You can create menu structures with WMV... if you'd like details, you can send off to Microsoft for developer's info, and they'll kindly send you a DVD with code, examples etc.

Have you watched an SD DVD vs. a 1080 WMV on a high def display? You'd have to have 110 year old eyes not to appreciate the difference :)

My eyes are both 35 years old... and both of them want high def content if they'll willing to let their 35 year old fingers hand over their hard-earnt for a $5000 TV.

720 displays are just a stop-gap... 1080 is only 'just' coming out in Australia(!) - but it's just a manner of time until it's the standard here :)

Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will fail of course (and be laserdisc-style collectors items), in preference to on-demand, IPTV etc - and what about taking your 16GB SD card into Blockbuster and downloading the lastest movie in seconds?! Solid-state, no moving parts... surely that's the future!

I TOTALLY agree that physcial media is already cave man time. I want to stream EVERYTHING from the internet!

Now, I have the MS developer kit. But, I believe the disc can only be played on a PC. I need my output to be able to be played on a cheap machine everyone has. And, from what I know, today, and many days to come, it is a DVD player which is NOT in a computer.

Am I wrong?

Dave

But what are you going to use to stream from the internet?....

A PC!

It'll take a couple of years, but the line will blur (and has been erradicated in our household*) between Console, PC, DVD, TV and HiFi.

Yep, you're right though, today, DVD is king. But don't rule out the market of early adopters out there - if your low budget movie is one of only a few low budget movies available on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, then you'll get sales just because of the format it's on!

We were having this conversation only a decade or so ago re: VHS vs DVD... and VHS is dead, buried (Betamax is laughing in its grave)!

*this assumes your set-up has a high WAF (wife acceptance factor) - or you have a hi-tech wife... fortunately my wife knows her way around a mouse... I'm lucky I guess

Yea, whats wrong with streaming from the internet?
I am looking forward to seeing the new Microsoft Home Server s/w that HP will ship first. May use this for my video server that I kinda have going now.

Am lucky I have a WAF!!! Kids love it though since I have computers everywhere. :o)

I am just a family guy who likes to help folks convert their VHS tapes into DVD's etc, so non of them are early adopters.

Just wish there was a WMV player that would play the menus a PC can.

Dave