Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by Prox

Early adopters and large purchasers drive the market. Of course a lot of us on this website are going to believe that physical media isn't going away; we're the ones who decide how long it stays around. We're the ones who will by dozens, if not hundreds, of movies and games in whatever format is the best in our eyes. Suzy Soccermom may download six films a year on her iPad, but that doesn't put a dent in the impact of my 50 Blu-ray purchases in the same year.

Man how i wish that was true, unfortunately there are a lot more of those suzy soccermoms as you put it i prefer j6p, then there are of buyers/collectors like us. Especially considering the shifting of markets as those that did not grow up with quality as a concern but those that prioritize convenience over it enter jobs and become a larger portion of the consumer base. I grew up with fidelity, they have grown up with HTIBs, internet streaming, earbuds, ipods, mp3s etc...

I wish we drove the market as you say, but if we did sacd would be the current music format, cds wouldn't have actually declined in quality. Digital formats would be lossless, yet despite terabytes of storage people still rip cd's as mp3's and use a low bitrate to boot. The fact is the vast majority of the consumers out there will literally buy whatever they are told, they don't care to be informed, and the companies are more then happy to continue to sell cheap products and services at high prices.

Right now thanks to companies like netflix taking the initiative on streaming/dl the entertainment industry is at a pause with how to pursue download/streaming and still retain the current profit models because right now as anthony p has stated numerously hard media is a greater profit model. However as soon as they do they will be more the happy to provide us sub standard service, and consumers will eat it up. The game industry for example is diehard to pursue this, it offers more control, limits the used market (a big loss or them), allows for cheaper marketing and tracking... etc....If they can succeed getting this to be a standard even if bandwidth became an issue i am sure they can find a way to reduce quality and j6p will be none the wiser while we are left knowing we got the shaft.

[ouflak]

Originally Posted by Prox

Early adopters and large purchasers drive the market.

If this were true, the world of audio and video would have a vastly different landscape than exists today. Vastly different. It would certainly be a better world for me (a movie collector), though perhaps a bit more of an expensive one!

[Anthony P]

Man how i wish that was true, unfortunately there are a lot more of those suzy soccermoms as you put it i prefer j6p, then there are of buyers/collectors like us.

It does not matter, a lot of people that buy nothing does not compare to a few that buy a lot and you are forgeting the person that has teh attitude "I think X is better so I will seek it out because it is better") is more important than the "I don't care so I go with what is available". That is why for 2011 over a decade after digital music came into existance


http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/...nd_figures.pdf

Digital channels now account for an estimated 32 per cent of record company revenues globally

and because some think records are better than CDs there are still records being produced and sold

I wish we drove the market as you say, but if we did sacd would be the current music format

no, the issue with SACD and DVD-A was that the format war kept most of the collectors away, waiting to see which side would win. And it never had the time to grow and take hold.

yet despite terabytes of storage people still rip cd's as mp3's and use a low bitrate to boot

that is not 100% true, yes a PC can have that, but I don't know of a portable player that comes anywhere near a TB, let's be reasonable, the newest ipod classic has 160GB, most cell phones and tablets max out at 64GB or less. The issue is that in order for digital to make sense you need your whole collection on that one device because unlike grabbing a handfull of CDs transfering content back and forth is complex and time consuming. So in order to have music while jogging do you go with a dozen CDs worth of music or your whole collection that is over 100 CDs worth of songs? most people pick their 100 CDs worth of songs. And there is nothing wrong with that, but if these people had a 1TB device would they pick crap quality because they prefer crap quality or would they go with much better quality? I think the latter.

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

It does not matter, a lot of people that buy nothing does not compare to a few that buy a lot and you are forgeting the person that has teh attitude "I think X is better so I will seek it out because it is better") is more important than the "I don't care so I go with what is available". That is why for 2011 over a decade after digital music came into existance


http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/...nd_figures.pdf



and because some think records are better than CDs there are still records being produced and sold



no, the issue with SACD and DVD-A was that the format war kept most of the collectors away, waiting to see which side would win. And it never had the time to grow and take hold.



that is not 100% true, yes a PC can have that, but I don't know of a portable player that comes anywhere near a TB, let's be reasonable, the newest ipod classic has 160GB, most cell phones and tablets max out at 64GB or less. The issue is that in order for digital to make sense you need your whole collection on that one device because unlike grabbing a handfull of CDs transfering content back and forth is complex and time consuming. So in order to have music while jogging do you go with a dozen CDs worth of music or your whole collection that is over 100 CDs worth of songs? most people pick their 100 CDs worth of songs. And there is nothing wrong with that, but if these people had a 1TB device would they pick crap quality because they prefer crap quality or would they go with much better quality? I think the latter.

Yeah but in your analogy j6p buys nothing, in reality he actually buys stuff, just usually without understanding or care for quality beyond what the pimply faced teen tells him at the store or what he THINKS he already knows. The misinformation in regards to tech is absolutely astounding.

As to SACD remove the format war that j6p never even heard about and you think the outcome would actually have been different? J6p who thinks the pinnacle of audio is BOSE, and that sonys golf ball size speakers are a kick butt stereo. Personally i don't see that happening.

With the mp3s its not that they prefer crap quality, j6p honestly is just happily oblivious. How many people out there do you think even realize when they rip a cd to mp3 there is loss involved or how bitrates play a role. I would be happy to place a large wager on that with you if you are interested

As to the subject of video, well even with craptastic equipment unlike audio it is very perceptible in terms of quality, but once again considering all these young people today who live on netflix streaming and youtube videos and illegal downloads etc... do they really give the indication that quality is of any concern to them. Nope, just listen to that logitech subwoofer beat.

Watching netflix i can tell immediately when the quality drops, the only time i ever here anyone else comment is when there is a problem buffering. Of course thats just personal experience and chatting among my peers, or overhearing the wealth of information you get visiting a bestbuy. Physical media will disappear eventually, the real question is when it does, will there still be those that offer services to those of us who actually care about our entertainment and don't want to take a step back in quality for a little convenience.

EDIT: im regards to the people who buy something cause its new or better, they are just as bad if not worse as they most often lay there money out speaking with their wallets, but saying all the wrong things. Hence the perceptions of BOSE, or the ability of phone copies to add a number before the letter G and get people to upgrade, or the reason we still have edge lit leds (which people say are so much better the lcd's if you get my drift).

[Anthony P]

Yeah but in your analogy j6p buys nothing, in reality he actually buys stuff,

It is not that simple, obviously some Joes buy stuff. But the guy that buys 1 or two films a year won't be as important as the guy that buys one or two films a week. The guy waiting for the 5$ film is not as important as the guy that spends 20+$ to buy it on day one. To put it simply you need 100 Joes that buy one film a year to equal that one guy that buys 2 films a week, you need 4+ Joes that buy a 5$ title for that onecollector guy that buys 20$ title. And then you have the other factor. The collector that wants that quality won't buy the junk but Joe that does not care might buy something better.
It is better to lose a few Joes than a collector.

As to SACD remove the format war that j6p never even heard about and you think the outcome would actually have been different?

Yes because it is not about Joe but the guy that might jump in but does not. Like myself, I might have bought into SACD and I might have bought into DVD-A but I could not choose which side to support and I stayued on the sidelines. Let me ask you here, what happened to this site in 2008 after HD-DVD gave up the ghost. there where a lot of new users, some that bought into HD-DVD but a lot that where just there waiting on the sidelines and the BD/HD-DVD situation was a lot more lopsided.

With the mp3s its not that they prefer crap quality, j6p honestly is just happily oblivious.

I think some people are oblivious, and some might always be. But that does not matter. There is a reason CD still makes up the majority of music sales and LPs are still being produced and sold. The people that see a benefit in those techs (or even low grade MP3) do it with a passion and as long as they exist a format can't die, the people that are oblivious, like you pointed out buys "usually without understanding or care for quality beyond what the pimply faced teen tells him at the store"

As to the subject of video, well even with craptastic equipment unlike audio it is very perceptible in terms of quality, but once again considering all these young people today who live on netflix streaming and youtube videos and illegal downloads etc... do they really give the indication that quality is of any concern to them. Nope, just listen to that logitech subwoofer beat.

You see I don't see it the way you do, for one even if we assume some sort of a generational divide, we are talking a very long time frame (I am 41, the average life expectency is over 80, even if I am average that means I have only lived half my life o but average means for most people it will be much higher (i.e. you need 4 people that die at 100 for that one person that dies at 1 to get an average of 80) and who knows what the life expectancy will be by the time we get closer.
Second, we have all been kids, yes we get influenced by our youth when we are older, but youth also has it's own traits which don't continue when we get older. When I was a teen I had a ghetto blaster, I had a walkman (not a real one but it is not about brand) so at some point I decided I wanted all my music on tapes. Why? because I could play them on MY toys insted of records that meant that I would need to use the record player to dub them to tapes in order to use them with MY toys. But eventually when I did not value separating myself from my family as much, when I did not think the time to dub a tape that important and I valued having something that lasts (let's face it audio tapes degrade extremely fast) and quality I flipped back to LPs
maybe the kid is OK with Youtube and Netflix, but will it also be true when he is no longer a kid? I don't know.

Physical media will disappear eventually, the real question is when it does, will there still be those that offer services to those of us who actually care about our entertainment and don't want to take a step back in quality for a little convenience.

I don't know if it will but obviously if it does it is a long way away. But if it does it will be like LD because the people that want quality decided to buy into a new tech that offered to them what they want, and that is what is missed in the discussions that DL is the future. With this discussion you add the extra complexity of physical vs digital (i.e tangible, ownership) but the quality discussion is simpler and the answer obvious. Until DL/streaming can offer better than BD quality physical media will always exist and if physical media quality improves that new benchmark will need to be surpassed.

[ouflak]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

It does not matter, a lot of people that buy nothing does not compare to a few that buy a lot

And that's it really. It's not that those 'lot of people' buy nothing. Sometimes I wish they would/did buy nothing. No, it's that they buy a little here and there based on whims that only marketing types can hope to gleen. That 'lot of people' rarely owning more than a dozen of any type of media, renting instead of buying, purchasing whatever they might deem fashionable without purchasing all of the peripherals needed to really get the most out it (and never folllowing up), going for convenience instead of quality... *sigh*. Their numbers in dollars combined dwarf the enthusiast's and collector's dollars.

It would be a very interesting world to live in where the best quality audio and video presentations of the time simply became the defacto standards of the masses based on the will of enthusiasts and collectors. Imagine what technology would be in the stores, would be in our homes!

[bluearth]

Who is to blame

#1 "I wanna rent my movies in my pajamas. So I dumped Blockbuster for the limited variety at Redbox"

#2 "I like low quality crappy streams so I dumped Blockbuster"

Thankfully these people wont mean the end of high quality physical media as we know it, at least not anytime soon

Like paper, physical media's usage will be reduced, but it will never disappear.

My cable internet company just sent me a letter saying they are reducing my monthly internet allowance to 150 GBs. $10 for every 25 GBs I go over. How many 30 GB movies in BD quality is that? 5 a month? No thanks

We are 20-25 years AT LEAST from any "end" of physical media.

Bluray has another 10 years, then there will be 4k blurays, then 10-15 years after 4k digital media will take over

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by ouflak

And that's it really. It's not that those 'lot of people' buy nothing. Sometimes I wish they would/did buy nothing. No, it's that they buy a little here and there based on whims that only marketing types can hope to gleen. That 'lot of people' rarely owning more than a dozen of any type of media, renting instead of buying, purchasing whatever they might deem fashionable without purchasing all of the peripherals needed to really get the most out it (and never folllowing up), going for convenience instead of quality... *sigh*. Their numbers in dollars combined dwarf the enthusiast's and collector's dollars.

It would be a very interesting world to live in where the best quality audio and video presentations of the time simply became the defacto standards of the masses based on the will of enthusiasts and collectors. Imagine what technology would be in the stores, would be in our homes!

Thats my perspective on things, and granted it is just a perspective. I understand anthony's perspective but i think he is underestimating that market that will continue to grow. As that prime for tech market continues to grow so will there buying power as they become financially sound and IMO they will not be buying on the same standards or based on the same facts someone who is active on a site like this would. Some of the trends in tech lately have me wanting to smack some people upside the head

I will say though despite the doom and gloom of cd production in the news recently i do not believe physical media as a whole be it music, movies, games will be going anywhere in the near future. However i do think the public at large will be trending more towards new forms of distribution not knowing that things like 1080p does not mean all things are created equally.

[Anthony P]

Thats my perspective on things, and granted it is just a perspective. I understand anthony's perspective but i think he is underestimating that market that will continue to grow.

The issue is not if the market will grow, I think it will. The question is does it matter? and that is where the answer is no. If I was saying DL/streaming will disappear, that would be one thing and your comment would make sense but I don't know anyone that has said so. The issue is that DL/streaming proponents are the ones saying physical media will disappear because people accept crap quality and in order for something to disappear people need to stop paying for it. And that is what is missed, records account for around 0.3% of sales but they are still produced because there are enough people still willing to pay enough to make it interesting. LD lasted until the people that said "VHS sucks and I would rather spend my money on something better like LD" moved on to DVD which was better, S-VHS lasted for as long as the people that said "I want something better then DVD" moved on to BD that was better than S-VHS. The problem is the assumption that the person that says “I don’t want anything less than BD” will say “who the hell cares”, and in the history of media that has never happened and as long as DL/streaming is not better than BD (or whatever physical media has to offer) physical media won’t disappear. There is no VHS, (same with audio tapes, 8-tracks) produced anymore because people that don’t care moved to DVD (or away from the old tech) because they don’t care, but it is not as easy to move people that do care (see an advantage in what they have) and that is why records are still being produced and sold. Maybe a lot of people just buy songs on itunes and don’t know where to buy records or CDs but there are obviously many that still buy CDs (since DL is only 32% of sales) and enough that buy records and know where to find them. To simplify, forget films for a second, do you think the guy that still buys records because he thinks it is a purer sound that he will wake up tomorrow and say “ I should be listening to DL” do you think the record label that is making records for him will say tomorrow “that guy will never buy a DL but who cares for the millions he brings to the table because there are 100 guys out there that buy 1 song on itunes a year”. Yes the numbers can change a bit, yes maybe some guy is sticking with what he knows and he will die eventually, yes someone might be borne into the new tech and be oblivious to how crappie it is because he does not know better, but all of that assumes lifetimes not years.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

...There is no VHS, (same with audio tapes, 8-tracks) produced anymore because people that don’t care moved to DVD (or away from the old tech) because they don’t care, but it is not as easy to move people that do care (see an advantage in what they have) and that is why records are still being produced and sold...

VHS died a quicker death after DVD arrived because retail outlets choose to stop carrying VHS and the studios started to phase it out.

Now, only if the retail outlets and the studios did the same with DVD more people would just move on to Blu-ray rather than hold back and continue to buy DVD.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by bluearth

My cable internet company just sent me a letter saying they are reducing my monthly internet allowance to 150 GBs. $10 for every 25 GBs I go over. How many 30 GB movies in BD quality is that? 5 a month? No thanks

Which cable company do you have?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

VHS died a quicker death after DVD arrived because retail outlets choose to stop carrying VHS and the studios started to phase it out.

it was not that quick VHS died in 2005/2006 (studios stopped producing in that format) and DVD came out in 1997. But yeah that is the point if like LPs VHS had something that collectors saw as an advantage it would still be around so in that way it was quick. Studios knew that if they killed people would just move on because they did not care.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

it was not that quick VHS died in 2005/2006 (studios stopped producing in that format) and DVD came out in 1997. But yeah that is the point if like LPs VHS had something that collectors saw as an advantage it would still be around so in that way it was quick. Studios knew that if they killed people would just move on because they did not care.

Even though the studios didn't completely stop supporting VHS until 2005/2006 less releases were finding themselves on the format prior to that time and it was becoming much harder for individuals to try and find those releases. Now the internet did help to find products that couldn't be found in stores. However, Circuit City and Best Buy phased out VHS in stores during 2002 and 2003, respectively. Wal-mart did the same thing in their retail stores although you could still purchase them through their web site.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by rdodolak

VHS died a quicker death after DVD arrived because retail outlets choose to stop carrying VHS and the studios started to phase it out.

Now, only if the retail outlets and the studios did the same with DVD more people would just move on to Blu-ray rather than hold back and continue to buy DVD.

Yes, but the retail outlets chose to stop carrying VHS because almost no one was buying it anymore. DVD adoption was relatively quick because the benefits were so obvious.

To the average consumer, the benefits of BD are not as obvious or they don't know what to look for. I was helping a woman in my apartment building last night who just bought a BD player, but she was having problems hooking it up. While I was there, I was checking the cable signal and I asked her to tune into the stations she usually watches. She had no idea that her cable box tunes in both SD and HD and she was watching all the SD versions of the broadcast and cable stations because they were on the channels that she knew. So I tuned in the HD versions and said, "doesn't that look better"? The cable boxes should have a settings control where you can de-program all the SD channels at once that are also on HD. (Actually, they should do a lot of things, like not tune stations you don't subscribe to, but that's another story.)

Also, in a tough economy, in a family situation, catalog DVDs are going to continue to sell because they're extremely inexpensive to buy. My local large retailer always has a ton of pretty good DVDs for as little as $4. They're not the newest titles, but for a family, it's cheap entertainment. So as long as the economy sucks and as long as there's a price differential between BD and DVD (even though BD prices have been dropping), DVD is still going to sell. So like any media, it will be around exactly as long as it keeps selling.

And because of the e-commerce, DVD will actually have a longer life, even during its fade-out, than VHS had. Physical retail measures success by sales per square feet. So if sales per square foot of DVD is equal to or greater than BD, they will keep selling it. But even at the point where it doesn't and they decide to devote that footage to BD, e-commerce sites will continue to sell DVD because warehouse space is far cheaper than retail space.

Frankly, I've been pretty surprised that a retailer like Wal-Mart sells BD.

But having said all that, I don't know why anyone cares that retailers still sell DVD or that people still watch DVDs. Your BD experience is not invalidated just because some people don't care about BD. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Yes, but the retail outlets chose to stop carrying VHS because almost no one was buying it anymore. DVD adoption was relatively quick because the benefits were so obvious.
.

They were not THAT obvious and adoption was not all that quick, sure not rewinding appealed to many. However i remember it was a long time from when i bought my first $800 dvd player and dvds were still being released in jewel cases at $30+ to the time j6p really started to jump in the fold, in fact it was very much like blu-ray. It came down to price more then anything. The real difference was the tangible benefits like not rewinding, where as blu-ray offers what pop up menus? Many people don't have large sets yet, and even those that do go as cheap as possible and with improper calibration leaving the effect of dvd and blu-ray looking equally bad. Not to mention things like seating distance.

Given the economy and such i am surprised blu-ray has hit the penetration it has but just like dvd the more it spreads the more people are exposed to it and at current prices it really becomes an issue of why not. My buddy who has been one of those i don't see a difference is it really worth it type of people finally got a blu-ray player this christmas, he had 12 blu-rays bought over the course of january, when i went over there last night he had bought 8 that day so already up to 20. I had told him just seeing a movie at my place doesn't really strike it home, just as many people including myself still bought vhs in some cases after i got into dvd because titles were unavailable or poorly stocked. However when you go back to the old format thats when you really see what you were missing and where blu-rays benefits become far more apparent.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

... But having said all that, I don't know why anyone cares that retailers still sell DVD or that people still watch DVDs. Your BD experience is not invalidated just because some people don't care about BD. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Guess my opinion hit a nerve with someone. No sure why that would bother you though.

It's already been stated that the studios make very little profit from DVD when compared to Blu-ray. It also costs more to design, manufacture, warehouse, and distribute two products which takes up valuable shelf space with limited dollars. With one product the studios can focus more on Blu-ray than they can with both formats. Also not all video products are released on Blu-ray. There are plenty of new DVD releases which never see the light of day on Blu-ray. A&E and the History Channel are two easy examples that come to mind but by no means are they the only ones. They hardly release their shows to Blu-ray even though most of their products are filmed and aired in HD; yet as you might have guessed they all get DVD releases though.

[Steedeel]

As we seem to be heading towards a black pit of films on tablets and mobile/smart phones, how long until the only way we watch films will be on a Smartphone? More and more, the industry talks about mobile tv viewing and the younger generation watch films on mobile devices. This is a downward spiral, which the film industry will never recover from in my opinion. Already quality is thrown to the roadside, substituted for nasty streaming and a 4 inch screen. I wonder if the action/big budget films will be a thing of the past in terms of home cinema. After all, who would enjoy something like Inception on a mobile phone. Not me, not ever! I fear we are heading to this nightmare scenario of a single small mobile screen being our only way of watching film outside of cinemas. Tv screens seem to be struggling in terms of sales and that only makes the problem larger. Anyone else see this scenario playing out? Or is it just me?

[Chordata]

I do not see that scenario playing out at all.

I also don't see it as a "black pit".

It's just another medium.

[Musashi]

no

[Crimson King]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

As we seem to be heading towards a black pit of films on tablets and mobile/smart phones, how long until the only way we watch films will be on a Smartphone? More and more, the industry talks about mobile tv viewing and the younger generation watch films on mobile devices. This is a downward spiral, which the film industry will never recover from in my opinion. Already quality is thrown to the roadside, substituted for nasty streaming and a 4 inch screen. I wonder if the action/big budget films will be a thing of the past in terms of home cinema. After all, who would enjoy something like Inception on a mobile phone. Not me, not ever! I fear we are heading to this nightmare scenario of a single small mobile screen being our only way of watching film outside of cinemas. Tv screens seem to be struggling in terms of sales and that only makes the problem larger. Anyone else see this scenario playing out? Or is it just me?

that's why I'm buying lots of physical media, I dont care at all for downloads