squiggleslash @ Aug 29th 2008 9:04AM

I agree that better audio is one of the best parts of the newer standards, although in all honesty I doubt many people can tell the difference between full-rate DTS (remember though that many DTS DVDs use half-rate) and the 5.1 so-called lossless audio formats. The relative rarity of DVDs with "good audio" though means that Blu-ray's (and HD DVD's) *consistent* support makes them a step up on audio quality more than the codecs used.

Transmitting two hours of full-rate DTS takes less than 1G. "CD" 5.1 quality lossless sound compressed using FLAC or something similar takes around 2-2.5G. And, obviously, if you go 24bit/96kHz, you're looking at around 5-6Gb for lossless audio (sticking with 5.1) This is, of course, if lossless is what you absolutely must definitely have, at some level good compression is indistinguishable from lossless to virtually every human ear.

What am I trying, badly, to say? Well, let's go top of the line. Let's say 7.1 "lossless" 24 bit 96kHz audio is absolutely necessary and non-negotiable. You're talking about 7G of data (for two hours.) The video part of the movie itself, compressed using H.264 is going to weight in at around 7-8G. So it's an increase, but it's questionable whether a technology that's capable of streaming 7-8G of video data is going to start choking at the seams or become significantly more expensive if it has to less than double that. In other words, there's no reason why digital downloads shouldn't incorporate excellent audio as an option. Especially as 7Gb is an absolute upper limit, realistically we're not talking about anywhere close to that for audio indistinguishable from that quality.

This is especially true if it's a selling point. If people can select "Low, Medium, High, Superhigh" quality for the video, and "Stereo, Regular 5.1, HQ5.1, HQ7.1" for the audio, with different prices for each, then theoretically a movie download service has the capability to aim at different price brackets depending on budget and convenience.

Which in turn gives you another good reason why downloads are likely to be successful once user-friendly models that overcome the limitations of DRM are worked out (Netflix coming very close right now.) They offer the opportunity to overcome the limitations of physical media. Want to know why everyone felt it necessary to go blue-violet laser for the HD disc formats? It wasn't that you can't fit two hours of decent (albeit not "lossless") sound and video on a two-layer red-laser disc. But, of course, a single disk has to work in multiple markets. And everyone wants a commentary track or two. And, of course, the format needs to be better than DVD in more respects than quality (though they screwed that one up.) In comparison, a digital download only has to involve the content the user actually wants to see and hear at the precise moment they're watching it.

Blu-ray (and HD DVD, and CBHD, et al) all have to cater for every single possible combination of use scenarios. Which also means there's little opportunity to differentiate on price or convenience.

It's hard to be sure what's going to happen right now until digital downloads start to shake themselves out into a user friendly pattern. But it's far from inconceivable that they'll find some aspect of Blu-ray is impossible to displace. If Blu-ray remains a niche format, then the more convenient downloads are over BD, the more likely it is that the latter format will simply disappear. I've already said I think it's going to happen anyway, unless the Blu-ray standard is overhauled (and the Blutards stop living in denial, refusing to countenance the idea that BD isn't going to be some massively popular format in two years.) Downloads do not preclude high quality audio any more than they preclude high quality video. With significant advantages over old-fashioned disc-based media, they stand more than a fair chance of beating discs if the price model is right and if they ensure there are no good reasons to prefer physical discs.