CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

I thought I read somewhere that Toshiba mentioned something about streaming trailers from a studios servers.

Something that I think would be a really cool idea would be something that mimics many HTPC programs out there that will play a set number of trailers before the feature.

Have a menu setting that you could toggle the number of trailers and maybe even which studios or genres you like, and then have them streamed right before the feature starts.

It would be cool if Apple would let the HD trailers be part of this. Probably not likely since the recent announcement of the new HD rentals through Apple TV.

Anyone else think this is a cool idea or knows if any player now can support this feature hardware wise? I wouldn't think it would be that intense.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

Darn, now that I re-read the title it is a little misleading.

Kal, can you change it to "Can any player stream trailers prior to feature? BD or HD DVD?"

Moose · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 788 Location: Minnesota

You can edit the title yourself in EDIT mode.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

Thanks Moose. Your thoughts?

ecrabb · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:28 am Post subject:

Greg. I've thought a lot about rally recreating the theater experience (without the bad things), and here are a few thoughts:

- Nothing that will 'stream', is anything you'd want to look at on an 8-foot screen. Download or progressive download, maybe - But, probably just download.

- I don't think there are any set-top boxes of any kind that will do anything like that automagically. Everybody that wants to do that uses HTPC, since once you go that direction, there are a whole host of software solutions to accomplish the task - even stuff that will display still images - slideshows - before the trailers start. Imagine the Coka-Cola movie trivia slides from the theater in your theater. Cool, huh?

- One thing I do sometimes when we're having a few people over is I just cue up on my HD Tivo box, some trailers recorded from HDNet's "Nothing But Trailers" show that they run every week.

- The PS3 and 360 have trailers you can download and play, but nothing 'automatic'.

- Also, I think I'm going to have to get an AppleTV for my birthday from my parents and the inlaws. They just lowered the price and it's not too bad now for what it is. Media streaming, iTunes client, YouTube (for entertainment purposes), HD video podcasts, HD (720p, I think) movie rental w/5.1 DD), Flickr and home library photo viewing. At $229, it would be nice in the living room just as a hell of a music player.

Your idea of some kind of disc player or automated box that would automatically download trailers that matched your profile and play them before a movie would rock! Get to work on that, will you? Wink

SC

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321

don't most of the players have USB connections? Maybe get a software update that allows external HDD to be added. There is your storage for downloads.

I agree that the streaming quality would be objectionable but the idea is great.

Do these players essentially run on linux?

MYoung · Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Posts: 369 Location: Madison, WI

I'm going to start collecting movie trailers captured from OTA HDTV and put them on 3x DVD. I agree that streaming would look like garbage. That said, it would be cool if a next gen standalone player had some flash ROM built and could download trailers on the fly and once fully downloaded, play them back if the owner so chooses to. This, or something similar, has probably already been done with the Xbox 360 and PS3, certainly for downloadable game, if not for trailers as well. It would be cool for a standalone player. It would be a great way to recreate the theater experience and for studios to push movies, both in production, in theaters, and out on disc. Though if it were to devolve into advertising cars, Coke, and television shows, that would not be cool. It would have to be an optional feature.