Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Neild

Your error rate is skyrocketing while you are calling another member 'ignorant'.

what error rate? just because you don't grasp simple concepts does not mean an errors on my part.

Actually they could. Some smaller studios with a limited catalog probably *have* done so. Those companies were probably most interested in getting the revenues re-started on their old titles.

who cares about smaller studios the thread was started asking about why IJ has not been released. That is Paramount not an indy with one title to its name. Let me ask you this how many do you know that has released everything they own.

Other bigger studios are more interested creating a steady long term stream and making best use of publicity schedules.

agree 100% so why don't you tell that to the OP who think the reason IJ was not released by Paramount is related to issues having to do with physical media?

No, that is the opposite of what I'm saying. Digital distribution IS vastly cheaper.

I know that is what you are saying, but that is completely wrong

Although mass production has lowered the cost of physical media, with digital there is no expensive oil needed to produce discs and cases, no paper and ink to print artwork, no labor to stuff cases, no fuel for trucks to ship product, no rent to warehouse goods, no refunds on defective materials, no spiffs to stores and salespeople, no liquidation of unsold titles.

but these are pennies, digital; has its share of costs as well, a guy at HMV (or the repliction line) making minimum does not compare to the IT professional making 150$ an hour, the incremental gaz needed to bring some movies/ CDs to the store don't add much since the truck will bring ipods and ipads and players and TVs and speakers, all the stuff you need to watch those movies and listen to the songs which can't be digital compared to the large amount running the server farm for digital dl. A shelf at the store and making a disk is cheap compared to a server......

You're totally misunderstanding the chart. The most profitable case is a solo musician selling CD's out of his trunk after his show. Sure there's a great profit per unit, but when you've got 4 shows a month and you're selling 5 discs per show off your merch table, that's hardly viable.

so you don't notice that #1 is CD self produced while #2 and #3 are also CD but not self produced. After that you fall into different digital solutions.
be it (most profitable doing itunes release through Napster twhere he gets 94 cents on the 10$ you are charged. Why do you think Netflix, Apple...... are so rich. They are the ones making the BIG profits, not the studios/ record labels.

[Neild]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

what error rate? just because you don't grasp simple concepts does not mean an errors on my part.

I'm talking about your enormous amount of spelling, grammar, and basic communication errors. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have only recently taken up English and that's why you have so many errors.

As for your constant personal attacks instead of well reasoned dialogue, I can't imagine the reason. Those unfounded attacks diminish the few valid points buried within the hard to understand stuff you type.

A shelf at the store and making a disk is cheap compared to a server......

That's absolutely wrong.

To see that on a small scale, compare the cost of burning and mailing a CD to your friend across Canada. $1 per CD plus $8 postage plus $11 labour = $20

Then compare the cost of doing a digital transfer or email to your friend. Around a cent, maybe 2 cents?

In the example, physical is 1000 times more expensive. Now multiply that by 100 million CD's, and it's obvious why corporations are pushing digital distribution so hard.

Sure there are economies of scale that come into it, but one fuel fill-up of a delivery truck is more expensive than running a server for a decade. And we haven't even scratched the surface of what warehousing costs per square foot, how much it costs to return unsold products, how much packaging costs, and so on.

[El Baz]

Originally Posted by Exist2Inspire

Funny thing is that I just did a paper on this for one of my classes haha.

The thing is, and I'm sure we all know this, that physical media will be dead but not for a long, long time. And there are so many reasons why, which I will not bore you with all of them.

1) Take a look at, Avatar or Transformers: Dark of the Moon. They are full blown, 50GB discs with around 49GB used for the video and audio. This, gives us very high bitrate movies and high bit-rate audio. But lets say we want to stream this. Given currently technology, aka Netflix, we will see the bitrate go down significantly and drop the audio to a 5.1 track (of which will be less than DVD quality). See the problem here? I will GLADLY play the $24.99 for Transformers Blu-Ray so I get a much better presentation of the film, rather than $7.99 a month to watch it.

Sure, you could say that Netflix could put the entire 50GB movie online. But lets see.... my internet cap is at 150 GB / Month... so I could watch the movie and only have 100 GB left? Well what if I want to watch it again? Well that's another 50GB. And perhaps next month I invite people over to watch it? 50GB gone again. Perhaps I want to watch both Avatar AND Transformers... look I have 50GB left for the month.

But, If I go out and buy the disc for $24.99 I can watch it as much times as I want.

Oh, but you might be thinking you will have hydro-costs! Well, from doing my research, it costs hydro to stream a movie on a device, rather than just play the movie (granted they gains are minimal, which is why this is moot).

2) Collections. Look at me, I have nearly 2000 physical movies at my place. And I love it... sure, it's a ***** to find something to watch, but that's not the point. Owning this collections brings a sense of joy. Well, except when you think about how much you've spent...

Joking aside, I think we can all agree we have this sense of joy when we own something. Be it movies, Games, music, etc. But then there is the streaming world. You don't actually physically own any of those movies. Sure, the advantage is that you can save space, but what's stopping Netflix from removing your favorite show? Oh wait, didn't they just lose STARZ / ANCHOR BAY? And, especially for us Canadians, there isn't a lot on there. Look at that, I own all the Star Trek DVD's (I don't, but lets pretend), but they're not on Netflix. Or lets say they are on Netflix, but they remove DS9 because it's not being watched as often.

The biggest problem with streaming is the constant negotiations with companies and their contracts. The same COULD be said about physical Media, but at least you have an opportunity to own them, and if they go out of print, you will still have it. With streaming, once it is gone, it's up to Netflix to bring it back... if they want to.


3) In regards to streaming 50GB movies... lets say at this point in time, that the whole neighbor hood is streaming Avatar... Can you say goodbye speeds? The networks simply don't have the infrastructure to run this.


Will we see the end of the physical media era? Sure, but it won't be for a long, long time. I will adopt streaming 100% only when the difference between a film on a physical media source is 99.9%. But again, not for a long long time.

You bring up some great points.

One of them that I always bring up is the time and money spent on your home entertainment system. Say someone spends $5000 on a top of the line TV, sound system and blu-ray player, do you think they want to stream a lesser quality film on something they forked over big cash for?

It's like pumping regular unleaded gas in a Ferrari.

[Matt110189]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

As for your comment, yes ROI is important, but a movie needs to be made first. So it is used in decidsions (i.e. do I make a Saw 2 or 3 or 4…..) but once it is made it is a sunk cost and it is all about bringing in as much revenue as possible.

Not that I disagree with the overall basis of your argument, but this is only really true in a very basic analysis. Development and Production become predominately sunk costs, but it's not purely revenue after that point. There are a substantial amount of administrative, legal, marketing,distribution, etc. decisions and associated expenses following the actual creation of a film. Additionally, the mere creation of a film can creates intangible equity of a possible franchise or sequal which can later be sold. There are many ROI calcs incorporated into each decision faced by studio, even following the film's initial production.

[Neild]

Originally Posted by El Baz

Say someone spends $5000 on a top of the line TV, sound system and blu-ray player, do you think they want to stream a lesser quality film on something they forked over big cash for?

Sadly, I think that happens fairly often....

How many friends or family have we all encountered who have great equipment and it's set to 480p? Or uses rca video cable? Or haven't made the switch from DVD yet?

I think people forget this is an enthusiast website, representing maybe one percent of the consumer space. The very nature of this site pre-selects people who are interested in and value blu-ray versus the numerous other options, and people who are more inclined to buy and collect physical media.

[Banjo]

Originally Posted by Neild

Sadly, I think that happens fairly often....

How many friends or family have we all encountered who have great equipment and it's set to 480p? Or uses rca video cable? Or haven't made the switch from DVD yet?

I think people forget this is an enthusiast website, representing maybe one percent of the consumer space. The very nature of this site pre-selects people who are interested in and value blu-ray versus the numerous other options, and people who are more inclined to buy and collect physical media.

I know exactly what you are talking about. A lot of people I know, they have 1080p HDTVs, yet they don't watch anything in HD on it. What a waste of resources.

[Neild]

Originally Posted by Matt110189

Not that I disagree with the overall basis of your argument, but this is only really true in a very basic analysis. Development and Production become predominately sunk costs, but it's not purely revenue after that point. There are a substantial amount of administrative, legal, marketing,distribution, etc. decisions and associated expenses following the actual creation of a film. Additionally, the mere creation of a film can creates intangible equity of a possible franchise or sequal which can later be sold. There are many ROI calcs incorporated into each decision faced by studio, even following the film's initial production.

With a tiny handful of exceptions, all those are really insignificant to the two big numbers: cost and revenue - the ratio of which is the one big number that matters. It's a bit like worrying about the cost of straws at a banquet.

One in a thousand films is a franchise situation, like a LOTR or Tintin, where they commit going in that it's going to be a multi-film multi-year deal, along with the accompanying risk of capital.

But most films are one-off's, and there's gruelling decision making about whether or not to fund it based on expected ROI.

And whenever a given combination is successful, you see a rush of imitators as everyone rushes to copy that model.

[GreatGreg]

I have a colleague who has a 720p projector setup, but has his whole library of movies on his NAS (Network Area Storage).

He has a BD player, and two PS3s but doesn't watch Blu-rays! He prefers to copy his movies in 480p onto his NAS and stream them through his PS3 around the house.

I can understand the convenience of being able to stream your library anywhere in your home, but dang! You are still watching 480p which is just DVD!

Last Christmas I got my parents a smaller HDTV with a Seiki BD player and I have been feeding my mom a steady stream of BD movies. (My old BD lifecycle was: Me -> my Mom -> Blockbuster trade-in). Even she has grown to appreciate the added clarity that BDs have to offer over DVD.

But yes, if I didn't force feed her the BDs, she would be happy watching VHS or DVD on an HDTV!

I think the vast majority own HDTVs, but watch only satellite, cable, or DVDs. BDs only occasionally.

[mrr1]

There are many movies that I MUST own a physical copy of, as I don't like the idea of completely committing to streaming services.

After all, if a content provider owns the copy that I must pay to have access to, they can either increase the price or even "pull" access to the content whenever they want. But if I have a physical DVD or Blu Ray disc in my possession, they cannot take that movie away from me.

This is an important reason why many movie fans will be reluctant to give up the physical medium - it means giving up control of being able to watch our favorite movies whenever we want for the rest of our lives.

[Atari Charles]

There are some very good arguments here.

CD: The media is dying a slow death. I personally like CDs as I like to have the best resolution possible. I would never pay for an mp3 file. The under 25 generation, do not care about the difference between a 16bit wav file and an mp3. They really only care about portability, so I doubt many of them are buying CDs.

Sony had a chance years ago with the Super Audio CD which is 24bit audio, but like betamax they wanted to be the only ones to manufacture this technology, so betamax died and Super Audio CD(SACD) is reserved for Major McCheeses of the world. Had Sony been as greedy with the blu-ray technology, blu-rays would be dead.

Blu-ray: This really is the next step in physical media. Netflicks quality sucks, so aside from the Pirates of the Internet out there, if you want a blu-ray quality movie, you'll have to buy a blu-ray. Besides there are quite a few buggy and crappy downloads, so I would much rather buy the movie and have a properly working blu-ray, instead of a buggy download.

The Future: Not the future as envisioned by Blade Runner and Sigue Sigue Sputnik, but the future of physical media. Blu-ray Video and Audio is the future. Mp3s may be easily portable but Blu-ray Audio will be so far superior to mp3s, that this may very well be the next audio format.

[Johnny Vinyl]

For the record: SA-CD is 1-bit DSD

[Neild]

Originally Posted by mrr1

There are many movies that I MUST own a physical copy of, as I don't like the idea of completely committing to streaming services.

After all, if a content provider owns the copy that I must pay to have access to, they can either increase the price or even "pull" access to the content whenever they want. But if I have a physical DVD or Blu Ray disc in my possession, they cannot take that movie away from me.

This is an important reason why many movie fans will be reluctant to give up the physical medium - it means giving up control of being able to watch our favorite movies whenever we want for the rest of our lives.

That's an important driver for me also. I despise when companies sell content then dismantle the authentication later (e.g. Microsoft, Future Shop, etc)

I also don't like purchasing games only to learn their buggy protection won't play on my equipment, or requires sacrificing personal info to register with their phone-home server, only to learn later the authentication server gets dismantled effectively destroying something you already bought.

Besides speaking out about it, I vote with dollars. I don't support VOD, pay-pay-view, streaming DIVX, Digital Copies, and until I know more, Ultraviolet. I refuse to buy any copy protected or server-phone-home games.

I might miss out on something with this policy, but I'd rather that than support business models which are designed to frustrate paying customers yet are totally meaningless to actual pirates.

[Matt110189]

Originally Posted by Neild

With a tiny handful of exceptions, all those are really insignificant to the two big numbers: cost and revenue - the ratio of which is the one big number that matters. It's a bit like worrying about the cost of straws at a banquet.

One in a thousand films is a franchise situation, like a LOTR or Tintin, where they commit going in that it's going to be a multi-film multi-year deal, along with the accompanying risk of capital.

But most films are one-off's, and there's gruelling decision making about whether or not to fund it based on expected ROI.

And whenever a given combination is successful, you see a rush of imitators as everyone rushes to copy that model.

Not really. It's not uncommon for the average hollywood movie's advertising campaign to amount to $20M-$100M. For instance, the pre to post production costs of Spiderman 2 amounted to about $200M. Marketing and distribution alone amounted to an additional $75M. To a certain extent these costs can be estimated during the pre-production stage and included in initial ROI. But marketing campaign decisions can be changed on a whim following a film's initial theatre run. It's hardly uncommon for a completely separate campaign for a movie's physical release on which a seperate ROI would have to be calculated.

You mention that cost:revenue is the ratio that matters, but these are still costs that go into the full process that allows the movie to earn revenue and a profit/loss. I think we're almost arguing the same point, revenue in itself is a poor indicator. And it is very rare that there are no associated costs (which are usually significant) that can be attributed back to how each dollar of revenue was earned.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Neild

I'm talking about your enormous amount of spelling, grammar, and basic communication errors. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have only recently taken up English and that's why you have so many errors.

get over it, either point out the terrible spelling mistakes when something bugs you or shut up about them. In the end this is not an English class, we are discussing movies (and music) on disk and DL. But I guess it is like the old saying, people without a valid objection will scream "spelling mistakes" as if it takes away from the original argument.

But I guess I don't make ludicrous comments like you so you have nothing else to object to, for instance

compare the cost of burning and mailing a CD to your friend across Canada. $1 per CD plus $8 postage plus $11 labour = $20

I never sent a CD by mail, but a few years back I did send a DVD full of pics to a friend in Calgary. So let's look at what you said

1$ for CD? don't know where you shop, but I would stop going there, or at least start shopping more wisely, a DVD-r/CD-r is roughly 20-30 cents for example

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817607044 $ 29.99 for 100

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817182243 17.99 for 100

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817292027 18.99 for 100

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16817131088 19.99 for 100


8$ for mail? don't know if things have changed, but at least when I sent that DVD I was told by the post office that it was regular mail and so it was a normal stamp (today that would be 60 cents). And it might not have changed since

Originally Posted by http://www.canadapost.ca/tools/pg/prices/default-e.asp

Lettermail can include:

....

a CD or DVD
....

now I have always been cheap and believed in recycling, so I just re-used a disk envelope I had on hand, but a quick search https://ssl.staples.ca/ENG/Zone/zone...CD109E53A40599 should tell you that you can get 8 of the fancy ones with bubble wrap for 7$ so that is easily under 1$ for the plain cardboard ones, which is what I would use to send a CD/DVD to a friend

But honestly forgetting all that (maybe it is not regular mail and if you never asked you might not know), I still have no idea how someone can come up with such a deranged idea of mailing cost, if Zip.ca can have unlimited 1DVD out at a time for 11$ how does it make any sense to assume it is 8$ to send a DVD (or CD) in Canada, they would be bankrupt in no time, since one DVD plus the prepaid envelop to send it back would cost them way more (16$) than the price they charge (11$) and no one is on the plan for one DVD a month.


11$ labour? I don't get where there is labour in this. I have a disk with data on it, I put it in an envelop walk to the post office and pay for a stamp (last time I asked it was regular mail, but who knows if things have changed since then and it is better safe then sorry), where do I have to pay anyone for anything?

so basically you took something that is realistically under 2$ (0.30+0.60+1) and assume it is 20$ so your calculation is more than10x higher from the real cost, isn’t that just ludicrous since asimple search would have given you the answer that you are way off?.

Then compare the cost of doing a digital transfer or email to your friend. Around a cent, maybe 2 cents?

Not even close. Now I don't have a server at home to serve up that 1GB/5GB data, it would be stupid for me to have it for that one time deal, but without my internet connection how would I e-mail the file? Now obviously I don't think it is fair to add the full 60$ as what it costs me to send it by e-mail, but any reasonable assessment would put it at a few dollars depending on the file(s) size. And I know you will say "but you will pay for that internet connection if you send it or not" we should do the same for sending the CD/DVD, I have the CD/DVD on hand so 0$, envelope is recycled 0$, stamps on hand 0$. So it will still be more with e-mail since I need to pay for electricity and that is more than a couple of cents

In the example, physical is 1000 times more expensive. Now multiply that by 100 million CD's, and it's obvious why corporations are pushing digital distribution so hard.

that is because you are using BS numbers. With BS numbers anything is true. I linked to a chart that gives exactly how much is left in a music artists pocket depending on distribution channel. It is not hard to see that at the top of the chart (most profitable) are different physical media (more of the 10$ you pay of a CD goes in his pocket) and the bottom is digital (less of it stays in his pocket)

but one fuel fill-up of a delivery truck is more expensive than running a server for a decade.

let me guess you neither work in IT nor in trucking. Since if you did work in IT you would realize it is not cheap at all, server hosting goes from several hundred to over 1k$ a month depending on power, connection and services and if you worked in trucking you would realize that they ship many stuff at the same time and try to have trucks as full as possible and not just a few CDs in it.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Matt110189

Not that I disagree with the overall basis of your argument, but this is only really true in a very basic analysis. Development and Production become predominately sunk costs, but it's not purely revenue after that point. There are a substantial amount of administrative, legal, marketing,distribution, etc. decisions and associated expenses following the actual creation of a film. Additionally, the mere creation of a film can creates intangible equity of a possible franchise or sequal which can later be sold. There are many ROI calcs incorporated into each decision faced by studio, even following the film's initial production.

Agree 100% but look at who I am dealing with a guy that thinks it costs 8$ for letter mail, that it costs way more than 12,000$ to fill up a gas tank (100$ *12 months *10 years) and he can’t read a simple chart. I have to keep things basic and simple.

[HellBlaze]

If I may add something to this very interesting discussion: retention rate or a life cycle of a bought movie.

That's a very nasty thing, which at this point in time is impossible to achieve.

Example:

Let's say tomorrow we all wake up in all-digitall world. I might want to buy and stream a Ghostbusters movie in 1080p, roughly 30+ gb of data. Netflix, or any other company who sells me that will have to have it available 24/7 at my disposal, even if I am the only one in the world who bought it. That is not profitable for any company. I might watch it once a year or once every 5 years, which is easy if it sits on my shelf, but keeping it on their server is ( from their perspective) a waste of space, unless it's brings money, at least to keep that server running. And not just one server...

Now, I am not talking just about the bandwith, but the sheer amount of server farms located around the world hosting hundreds of 1000's of titles. Because one server with a copy of Green lantern simply won't do. It's a hit movie, and some guy in London wants to stream it fast, and not wait in line for a viewing because there is a bandwith problem with Eu based servers. And it has to be worldwide, for everyone. And you have to stop piracy, so it will have to cost less. Because users will have to spend money on faster net speeds thus reducing their "movie monthly budget".

If you look at the amount of movies that are made every week/months, there is no hardware that is capable of holding it, and no company that can stand behind that project, not even Apple (just for music). I would go that far to say that we would need a brand new "internet" just for that bandwith. Apple revolutionized the music industry but even they rely on you to store those heavily compressed music on you ipods. And a single album, even in flac, is 30 times smaller that a movie. That vast amount of movie data in future streams will either have to be dowsized by compressing or we will have to rely on storing it ourselves (buying hdd's to temporarily store stream files).

And that's just regular movies. From what I've heard, porn industry is putting out even more titles than Hollywood and I am sure there will be market for that as well

So in conclusion, I strongly believe that blu-ray will be last major physicall media for storing movies. The transition is already happening, but it's not even in it's infancy. High quality streams available worldwide won't be abailabe for at least anoth 15-20 years.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Atari Charles

The under 25 generation, do not care about the difference between a 16bit wav file and an mp3. They really only care about portability, so I doubt many of them are buying CDs.

Even though I agree with the original premis I think the assumed conclusion is wrong.

Let me explain with a personal example. I was a teen in the 80's when I got my portable tape player, I decided "who needs records, tapes are more convenient" and so I was buying all my music on tapes. Like you said "really only care about portability" but when I got a bit older, I realized "there is no trouble in making a tape of a record instead of getting the tape to begin with" and so I stopped buying tapes and reverted back to records. Now I was not 25 when that happened, I was probably more like 18-19, but everyone is different. Some will never care for quality, some will never care for "convenience" and some will flip from "convenient" to quality when they realise there is not really enough of a difference in time to make up for the loss of quality. So I don't think you can conclude that what some will do in the rashness of youth that it will continue when they are older.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by HellBlaze

ILet's say tomorrow we all wake up in all-digitall world. I might want to buy and stream a Ghostbusters movie in 1080p, roughly 30+ gb of data. Netflix, or any other company who sells me that will have to have it available 24/7 at my disposal, even if I am the only one in the world who bought it. That is not profitable for any company. I might watch it once a year or once every 5 years, which is easy if it sits on my shelf, but keeping it on their server is ( from their perspective) a waste of space, unless it's brings money, at least to keep that server running. And not just one server...

you don' t need to go that out of your way, it happens on a daily basis. A long time ago I was discussing Vudu HDx with a guy, he linked to a review comparing it to BD and gave it a good review (at least in the eyes of the OP). When I replied I pointed out how the reviewer said that it was not as good as the BD (even though he found it acceptable) and so why should I accept less. I also wanted to bring in price (i.e. why pay more or the same for something less) but when I went to find it, it was gone from Vudu.

That being said, I see this more of a rental/purchase discussion. If you purchase a movie and you can have a local copy on your HDD is it any different from a BD you purchased? and only god knows, when I used to be a renter, how many times I was annoyed because a movie I wanted to see was no longer carried, that is why I gave up on renting.

[Wookalar]

I was just having this same conversation with the owner of a comic book shop. I love the smell of old comics and books, but when I travel, I'm able to bring thousands of my digital comics on my iPad. Besides the fact that it wouldn't be possible to bring more than a handful, I wouldn't want to risk damaging the old collectible ones. It's nice to have a separate hard-drive with 10,000 digital comics and a space at the bottom of the closet with a few dozen of my prized ones.

On the other hand, does anyone else get a rush of endorphins when they just stand in front of their BD collection and linger over the spines of great films?

[GreatGreg]

Of course we do! Otherwise we all wouldn't be into the whole purchase of the BDs in the first place.

There are a lot of valid points in this thread, but also a number of misfires and red herrings.

My original post referred to the INDIANA JONES series as an example. The point I was making was that any release of any film on physical media requires a lot more work than just creating the source materials themselves.

There are a lot of weak arguments about IT costs and music industry comparisons.

We have always been talking about profits for the studios, not the artists themselves. The artists themselves (except for a select few like George) have little to no say about the distribution of the media and gain little to none going from physical to digital media.

It's the studios that have the most to gain. They have a whole distribution chain that is costly and antiquated. So that pie chart has been grossly misrepresented in this argument.

Regarding the IT costs and maintenance costs for a digital library, it is not something new to the studios either. Many films are already in digital format and are kept on servers already. One IT person or a team of them can maintain many many films on servers. This is much more equitable for the studio than to rely on a distribution system involving hundreds of employees.

The advantage is in the mass replication of the digital distribution model. Once you have the infrastructure, you are just transmitting data files be it INDIANA JONES, GONE WITH THE WIND, or THE INCREDIBLES. No need for special packaging or art or trucks that can hold limited numbers of product for each destination.

With digital download, the studios offset the costs of distribution to the consumer. You now pay for your own internet and your own bandwidth and your own hard drive space to store the film.

Yes, you can download it and burn it on a BD, but then you have to pay Sony a royalty for your purchase of blank BDs (I believe this is true anyway).

In any case, up until recently, there was no choice in the matter for studios but to use physical media to distribute their product. Now they no longer need that and can beam it directly into your house AT YOUR COST.

Lastly, I want to point out the fact that allowing for time-limited digital downloads (or even those without time limits) provides studios a recurring revenue for their old catalog titles.

Little Johnny or Suzie watching TOY STORY 3 for the thirteenth time means more recurring revenue for Disney. They get paid every time someone watches the movie, which can add up to a heckuva lot more than selling you the film on physical media in one shot. No need for a Disney Vault if CINDERELLA maintains a perpetual download revenue stream by an endless cycle of kids, art students, and animation enthusiasts.

This, I believe, is the Holy Grail for studios. They can just sit back and watch the downloads ring up their revenue on a steady stream forever. No need to wait for a new format so they can re-sell you TERMINATOR 2.

No, we are not at the end of physical medium yet, but as another poster pointed out, it doesn't take long once the decision is made. There will always be some holdouts and physical media may remain as a niche product but hey, we may all be watching through bifocals by then anyways.