Bill Hunt "CES 2019: "The beginning of the end for physical media"

[kristoffer]

Do you agree with Bill dire predictions herein?
I think physical media will almost always be around. I mean, Laserdisc and vinyl are still available today and the same goes for the players.

CES 2019: THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR PHYSICAL MEDIA
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/m...ts/011119-1500

[Andrew Woo]

Well, since vinyl records, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, Laserdiscs are still around, I suppose Blu-rays/UHD-BDs and DVDs will last for a while. At least as long as I have left to live. After that it's not my concern anymore.

[HDMan72]

I think physical media will always be around but you should buy what you want now and hold on to it because certain titles could be disappearing in the future as we go on. Same for my music purchases on vinyl & cd

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by kristoffer

Do you agree with Bill dire predictions herein?
I think physical media will almost always be around. I mean, Laserdisc and vinyl are still available today and the same goes for the players.

CES 2019: THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR PHYSICAL MEDIA
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/m...ts/011119-1500

Kneejerk reaction: Well, Bill was crapping all over the idea of 4K UHD before it came out so you'll forgive me if I don't proclaim physical media to be dead as a dodo on the basis of a ****ing swag bag given out at a trade show. And Vincent Matsuda of the BDA told a very different tune at CES when talking to Vincent Teoh, but then I guess he would: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=8001

More considered reaction: I've said in this very forum that I do think that the "sun is setting" on physical media (not just 4K but BD as well) and I don't think that can be argued with, at least as far as the major studios are concerned. Disney, Fox and MGM have basically shunned catalogue releasing under their own steam, 4K dribs and drabs aside, licensing out a great deal of content to indies which is a model that has still been eagerly accepted by the other studios who do seem to be embracing physical media otherwise under their own aegis e.g. Universal, Warners, Paramount.

Then there's also the recent shuttering of replication facilities in North America, that really wasn't a good sign no matter how people would like to spin it. As Bill said, it's that long, long list of indies which will keep the 'Twilight Time' of physical media drawn out for as long possible and the sooner they make the move into 4K the better, otherwise it might come too late.

[Snicket]

Putting the thread title in ALL CAPS really helped sell the clickbait Hunt was going for.

Personally it will be a cold day in hell before I care what Bill Hunt has to say about anything.

[Andrew Woo]

And not to forget:

[bookcase]

I've been hearing about the death of physical media almost as long as I've been a member of this forum. I don't buy it. Maybe it's not in its heyday, but I don't see it going anywhere in my lifetime. And replaced by Artificial Intelligence? Only the tech companies believe that's a possibility.

[RefractiveIndex]

I don't think physical media is going anywhere for the foreseeable future. 4k UHD is being adopted with far more enthusiasm than BD ever was a decade ago and that's before streaming had reached the mainstream. In the UK, physical media spending accounts for 59% of transactional sales(individual title purchases) so it's still an extremely important source of revenue that won't be given up easily.

We have yet to see the ramification of what will happen when studios start running their own exclusive streaming services such as Disney which may begin to frustrate consumers and open up another niche for physical media for those who don't want to deal with juggling so many services and possible abuse of pricing.

In a far-flung future when bandwidth is possibly plentiful, reliable and easily accessible anywhere then maybe physical media will have had its day.

[GenPion]

There's no denying that the market has changed. More and more people choose to simply stream movies exclusively. Convenience is a big factor. Now that some people actually choose to watch movies regularly on cell phones or tablets, it's simply a fact that the times are changing when it comes to media.

However, physical media is not about to disappear altogether. While I don't think it's as big a priority for many, the most dedicated film fans will continue to collect catalog titles from the smaller labels and 4K releases are going to continue to be released for the most serious enthusiasts.

It's a market that continues to shift and evolve but to think it's all going away is hyperbole. There's still loads of releases that come out.

[Guydowood]

and if Physical Media was 'dying' then I would think the major studios would have no interest in licensing out catalog titles to the independent labels.

[Poya]

Quality > Convenience.

[mysticwaterfall]

Considering they still somehow make and sell a lot of CDs, I think physical media will be with us for a long time to come. Will it be niche? Yes. Will somethings never come to 4K? Also yes, like a lot of things are DVD only. But I would be very surprised if it goes away in my lifetime at least. Heck, even on Deep Space 9 we see Jake Sisko giving a physical book to to his Dad

[philip74]

What worries me much more is the fact that Netflix is really getting into quality movies now and that

Bright
Bird Box
Velvet Buzzsaw
Triple Frontier
The Iceman

will probably never be out on physical media!

[philip74]

http://collider.com/netflix-blu-rays/#commentaries

[ray0414]

The numbers from the BDA suggest that 4k BD is growing quite steadily and will help keep physical media afloat for a while. Sounds like clickbait by Bill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oZ9...ature=youtu.be

[Esox50]

It's just the set up & pre-cursor for him shutting down The Digital Bits. Think about it...all his sources at studios have dried up or been downsized. He gets his release info from forums and Intl retailers jumping gun on pre-orders. He hardly updates the site. He didn't go to CES this year. Every few months he asks for donations to "support the Bits." And recently he posted he has been writing a book.

The writing is on the wall...

[bruceames]

Physical media continues to decline, but it's driven by DVD, which declined 23% last year. Combined Blu-ray/UHD was down less than 2%. Separately, Blu-ray was down 8% (which was an improvement over last year) and UHD BD was up 70% (according to the DEG Report)

I continue to be pleasantly surprised at how much catalog we're seeing on UHD BD, although I do wish some of the indies would get on board.

[lgans316]

Oh please no. I love physical media just like the kids love building real Lego blocks using their own hands instead of building it via a phone or tablet. The day physical media is gone will probably be the saddest day in my life as it is in my bloodstream for decades.

What's next to go? Home theater AVRs plus standalone speakers in favour of sound bars that playback these Disney Atmouse mixes effortlessly?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by kristoffer

Do you agree with Bill dire predictions herein?
I think physical media will almost always be around. I mean, Laserdisc and vinyl are still available today and the same goes for the players.

CES 2019: THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR PHYSICAL MEDIA
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/m...ts/011119-1500

No I don't agree with it entirely.

However I do agree with the idea that 1080p Blu-ray will be the last destination for a lot of films/TV shows. HDR isn't cost effective or appropriate for all films/TV shows and 4K resolution by itself has proven not enough of a boost from regular 1080p Blu-ray to the average consumer. If they remastered the entire original star trek series in 4K HDR, first I'm not sure how much an improvement it would show, and second I'm not sure consumers would be flocking to the stores to upgrade their already very good Blu-rays.

So I think what we'll see, if something can benefit from and is not very costly to remaster in HDR, then you may see a 4K UHD disc - otherwise you probably will only see 1080p Blu-ray tops as 4K SDR seems to be too difficult to market to most consumers.

4K UHD in a way reminds me of multichannel SACD. It's definitely a technical improvement from the prior format and if content can benefit the difference is significant. However its not something you can do in a cost effective manner with every piece of content and hence may not get the mass appeal it needs to move beyond niche. I just don't see 4K UHD being a successful replacement for Blu-ray, and I think will do much worse than Blu-ray did in partially unseating DVD.

[nick4Knight]

Originally Posted by Esox50

It's just the set up & pre-cursor for him shutting down The Digital Bits. Think about it...all his sources at studios have dried up or been downsized. He gets his release info from forums and Intl retailers jumping gun on pre-orders. He hardly updates the site. He didn't go to CES this year. Every few months he asks for donations to "support the Bits." And recently he posted he has been writing a book.

The writing is on the wall...

Yup lol Hate to say it but this is a giant pile of bitterness by Hunt. He is trying to poison the home video well because of sour grapes at his place in the industry is not assured like it used to be -- Not our fault he failed to diversify his revenue streams or start a patreon a few years back when it was a new platform. Many legitimate opportunities were possible to not just ask donations but to deliver stuff back to the community for crowd sourced avenues.

Think we can safely transpose "physical media" in the title with The Digital Bits and easily explain the motivation of this w@nk hit piece.

How many years now have we heard physical media's end is nigh. Five? Okay, it's market share isn't majority anymore. That hardly means it's dying. It's competing. The streaming sources don't have all the content wrapped up yet. And they don't deliver a comparable product yet. And may never do so with the facts about internet capability broadly in the western world.