There are many ways to package and distribute content, with IP delivery seemingly destined to be king. I just hope the next generation of compression technology and bandwidth apportionment practices makes image quality a higher priority than in the current environment. MPEG-2 is a decent codec but it was never designed for the level of compression commonly in use today where 1080HD signals are stuffed into 1 megabit feeds

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Whether its the new codec underpinning RedRay or something else, I see the next year or two as a critical time for rallying around a decent distribution codec for the next generation. What's the point of 4K to the home if its just going to get beat to crap by the distribution methodology?
Bandwidth is improving but for commercial success you need a codec/bit rate that is viable for the mass market in the US. Compression is a more complex calculus that faces significant pressures from powerful constituencies more focused on profit than presentation quality metrics. Bottom line - can distributors find a way to offer both choice and quality within the confines of current and near term infrastructure limitations? Do they care?
FWIW I think linear TV distribution might be more resistant to OTT competition if they hadn't tossed their quality advantage aside in pursuit of more channels. In any case, the bit starved images available via cable/DBS are so poor that I still buy physical media.
Many Blu-Ray titles use 19Mb/s> for 1080/24P presentations of well mastered content that looks substantially better than any other readily available source, most of which are provided at 4Mb/s or less. RedRay can't come soon enough...
Cheers - #19