Are backups and storage a thing of the past

Depends on what you're after.
All streaming services are for fast consumption, screening, scouting etc.
If I discover a keeper, then I ask for quality and there is no way around the physical ownership.
Be it then a disc or a file on my HDD.
"Cloud" is just someone else's computer, so I go from there

 

Well, I've asked friends who are a few years younger than myself in their 20s and they are all CLOUD CLIUD CLOUD - whether that's for their iPhones or even a friend who bought the 128GB MacBook Pro - YES 128GB OUUUUCCCCHHHHHH to him, he uses every Cloud based service that you can imagine

Me, I like to keep everything (except my films which are in iCloud apart from 5 or so that I TRULY LOVE or have downloaded on my iPhone X 256GB) on my lil MacBook and then I back up weekly to my LaCie Porsche Design Harddrive - certainly the only Porsche that I could afford

Got to say, it is beautiful thinking of a song wherever I am in the world, knowing that i've bought it on iTunes and it'll be there 99.9% of the time in the iCloud and I can play it immediately. In fact I did that 30 mins ago riding home from the gym with my AirPods in - I simply asked Siri to play a tune that had come into my head Also, I think that it's beautiful that I can sign into friend's Apple TV's with my Apple I.D. anywhere in the world and we can enjoy a film that I've bought - we do this every Saturday evening late at my pal Perrie's house.

It's exciting, it's now and I love it. It's how it should be and it makes everything easy which is important when, like me, you've got a thousand or so other hobbies and excitement in your life.

The future is very exciting

 

Well, that has its sad side to it, imho.
They've never experienced quality, so they even don't know what they are missing out on.
That is why I say - "for fast consumption".

PS How can you enjoy cinema on a MacBook, let alone iPhone, screen at its best?? With barely 2-channel audio? 60% of the effort the director did put in is just thrown away...
I call it heavy & lossy compression

PPS One more excellent example: these guys at Dutton Vocalion have found a way to re-issue Art Garfunkel's late 70-s quadraphonic studio records in 2018 as surround SACD records!

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...4ch-sacds-coming-from-dutton-vocalion.722782/
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/art-garfunkels-1st-and-breakaway-sacds.730014/

I see no way to enjoy this masterpiece on Macbook, iPhone or appleTV. Sorry to say that.

 

Each to their own but you're too deep in your viewing!
I HATE in every respect to sit in a house and stare at a TV - I can't stand it for more than five minutes over brunch or evening dinner. For me, I have to be out there doing something in life. That's why I get pleasure watching parts of a film on my iPhone X close up with its beautiful OLED screen.
I enjoy every experience. Go and look at the AV forums and it's fun of lonely, sad old men simply sitting watching a TV, wasting their precious life and finding fault with the films picture quality, sound quality, banding (whatever that is). It's tragic and sad and I really feel for those sad old men. Me, i'd be at the gym, eating out with friends, travelling, and that's why iTunes fits in great for me.
And I have ZERO ZERO ZERO interest in SACD recordings. I did the hifi thing in my teens and regret it now. For me, I get more enjoyment from my music using the built in speakers on my iPhone. WHY? Because it's always with me and it's not stuck in a corner of a single room.

For me, music and film is part of my huge lifestyle. It's portable. Everything in the digital age is portable and havn't also lived in the analogue age, I wouldn't have it any other way.

I find it a joke when older people say that younger people havn't experienced quality. I beg to differ. They have grown up with 1080p HD, 4K, 60 fps, iTunes. The older generation grew up with AM radio, crackly records, cheap record players, cassette tapes, dull sounding pre-recorded cassettes, hissy FM radio that sounds NOTHING like the studio output (BBC iPLAYER/Sounds radio app is pretty close to studio output on the iPhone), VHS 240p video, sticking DVDs, analogue grainy TV and satellite etc.

Personally, I know that the generation of now have never had it so good in terms of every day quality that is available to billions thanks to iTunes, iPhones etc from Apple.

 

I can see, that we define quality in different ways.
I have nothing against portability and listen to my iPhone most of the time I'm on the move.
Before that I've been portable with a Cassette-Walkman, Discman, MD-Walkman and MP3-Walkman.
But that does in no way compare to another kind of enyoyment from big screen and big speakers.
I know, it can be done in a good movie theatre, but I also like to do it at home at my own pace and with company of my choice.
When I say it has its sad side is because there is so much more to be discovered beyond iTunes. Quality-wise, I mean.

 

Talking about teens they generally do not care/know about quality. Yes, they fill their mouth with 120/240fps gaming, OLED, 4K/8K and then if you ask them most don't even know what those terms mean. Most importantly they have no clue how badly compressed can be an YouTube video or, even worse, their favorite tv show they, nearly all, stream illegally. Actually, nearly all have no idea what "compressed" means..

That has been confirmed last night even by "Gossip Girl" I am watching in Netflix (I know, I know.. But it is light, funny, and there are some of the best looking amazing babes. So... shut it! ). In the last episode I watched there was Blair, the "queen of upper east side", fashion fanatic, watching a movie... from a laptop!! And not even a Mac. It had the - URGH! - Windows logo (but that has been a very misplaced Windows ad seen the context! ). And so did his "friend" (no logo, though). I felt disgusted in any possible way! With all the money she has as minimum she should have had a 100" plasma TV on the wall (it's around 2010), connected to a DD AVR (although I realise wires around the room are not very.. fashionable).

Personally, being older and thus wiser, I watch Netflix from my phone only when I really don't know how to pass my time (like when waiting 1 hour to see the doctor). As I like to have my backup copies stored in my NAS, which I can access from anywhere in world as well if I need to. But with Internet speeds growing everyday (and the EU is pushing the fiber connection everywhere, although it will miss the 2020 target), and the attitude of the new generations explained above, it's reasonable to predict that backup copies and NAS will soon be obsolete.

If I remember correctly even the digital sales of mp3 are falling, people is moving to streaming (Spotify and the likes). And the most VOD apps allow to make a local copy anyway, as a backup when we know we have no access to the internet. But the idea is that they are just temporary, to be removed when space is needed..

 

Being older does not make a person wiser. This has been proved in the UK were older people voted for Brexit due to hatred, ignorance and right wing media lies! The whole country has fallen to pieces and will probably never be able to repair itself.
I'd say this new, young and educated, well travelled generation are observing more about the world than any generation ever had.
In the UK before the internet, many of the British people received their 'news' from only right wing press or yet again, Sky TV with the Murdoch grasp or the Govt controlled BBC.
Maybe teens don't care about the tech spec or compression. Certainly YouTube can look damn amazing! I know, I upload client videos 5 to 25 times a day to it and notice very very little difference between my ProRes422 Master and the YouTube version.
Travelling the world, I have a very very very positive impression of the young generation of today. They are the ones who have seen how the older generation treats people in business, politics, society etc. Many are highly into veganism, organic farming, treatment of others, fair-trade etc etc. They are also the ones shunning the 9 to 5 and embracing the digital world.

Also 'rich' people do not buy 100" plasma TVs - it's ignorant new monied types who like to 'think' that they are wealthy twho invest in something as shallow as a TV.

 

backup / storage; ya a generational thingy
but
a lot of things are that way.

-This is next to impossible but I am attempting to not want to share just every aspect of my life.
-the new market place of NAS products form Sinology makes storage backup and easy. I do not work for these people but they are my current fav.
-along with any NAS purchase these days they give you some firmware apps integrated with the box; backup, homeCameraSecurity, video streaming...

-a nas box is easy enough to install, easy maintenance but remains high cost
-storage, you might not need as much as you think; 6-10TByes could work with some restraint on HD.

 

Jimmy Choo

Oh, com'on! I was obviously ironic, wasn't I? To write "Being older, educated, experienced and traveled, thus wiser..." would have taken too long!

I totally agree that the Brexit is a complete mess. But it's also what probably one gets when the BBC transmits at least a couple of times per day movies or documentaries against the nazi/Germans (thanks God for the PlayStation when I was living in England in 1997-2000 because the TV was killing me of boredom).

Well, I specified I was talking about teens, so not really that educated.. Italians in this case. Although teens are usually dumb everywhere! Too many hormones!

Currently I am an IT teacher, so I deal with teens on a daily base. I mean, they are funny, young, thus with all the right to enjoy their life as much as they can, but the lack of curiosity on many of them (even on IT matters, their field at school) is discouraging.

I can't talk for all the other guys when I was at school myself eons ago, but I and my friends sure were different.

The 4K YouTube videos do look great. On that I can agree. But the 1080p or lower resolution streams can get very awful. The stuff on illegal streaming sites is usually of an horrible quality. Still they don't care. It's "free" so it does the job. They sure won't fork out €10-20 or more for a UHD BR because it looks better. Which was the topic of this thread.

Well, let's honestly hope so for them. I am all for the new generations. I did my "work hard, party hard" time. Now it's their turn.

I was talking about Gossip Girls.. In that TV show they may spend more money for a pair of Louboutin or Jimmy Choo shoes.. Still I am afraid you completely missed the irony in my post.

And then... Excuse me! Wasn't it you practically saying that £59 for a Siri remote is a fair price because.. It's beautiful??