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

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by russweiss1

Lately they've been checking purses and bags when entering the Regal I go to. It seems to depend on who is in the front lobby as sometimes they do this and sometimes they don't. Not sure what they're looking for. They checked my wife's purse but didn't say anything about the candy bars she brought in.

They can’t stop us.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by russweiss1

Lately they've been checking purses and bags when entering the Regal I go to. It seems to depend on who is in the front lobby as sometimes they do this and sometimes they don't. Not sure what they're looking for. They checked my wife's purse but didn't say anything about the candy bars she brought in.

When I used to work at cinemas (mostly for the free movie watching perk) we were told to check for contrabands, but we usually let people with reasonable food and drink in. The management didn’t want people to bring actual food (I’ve encountered people brought KFC, noodles, several cans of soda, bags of chips — this is more because of the noise —). The weird things I encountered during that year working at a cinema were quite baffling at times. And yes, I’ve seen people setting up a tripod and a camcorder for the Tuesday afternoon matinee ($2.50 tickets, at the time).

[crutzulee]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Oh without doubt. We really were spoilt back then. No spoilers, just confusion over how the skinny guy could ever be a match for the Terminator. And then, we find out.

Will never forget the Collective gasp from the audience.

I’m so down about our local cinema’s plight at the moment. I hope it rises again.

We were excited about a film studio being built very close to my home but it’s laughable that we now don’t have a cinema In our city centre (we have one on the outskirts). Hopefully our local council do something about it

Just like I have so many fond cinema memories, one of my fondest memories about home theater has been experiencing that T2 reveal with my kids as they became age appropriate.. I'm so fortunate to have experienced that and other amazing cinematic moments twice as they are 2 years apart...

[crutzulee]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

When I used to work at cinemas (mostly for the free movie watching perk) we were told to check for contrabands, but we usually let people with reasonable food and drink in. The management didn’t want people to bring actual food (I’ve encountered people brought KFC, noodles, several cans of soda, bags of chips — this is more because of the noise —). The weird things I encountered during that year working at a cinema were quite baffling at times. And yes, I’ve seen people setting up a tripod and a camcorder for the Tuesday afternoon matinee ($2.50 tickets, at the time).

One of my buddies worked at the old Yorkdale theaters and another at Centerpoint (when it was called Towne and country) back in high school... they could share a few war stories with you... many involving a drunken younger me being shown the exit before the feature ended...

[sapiendut]

LOL !! I hated going to Yorkdale cinemas. Too many kids my age yapping in the theatres. I worked at Fairview Mall. I remember at the time watching Last Action Hero in SDDS and Jurassic Park in DTS and shitton more movies. I watched at least 3 movies a week.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by crutzulee

Just like I have so many fond cinema memories, one of my fondest memories about home theater has been experiencing that T2 reveal with my kids as they became age appropriate.. I'm so fortunate to have experienced that and other amazing cinematic moments twice as they are 2 years apart...

Yeah, exactly. I think this is the worst time ever for movies and cinemas. Can we rise again, that’s the question?

[Vilya]

Movies and cinemas will be fine; both have proven to be resilient. They survived the twelve year long Great Depression and every turbulent period since.

[bhampton]

So Excited !

Rick Wright's album Wet Dream is coming to Blu Ray with ATMOS !



I recently re-purchased this on CD. It wasn't on music services before. Apple music in particular is still very confused about Rick Wright and has 4 artists listed and assigned content to the wrong ones.

[russweiss1]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Movies and cinemas will be fine; both have proven to be resilient. They survived the twelve year long Great Depression and every turbulent period since.

Back in 1930 there were 6 billion less people on the planet too. 4X as many potential viewers today.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Movies and cinemas will be fine; both have proven to be resilient. They survived the twelve year long Great Depression and every turbulent period since.

You know what I am like. I get myself worked up about this passion of ours. I’m ok now!

Watched Child’s Play 3 as part of my week long Chucky boxset marathon. I forgot how much of a drop off it was compared to the first two very solid entries.

[crutzulee]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

LOL !! I hated going to Yorkdale cinemas. Too many kids my age yapping in the theatres. I worked at Fairview Mall. I remember at the time watching Last Action Hero in SDDS and Jurassic Park in DTS and shitton more movies. I watched at least 3 movies a week.

If you are in your early 50's then I may have been one of those boisterous kids at Yorkdale....a favourite pastime of my high school hockey team was to get tanked on a Friday night and give our buddy, who worked at that cinema, a hard time...

If memory serves, I saw Jurassic Park at the MADISON CENTER in DTS... later I would wear out my LaserDisc of that title when showing off my first JVC Prologic setup...

I would have been in university by the time I saw PULP FICTION at Fairview on opening night.. I saw a lot of movies there but that's the only one that sticks out... The atmosphere was electric to see if this young film maker's sophomore effort could live up to the promise of RESERVOIR DOGS...

[cheez avenger]

Watched the new Mission Impossible yesterday in IMAX and it was awesome! Oppenheimer is next week and I am now waiting for the new TMNT tickets in DC to go on sale.

Began filling in some of Terry Gilliam gaps in my collection. Got Fisher King and Time Bandits 4K discs. Also bought Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Arrow 4K disc and the CC BD from the current sale. I bought the CC BD, because it has vastly different special features than the Arrow Video 4K does not. I will most likely snag the Time Bandits 4K from Arrow next month since the special features will also be different.

Bought the Brother's Grimm BD cheap off of eBay, along with Tideland BD from Arrow, also from eBay.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

Industry Researcher Has Never Seen So Many Disc Releases — the Majority Bootlegs

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/indust...rity-bootlegs/

From various studios this year I have noticed that some movies being released that the studios ended up losing a lot of money at the box office. For example, the last 15+ Blu-ray movies that I have rented which are new release movies for 2023 and late 2022, the majority of the new release movies I rented have lost a lot of money at the box office. While some movies that lost several millions of dollars at the box office had poor storylines and average acting performance, there were some movies that had around a $30 million dollar budget and only pulled in around $2 million dollars at the box office. And I am thinking how did a particular movie only pull in $2 million dollars in box office sales, in which I felt was a really good movie. Some movies with around a $80 million dollar budget only generating around $20 million dollars in box office sales, which is a big lost for the movie studios involved. While there is a bubble in entertainment content with less people attending movie theaters because of a lack of time, streaming, etc. The other problem is I never seen so many movies from several different studios lose so much money at the box office. Perhaps an internal investigation needs to be made to make sure that someone like Tony Soprano is not taking a cut off the top of the real box office sales numbers. But if the box office sales numbers are true for some movies and studios, then some major change needs to come to the industry in order for movie studio companies to generate a profit. Since too many losses will result in some movie studios needing to merge in order to avoid bankruptcies.

But the other issue is these box office sales are not being made up on home video. It is disappointing to read the article about the majority of DVD sales being bootlegs. Everyone in the industry knows the old year 1997 480i DVD format that uses NTSC, is also the weakest when it comes to encryption (blank DVD discs sale for around 15 cents each). The 4K Blu-ray format and standard Blu-ray format use much stronger encryption since with a firmware update to Blu-ray players new AACS BD+ encryption keys can be downloaded to make new release movies secure and also there exists no blank 4K Blu-ray discs since that format is stamped (pressed) only.

What the movie studios should be doing is that they should stop releasing new releases on the weaker security DVD format and just do streaming, download, 4K Blu-ray, and standard 2K Blu-ray releases. Then if no more movies are being released on DVD it will be easy to identify pirates since all the new DVD discs being sold would automatically be pirated bootlegged copies if the studios stop supporting the DVD format. While blank 4K Blu-ray discs do not exist, there is blank 2K Blu-ray discs and if these pirate companies are capturing the Netflix streams and VUDU streams and placing the movies on blank DVD and Blu-ray discs, then that is a security issue with the streaming providers and not a disc piracy problem. Store bought 4K Blu-ray discs and Blu-ray discs have the AACS BD+ encryption and they are very secure because of the renewable security.

What needs to be done is that the studios, FBI, and other government agencies need to crack down on the small, medium, and large piracy companies. Perhaps if an individual or very small company is caught in piracy, at the very minimum the studio and FBI should give that piracy operation a verbal/written warning that well result in prosecution if a second piracy offense occurs. However, for a very large piracy bootleg DVD company that is stealing several millions of dollars a year from the studios, then the studios and FBI should consider enforcing the maximum penalty of $250,000 fine and 5 years in jail. However, with inflation maybe the maximum piracy fine should be raised to $500,000+.

The studios are losing money at both the box office and on home video. And any fraud or piracy occurring needs to be completely stopped or greatly reduced with tougher penalties for bootlegging companies.

Select quotes from article

“The majority of them aren’t coming from the studios or other legitimate sources — they’re being released by bootleggers. The pirates, or “helpers” as Tribbey wryly calls them, are filling a void in the marketplace as the studios have turned away from physical media to concentrate on streaming.”

“Studios aren’t mining their catalog, he notes, so others are. There were 90 theatrical catalog titles released by bootleggers in one recent week alone, he says.”

“Indeed, as the pandemic accelerated the move to streaming, it also boosted piracy."

“Now it’s literally on steroids,” he says. “They are mass producing this stuff.”

“He says he can hardly blame the consumers who purchase these pirated discs."

“The packaging is slick,” he says. “It’s available immediately, and the consumer doesn’t know if it’s legit or not. Consumers can’t tell the difference. They do not know. They might suspect that it’s pirated, but they do not know.”

“Gone are the days of selling pirated discs on the street corner. Numerous websites are now havens for bootleg sellers.”

[Vilya]

DVDs, for the umpteenth time, are the best selling physical media format of all time. DVDs are also the best selling format right now, too. Eliminating the best selling home video format makes no business sense whatsoever. No sane company gets rid of their best selling product.

Eliminating DVDs will do nothing to combat piracy, either. Blu-rays are very easy to rip, too, so should they be taken off the market also? Even 4K discs are not terribly hard to rip, so we should probably just kill off all physical media to combat the scourge of piracy. All blank optical media would have to go, too, to halt bootleg discs. Any downloaded file and any stream captured online can be transferred to blank optical media, so again killing DVDs would not stop bootleg discs at all.

Pirated content is quite often sourced online and then distributed in a variety of ways. It is very easy to capture streamed content and much of it is in far higher quality than DVD. Once downloaded the more ambitious thieves can sell that content in several different ways.

If every studio ceased to offer their content on any physical media format it would do NOTHING to stop piracy. FTP websites will continue offering pirated content and those who want it can easily download it and then distribute it as they please. These FTP websites pop back up faster than they can be shut down; they are found worldwide. The FBI does not have worldwide jurisdiction nor does every nation have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

Physical media is profitable; you are confusing sales declines with selling a product at a loss and that is not the case here. If discs were not profitable, there would be no sense for anyone to offer them. it is a pretty basic business concept after all; what company chooses to sell an entire line of products at a loss year in and year out?

[HDTV1080P]

DVD’s are too easy to copy because of weak encryption. Consumers will switch over to ether Blu-ray or streaming if DVD discs are no longer made. If consumers and pirate companies are capturing the streaming content and illegally placing them on optical discs then that is a security problem of the steaming provider and not a security issue of the DVD and Blu-ray format.

There is two piracy problems, the first is making exact perfect copies of store bought new release DVD discs because of weak encryption, the second piracy problem is bootleg companies creating custom DVD discs from new release Internet streams because of weakness in the streaming security.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

DVD’s are too easy to copy because of weak encryption. Consumers will switch over to ether Blu-ray or streaming if DVD discs are no longer made. If consumers and pirate companies are capturing the streaming content and illegally placing them on optical discs then that is a security problem of the steaming provider and not the DVD and Blu-ray format.

There is two piracy problems, the first is making exact perfect copies of store bought new release discs because of weak encryption, the second piracy problem is bootleg companies creating custom DVD discs from new release Internet streams.

Pirates are not dealing in discs as much as they once did. In order to stop bootleg discs you would also have to eliminate blank optical media and that would be just as utterly absurd.

Piracy is largely an online operation from start to finish. They do not need to source their files from DVDs or even blu-rays, both of which are easy to rip. FTP sites offer downloads in high definition and even in 4K of movies that are still in the theater and have yet to see a disc release. These are far and away the most lucrative source of ill gotten gain for pirates. It is the latest Mission Impossible movie that pirates want to sell, not a DVD rip of Old Yeller.

Killing DVDs will do absolutely nothing to deter piracy, but it will remove the best selling physical media format and that would make the remaining physical media formats a far less attractive product for studios to offer. Over half of their disc sales would disappear and pirates will continue mining the internet for content entirely unfazed.

[HDTV1080P]

quotes

“Now it’s literally on steroids,” he says. “They are mass producing this stuff.”

"Gone are the days of selling pirated discs on the street corner. Numerous websites are now havens for bootleg sellers."

"The studios are missing out on profits by not plugging the bootleg hole and releasing titles that consumers want on disc, he says. With the recently released streaming action sequel Extraction 2, Tribbey estimates Netflix left more than $70 million dollars of potential profit on the table."

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

quotes

“Now it’s literally on steroids,” he says. “They are mass producing this stuff.”

"Gone are the days of selling pirated discs on the street corner. Numerous websites are now havens for bootleg sellers."

"The studios are missing out on profits by not plugging the bootleg hole and releasing titles that consumers want on disc, he says. With the recently released streaming action sequel Extraction 2, Tribbey estimates Netflix left more than $70 million dollars of potential profit on the table."

Bootleg discs are definitely sold online, but that does not mean that they were sourced from a DVD. The internet offers a wide selection of bootleg blu-rays, too, and these obviously did not derive from any DVD, now did they? Best get rid of blu-rays, too, by your peculiar thinking. Oh, and again, all blank optical media has to go despite its many legitimate uses. We must deprive the pirates of their raw materials.

Extraction 2 is available as a bootleg because it was streamed over the bloody internet, not ripped from a DVD. There is no physical media release of it anywhere from which to source the bootleg. Digital distribution is what makes piracy so damn easy to accomplish not the "weak encryption" of DVDs...or that of blu-rays. Nothing distributed over the internet is secure.

[bhampton]

Piracy is a crime and a problem and either it will get more attention and more dangerous or media in general will just get more diluted.

People seem to want garbage and they have come to the right place because it's plentiful.

The studios plan for the screenwriter strike - Let them go broke.

Hollywood Studios’ WGA Strike Endgame Is To Let Writers Go Broke Before Resuming Talks In Fall
https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers...rs-1235434335/

Good books, Good Movies, ... I for one really appreciate a good story. 30 second videos of people dancing in the grocery store are too modern for me.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Piracy is a crime and a problem and either it will get more attention and more dangerous or media in general will just get more diluted.

People seem to want garbage and they have come to the right place because it's plentiful.

The studios plan for the screenwriter strike - Let them go broke.

Hollywood Studios’ WGA Strike Endgame Is To Let Writers Go Broke Before Resuming Talks In Fall
https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers...rs-1235434335/

Good books, Good Movies, ... I for one really appreciate a good story. 30 second videos of people dancing in the grocery store are too modern for me.

I actually downloaded Tik-Tok out of curiosity. I deleted the app within the hour. Enough said!