Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Why do people keep saying evolving? It isn’t evolving at all, it’s catering to a generation with low attention spans. Let’s not paint it to be something it isn’t.

Finally unlike you, as time goes by I can see one replacing the other. Especially with the near universal
availability of smartphones. Sad times ahead. The end times in fact, if you happen to be a lover of film.

Attention spans are NOT getting shorter despite your insistence to the contrary. Science says you are WRONG. Most rational minded people will side with that science over your ravings any day. Regardless, scientific fact does not need your approval to be true.

You conflate a behavior that you dislike, namely young people enjoying short form content viewed on mobile devices, with being the result of an imaginary decline in attention spans. It does not even occur to you that they are simply enjoying one of the many forms of entertainment available to them.

There is ZERO data to show that any long form content is under threat. There is ZERO data to show that TVs are under threat. There is ZERO evidence to support a single nonsensical thing you predict.

End times, indeed, have you any idea how absolutely insane that makes you appear?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

YouTube says hello. Are you telling me the king of short form content hasn’t took eyeballs away?

youtube has been around since 2005; where is the data showing a decline in long form content or in the sales of TVs? That's right; there is NONE. 13 years of youtube and not a shred of data showing any threat to long form content- this further shows just how utterly absurd your predictions are.

Short form content dates back to the first minute length movies from circa 1888.

The Nickelodeon theaters showed shorts beginning in 1905 thru about 1915.

Movie theaters showed shorts before the featured film for several decades.

Television variety/ comedy shows feature short skits to this day.

Short form content is ancient and all the while long form content has thrived along beside it as have the TVs themselves.

There is no evidence that shows that viewing short form content, vertically framed or not, viewed on any device whatsoever, is harming long form content nor is it harming large screen TVs.

"No facts, all fiction, all day, everyday" should be in your signature.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Why do people keep saying evolving? It isn’t evolving at all, it’s catering to a generation with low attention spans. Let’s not paint it to be something it isn’t.

Finally unlike you, as time goes by I can see one replacing the other. Especially with the near universal
availability of smartphones. Sad times ahead. The end times in fact, if you happen to be a lover of film.

Because it is evolving with there being more options.

Movies aren't going anywhere. Are you living in an alternate universe where Avengers Infinity War didn't rack up all kinds of huge numbers?

TV shows in roughly traditional length aren't going anywhere. There are hundreds of TV channels that use that standard format, and despite what variation does exist, most of the original programming on Netflix, Hulu, etc. run roughly in the same time lengths (just without the restriction of having to fit a very rigid time slot).

That's not all going to come crashing down to an end because of the co-existence of some short form programming.

Originally Posted by Steedeel

YouTube says hello. Are you telling me the king of short form content hasn’t took eyeballs away?

As I said in my earlier post, in addition to traditional TV and movies, I also watch Youtube content. There is some good stuff on there, and some of it more interesting than what is on TV at times. And I watch some of it on my Smart TV.



You are a lot like a hypochondriac. But rather than worry that you've caught some horrible deadly disease when you have the slightest symptom of a basic common cold, you instead worry that any new variation on and diversion from traditional TV and movie viewing spells the absolute, inevitable, and swift destruction and elimination of those traditional forms of watching TV and movies.

That's not gong to happen!

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

True, but Pet Rocks did not cause anything to decline or exit the market, either. It was just another toy in a vast sea of toys.

That was posted just to show that something with no use could be sold if done right. IMO, the same is true of A/V content, some content creators stand to make a lot of money, others will lose money. Netflix makes some money streaming, Hulu has never made any and continues to lose money, VUDU (Walmart) and Amazon won't say. Verizon/Redbox streaming has come and gone.

There is no telling how many A/V ventures that have been started and fizzled out and I believe this will continue in the A/V world. So I expect to see all kinds of content creation in all shapes and lengths. Some will probably be successful and others will have a short life.

Some good news for me, it appears that Disney may have stepped up and did a decent immersive audio track (Dolby Atmos) for the 2nd Ant Man plus it is a scope (2.39) movie.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Why do people keep saying evolving? It isn’t evolving at all, it’s catering to a generation with low attention spans. Let’s not paint it to be something it isn’t.

Why do people say evolving? Because we've seen all this before.

How does your article describe this programming? Snap tries to reinvent MTV for a new generation. Spiritual successor to MTV's Laguna Beach.

Well, I was around for all the hand-wringing over the real MTV and absolutely nothing came of it. Pundit after pundit decried (short form?) music videos. They were going to create a generation (your generation?) of ADD-addled zombies that weren't going to be able to sit still for 'real' content. Reality shows were going to dumb down the culture and lead to end of 'real' content.

And it was all much ado about nothing.

And go back thirty years before MTV and pundits were gnashing their teeth even harder over television itself. The idiot box was going to be the downfall of Western Civilization.

Except it wasn't.

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Finally unlike you, as time goes by I can see one replacing the other. Especially with the near universal
availability of smartphones.

A lot of people have smartphones. A lot of people had TVs back when TVs were going to kill Hollywood and a lot of people had VCRs thirty years later when VCRs were going to kill Hollywood.

And Hollywood is still going strong.

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Sad times ahead. The end times in fact, if you happen to be a lover of film.

The nice thing about the End of Days is that it's always just down the road. It doesn't matter where we are on the road, the End of Days is always just a liiiiiiitle bit farther down.

I can live that.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

That was posted just to show that something with no use could be sold if done right. IMO, the same is true of A/V content, some content creators stand to make a lot of money, others will lose money. Netflix makes some money streaming, Hulu has never made any and continues to lose money, VUDU (Walmart) and Amazon won't say. Verizon/Redbox streaming has come and gone.

There is no telling how many A/V ventures that have been started and fizzled out and I believe this will continue in the A/V world. So I expect to see all kinds of content creation in all shapes and lengths. Some will probably be successful and others will have a short life.

Some good news for me, it appears that Disney may have stepped up and did a decent immersive audio track (Dolby Atmos) for the 2nd Ant Man plus it is a scope (2.39) movie.

Ant Man and The Wasp? I have to wait until December when the 3D edition comes out in the U.K. Thankfully, I have plenty to keep me entertained in the meantime.

Come to think of it, I still need to watch the first Ant Man 3D. I am waaaay behind in my super hero movies.

As for any content provider, they may come and go, but the underlying constant is that both long and short form content endure. The ubiquitous TV remains a staple of nearly every home. All of it was here before me, it is with me now, and it will be here after me.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

That is one of the reasons I like the MX-980, pick it up, move it, etc., and it lights up. It can do 255 devices and lots of macro’s, just one button push can do a lot of stuff.

I'm a mid-tier Harmony fan and I love the motion-activated light too.

The RF features of the URC line were kind of appealing back when I was controlling string lights and the like with RF outlets but I couldn't justify the additional expense just to replace a keychain remote or two

It would have been cool though.

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I’ve had boat load of X10 for many years.

Heh, I just boxed up a bunch of X10 stuff. When I was looking primarily at z-wave I thought the cost of replacing every outlet/fixture/etc would keep X10 in the game a little longer but then wifi outlets started dropping and that was pretty much that for X10.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by octagon

The nice thing about the End of Days is that it's always just down the road. It doesn't matter where we are on the road, the End of Days is always just a liiiiiiitle bit farther down.

I can live that.

If we live to see the "End Of Days", we will likely have greater concerns than our movie hobby.

In any context, living in fear is no way to live at all. Life should be enjoyed; that's my plan, anyway.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Vilya

If we live to see the "End Of Days", we will likely have greater concerns than our movie hobby.

In any context, living in fear is no way to live at all. Life should be enjoyed; that's my plan, anyway.

Even limiting the field to films, all the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth is just silly. Let's set aside the 'smartphones are going to kill television sets'.

Even the time-honored perennial carping that 'they don't make 'em like they used to' and its popular current variant 'Hollywood is officially out of ideas' carping just doesn't fly.

Sure, Hollywood - like anything else - goes through cycles and phases and some of those phases are more awesome than others. But if you're willing to look for it every era has produced some really awesome stuff and this era is no different.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a curmudgeon as much as the next guy but there's so much to be excited about today it's difficult to know where to even start.

Take this very thread.

We're arguing the best way to view high-definition movies and tv shows. We're arguing about compression and bit rates and just how multi the multi-channel audio is.

We would have all killed to have these 'problems' twenty years ago.

Same with displays. Most of us would turn our noses up today at 65" displays that would have seemed like science fiction twenty years ago but don't quite measure up when it comes to black levels or gray scale uniformity or motion processing or any of the other things we have the luxury of obsessing over.

And content is cheaper and more readily available in more formats and through more portals than ever before.

Woe is us, I guess?

[Steedeel]

I point I was meaning to make before things got out of hand the other day was this:- The second screen has been talked about a lot and that is of course engagement with a phone, tablet or laptop while half watching (very passively) the big tv.
Now, we have a system where the app BECOMES the second screen. A second screen within the second screen. Instead of engaging with social media or whatever while watching the tv, it is now a case of engaging with phones or tablets while having that 1 inch mini screen playing as background noise. Quite a switch and a very troubling development (been possible for a while but it’s being rolled out to desktops, laptops as well as smartphones through Chrome or whatever operating system/organisation the customer prefers.

No one can see this?

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

In the absence of any sales data showing the declines you foretell, it would appear that you are the one with their head lodged in their posterior.

Facts matter, your fiction is just comedy relief.

You can easilly consult any number of fact sheets that will clearly state sales of tv screens have been shrinking for some time.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I point I was meaning to make before things got out of hand the other day was this:- The second screen has been talked about a lot and that is of course engagement with a phone, tablet or laptop while half watching (very passively) the big tv.
Now, we have a system where the app BECOMES the second screen. A second screen within the second screen. Instead of engaging with social media or whatever while watching the tv, it is now a case of engaging with phones or tablets while having that 1 inch mini screen playing as background noise. Quite a switch and a very troubling development (been possible for a while but it’s being rolled out to desktops, laptops as well as smartphones through Chrome or whatever operating system/organisation the customer prefers.

No one can see this?

See it? I don't even know what you're talking about

Are you saying that people who currently watch, say, Game of Thrones on a TV while chatting with their friends on their phones are going to start watching Game of Thrones on this mini-display while using the rest of the phone screen to chat with their friends?

Originally Posted by Steedeel

You can easilly consult any number of fact sheets that will clearly state sales of tv screens have been shrinking for some time.

No, they really haven't. TV sales spiked around 2012 when consumers gorged themselves on cheap flat screens that everybody but grocery stores were practically giving away and overall sales have dipped to roughly pre-spike levels since then.

TVs are doing just fine. They're bigger than ever, they're cheaper than ever and gosh darn it, people like them.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by octagon

See it? I don't even know what you're talking about

Are you saying that people who currently watch, say, Game of Thrones on a TV while chatting with their friends on their phones are going to start watching Game of Thrones on this mini-display while using the rest of the phone screen to chat with their friends?



No, they really haven't. TV sales spiked around 2012 when consumers gorged themselves on cheap flat screens that everybody but grocery stores were practically giving away and overall sales have dipped to roughly pre-spike levels since then.

TVs are doing just fine. They're bigger than ever, they're cheaper than ever and gosh darn it, people like them.

The generation that the industry targets teens and twenty somethings, yeah probably.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

The generation that the industry targets teens and twenty somethings, yeah probably.

Yeah, no, I absolutely don't see that.

In fact, it sounds kinda nuts.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by octagon

Yeah, no, I absolutely don't see that.

In fact, it sounds kinda nuts.

I expect a big percentage are already doing it. Playing a mini screen while browsing on their tablet or phone. I virtually guarantee that to be the case. You basically just exit out of a tv app on the device and the video will still be playing in the right corner of the screen. It’s been baked into the Ipad for a while now. Google have introduced it in their Chrome browser for Youtube also. It’s possible with several apps.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I expect a big percentage are already doing it. Playing a mini screen while browsing on their tablet or phone. I virtually guarantee that to be the case.

You guarantee this thing you didn't even know about until two or three days ago is sweeping the planet. Okay.

And how many of 'big percentage' are watching Game of Thrones or the latest Marvel movie?

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by octagon

You guarantee this thing you didn't even know about until two or three days ago is sweeping the planet. Okay.

And how many of 'big percentage' are watching Game of Thrones or the latest Marvel movie?

I did know about it. 100%. It just caught my interest that Google were introducing the function on desktop and the Chrome browser. In other words, it has caught on. Like I said, it’s a heavily REQUESTED feature. Heck I use my IPad all the time for work and The internet so I was aware of the added function months ago.

Also, I never said it’s sweeping the planet. I said it’s a trend that will grow. And it will.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

You can easilly consult any number of fact sheets that will clearly state sales of tv screens have been shrinking for some time.

I consulted two sources, and, no surprise, you are wrong...again.

As for 4K TVs, the primary type sold now:

"ABI Research expects that consumer demand for 4K flat panel TV sets will drive the market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.3% to reach 194 million unit shipments in 2022."

"More than 100 million 4K televisions will be sold in 2018, representing 44% of total global flat panel television shipments, with almost double that number expected to be sold in 2022.

http://informitv.com/2018/07/15/4k-t...wth-continues/

4K TV sales by year:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...tv-unit-sales/

TV sales generally in the U.S. show modest growth; chart shows only through the end of 2017:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...nts-in-the-us/

Worldwide sales are similar.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...tv-unit-sales/

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I point I was meaning to make before things got out of hand the other day was this:- The second screen has been talked about a lot and that is of course engagement with a phone, tablet or laptop while half watching (very passively) the big tv.
Now, we have a system where the app BECOMES the second screen. A second screen within the second screen. Instead of engaging with social media or whatever while watching the tv, it is now a case of engaging with phones or tablets while having that 1 inch mini screen playing as background noise. Quite a switch and a very troubling development (been possible for a while but it’s being rolled out to desktops, laptops as well as smartphones through Chrome or whatever operating system/organisation the customer prefers.

No one can see this?

Troubling only to you.

This functionality, which isn't new, has not been proven in any way to be detrimental to either long form content or to large screen TVs or to anything at all. As before, any time you come across any thing new or even just slightly different; you race to the conclusion that movies and TVs are imperiled and facing extinction.

It is the conclusions that you draw that are troubling and not because there is any truth to them, but because they reveal your chronic pessimism that borders upon paranoia.

If nothing else is clear to you, it should be abundantly clear that no one sees these things as you see them.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Also, I never said it’s sweeping the planet. I said it’s a trend that will grow. And it will.

Let's set aside just how big this 'big percentage' is.

What exactly is it you think they're watching on these mini-players?

TV shows? Movies? Cat videos? How-to videos? How-to Cat videos?

(holy shit, that's a pretty good idea, actually...if I could teach a cat to configure a router I could be a ****ing billionaire)