Analog Delivery in a Digital World – The Problem with Lag in Australia

Whenever I’m near, in, or even thinking about JB Hi-Fi, I always end up buying something from their DVD selection. Recently I bought popular TV series ‘Heroes’ season 3 on DVD which set me back a whopping $70.

It came to my attention as I was feeding an addiction I’d like to call ‘JB disease’ that Australians are able to purchase media such as CDs and movies/concerts/TV shows at their whim, thanks to their availability and accessibility – which has skyrocketed in recent years.

To acquire your new favourite sitcom you could simply go down to your local store and purchase a shiny new copy, buy it online through stores such as iTunes, or download it through ‘other means’.

But the question is: which is actually the better option?

Currently prices on virtual stores such as iTunes sell the same season of Heroes for roughly $10 less. However, when you include costs such as an internet connection, computer upkeep, electricity and the potential for your hard drive failing or computer crashing, there is a lot more at stake than a cost of $60.

Furthermore, how long does it take us in Australia to download a whole season of a television show? A bare minimum of a few hours for most of us and possibly a month for those stuck on the old 56k modems (although if using 56k I’ll assume that you have bigger issues than fast broadband to deal with).

This is becoming a major issue in Australia – internet speeds are too slow. Some of us are still paying an exorbitant price for our internet and have a small ‘cap’ on your downloads for the month. (That is being currently being resolved with the federal government’s broadband scheme rolling out as this was being written).

However if you were to go online and order the same TV series (add postage and handling costs) or go to your local store to buy it on DVD, it may cost a few dollars more but the only other costs you have to deal with are just transportation to the store.

Having a tangible copy which includes extra features has many benefits that don’t just stop at the end credits. Your brand new copy of the TV series will not have to deal with crashing hard drives, internet bills, download speeds, download caps and the like. You can simply place your disc in the DVD or Blu-Ray tray; close it up and away you go.

The DVDs are there for whenever you want to watch them, on a machine that by now any movie-watching Australian would have in their living room – the now humble DVD player.

Until download speeds are one par with that which many countries in Asia (such as Korea and Japan) have access to, downloading a movie or TV series is not something many Australians will be doing for a while to come. It may be a while before my JB calling turns into an iTunes calling yet!

Tags: Always-On, Blu-Ray, CDs, DVDs, iTunes, JB Hi-Fi, Music Stores, New Media, Online, TV Shows, Video on Demand, Video Stores