For the record, I want to thank those of you who have expressed strong reservations about the conversion to Download Video. There have been a significant number of subscribers who have also emailed me with the same thought. Your feedback will make a difference.
That being said...
Ending _subscriptions_ simply means that we don't have a fixed DVD mortgage on future distribution.
While I might understand the irritation expressed above if you were going to get 'cut-off' or if it were going to be the case that you couldn't sit in front of the TV and watch the VJ, that simply is not the case. The only thing that will eventually change significantly is the delivery method. The screen quality may or may not be exactly the same, it rather depends on your viewing environment. Newer video codecs such as H.264 are amazingly more efficient than DVD's MPEG2: smaller files of equivalent quality.
But DVDs will continue for a while. How many? I don't know. My editing & production speed is not getting faster. Delivery costs keep getting higher. (What did you pay to fill up your car this week?) But if the demand is there and a large majority of present subscribers stay away from Download video, and are prepared to keep buying expensive delivery - then the DVDs will keep coming - albeit slowly and considerably behind the release of download video. My guess is that eventually most viewers will choose the cheaper, easier, more timely method of delivery.
LLVJ has a tiny market of dedicated DVD viewers for which Michael & I thank you. The reality is that there is a far larger goup of viewers who are already starting to download their information and entertainment - yes, quite a lot of them from L-L!
No, the video files we provide are not for everyone. Yes, we are asking you to bear a different cost of delivery. FWIW - I am on a satellite ISP and resent paying three to four times what my city cousins pay for half the service - but I feel that is part of the cost of living away from the Big Smoke. And that service too will eventually come down in price. I also resent and will soon cut off the satellite TV service that I also pay for - since I now get most of my viewing over the ISP.
The fact is that Download video is what most people watch on their TVs right now - via cable or satellite: MPEG4 streams coming in as bits. On the screen, it makes no difference whether the bits come off a plastic disk or a hard drive or over a wire. I just set up an AppleTV and the pictures look great on my old CRT! Maybe I will go out and buy an HD set next year _maybe_!
Any advance in technology that makes people change, will meet resistance - that's natural. But over time (my guess is about two years) the penetration of devices such as TiVo, PVRs, AppleTV and others will bunny hop the silly HD-DVD vs. BluRay argument. Who needs extra bits of plastic sitting around on shelves when a cheaper better quality product can be had through the pipe that already comes into your house? Yes, dial-up ISPs are going to be left behind - just like my 8 track stereo and VHS player. Yes, it does mean dragging off to the local big-box store to buy another damned electronic box but that is the world we have fashioned for ourselves.
There has long been a 'disconnect' between the two screens we gaze at. A disconnect fashioned by the separate development of computer 'viewing' and television viewing - IMO now a strangely phony one: "Computer=Work" "Television=Play" Hmmmm - maybe.
Please note - in case you had not: those separate technologies so loved by the purveyors of the various electronic boxes required to support that disconnect, are rapidly and inexorably connecting - oh and yes, spawning the demand for a few extra electronic boxes along the way
Chris S