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

[twobelowpar]

Yep. The digital code marketplace would not exist without physicals being bought and sold. Furthermore, it would barely exist without your traditional rental shops, which is where the majority of bulk sellers get their codes.

[squatting hen]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

I wouldn't replace them all. But I can be certain that all the ones I would want to replace would still be available.



I have bought plenty of titles on Blu-ray for the cost of a rental. Plus if you're only interested in watching movies once then the absolute cheapest option for most movies is to rent a Blu-ray or DVD. With a subscription to DVD.com you can rent 93,000 movies for less than $1 each.

Also for any prices to be "not what the studio intended" there has to be a secondary market. The only way that any digital copies have that market is if they're included with physical copies. You therefore can't ever buy any movies or TV shows at those prices if they aren't available on physical media and you should be very grateful to all of us that are buying physical copies.

Sure, I have picked up numerous titles previously on blu for $5 or so, but that's not the norm, and especially not for new releases.

I understand that for digital codes to be where they are, people need to by physical copies. That, I am thankful for. Without you guys I wouldn't get to enjoy the majority of films I get to today. If they were not available, I wouldn't be buying digital or physical, and just wait for it to hit streaming. If it didn't, oh well.

It's all about cost and convenience with our household. Right now, today, digital wins out. Not even close. That could change tomorrow, next week, next month.....

I don't see myself ever buy physical copies again. If digital prices increase, I won't be buying those either.

If money was no object, I would have an awesome 4k theater room, purchase 4K blu rays, and buy additional (redeem all) digital copies for the kids.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by squatting hen

Sure, I have picked up numerous titles previously on blu for $5 or so, but that's not the norm, and especially not for new releases.

You can rent most new release Blu-rays for less than $1 each on DVD.com. If you're only interested in seeing them once that's easily the cheapest option.

https://dvd.netflix.com/NewReleases

Originally Posted by squatting hen

Thus, as someone who enjoys the art of film...

Originally Posted by squatting hen

If they were not available, I wouldn't be buying digital or physical, and just wait for it to hit streaming. If it didn't, oh well.

Something about these two statements doesn't fit. You're someone who enjoys the art of film but you'd limit yourself to watching whatever happens to be available on Netflix streaming or Amazon Prime? Most titles that make it to streaming services are ones that the studios don't think they can sell individually.

[squatting hen]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

You can rent most new release Blu-rays for less than $1 each on DVD.com. If you're only interested in seeing them once that's easily the cheapest option.

https://dvd.netflix.com/NewReleases



Something about these two statements doesn't fit. You're someone who enjoys the art of film but you'd limit yourself to watching whatever happens to be available on Netflix streaming or Amazon Prime? Most titles that make it to streaming services are ones that the studios don't think they can sell individually.

It comes down to cost and affordability. Right now, at a few dollars a title it is affordable. If it was $18-20 a film, like most new releases, I could not afford that. It's all good though.

I love a great steak too, but can't afford to go out and get one whenever I want.

I think Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, gets all kinds of titles. They release their own content, and get the obscure title as well as the blockbusters.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by squatting hen

It comes down to cost and affordability. Right now, at a few dollars a title it is affordable. If it was $18-20 a film, like most new releases, I could not afford that. It's all good though.

I'm confused how a new release that you only watch once (like you previously said) would ever cost you $18-$20. You can rent it on Blu-ray for less than $1.

Originally Posted by squatting hen

I think Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, gets all kinds of titles. They release their own content, and get the obscure title as well as the blockbusters.

They have a few original titles and a few popular titles to draw people in. But the vast majority of their titles are ones that they got cheap because the studios can't make much money selling them on their own. You certainly aren't going to ever get any popular new release titles with a streaming subscription.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

They're not constantly updating their movies. They're constantly adding thousands of additional movies. It would save them millions of dollars to delete the old movies that aren't selling and use that space for the new movies.

Who are we talking about in this case? If you're talking about Netflix Amazon and Hulu their movies are constantly rotating between the services after they expire.

Whereas Vudu seems to be continually growing

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

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. You're someone who enjoys the art of film but you'd limit yourself to watching whatever happens to be available on Netflix streaming or Amazon Prime? Most titles that make it to streaming services are ones that the studios don't think they can sell individually.

Not necessarily true anymore. A lot of the indie movies Netflix is snatching up are going straight to their service and I do not see those ever getting a physical release. (I don't feel at home alone in this world, The discovery, Win it all etc)

With Hollywood being so blockbuster heavy I see this trend continuing for smaller movies.

[zodwriter]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

They have a few original titles and a few popular titles to draw people in. But the vast majority of their thousands of titles are ones that they got cheap because the studios can't make much money selling them on their own. You certainly aren't going to ever get any popular new release titles with a streaming subscription.

I see a lot of popular titles on NETFLIX that are current and selling well on disc and digital. It just depends on what films you are looking for. Last time I checked Captain America Civil War is streaming on NETFLIX and that is just one blockbuster example.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by flyry

Who are we talking about in this case? If you're talking about Netflix Amazon and Hulu their movies are constantly rotating between the services after they expire.

Whereas Vudu seems to be continually growing

I was talking about Vudu and iTunes. Alchav stated that everything you buy on one of those services will always be available. At some point when Vudu and iTunes are more secure and they don't think they'll lose many customers if they start deleting movies I expect them to do exactly that.

At this point they are still trying to win people over and get people to switch to digital so it's no surprise that they haven't started deleting movies yet.

Originally Posted by flyry

Not necessarily true anymore. A lot of the indie movies Netflix is snatching up are going straight to their service and I do not see those ever getting a physical release. (I don't feel at home alone in this world, The discovery, Win it all etc)

With Hollywood being so blockbuster heavy I see this trend continuing for smaller movies.

The ones that go straight to streaming subscriptions are the most likely to disappear. Netflix doesn't own any of the movies or TV shows on their service so all it takes is for the content owners to want more money than Netflix is willing to pay and the movie or TV show will become completely unavailable.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

I was talking about Vudu and iTunes. Alchav stated that everything you buy on one of those services will always be available. At some point when Vudu and iTunes are more secure and they don't think they'll lose many customers if they start deleting movies I expect them to do exactly that.

At this point they are still trying to win people over and get people to switch to digital so it's no surprise that they haven't started deleting movies yet.



The ones that go straight to streaming subscriptions are the most likely to disappear. Netflix doesn't own any of the movies or TV shows on their service so all it takes is for the content owners to want more money than Netflix is willing to pay and the movie or TV show will become completely unavailable.

These movies I mentioned are "Netflix Originals" The shows and movies with this branding will NEVER disappear from Netflix...

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by flyry

These movies I mentioned are "Netflix Originals" The shows and movies with this branding will NEVER disappear from Netflix...

That's not true. Netflix Originals are all owned by other companies. Netflix just has exclusive rights to stream them for a certain period of time. When Netflix has to renew the license if the content owners want more money than Netflix is willing to pay then those titles will disappear.

[zodwriter]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

The ones that go straight to streaming subscriptions are the most likely to disappear. Netflix doesn't own any of the movies or TV shows on their service so all it takes is for the content owners to want more money than Netflix is willing to pay and the movie or TV show will become completely unavailable.

NETFLIX & HULU being subscription services should not be expected to keep content that they do not own forever. VUDU, Amazon and iTunes should be able to keep movies in people's personal libraries indefinitely regardless of what studios do. It will be interesting to see if VUDU eventually moves to a subscription model so that they can keep making money off of people with huge digital collections long after they stop regularly buying movies.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by zodwriter

NETFLIX & HULU being subscription services should not be expected to keep content that they do not own forever. VUDU, Amazon and iTunes should be able to keep movies in people's personal libraries indefinitely regardless of what studios do.

No company should be expected to continually provide support for something that hasn't made them a profit in years. I'm not against any company dropping support for their old unprofitable movies. I'm against them making movies that don't work without their support.

Originally Posted by zodwriter

It will be interesting to see if VUDU eventually moves to a subscription model so that they can keep making money off of people with huge digital collections long after they stop regularly buying movies.

That's the other possibility instead of deleting movies: make people pay a monthly fee to be able to access their collection. So either your movies can be taken away or you have to continually pay to access them, both of those sound terrible.

[zodwriter]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

No company should be expected to continually provide support for something that hasn't made them a profit in years.

VUDU, Amazon and iTunes are accounts. They hold your digital movies in your account cloud. There is no reason they cannot keep those films in your account for as long as you have it. I know what you mean about company support but those accounts are not the movie studios. This is why it would make sense for a subscription based platform because in that case people would be paying a fee that allows VUDU or whichever digital provider to continue hosting the movies indefinitely. It's a win/win because people wouldn't have to worry about ever losing their content, and even if those people never buy another digital movie they are safe and the provider isn't fronting all the cost for continually hosting content that isn't selling anymore.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by zodwriter

This is why it would make sense for a subscription based platform because in that case people would be paying a fee that allows VUDU or whichever digital provider to continue hosting the movies indefinitely.

That's the only way it could ever remain profitable to continue hosting old movies that aren't selling anymore. But I suspect they'd lose a lot of customers if they start implementing fees to access the movies that people "own". Therefore I think it is much more likely that they'll just start deleting old movies to save money instead.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by squatting hen

The question was for anyone and everyone. I was just curious how may people actually go back and watch their collection. Now if you have 500 movies, I am sure there are quite a few that have only been viewed once.

My point being, I realized I didn't need to own movies. I owned hundreds at one point, but after a loss, I didn't replace them. As I mentioned, my backlog of titles is extensive, thus I wouldn't pick to watch something I have already seen over something I haven't.

Well I do lol.

[zodwriter]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

That's the other possibility instead of deleting movies: make people pay a monthly fee to be able to access their collection. So either your movies can be taken away or you have to continually pay to access them, both of those sound terrible.

It's not terrible for the simple reason that it would be indefinite. No worries about ever losing your collection. How many times have studios re-released the same content over and over? Double dipping for new content? If you lose all your discs in a fire or during a move you would have to re-purchase them. I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable subscription fee to keep my digital collection intact for life. It probably wouldn't be that expensive because studios would never want people to stop buying content. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some sort of an annual account maintenance fee that only applied to people who quit buying content for a long period of time.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

That's not true. Netflix Originals are all owned by other companies. Netflix just has exclusive rights to stream them for a certain period of time. When Netflix has to renew the license if the content owners want more money than Netflix is willing to pay then those titles will disappear.

I believe Stranger Things or The OA was the first show they owned outright. So I believe that is their model going forward.

And they do own the movies outright

And besides if it does come time to renew the other companies know where the money and more importantly the subscriber base is.

So just more fear mongering...

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by zodwriter

I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable subscription fee to keep my digital collection intact for life.

I think a lot of people would see any fee to access the content they "own" as unreasonable.

Originally Posted by flyry

I believe Stranger Things or The OA was the first show they owned outright. So I believe that is their model going forward.

And they do own the movies outright

I know they don't own most of the Netflix Originals. You may be right that they own some of them, I haven't looked into everything. I'm still concerned about the future of all the ones they don't own.

Originally Posted by flyry

And besides if it does come time to renew the other companies know where the money and more importantly the subscriber base is.

Let's say they're renewing the contract for BoJack Horseman in 20 years. At that point the likelihood that anyone would cancel their Netflix subscription if that show disappeared is extremely small so Netflix isn't willing to pay hardly anything for its rights.

The Tornante Company (the rights holder) is asking for more money than Netflix is willing to pay so the license expires and the show disappears. If The Torante Company was willing to take whatever Netflix was offering then Netflix would low-ball them on future shows so it's a better business decision to just let the contract lapse.

[zodwriter]

Originally Posted by PenguinMaster

I think a lot of people would see any fee to access the content they "own" as unreasonable.

Except in this case you would never have to worry about losing anything ever. Again even if you kept your Blu Ray collection in pristine condition your whole life, something unplanned could always happen that would force you to have to re-buy your collection. If I am paying a small convenience fee for my digital collection to be indefinitely maintained I'm probably saving money in the long run. Nobody disputes that studios shouldn't be required to maintain content they are not profiting from digitally and this eliminates that concern entirely.

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by zodwriter

Except in this case you would never have to worry about losing anything ever. Again even if you kept your Blu Ray collection in pristine condition your whole life, something unplanned could always happen that would force you to have to re-buy your collection. If I am paying a small convenience fee for my digital collection to be indefinitely maintained I'm probably saving money in the long run. Nobody disputes that studios shouldn't be required to maintain content they are not profiting from digitally and this eliminates that concern entirely.

I don't think that a fee is unreasonable, it's basically just paying insurance.

I think that most people would have a problem with it. "I have to pay to access my own movies, WTF?!"

And the fee would have to apply to everyone. The cost of providing access to a movie to a few people is basically the same as providing access to everyone. So it only works if everyone is paying.