Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[Takeshi666]

Originally Posted by Alucard64

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

This, about a trillion times.

[racefreak619]

Originally Posted by Alucard64

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

Indeed. It's like digital photo's. Nice and easy, but I always make a photo album of the best pictures to be able to hold it and look at them them without having to turn on a computer. And I watch them more that way, digital photo's on my pc are just the backups incase the album gets lost or damaged.

Same with movies. If you have them on a shelf your more likely to watch them again than when they are all stored on a device or online.

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by vargo

Are you living in a goddamn cave?!

At the beginning of 2012, 19% of American adults owned a tablet.

The consumer entertainment tablet market basically didn't exist before 2010. And two years later 1/5 of American adults own one!

If that's not growth I don't know what is.

I own and love a new iPad. (I'm typing this using it actually.)

It's a crap way to watch a movie though.

It's better than the screens on airplanes. But then, that doesnt say much. Lucky for me I don't often Travel though so I can enjoy movies on my 82" projector setup.

[Shanderson88]

Originally Posted by Takeshi666

This, about a trillion times.

I will add a few more trillion on top of that.

The idea of not owning and collecting physical media makes me sad.

[Abaddon22]

Had a Roku, sold it. Nothing will beat physical media in my eyes.

[David M]

Great, now I feel bad for buying a Roku player for my bedroom.

I love the convenience of Netflix etc for casual viewing of TV shows.

By 2016, owning a Blu-ray player will be irrelevant, says the head of a company whose future relevance is also up for debate.

At an event in San Francisco called the "TV of Tomorrow" show, Roku CEO Anthony Wood opined, "Will people use Blu-ray players in four years? I don’t think so."

Or perhaps the actual truth is that web streaming is just one more way of watching content, to sit alongside DVD, BD, pay per view, subscription satellite and cable movie channels, terrestrial transmission, PC, and (let's face it) illegal downloads. One doesn't have to lose for the other to succeed.

The idea of physical media going away totally doesn't sit well with me at all...

[krazeyeyez]

Originally Posted by Lyris

Great, now I feel bad for buying a Roku player for my bedroom.

I like the convenience of Netflix etc for casual viewing of TV shows.

I've never bothered watching a film on it because the quality is mediocre at best compared to an average BD.



Or perhaps the actual truth is that web streaming is just one more way of watching content, to sit alongside DVD, BD, pay per view, subscription satellite and cable movie channels, terrestrial transmission, PC, and (let's face it) illegal downloads. One doesn't have to lose for the other to succeed.

The idea of physical media going away doesn't sit well with me at all. I don't want to pay for a virtual object. What sort of future do these guys envisage? Kids rushing out of bed on Christmas morning to unwrap download links? Stores being able to pull/alter content whenever they feel like it? Stores getting to control the pricing? The difficulty of getting around region/local censorship locks? Doing away with retailers competing with each other to keep prices down for consumers? Bit-rate penny pinching to save as much bandwidth as possible? Wow, that sounds... absolutely horrible, so no thanks. You can take my physical media from my cold dead hands.

Regretting my Roku purchase now if my $$$ are being used to fund this drivel.

Guy just doesn't know who his competition is... netflix replaces cable, not blu-rays, at least in regards to those who buy blu-rays in the first place. Roku needs to worry about the growing number of 360's, ps3's etc... that all do what it does and more.

[David M]

Agree totally.

Netflix/Roku services have more in common with cable/satellite services: no physical object, not tier 1 quality due to broadband speed restrictions, no bonus features, etc.

Did we have people proclaiming the death of home video when cable/satellite movie channels, or Pay Per View movie services, started?

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Lyris

Agree totally.

Netflix/Roku services have more in common with cable/satellite services: no physical object, non-premium quality, no bonus features, etc.

Did we have people proclaiming the death of home video when cable/satellite movie channels, or Pay Per View movie services, started?

yup, the demise of physical media has been around for over 20 years

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by Lyris

Agree totally.


Did we have people proclaiming the death of home video when cable/satellite movie channels, or Pay Per View movie services, started?

Oh yes! I remember that when First Choice started here in Canada back in 1983 (became The Movie Network sometime in the mid 90's) there were saying that it would be the end of rental video stores now, people would stop renting, no more need to leave the house....Well we had VHS, Laserdiscs, DVD and now Blu-ray as physical media and the video stores rentals only started to slowly die in the last decade. It's human nature to want to predict the end of things everytime new gadgets are available. People have been predicting the end of books since Gutenberg printed the first Bible in 1455

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by wormraper

yup, the demise of physical media has been around for over 20 years

And for some reasons, the losers (Roku, Dish Network satellite, Microsoft post-HDDVD) seem to be the most devoted reporters of it....

(I posted this on a Mac, btw--You know Windows is going to be dead in a couple years, right?)

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Lyris

Agree totally.

Netflix/Roku services have more in common with cable/satellite services: no physical object, non-premium quality, no bonus features, etc.

Did we have people proclaiming the death of home video when cable/satellite movie channels, or Pay Per View movie services, started?

yes, even today there are people proclaiming the death of OTA because of cable and sat. I get odd looks/comments from people from time to time when they come over and realize that I watch OTA, some of my favourites are things like "isn't that stealing?", "I did not know it still existed" or "you can afford ____ why don't you". That is when I like to turn on the TV and flip through the channels pointing out what they can't see and letting them see how good it looks. Now I only have around 20 stations, so it does not compare in number, but in quality and content, I think it is an easy choice.

As for PPV I definitely remember when it first hit the market people and articles proclaiming the death of rental places because "why would anyone not prefer just to click it on their TV instead of going out and getting the film (from people that did not get that you had a lot more selection and that you could watch it when you wanted -since at the time there were no PVRs to just record the PPV when it played and watch it when you wanted)

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

Oh yes! I remember that when First Choice started here in Canada back in 1983 (became The Movie Network sometime in the mid 90's) there were saying that it would be the end of rental video stores now, people would stop renting, no more need to leave the house....Well we had VHS, Laserdiscs, DVD and now Blu-ray as physical media and the video stores rentals only started to slowly die in the last decade. It's human nature to want to predict the end of things everytime new gadgets are available. People have been predicting the end of books since Gutenberg printed the first Bible in 1455

yup it definitely started with first choice, but it was not as bad as when PPV came out, I think because the films were a bit older, that you had limited selection and you had to subscribe to the station all month, it was not as "doomsdayish" as PPV where it seemed I got that ridiculous notion from everyone.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

yes, even today there are people proclaiming the death of OTA because of cable and sat. I get odd looks/comments from people from time to time when they come over and realize that I watch OTA, some of my favourites are things like "isn't that stealing?", "I did not know it still existed" or "you can afford ____ why don't you". That is when I like to turn on the TV and flip through the channels pointing out what they can't see and letting them see how good it looks. Now I only have around 20 stations, so it does not compare in number, but in quality and content, I think it is an easy choice.

Although OTA Broadcast in the US did just about everything to make itself obsolete:
I literally don't know when shows air during the week anymore (now that TV Guide no longer feels them worth listing), the shows themselves are jammed into cattle-car slots without credits or breaks, aired only as an obligation to sponsors, and the folks who used to just Tivo them for later are now told by the networks that they don't have to that as long as last night's episode is already up at Hulu. And even then, that they can "watch it on the go", instead of making time to sit in their living room.

And now those same networks' studio parent companies are complaining that--eek!--people would rather stream than watch TV!
Let us hope studios, who rely on hard-disk sales to pick up the theater slack, never treat their movies the way they treat their TV product. Although someone doesn't seem to notice the difference.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Although OTA Broadcast in the US did just about everything to make itself obsolete:
I literally don't know when shows air during the week anymore (now that TV Guide no longer feels them worth listing), the shows themselves are jammed into cattle-car slots without credits or breaks, aired only as an obligation to sponsors, and the folks who used to just Tivo them for later are now told by the networks that they don't have to that as long as last night's episode is already up at Hulu. And even then, that they can "watch it on the go", instead of making time to sit in their living room.

If someone watches them on Cable/sat (the question that was asked) then there is no difference from OTA, since it is the same station. As for Hulu/watch "on line". I find it OK if I missed something, but I would much rather PVR a highquality broadcast on my TV then a low quality stream on my PC.

As for TV networks hurting themselves, it is even worst here. so I would not complain too much (but still way better than any of the alternatives). Why?

1) most of the networks are owned by parent companies that run cable/sat (CTV-CTV-2 is owned by Bell-sat, TVA is owned by Videotron-Cable, Global is owned by Shaw-cable, Citytv and OMNI are Rogers-cable the only truly private network (at least here in Quebec) that is not owned by a BDU is V. There is also Tele-Quebec that is provincial public TV and CBC/SRC that national public TV and Canal savoire that is run by the University of Montreal and is Educational (i.e. University lectures)

2) Here BDUs (cable/sat) don't need to pay the networks for OTA channels/content for re-distribution (like they do in the US), while they do for speciality channels. So that means that it is more lucrative for the conglomerates to run speciality stations that are cable/sat only then OTA (for example, the CBC will generate money from advertisement -and the government- but RDI that is owned by the CBCF will also make money from each person on cable and sat since it is in the basic package-at least here in Quebec).

3) when digital arrived here in Canada, the CRTC (basically like the FCC) decided that any sub-channel would be handled like a demand for a real channel and the same rules apply. Which makes it hard for sub channels to exist here. And so for example even though Bell owns CTV and CTV2 and Montreal has a CTV channel 12.1 they can't add CTV2 as 12.2 so if I want to watch Arrow, I am stuck watching it on CW 44.2 from the US which is piggybacked to 44.1 Fox.

[Cheeks24]

What in the bloody world is a sodding Roku?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Cheeks24

What in the bloody world is a sodding Roku?

A crappy streaming player (i.e. a device that you can use to access your Netflix streaming for example), which is what makes it so funny. With smart TVs, BD players and consoles that can do what this does , it is on the way to obsolecens faster than anything else.

[vinodraju666]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

A crappy streaming player (i.e. a device that you can use to access your Netflix streaming for example), which is what makes it so funny. With smart TVs, BD players and consoles that can do what this does , it is on the way to obsolecens faster than anything else.

Well Said Anthony brother!!! +1

[KrugStillo]

Just look at it this way. If they kick up the quality with streaming people are gonna have to buy more data from their service providers to support it. Hence it will become just as expensive as the cable everyone is trying to get rid of. Many service providers have data caps and they go alot faster than you think. Especially if you watch streaming content like you used to watch tv. There is one thought, plus hipsters are embracing cassettes now as a music medium again. This will probably not go wide since I don't think studios could give a crap about tapes but they are getting more money when you sell them back then CD's. This floored me but I saw it with my own eyes while I was visiting my friend in New York. I swore up and down that tapes will never make a comeback but for some reason dumb ass hipsters think they are the next vinyl. Go figure. I guess this proves that nothing is definitely going anywhere in the near future.

[MikeCL]

Originally Posted by Alucard64

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

Agree.. people at my job asked me why do I buy movies when I can just download them because they also say they only watch a movie once and that's it..

first of all which made me think.. take a movie with a crap load of extras.. As far as I know no digital downloads come with extras but they charge about or $5 less then the same movie I can go and buy at a store WITH the extras..

I have rented a few movies with Amazon or Vudu but I end up buying the retail disc anyways.