African_GreyJun 29, 2023

Maximum PC Article from 2008

https://beehaw.org/post/862295

Maximum PC Article from 2008 - Beehaw

Nintendo Wii: Sold like gangbusters. 64bit Processors: The computing standard. Battlestar Galactica: Considered one of the greatest sci-fi series of all time. Facebook: Continues to be the world’s leading social media platform by literally BILLIONS of users. High Definition: HD only got even more HD. iPhone: Set the standard for mobile smartphone form factor and function to this day 16 years later.

Show threadLumidaubJun 29, 2023

HD only got even more HD.

That's exactly what they were saying, no? "even more HD" = UHD.

Downloading movies from the internet (is wildly overhyped)

lol what does that even mean

Show threadbermuda

They're probably referring to streaming. I don't know when this article came out, but considering they're talking about literally the first iPhone I guess we can assume it's 2007 or 2008, and Netflix started streaming back in 2007.

Apart from that, perhaps they're referring to when Amazon started offering movies to buy or rent online, but I don't know when they started doing that.

Jun 29, 2023 at 4:07pmWeb
Show threadkirklennonJun 29, 2023

The first movie available to buy on iTunes was High School Musical in March 2006. Apple then launched the iTunes Movie Store in September and by the next year (sometime around when this was probably written) was bragging about having sold a couple million movies.

Anyway, I think they're likely talking about downloading proper rather than streaming.

Show threadnaoseiquemsouJun 29, 2023
It's funny how piracy was a step forward compared to the industry. People around 2008 hyping downloading movies from the internet, when pirate sites have been doing that since early 2000s, of, perhaps, even earlier.
Show threadSquare SingerJun 30, 2023

Nah, they were talking about literally downloading a full copy of a movie, complete with some DRM that only allowed the movie to be played on your PC and on the terms the publisher allowed.

Back then most home internet connections weren't fast enough for streaming. If you were lucky enough to live in a city where you had a coax internet connection, you'd be able to get speeds up to 5 MBit/s. If you lived a bit outside, you'd be looking at 0.2-1 MBit/s.

Downloading a DVD might take up to 7h on an internet connection like that, so streaming wasn't really the way to go.

But once internet connections got fast enough, the era of legally downloaded movies ended quickly.