stream HD movies?

[Wonk]

Hello guys - is there a european website where you can buy movies, and stream them in HD?

Help ze intarweb n00b

 

[Hawkwind]

I doubt anyone but your telecom or cable company could offer that kind of service in HD. The bit rate would have to be very high (1.5-2Mbps) even using high compression routines like Mpeg 4 or DivX. I think BT did some kind of service as a trial in London a few years back but that was pre HD. Most services like this you have to preorder and it then downloads overnight. You can then play it a certain number of times.

 

[Chronictank]

not strictly true mate,
stage6 by divx did it very well and youtube is beginning to stream HD content

alot of porn sites also stream HD nowdays so its only a matter of time before it goes mainstream

I doubt you will get anything above 5.1 streaming tho, or any of the extra digital content

anyhoo back on topic i have never used them but quick google reveals apple do it and netflix is suppsoe to do it too

 

[Wonk]

ah well. I just thought it would be possible after seeing this Hulu - High Definition Videos Gallery

 

[Ch3tan]

Youtubes version of HD is not though. It's simply a slightly higher res than normal.

 

[Chronictank]

Youtubes version of HD is not though. It's simply a slightly higher res than normal.

There are now HD versions of videos, (HD is just a buzzword for a higher resolution with a widescreen aspect )

YouTube - 720p HD Video

 

[Ch3tan]

HD should not be a buzzword. HD is a standard and should only be used for 720p, 1080i and 1080p video.

 

[Chronictank]

perhaps it should be, but its not

All HDV means is higher resolution video than standard def (which incidently also has a whole array of resolutions )
The only real standard attached to it is that they are all 16:9 aspect ratio opposed to 4:3 (which is current widescreen letterbox)
2160p (quad hdtv) will be out eventually


We have had 'HD' (1024x786, same as pdp plasmas) on pc's for years hehe, the rest of the world is just catching us geeks up

 

[Fuggz]

Interesting subject this with the way the internet is going. In the not too distant future quite a lot of the UK will have access to incredibly fast download speeds - possibly 10x faster at least than you have now. Not only that but your upload speeds will be very much improved too. This confuses a lot of people - upload speed. It is very important if you want to create a home server setup. The upload speed will govern the speed that someone can link to your home server and download off it. Most internet providers only allow about 44Kbs. With the new lines being introduced this could well be increased dramatically. Should this happen it might be possible to create a home server and stream videos yourself. For someone like me that runs a video trailer site this will be ideal. Still this is a few years into the future but it looks like it could well be a possibility.

 

[phlash]

Most internet providers only allow about 44Kbs.

<pedant>I think you mean 448kbits/sec upstream </pedant> Faster ADSL systems (24Mbits+) are in trial in various bits of the UK, as are fibre solutions (both to the home and to the kerb+something appropriate to cover the last few hundred metres over existing copper wiring).

All of these still provide a very asymmetric consumer service, meaning your upstream bandwidth is still much less than downstream, although business services can provide symmetric bandwidth at much higher costs (take a look at the prices of a 'cheap' SDSL provider eg: Cheap UK Business Broadband - SDSL (IPStream) Internet from Essential Telecom)

Enough wittering I think...

 

[Sparx]

my upload is 2Mbps on my 20Mbps line with Virgin

 

[Chronictank]

1.5Mb-2mb upstream, 20mb download on be* too

 

[Overdriven]

Itunes (read it today) are now offering HD content. But at a price =<

 

[Hawkwind]

not strictly true mate,
stage6 by divx did it very well and youtube is beginning to stream HD content

alot of porn sites also stream HD nowdays so its only a matter of time before it goes mainstream

I doubt you will get anything above 5.1 streaming tho, or any of the extra digital content

anyhoo back on topic i have never used them but quick google reveals apple do it and netflix is suppsoe to do it too

Alot of people are quoting HD without specifying which HD standard from what I've seen on the net. Netflix is a good example but again they have mutiple server sites in different States of the US and do not gaurantee bandwidth inside or outside US.

What bandwidth is required to push 1080p through to your media player, MPEG 4 its around 2.4 Mbps. If you want a decent pictute on a large LCD. At least that's what we use on aircraft. Not many Hollywood studios even output in MPEG 4. In fact Disney were the first to do it with the release of Wal-E. It is not wide spread yet amongst studio and media houses who distribute. MPEG 2 is still the main standard. I do not know of any media distributer who outputs in DiVX standard and I deal with quite a few in Los Angeles, London, Sydney, Mumbai and Hong Kong.

 

[old.Tohtori]

There are now HD versions of videos, (HD is just a buzzword for a higher resolution with a widescreen aspect )

YouTube - 720p HD Video

Same problem with that as with the bluray commercials.

"It looksk this good in bluray!!!"

You're showing the commercial in normalvision...morons....

If you've got any monitor that's bigger then 1", any HD outside giga/10 minutes is gonna look like a blurry piece of nanny knickers.

 

[Hawkwind]

Same problem with that as with the bluray commercials.

"It looksk this good in bluray!!!"

You're showing the commercial in normalvision...morons....

If you've got any monitor that's bigger then 1", any HD outside giga/10 minutes is gonna look like a blurry piece of nanny knickers.

precisely the issue, the bigger the screen your showing it on the higher the bandwidth required. Aircraft using 10.4" LCD's we use 1.8 Mbps 15" to 21" we use 2.4 Mbps to give a dvd quality picture. You start cutting back on that bandwidth and you start seeing blocky smudged looking area's. Even a 1080p picture can look bloody awful if the images are compressed too much. Each frame is like a jpeg picture, ok only some blocks change each frame but if the compression is set too high to reduce size the worse it looks.

 

[cHodAX]

Anything below 4mbit/s is worthless tbh, the resolution might be high definition but the bitrate and compression are so poor that you are left with artifacting and ghosting on a 1080p picture. On 720p or 1080i you can get away with it somewhat but 1080p is totally unforgiving, infact I don't even bother with anything under 6mbit/s if it is a 1080p encode because I know it will look like crap on my 1080p screen.