Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[Tony208]

Streaming could take the place of DVD's because the quality is comparable. But it'll never take the place of a superior product in Blu-ray.

Roku obsolete by 2016.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Tony208

But it'll never take the place of a superior product in Blu-ray.

Never is an awfully long time.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by vargo

Again, you are skirting the issue with your choice of words.

What does it mean to say they can co-exist?

Vinyl co-exists with CD and MP3. VHS co-existed with DVD. The horse-drawn carriage co-exists with motor vehicles. To say that physical media can co-exist with digital distribution....these are weasel words that mean nothing. At some point it will occupy such a small portion of the market that effectively it becomes obsolete.

As said already, "At some point" is as weasel-wordy as you can get.

And what I mean by co-exist is that both will be out there, and neither will be dominant. Is that clear enough for you? Sort of the way Busses and Cars both exist, and neither is "such a small portion of the market that effectively it becomes obsolete."

Regarding growth, vinyl sales are growing faster than digital music distribution in many countries. What does it mean, vinyl is the future? No of course not, it just shows how easily you can twist numbers to suit your point.

More weasel words. "Many Countries". How about relevant ones? Blu-Ray is growing faster than Digital Distribution sell-through in the countries that matter. Countries like the US.

It is inevitable that optical media will become obsolete as a distribution format for 1s and 0s and that's simply common sense. It is the way the world is going.

More weasel words. Optical Media is guaranteed become obsolete, true. Physical media is not. The world is not going that way. Not right now. The only way you can claim this at all is "at some point".

[budious]

WTF is a Roku and why should I care?

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by budious

WTF is a Roku and why should I care?

This is a Roku but only you can determine if you should care.

http://www.roku.com/

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by vargo

Again, you are skirting the issue with your choice of words.

What does it mean to say they can co-exist?

Vinyl co-exists with CD and MP3. VHS co-existed with DVD. The horse-drawn carriage co-exists with motor vehicles. To say that physical media can co-exist with digital distribution....these are weasel words that mean nothing. At some point it will occupy such a small portion of the market that effectively it becomes obsolete.

that is stupid. Either something is obsolete or it is not. VHS is obsolete, even if someone wanted to go and buy Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows or Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (or any other movie that was out in theatres in the last 5 years and know available for home purchase) on VHS it is not available. If in 2016 or 2020 or 030 I can choose to buy a film that just came out from for home viewing and it is available on BD or anything else how are those formats obsolete?

Also let's be honest there are very few Ferraries, Lambourginies....... out there, does that make those cars obsolete?

Regarding growth, vinyl sales are growing faster than digital music distribution in many countries. What does it mean, vinyl is the future? No of course not, it just shows how easily you can twist numbers to suit your point.

that is nonesense.
1) BD sales are MUCH higher than EST and growing much faster. so the example does not work
2) BD sales have never decreased unlike record sales
3) You are too concentrated on Future and not enough on future and thinking about it. Let me explain. Like you pointed out record sales are still not obsolete and they are are growing now go back to 70's and 80's record sales were declining and audio tapes increasing, I am sure guys like you thought Tapes new, records old and so tapes will replace recordes but we are 2011 today and records are still being sold while tapes have been obsolete for some time.

you are foirgetiing....

It is inevitable that optical media will become obsolete as a distribution format for 1s and 0s and that's simply common sense. It is the way the world is going.

maybe it will become obsolete, who knows but your comment is just blind fanboy. You are missing the reality of any such situation

there are two kinds of people (on most subjects) people that care and people that don't. People that don't car, don't so they are irrelevant (when discussing something like this). You brought up record sales. But if they are obsolete, why are new albums coming out in the format? why are they tabulated? and why is it reported and you know that they are growing? Because record sales (at least for the time being) are not obsolete. And why is that? because some people think that records sound better and they do care and are willing to spend their money on them. And the labels want their so as long as enough people think that way records will exist and record labels will cater to them a lot more than Joe 6pack that goes on youtube to get the song (with video for free) because as long as there is noise it is good enough.

Same here. Physical media (because of BD for now) has much better PQ and AQ so as long as that is true people that care about AQ and PQ will continue to buy physical media instead of DD, physical media allows you, with no other expense, to have a copy of a movie at home that can be taken anywhere and watched when you want and on any device you want, as long as that is true there will be people that prefer it....

[steve1971]

Anthony Wood has got to be out of his freakin mind for making a statement like that but really its no surprise because people have been saying that ever since Blu ray came out. Blu will continue to roll on long before Ruku is even around.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by prerich

I want to agree with you - however a few things can change that:

1. Downloads offer more profits
2. Most people have turned intor consumers of movies instead of collectors
3. Internet bandwith is getting bigger (Fiber to homes ect)

Theses are the reasons I'm worried - especially reason #1 - (Companies are now just looking at the bottom line - the dollar).
I like superior quality - but I'm not a collector - I only buy movies that I want to watch over and over again (that's part of quality too) ....and now there are so few! I only buy what I consider reference titles - the ones I want. I buy movies - just not in the hoards that I've seen some people buy them.

you are missing the obvious.

for #1: distribution (physical or digital is cheap compared to the price) it is not about more profit (as in makeing more $ per sale which is always good) but just making more sales. There is a reason I went to HMV Thursday and bought 6 movies on BDs for 20$ and the new SH for 25$ because the studio thinks I will spend 20$+ for SH while they don't think I am willing to spend more then 3$ for those other films. So why would a studio risk losing Anthony's sale of a title if there is a chance he won't buy it on DD because he wants it on BD?

for #2 most people have always been "consumers of movies" instead of collectors. That is why movie rental places have always existed. So I don't see where you see a change. All the collectors I know still collect and all the renters I know still rent. Like the saying goes the Leopard does not change his spots.

and for #3 I agree, but people need to be realistic. His argument was data caps. But his first point was quality. I agree that over time it will be easier to have the crap quality now offered by any streaming service, but it is miles away from the quality offered by BD today and look at this place there is 3D and 4K that will up the ante from where we are today. 2016 is right around the corner, do you think by then it will be cheap so that everyone has a 90Mbps 2TB a month link? That is what would realistically be needed for people to be able to stream BD quality for mild use.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by jpthomas27

They live, but are on life support!!

how are CDs on life support, that is the most rediculious thing I ever read.


In 2011 for the first time in the US digital music has surpassed physical media by very little and it has 50.3 % of the market. http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8613...asses-physical with CD being mostly everything else.

If one expands and looks at the world.

Originally Posted by ifpi

Globally, 32 per cent of music industry revenues come from digital sources

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_...s/dmr2012.html

so basicaly you beleive the leader by far is on life support? and all but eliminated after a decade with digital sales barely growing and CD sales barely slowing down?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by octagon

No offense, but as weasel words go, 'at some point' have to be right up there.

At some point we're going to cure cancer, wean ourselves from fossil fuels and the Chicago Cubs will only be one year away from a World Series win.

So what?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

More weasel words. "Many Countries". How about relevant ones? Blu-Ray is growing faster than Digital Distribution sell-through in the countries that matter. Countries like the US.

not to be a pain, but the US was one of trhose countries where vinyl sales have grew last year

http://digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120104vinyl

[Cevolution]

This is a little off topic but I just found this amusing. A few days ago I was involved in a conversation with my fiancée's friends husband, anyway he started telling me about how he was looking at purchasing some expensive headphones for his iPod to get the best quality out of it. The thing is that he downloads the lowest quality files to fit more on his iPod. Personally I think many who prefer digital distribution are just uneducated, but if they had greater knowledge, quite a lot more of these sorts of people would understand what blu-ray is all about and would buy into it. I don't think it's simply about many not caring about quality.

It's like when some of my fiancées family members come to visit and they stay for a few days. They always bring their laptops, they are their whole lives and the majority of their viewing gets done on these small 15" monitors. Anyway, I have a 40" Bravia xbr2 setup in my guest bedroom for guests to use when they come to stay. Often they have movies on their harddrives which haven't had home releases yet, obtained illegally of course, and they want to watch them on the tv. So I connect their laptops to the Bravia via hdmi so they can watch some of these movies. The funny thing is though, they are always complaining about the quality of these downloads when watching them on the tv, they say "why does it look so bad, it doesn't look anywhere near that bad on my laptop?". I try explaining it to them, but they just can't comprehend it. They don't want to believe that there is anything wrong with the quality of their downloaded files, instead they think the problem is with my Sony Bravia.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Cevolution

This is a little off topic but I just found this amusing. A few days ago I was involved in a conversation with my fiancée's friends husband, anyway he started telling me about how he was looking at purchasing some expensive headphones for his iPod to get the best quality out of it. The thing is that he downloads the lowest quality files to fit more on his iPod. Personally I think many who prefer digital distribution are just uneducated, but if they had greater knowledge, quite a lot more of these sorts of people would understand what blu-ray is all about and would buy into it. I don't think it's simply about many not caring about quality.

It's like when some of my fiancées family members come to visit and they stay for a few days. They always bring their laptops, they are their whole lives and the majority of their viewing gets done on these small 15" monitors. Anyway, I have a 40" Bravia xbr2 setup in my guest bedroom for guests to use when they come to stay. Often they have movies on their harddrives which haven't had home releases yet, obtained illegally of course, and they want to watch them on the tv. So I connect their laptops to the Bravia via hdmi so they can watch some of these movies. The funny thing is though, they are always complaining about the quality of these downloads when watching them on the tv, they say "why does it look so bad, it doesn't look anywhere near that bad on my laptop?". I try explaining it to them, but they just can't comprehend it. They don't want to believe that there is anything wrong with the quality of their downloaded files, instead they think the problem is with my Sony Bravia.

I see this too. I was trying to get some very nice headphones and I had to go to a music store to find them locally. I asked to try them out and the salesman whipped out his iPod and asked me what I usually listened to. He had a bunch of '60s-'80s rock which is what I do listen to, but it was all MP3 based. I asked him if they had any music on vinyl or at least CD to listen to because there was no point in trying to listen to expensive headphones to see how detailed their playback was if I was listening to compressed music that had no detail at all. He just looked at me with a confused expression on his face.

[Tony208]

^
It's everwhere.

A lot of retail employees are clueless, companies don't train them enough, and the employees feel they don't get paid enough so that they should take their free time to learn more about the product.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

how are CDs on life support, that is the most rediculious thing I ever read.


In 2011 for the first time in the US digital music has surpassed physical media by very little and it has 50.3 % of the market. http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8613...asses-physical with CD being mostly everything else.

If one expands and looks at the world.



http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_...s/dmr2012.html

so basicaly you beleive the leader by far is on life support? and all but eliminated after a decade with digital sales barely growing and CD sales barely slowing down?

Maybe life support is the wrong word, but there is no way you can make the argument that CDs are doing well. The fact is that the music industry has gotten so much smaller, all forms of paid music, both digital and physical, are doing extremely poorly.

In 1999, the U.S. music business peaked at $14.584 billion (at list prices), according to the RIAA. In 2010, the U.S. record business was at $6.85 billion. That's 47% of the peak and that doesn't even include inflation. If you don't think a business that has declined 47% in 11 years is on life support, then I have to wonder just what your test would be.

In 2010, 225.8 million CDs were sold. In 1999, 938.9 million CDs were sold. That's 24% of the peak units. If you earned 24% of what you earned 11 years ago, wouldn't you say that your career was on life support?

The only argument you can make is that far more CDs are sold than digital albums (225.8 million vs. 83.1 million). But that's because no one is buying digital albums - the market has once again become a singles market, which is what's killing it. You can also say that the decline has slowed. Nielsen Soundscan says that 223.5 million CDs were sold in 2011 compared with 237 million in 2010, but that's still a 6% unit decline in one year. And you can say that the record business at $6.85 billion is still the same size as the DVD business or about 3.4x the size of the BD business.

A business that declines 6% a year declines 50% every 11 years. Do you think we'd be down to only four major labels if the business was healthy?

In spite of iPods, people are spending far less on music than they used to. There are a number of reasons for this:
- competition for leisure time: checking Facebook 500x a day takes away from music listening
- the decline of radio: Conglomerate national voice-tracked music radio has chased away listeners, especially younger listeners.
- the record industry: largely stopped producing decent product, but even when they did, no one knew about it because of the decline of radio.
- the resurgence of the single: Singles worked economically when artists went into the studio and recorded two songs in a three-hour session that were released two weeks later. Singles do not work economically when artists spend months in the studio with endless remixing, etc. Besides, in 1963, singles (albeit two-sided singles) sold for around 64 cents, which is $4.81 in 2012 dollars. Singles now sell for 99 cents and that's when people don't steal them.

So the big record labels have laid off tens of thousands of people over the last five years or so. They're basically just milking the product and hoping for an occasional big crossover hit, like Adele. But it's basically already over. Maybe out of the ashes, we'll see the new rise of independent labels. And maybe a new generation of listeners will re-discover the joys of listening to an album. (But I doubt it.)

[smooththaboss]

Originally Posted by Alucard64

Sorry, but I will always prefer to have the physical media over digital downloads.

ditto

[BluPat]

Originally Posted by smooththaboss

ditto

And I will as well. I will always, ALWAYS prefer physical media.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Maybe life support is the wrong word, but there is no way you can make the argument that CDs are doing well. The fact is that the music industry has gotten so much smaller, all forms of paid music, both digital and physical, are doing extremely poorly.

In 1999, the U.S. music business peaked at $14.584 billion (at list prices), according to the RIAA. In 2010, the U.S. record business was at $6.85 billion. That's 47% of the peak and that doesn't even include inflation. If you don't think a business that has declined 47% in 11 years is on life support, then I have to wonder just what your test would be.

In 2010, 225.8 million CDs were sold. In 1999, 938.9 million CDs were sold. That's 24% of the peak units. If you earned 24% of what you earned 11 years ago, wouldn't you say that your career was on life support?

The only argument you can make is that far more CDs are sold than digital albums (225.8 million vs. 83.1 million). But that's because no one is buying digital albums - the market has once again become a singles market, which is what's killing it. You can also say that the decline has slowed. Nielsen Soundscan says that 223.5 million CDs were sold in 2011 compared with 237 million in 2010, but that's still a 6% unit decline in one year. And you can say that the record business at $6.85 billion is still the same size as the DVD business or about 3.4x the size of the BD business.

A business that declines 6% a year declines 50% every 11 years. Do you think we'd be down to only four major labels if the business was healthy?

In spite of iPods, people are spending far less on music than they used to. There are a number of reasons for this:
- competition for leisure time: checking Facebook 500x a day takes away from music listening
- the decline of radio: Conglomerate national voice-tracked music radio has chased away listeners, especially younger listeners.
- the record industry: largely stopped producing decent product, but even when they did, no one knew about it because of the decline of radio.
- the resurgence of the single: Singles worked economically when artists went into the studio and recorded two songs in a three-hour session that were released two weeks later. Singles do not work economically when artists spend months in the studio with endless remixing, etc. Besides, in 1963, singles (albeit two-sided singles) sold for around 64 cents, which is $4.81 in 2012 dollars. Singles now sell for 99 cents and that's when people don't steal them.

So the big record labels have laid off tens of thousands of people over the last five years or so. They're basically just milking the product and hoping for an occasional big crossover hit, like Adele. But it's basically already over. Maybe out of the ashes, we'll see the new rise of independent labels. And maybe a new generation of listeners will re-discover the joys of listening to an album. (But I doubt it.)

I agree with most of what you say, though I think you missed one big ( and IHO the biggest) factor that I think started in my generation (80's) which is the music video/MTV (or muchmusic here in Canada). With the music video taking center stage and playing a larger part it became much more about theatricality (visual) then the music. The issue is that on Youtube the hot babe shaking her money-maker for free looks good, but then when all you have is the music and you have to pay for it and she really can't sing that well it is not worth it.

But as for the conclusion (how well CD is doing), I disagree because you should see it inside the industry and not take the industry into consideration (i.e. a Ferrarie is a luxery sports car, so you see what market share it has in that category, there is no reason to say it is not doing well because Honda sells a lot more cars). I agree with you the music industry at this point in time is in the crapper, and even though I think it will survive (since people will always want music) it is in critical health. But then wouldn't it be much more natural to describe the CD as the music industires life support (what is helping it keeping it alive) then it is on life support (the industry is keeping CD alive)?


for me it is doing as well as it can in an industry that is in shambles. But you can’t blame the CD for where the record industry is today or where it will be in a few years since none of the reasons you gave point a finger at CDs

[Ray O. Blu]

Interesting prediction. Maybe I'll head on over to Roku.com to enlighten myself on what the heck a Roku actually is.
Never heard of it. Never heard another human utter that word, even if by accident.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

for me it is doing as well as it can in an industry that is in shambles. But you can’t blame the CD for where the record industry is today or where it will be in a few years since none of the reasons you gave point a finger at CDs

You nailed it. The modern media hype-monster and the nature of the music industry itself has doomed the older model.

The new model is Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga. Solo acts, easy to market to particular segments of the audience. One person, backed by lower-tier support from musicians, stagehands on tour, and so on. No hefty songwriting fees, the music is garbage and easy to "compose". Careful image control to keep the revenues flowing to the market segment collected.

Actual bands can't break into that revenue stream, so they don't get the revenues needed to change members, filter to the top, buy the instruments and engineering time it takes to make a real band - so we wind up with album after album of jangly-twangly acoustic guitar junk set to homespun poetry, and that's about it. There's no lack of talent, just a lack of trying to make anything more out of it than the next day's meal.

Everything is so branded, a country music guy doesn't dare have an album where he isn't posed with a cowboy hat on the cover, and the triumph of amateurism that is rap music is now wholly the creation of cynical producers making the same beats of the same stultifying banality for "star" after "star".

No more Hendrix, Zeppelin, Stones, Coltrane (don't get me started on the near-beer that is "smooth jazz"), Joni Mitchell - they're just off the map, there's a diminishing return on that stuff.

It's so bad that iTunes rules, where the dross that is filler on an album with even one hit can be avoided. That's a bad sign. Goodbye, Sgt. Pepper.

The problem is content, not media.