime soon on Linux.
        • YokoZar 13y ago
          AAA games can be ported from Windows to Linux in a matter of days if they already work well in Wine. When they don't, extending Wine to make them work is vastly cheaper than you probably think.
          • Sprint 13y ago
            Running in Wine is not porting. It is using a intermediate layer. Porting means native code.
            • YokoZar 13y ago
              Wine absolutely can be a porting tool; Codeweavers offers porting services using this exact technology: http://www.codeweavers.com/services/ http://www.codeweavers.com/services/ From a technical standpoint, Wine is extended to make the game work, that version of Wine is bundled with the application, and a script is included to run it without further user involvement. I don't get why people still insist this sort of port somehow doesn't count. If it runs at full speed, shows up as a "Linux game" under Steam, and the user literally can't tell the difference, what does it matter?
              • ekianjo 13y ago
                Limbo did that and its performance was awful. No thank you.
            • dllthomas 13y ago
              Why does it matter if that compatibility layer sits in a system-wide library or in application code (as anyone would add if writing a program to target multiple kinds of system)? Wine is not an emulator, it's a free re-implementation of the windows API that runs on Linux.
    • ekianjo 13y ago
      Let's not forget Wargame: European Escalation, which is far from being an indie game. Probably close to a AAA category.
      • jeltz 13y ago
        Serious Sam 3 is another game which is not exactly AAA but very close to it.
    • TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
      I would say the Wargame franchise also counts as AAA. Other than that, you are correct :)
  • ekianjo 13y ago
    People serious about audio and video quality dont run stuff from their all in one pc based player. They have dedicated, high quality bluray player and cd players. And like someone mentioned bluray is not going anywhere for the masses. Too expensive, not practical, in the end convenience trumps all.
  • AsymetricCom 13y ago
    I thought bluray was already abandoned. I never see blurays for sell in display ends anymore, Walmart has basically been forced to refocus on third-world-style living in suburban USA.
    • pjmlp 13y ago
      In Europe they are everywhere. I still use DVD and am starting to have problems, because the new titles at our library are mostly Blueray.
    • jasomill 13y ago
      Where are you? They're as available as DVDs at most big-box, media, and electronics retailers in urban and suburban locations across the midwestern US, at least. Wal-Mart, sure, but also Target, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, Fry's, most independent stores that sell, resell, or rent movies, and Red Box rental kiosks. They're also available from chain drug stores like Walgreens and CVS. Smaller and rural locations tend to have smaller selections, but that's true of most any product type. Honestly, the only retailers that come immediately to mind selling DVD but not Blu-ray are gas stations and truck stops.
  • XorNot 13y ago
    I'd say the bandwidth is easily there for Blu-Ray. I can download a 40-80gb file on BitTorrent pretty easily if its well-seeded. What I can't do is legally buy a Blu-Ray, and have it downloaded at Blu-Ray quality to me from any vendor. Which is absurd because the first thing I do with all my Blu-Rays is rip them losslessly to MKV files on my server.
    • gambiting 13y ago
      easily? Maybe in some really well-off parts of the world. Blu-Ray bandwidth is between 20-30mbps, and where I live you can't get anything higher than 10mbps, and even that is lucky,the highest option most people can get is 4-6mbps. I purchase all of my films on BluRays - the quality is there, the media is forever mine and not bound to any subscription, I mean I am pretty sure we will get there eventually,but until you can get 100mbps fibre connection to everywhere it's impossible to phase out physical media.
    • willvarfar 13y ago
      Would it plummet if your neighbours did the same? Where I am its popular for whole villages to decide to lay fibre and they set up little trusts to do just that and they even get grants from the government. And they have really great speeds, but at some point their bundle of fibres meets a switch.
  • gillianseed 13y ago
    >Maybe it will happen if a viable Linux-based console came around. Eh, isn't that what Valve's Steambox is: a Linux based console?
• DigitalJack 13y ago
  I watched a bluray movie last night for the first time and I was shocked. I was so surprised how much higher the definition was vs streamed "hd" content.
  • wwweston 13y ago
    I can also definitely detect a significant distinction, but it doesn't feel more "real" to me -- in fact, I experience it as falling into a kind of uncanny valley between video-realistic and near-realistic. Don't much care for it.
    • sk5t 13y ago
      Perhaps you watched it on a system with the horrible, high-framerate interpolation switched on? Not everyone is sensitive to 24fps (traditional film) vs. 30fps (looks like Handicam output) and the effects of TV/processor motion enhancement.
    • microcolonel 13y ago
      A lot of HDTVs have motion interpolation, colour enhancement, and noise reduction; all of which absolutely ruin movies. I suggest turning these off(In my case, all of them were on by default, and some of them needed to be manually toggled on every start for a month before it magically decided to default correctly).
    • snarfy 13y ago
      This is because traditional film cameras had horrible images compared to what your eye can see. This resulted in various techniques such as movie make up and bright lighting. Now that the camera is much better, all of those compensation techniques are now making the image look fake. The lighting is too bright, the makeup too heavy.
      • s_baby 13y ago
        I'm not convinced that's the whole story. Even old movies converted to digital fall into the uncanny valley. Try watching bluray Godfather for example. Looks staged.
• rodgerd 13y ago
  > The future isn't physical disks that you lose. No, it's a Netflix subscription, so when they drop your kids' favourite shows you have fun explaining corporate politics as the reason they can't watch Bob the Builder any more. > Linux versions of most games, isn't some far away dream, it's here. Very little of my Steam library is available with Linux versions. Almost none, in fact. This would be the norm for most people, unless you're limiting yourself to games that run on Linux in the first place.
  • ekianjo 13y ago
    > Very little of my Steam library is available with Linux versions. Almost none, in fact That probably means you don't play any Indie games. Not sure who is the norm here. Indie Games have been booming in digital distribution, in case you did not notice.
    • BSousa 13y ago
      Yes, and I love me some indie games, but I'm pretty sure each version of Call of Duty will sell more copies than most (if not all) indie games combined on Steam. I buy indie games that I already own to support the developers (some of which I know personally), heck, I just bought the Humble Bundle even though only of the games there I didn't have, but Medal of Honor/Call of Duty/Skyrim/Bioshock/GTA are the games most of the players want, not Frozen Synapse or Hotline Miami.
      • TheCraiggers 13y ago
        You seem to be making the assumption that you'll never see a Call of Duty game on Linux. It wouldn't be the first AAA FPS title to come out for the platform (UT, Quake, etc), and if Valve's console thing sells well enough, they could entice them onto Linux.
        • jonny_eh 13y ago
          I remember that the Windows version of Call of Duty 1 worked perfectly on Linux using WINE.