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

[JohnAV]

Merry Christmas gang, may the Home Theater force be with all of you.

Best of Star Wars Christmas Light Show + Mandalorian (in 4K) - YouTube

We are on our 4th year producing Lights on Jenkins Court (located in Ossining, New York). This year's show features a Best of Star Wars Medley, including a cameo by Grogu (Baby Yoda) during 'The Mandalorian' segment.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by tvine2000

Hi Lee we been around this debate more then a few times over the years. Still CD'S are around and DVD and Blu-ray and 4K blu-ray. The doom and gloom players are still spreading the same b.s they did before. Just new players. The studios keep putting them out , new players come out every year. Now why would manufactures and Studios keep doing this if it they were bleeding money. It amazes me ,once in awhile the end of physical media B.S. shows it's ugly head with no proof. Sure they throw a lot of numbers at you ,they appear real smart people. But in the end they are as always full of S*&(T.

I am not Lee; I think that you are quoting me, Vilya, by mistake.

Happy Holidays to you just the same.

[Vilya]

HolidaySpirit17.jpg

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Ender14]

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

[gotmule]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

[cheez avenger]

Wonder Woman on 4K was fantastic. That Atmos soundtrack really rocked the house! I am now ready for WW84 this morning!

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/resear...ended-12-5-20/

Originally Posted by Vilya

That's the first average year over year price increase that I have seen in quite awhile. Even so, discs are still a bargain in my book.

the problem is that it is a completely meaningless statistic vecause it is mixing apples and oranges.


if Tom goes out and buys BDs of movies A,B,C,D each at 10$ the average price he paid is 10$

if Dick goes out and buys the same films on UHD-BD for 12$ the average for him is 12$

If Harry goes out and buys films A,B,C on UHD-BD and a15 film box set for 150$ and uses a "1/3 off if you spend over 100$ coupon" his average is 31$ per item

Tom has a much higher average then the other two. But if we make a less insane comparison where we pretend a box set of 15 films shoui;lld cost the same as a single movie, Dick spend 12$ for the UHD of A, Tom spend t 12$ for the BD of A and Harry spent 8$ for the UHD of A. Harry did not spend more he spent less then the other two0 for A, B and C.

If people bought a bit more box sets and TV seasons/series (and in a pandemic where many are stuck at home with a lot more free time, that is a definite possibility) it is normal that the average will go up while it is saying nothing about prices.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I agree with the first half of your post, but digital purchases are not going away. They kind of compliment SVOD (as disc purchases and rentals once did for each other) and the infrastructure to deliver SVOD just as easily delivers digitally purchased content.

they are not going anywhere any time soon, but I disagree with the rest. digital buys are like a pyramid scheme, it works well as long as there is an ever increasing revenue source (more people buying more stuff) It is not like subscription.

If someone bought a film years ago what the customer spent for the film went to paying content, server maintenance, electricity years ago. To maintain his ability to re-stream/DL that needs to be paid by the person buying the film now. But for some to purchase now you need new content and that means paying for those rights, adding more machines...... so the cost to the service provide go up.

Subscription is a different beast. A subscription service like netflix has to pay for content and infrastructure so at first sight it might appear similar but every month people need to pay their subscription fees (so there is constant known cash revenue and as new content gets added old content get pulled. So for subscription the infrastructure and content costs can be maintained at a workable equilibrium wrt revenue. But the same is not true for purchase where people expect to still have access to the content they purchased.

[Anthony P]

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all. May all the content you wish to watch come in your preferred format.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

they are not going anywhere any time soon, but I disagree with the rest. digital buys are like a pyramid scheme, it works well as long as there is an ever increasing revenue source (more people buying more stuff) It is not like subscription.

If someone bought a film years ago what the customer spent for the film went to paying content, server maintenance, electricity years ago. To maintain his ability to re-stream/DL that needs to be paid by the person buying the film now. But for some to purchase now you need new content and that means paying for those rights, adding more machines...... so the cost to the service provide go up.

Subscription is a different beast. A subscription service like netflix has to pay for content and infrastructure so at first sight it might appear similar but every month people need to pay their subscription fees (so there is constant known cash revenue and as new content gets added old content get pulled. So for subscription the infrastructure and content costs can be maintained at a workable equilibrium wrt revenue. But the same is not true for purchase where people expect to still have access to the content they purchased.

I understand all of the distinctions between SVOD and digital purchases that you have made; it is one of the reasons why I consider digital purchases to be little more than a lease of unknown duration.

Titles, especially under performing ones, can be removed from a digital seller's service at any time, but if digital sellers do this they risk undermining confidence in their service. If my digital titles begin to disappear it will make me more reluctant to buy those newer more popular titles for fear that they, too, will meet the same fate someday when they are no longer the hot new title du jour.

The EULAs that govern digital sellers also allow for the possibility of their imposing a small recurring maintenance/access fee for accounts that see little purchase, or code redemption, activity. Such a fee could also be waived if a customer spends a certain amount per year on new content or redeems enough codes that came with their disc purchases.

Another possibility is that a digital seller could allow customers to download a DRM copy protected file before removing a title from their service thereby allowing the buyer continued access to a title after the digital provider drops it from their servers.

However these digital providers choose to manage their inventory I do not see them going the way of the Dodo. Digital purchases will continue. I also do not see them deleting lots of titles from their servers without offering something in exchange. Angering their customers is not in their best interest.

Whatever digital sellers do, it will not impact me very much as I buy discs almost exclusively. On the rare occasion when I do make an actual digital purchase (and not just redeeming codes that came with my discs) I am only spending about $5 to $7 per title which is comparable to what a rental would cost. A $5-$7 digital purchase will grant me access far longer than any similarly priced rental would, so I see little risk associated with this option.

[gotmule]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

Wonder Woman on 4K was fantastic. That Atmos soundtrack really rocked the house! I am now ready for WW84 this morning!

It will be interesting to see how HBO Max does with its first 4K outing from a bitrate standpoint.

[Vilya]

I finally got to see Disney+ in action last night and I have to admit that what little I saw looked pretty damn good. I knew that they offered among the highest streaming bitrates of any digital distribution service and I could find no obvious fault with what little I sampled last night and I was really trying to find something to criticize, too. At $7 per month, or $70 per year, I can understand why so many people find it to be an irresistible bargain that is as attractive to view as it is affordable.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by gotmule

It will be interesting to see how HBO Max does with its first 4K outing from a bitrate standpoint.

Someone with a ATV4K with its developer menu enabled using Xcode development environment can check that out. See How To Check The Resolution At Which Apple TV 4K Is Playing The Video On Your TV

Once you pair up your Apple TV 4K with Xcode on Mac, you will notice that tvOS interface will now show a new option for “Developer” under Settings.

[cheez avenger]

Halfway through WW84 and it looks great (as great as it can via streaming). The Atmos also sounds great.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Opened my UHD BD complete set of Game of Thrones to find they used stacked disc cases which I dislike. May replace them with Vifa Elite 4 disc cases.

Digital Code, the first thing I noticed there was no mention of Movies Anywhere so I scanned the QR code and it redeemed at Vudu without asking what service I wanted to use.

[cheez avenger]

WW84 looked and sounded great in digital 4K. Not bad HBO Max, not bad at all. The movie was just ok. I have some nitpicks, but the first WW is still miles better.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I understand all of the distinctions between SVOD and digital purchases that you have made; it is one of the reasons why I consider digital purchases to be little more than a lease of unknown duration.

Titles, especially under performing ones, can be removed from a digital seller's service at any time, but if digital sellers do this they risk undermining confidence in their service. If my digital titles begin to disappear it will make me more reluctant to buy those newer more popular titles for fear that they, too, will meet the same fate someday when they are no longer the hot new title du jour.

The EULAs that govern digital sellers also allow for the possibility of their imposing a small recurring maintenance/access fee for accounts that see little purchase, or code redemption, activity. Such a fee could also be waived if a customer spends a certain amount per year on new content or redeems enough codes that came with their disc purchases.

Another possibility is that a digital seller could allow customers to download a DRM copy protected file before removing a title from their service thereby allowing the buyer continued access to a title after the digital provider drops it from their servers.

However these digital providers choose to manage their inventory I do not see them going the way of the Dodo. Digital purchases will continue. I also do not see them deleting lots of titles from their servers without offering something in exchange. Angering their customers is not in their best interest.

Whatever digital sellers do, it will not impact me very much as I buy discs almost exclusively. On the rare occasion when I do make an actual digital purchase (and not just redeeming codes that came with my discs) I am only spending about $5 to $7 per title which is comparable to what a rental would cost. A $5-$7 digital purchase will grant me access far longer than any similarly priced rental would, so I see little risk associated with this option.

agree with you but what I bolded is why I think it is ultimately due to crumble.

You are coming up with interesting and creative work arounds to continue having cash revenue so that the service can continue but they are all guaranteed to alienate some people and so help on the one hand while hurting sales on the other.

[Lee A Stewart]

I don't see the studios allowing any interference in the Digital EST/VOD market which this year will be over $6 billion (NA). Way too lucrative.

[Wendell R. Breland]

I sure hope my small independent cable co. (Morris Broadband) does not get purchased by one of the large corps.

Comcast to impose home internet data cap of 1.2TB in more than a dozen US states next year

Posted on several sites, one here.

[Lee A Stewart]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I sure hope my small independent cable co. (Morris Broadband) does not get purchased by one of the large corps.

Posted on several sites, one here.

The average size for a 2 hour streaming movie is 6GB (HD) and 14GB (UHD). So you could watch 200 movies/month in HD or 85 in UHD. That's a lot of movies.