Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

There was no speculation on my part, there was clarification, which was meant to highlight the fact that you misinterpreted the text (most likely because you were not aware of what Anthony P also clarified for you). In other words, it is not a matter of "speculation", it is a matter of proper interpretation of what was reported. And your interpretation was not accurate.

Pro-B

Pro...

Man up (or woman up as the case may be), you simply made a boo-boo.

Originally posted by pro-bassoonist:
...Now, let me ask you a question: Why do you think Netflix changed their tune and are refocusing on Blu-ray?

In the above quote, had you substituted "DVD" for "Blu-ray", I wouldn't have challenged the accuracy of your post because, as you can see from the link, Blu-ray itself... is never mentioned and, quite frankly, I'm not surprised as Netflix made its' bones with DVD.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/net...ack-disc-24127

If anyone is speculating, it's Anthony P with his comment:

"that's because they use DVD in the generic, short hand for Blu-ray and DVD or physical media. In the end DVD stands for either Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc and both those acronyms apply to BD."

I wouldn't put words in the mouth of Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by ole geezer

If anyone is speculating, it's Anthony P with his comment:
I wouldn't put words in the mouth of Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer.

I am not, did you read the article?

“Over the next couple of months (and couple of years) you’ll see us putting more focus on it,” Sarandos said. “Right now it is a couple of bucks more to get all the discs you want.

he talks of disks not just DVD. BD is disks as well.

"Without the success of the DVD business, I don’t think we would have had either the investment money or investment courage to put the money we were able to put into streaming,”

streaming= black hole sucking money now. "DVD"= profitable and money is used to subsidize streaming. Why would you think "DVD" means DVD, BD is profitable, do you think Netflix has a pocket with BD money written on it and one with DVD money written on it and streaming is only sucking the money from the DVD pocket? the money is all the same.

Let me ask you this, where did he say that disk, physical media, DVD (which from the article are used interchangeably) does he say excludes BD.

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

I am not, did you read the article?

Of course. How else could I have determined that Blu-ray was never mentioned.

“Over the next couple of months (and couple of years) you’ll see us putting more focus on it,” Sarandos said. “Right now it is a couple of bucks more to get all the discs you want.

he talks of disks not just DVD. BD is disks as well.

You're speculating again. I think Mr Sarandos is merly using the word "disc" in its plural form. I see you didn't bother to quote the very next words out of his mouth which sheds some light on what type of discs he was talking about:

"There is some room in there to right that and put a little more focus on the DVD business.”

streaming= black hole sucking money now. "DVD"= profitable and money is used to subsidize streaming. Why would you think "DVD" means DVD, BD is profitable, do you think Netflix has a pocket with BD money written on it and one with DVD money written on it and streaming is only sucking the money from the DVD pocket? the money is all the same.

Let me ask you this, where did he say that disk, physical media, DVD (which from the article are used interchangeably) does he say excludes BD.

He doesn't nor am I saying it does. My own speculation on this issue is DVD is and remains a huge part of their business. The 100,000 titles mentioned in the piece may or may not have included Blu ray titles. We just can't say for certain nor can we accurately draw any conclussions beyond what was actually said in the interview.

[ZoetMB]

Why don't you guys just agree to disagree and give it a rest. It's pretty obvious that neither of you are going to cave.

[Anthony P]

You're speculating again. I think Mr Sarandos is merly using the word "disc" in its plural form.

it is not the s that means BD as well as DVD, it is the word disc that naturally encompasses both if he meant discs that are not BD then he would have said disks that are not BD.

I see you didn't bother to quote the very next words out of his mouth which sheds some light on what type of discs he was talking about:

"There is some room in there to right that and put a little more focus on the DVD business.”

not at all because the DVD business includes both DVD and BD. You are assuming it is not while there is nothing in the article that says it should not. The same when they use physical media and disks

He doesn't nor am I saying it does. My own speculation on this issue is DVD is and remains a huge part of their business. The 100,000 titles mentioned in the piece may or may not have included Blu ray titles. We just can't say for certain nor can we accurately draw any conclusions beyond what was actually said in the interview.

but in the interview they talk of disks and physical media, it would be unreasonable to assume it does not and when you say BD was not mentioned in the article you are making an assumption. As for DVD (only), I am sure it is a big part of their business, if physical media was not (with DVD being bigger) like he said they would not be able to afford DL. But DVD is dying and rather fast at that, so would it make sense to assume when one is talking about the future that it would be limited to that?



On the other hand I don’t get your point. Do you honestly think that Netflix won’t be increasing their BD library and will limit it to DVD? And let’s assume that it is true (that is what Netflix is saying and that is what will happen), who cares? The issue is not if Netflix will be buying BDs or not, but that DL as it is offered now by Netflix needs a healthy disk market to be functional and before the day comes when Netflix is DL only they would have either had to raise their prices quite a bit or they would have had to impose some serious limits (i.e. to kind of match their disk offerings now, i.e. pay more and DL more). After all this thread is about stupid people thinking BD is doomed and not a can I rent title X on BD from Netflix.

[FinalEvangelion]

It's obvious that DVD means discs / physical media in general.

As much as people dream about everyone only watching 480p up-converted SD DVDs or heavily macroblocked "HD" streams on their nice fancy 1080p TVs, Blu-ray is here to stay. I honestly don't understand why people are so against watching something with the most quality. I guess it's because they have beef against Sony. Although, Panasonic should be the ones haters should be hating since they own more of the BDA.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by FinalEvangelion

It's obvious that DVD means discs / physical media in general.

As much as people dream about everyone only watching 480p up-converted SD DVDs or heavily macroblocked "HD" streams on their nice fancy 1080p TVs, Blu-ray is here to stay. I honestly don't understand why people are so against watching something with the most quality. I guess it's because they have beef against Sony. Although, Panasonic should be the ones haters should be hating since they own more of the BDA.

It's not that people are against watching something with the most quality - it's that enough people don't care enough about quality that it's limiting BD sales levels. When 10 minute amateur videos on YouTube give network shows a run for their money and when a very large percentage of younger people are perfectly happy watching movies on a 3" smartphone or 11" pad screen, you have evidence that only a small percentage of movie watchers actually really care about PQ and AQ. (And they'll tell you that they DO care about quality, but that their electronic devices already provide that quality.)

And while the following is anecdotal, I can't tell you the number of times I've visited someone's house who has a 1080p TV and they're watching the SD version of a channel. When I offer to re-program the cable box to take off the SD channels and only leave the HD channels (for the channels that have both), they don't want me to change anything. They always say something like, "what are you talking about - this is an HD set" or "you're wrong - at the station breaks, it says WCBS HD".

And no company "owns" the BDA. This is an industry committee that has its own staff and has representatives from each company, just like most industry trade organizations.

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

It's not that people are against watching something with the most quality - it's that enough people don't care enough about quality that it's limiting BD sales levels. When 10 minute amateur videos on YouTube give network shows a run for their money and when a very large percentage of younger people are perfectly happy watching movies on a 3" smartphone or 11" pad screen, you have evidence that only a small percentage of movie watchers actually really care about PQ and AQ. (And they'll tell you that they DO care about quality, but that their electronic devices already provide that quality.

U need to ask yourself why that is, it's not necessarily the case that young people don't care about quality, it's just that they value other things more, mainly things to do with lifestyle more than anything else. A lot of young people travel around a lot moving from place to place and don't really have a stable life or residence. Their laptops and smartphones are usually the best and most expensive things they own quite often because they spend all their money socializing, going to expensive cafes, partying and traveling, and they would rather waste their money on that stuff instead of saving for the future. Once they are finished having fun and have spent all their money then most of the time they just move back in with their parents (instead of standing on their own 2 feet) to save up some more money just so they can do it all over again. Buying coffee and dinners, alcohol and party drugs are more important to a lot of young people than buying blu-rays.

[FinalEvangelion]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

It's not that people are against watching something with the most quality - it's that enough people don't care enough about quality that it's limiting BD sales levels. When 10 minute amateur videos on YouTube give network shows a run for their money and when a very large percentage of younger people are perfectly happy watching movies on a 3" smartphone or 11" pad screen, you have evidence that only a small percentage of movie watchers actually really care about PQ and AQ. (And they'll tell you that they DO care about quality, but that their electronic devices already provide that quality.)

And while the following is anecdotal, I can't tell you the number of times I've visited someone's house who has a 1080p TV and they're watching the SD version of a channel. When I offer to re-program the cable box to take off the SD channels and only leave the HD channels (for the channels that have both), they don't want me to change anything. They always say something like, "what are you talking about - this is an HD set" or "you're wrong - at the station breaks, it says WCBS HD".

And no company "owns" the BDA. This is an industry committee that has its own staff and has representatives from each company, just like most industry trade organizations.

What I'm saying is that BD sales aren't bad enough that companies will stop releasing films on Blu-ray, like many people seem to be hoping they will do. When new releases are doing over 50% regularly and increasing, the format is here to stay.

[Steedeel]

The way i see it ultraviolet is very important to all of this. Let me give my opinion. If in say, 6-8 years Bluray is obsolete and all we have is downloads and streaming the quality MUST be of a acceptable level to me otherwise i will change from a owner to a renter. If Ultraviolet has intentions for people to buy downloads/streaming, the incentive must be there. The idea of owning a film is fine at the moment because i am watching superb quality, if the quality was what is currently available for streaming/download i would have no interest in owning because i have become accustomed to bluray quality.

Also Zoe, i do not understand where you are coming from with all this negativity. On the one hand you say bluray is doomed, and then you say it may last another 10 years! You seem to be contradicting yourself. Even if you do think it will struggle, why do you seem so obsessed with telling every member on this forum. You do not seem like a bluray fan at all to me. Do you have some beef with the format or do you look forward to a future of highly compressed garbage that is unwatchable on a screen bigger than 32 inches? If it was announced that bluray sales have increased 100% next year i am pretty certain you would find a negative angle to post on here.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

When 10 minute amateur videos on YouTube give network shows a run for their money and when a very large percentage of younger people are perfectly happy watching movies on a 3" smartphone or 11" pad screen, you have evidence that only a small percentage of movie watchers actually really care about PQ and AQ.

Just try to make this out with the numbers. Just try. Network TV shows get canned at fewer than 3 M viewers. How many Youtube videos -- I mean what % of Youtube viewing -- has that kind of market penetration? "Run for their money"? WTH.

As for the "large percentage" who are "perfectly happy.." etc etc. try to quantify this -- really, make it precise -- and you may see how implausible it is. The vagueness of some of these opinions may be fooling you. Bring on the market analysis man!

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

It's not that people are against watching something with the most quality - it's that enough people don't care enough about quality that it's limiting BD sales levels. When 10 minute amateur videos on YouTube give network shows a run for their money and when a very large percentage of younger people are perfectly happy watching movies on a 3" smartphone or 11" pad screen, you have evidence that only a small percentage of movie watchers actually really care about PQ and AQ. (And they'll tell you that they DO care about quality, but that their electronic devices already provide that quality.)

I disagree, stupidity of youth does not matter. We were all young and stupid at some time. Back in the 80's there was a time when all I would buy where tapes just because it was simpler to use with my walkman and boombox and that the record player was in the hall and not my bedroom. But eventually I realized that it was a bit more painful to transfer from record to tape but the records were better and the difference in cost and convenience was negligible and I switched back to records.

And while the following is anecdotal, I can't tell you the number of times I've visited someone's house who has a 1080p TV and they're watching the SD version of a channel. When I offer to re-program the cable box to take off the SD channels and only leave the HD channels (for the channels that have both), they don't want me to change anything. They always say something like, "what are you talking about - this is an HD set" or "you're wrong - at the station breaks, it says WCBS HD".

yes there are ignorant people, but if you pointed out the difference (i.e. switched to th HD channel and then back so they can see one was SD and the other HD) and teach them that new channel, then my experience is that the person does not go back (why would they? like you said it is not that they are opposed to quality) and then there is less ignorant people in the world. Also what might happen is that the friend that you just educated will probably pass it along to his other friends, so there is a trickle effect.

And no company "owns" the BDA. This is an industry committee that has its own staff and has representatives from each company, just like most industry trade organizations.

yup, on the other hand the guy is not wrong. Perception is just as important as reality, and personaly I have seen a lot of people on boards saying I won't buy BD or company X will never do BD because it is Sony.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Just try to make this out with the numbers. Just try. Network TV shows get canned at fewer than 3 M viewers. How many Youtube videos -- I mean what % of Youtube viewing -- has that kind of market penetration? "Run for their money"? WTH.

As for the "large percentage" who are "perfectly happy.." etc etc. try to quantify this -- really, make it precise -- and you may see how implausible it is. The vagueness of some of these opinions may be fooling you. Bring on the market analysis man!

OK, I'm the one who usually says that people should stop posting personal opinions and anecdotal data as facts and perform some business analysis, so I accept your criticism.

But as far as TV vs. YouTube, it's not a matter of individual shows - it's a matter of how much YouTube viewing there is overall vs. how much HD viewing and I'm not seeing/hearing anything that tells me that people care about the quality of YouTube video.

As of May 2010, YouTube garnered over 2 billion views a day and had nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. networks combined. The average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube (which admittedly is far less than average TV watching time, which is about 4.5 hours in the U.S.). As of that date, the most popular video on YouTube, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" was played 185 million times, which far exceeds views for any broadcast or cable network show in their original media.

And as far as Pads are concerned, according to the NPD Entertainment Trends report, 26 million BD players have been sold in the U.S. after five years. Apple sold 25 million iPads (probably a worldwide stat) in the first 14 months. By now, more iPads have been sold than BD players and that's only counting Apple's version. I can't prove what percentage of iPad users are watching videos/movies and I can't prove what percentage of those are happy/not happy with the video quality, but if one peruses the Apple forums and rumor sites, where people are just as likely to complain as they are here, I'm not seeing any groundswell of opinion that the video quality of iPads (or smartphones for that matter) is poor in the general public's mind.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Cevolution

U need to ask yourself why that is, it's not necessarily the case that young people don't care about quality, it's just that they value other things more, mainly things to do with lifestyle more than anything else. A lot of young people travel around a lot moving from place to place and don't really have a stable life or residence. Their laptops and smartphones are usually the best and most expensive things they own quite often because they spend all their money socializing, going to expensive cafes, partying and traveling, and they would rather waste their money on that stuff instead of saving for the future. Once they are finished having fun and have spent all their money then most of the time they just move back in with their parents (instead of standing on their own 2 feet) to save up some more money just so they can do it all over again. Buying coffee and dinners, alcohol and party drugs are more important to a lot of young people than buying blu-rays.

I agree with everything you say, but in the end that means that they're not buying BD.

[ole geezer]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

....Also Zoe, i do not understand where you are coming from with all this negativity. On the one hand you say bluray is doomed, and then you say it may last another 10 years! You seem to be contradicting yourself. Even if you do think it will struggle, why do you seem so obsessed with telling every member on this forum. You do not seem like a bluray fan at all to me. Do you have some beef with the format or do you look forward to a future of highly compressed garbage that is unwatchable on a screen bigger than 32 inches? If it was announced that bluray sales have increased 100% next year i am pretty certain you would find a negative angle to post on here.

Talk about life imitating art. Did you ever see an older movie titled Inherit the Wind specifically a speech the character played by Frederick March gives after he arrives in town???

If you haven't...you should, because the ideas, reasons and thoughts you're using amazingly coincide with that particular scene from the movie.

...give me that ole time religion...it's good enuf for me.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Also Zoe, i do not understand where you are coming from with all this negativity. On the one hand you say bluray is doomed, and then you say it may last another 10 years! You seem to be contradicting yourself. Even if you do think it will struggle, why do you seem so obsessed with telling every member on this forum. You do not seem like a bluray fan at all to me. Do you have some beef with the format or do you look forward to a future of highly compressed garbage that is unwatchable on a screen bigger than 32 inches? If it was announced that bluray sales have increased 100% next year i am pretty certain you would find a negative angle to post on here.

You won't find a single post of mine where I ever said that Blu-ray is doomed. And something can "last" without having growth or being successful. And I happen to be a big fan of Blu-ray (look to your left and you'll see I own 63 titles) and I truly appreciate high quality PQ and AQ. I was one of those people who would only see a movie in a theatre with the "best" presentation quality and if a film was playing in 70mm, would not even think about seeing a 35mm version. I would be obsessive if the presentation quality wasn't "perfect", frequently complaining to the projectionist or theatre management. (And for the record, I'm an ex-recording engineer).

But I'm also realistic about Blu-ray's prospects, I've been in the industry for decades and I understand business analysis.

This is a forum to discuss Blu-ray so it's intellectually dishonest to accuse me of being obsessed with anything concerning Blu-ray and I've never written a single negative word about any BD title that I own. And I certainly post far less than many other people on here, averaging only slightly more than a post per day. But when people write fanboy garbage that has absolutely no basis in fact, I'm going to respond to it because I don't like hype. As another example, I'm a fan of vinyl LPs and still have about 500 with a perfectly working turntable in my living room. But I don't go onto forums and claim that vinyl is "coming back" and is a big success, because it's not. In 2010, it comprised 1.18% of long form units and 1.27% of U.S. industry dollars. That's a rounding error. Yes, units increased 25% over 2009, but the base is so small that it's meaningless. It's clearly a niche format in spite of the hype.

I'm not a supporter of compressed formats. My point has not been that download quality is good (it's certainly not), it's been that the mass market considers it good enough and doesn't care about the quality of BD any more than the mass market cares about eating fine food and instead is perfectly happy eating in fast food chains. The fact is that it's actually quite rare when the mass market wants quality - the rare occasions when art meet commerce. Remember, we're a country where the largest private employer is Wal-Mart.

People talk about the supposed success of BD without backing up their comments with sales figures. The FACTS are that through 5/28/11, BD is only 10.75% ahead of last year to date and only has a 20.3% share of physical media. It's also a very hit-driven business with the fifth best-selling title typically selling only 6-10% of the top title in any week and the 20th best-selling title selling only 2-3% of the #1 title. That's not good enough performance and does place the future of BD in danger. BD has to have broad-based sales and have catalog titles that sell healthily, otherwise the studios will lose interest and move on to something else that has greater returns. People on here always complain about some great classic title that hasn't been released on BD yet. But the reason why is that if the studios don't think it's going to be a top-5 title, the sales are so small, it's frequently not worth the bother as compared with other efforts.

So take off your fanboy hat and put on your business analyst hat, face reality and maybe you won't take so much offense at what I write. No one would be happier than I if BD became a really big success. I think some of the releases later this year, like Star Wars, will help get it there.

[Steedeel]

Still not making sense. Studios lose interest therefore no releases so how will bluray survive ten years? Both cannot happen.

[FinalEvangelion]

When the studios actually come out to say they may stop supporting Blu-ray due to sales, then I will be worried. I haven't seen anything remotely close to that yet. I have seen them hesitant on supporting streaming, though - which is what is supposedly going to kill physical media.

The only ones saying BD is doomed are fanboys (many that supported HD DVD) that think they are analysts and "journalists" that love everything Apple and Microsoft.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Still not making sense. Studios lose interest therefore no releases so how will bluray survive ten years? Both cannot happen.

It's called the "long tail" although "long tail" can also apply to products that don't sell a lot of copies within any short time periods, but sell very small quantities a week over a very long time period.

And it's happened before with reel-to-reel tapes, LaserDisc, 8-track tapes, audio cassettes, LPs, etc. (And yes, I know some of those were always niche formats.) When a program producer loses interest in a media, they don't wake up one day and say "no more products in this media". They simply take a harder look at each one they produce and they release fewer. And fewer. And then one day, way down the road, they look at the return on the investment and decide it's not worth it anymore, especially if they can eliminate a department in the process, but that's at the end of the "long tail".

Just like LPs. There are still LPs getting produced of both catalog and new product. But for the most part, the labels aren't doing this themselves - they're licensing them out to LP specialists like Sundazed and Rhino (although Rhino is mainly a house label for Warner Brothers Records), it's only for a small selection of product and the runs are very small. That's what makes it a niche format, just as laserdisc was.

And that's the last I'll say on this particular thread. I think the reason why I make no sense to you is because you have no experience in the media business (or any corporate business for that matter) and have no idea how it actually works. Perhaps you've never heard of "return on investment" or "shareholder value". And obviously, I'm incapable of convincing you of anything. Which either makes me an idiot or you a fanboy. Time will tell which one of those it is. (And just to be clear, let me redundantly state again that I'm actually a big fan of Blu-ray and hope it survives.)

[partridge]

Blu-Ray needs to drop in price to match DVD prices. There is no excuse for the continuation of high prices, it's just corporate greed.

I don't think there is any danger for BD at the moment, any sales drops, etc, are almost certainly because people aren't spending as much money as they used to. I know I'm not, I used to pick up BD films fairly often but these days I'm being more prudent with my money.

So far this year I've bought less than 4 titles! The next planned purchase is Star Wars and that's not till September. It's not that I don't want more BD's, I just can't afford them. SW is a special case of course.

Look across the entire entertainment industry and I bet they are taking in less money than in previous years. It's not that people don't want new stuff, but they are prioritising their money on other things. That said, if the price came down I probably would buy a few more.