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

[Steedeel]

Alchav, are you still hopeful of fibre delivered great looking content? NN looks like it's being scrapped and already Verizon have apparently (I read) started to throttle services that are not their own. Only a matter of time until they move on to fibre.

[master gandhi]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Yes, buy you know me. I want high quality recent releases with the best video and audio. I'm not going to be catered to am I? I thought Digital was the future? Didn't I say all along that meant lower quality. Seems like I either take the hit or do without. First the studios screw 3D lovers (IMO) now they are screwing the UK collectors. I hope disc continues for a decade at least. The alternative is grim. Real grim.

I was mostly joking. You would still have iTunes and Amazon for new releases. If I no longer had VUDU or DMA, I'd be disappointed, but if I had to choose a favorite, it'd be iTunes.

[twobelowpar]

I wonder if "Movies Anywhere" would extend to Canada iTunes accounts. If my Vudu account could only be merged with my US iTunes account, that would be pretty crummy.


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[jhrobinson]

Back in 2012, I decided that I would only buy digital downloads because it was the "future." In 2016, I bought a Blu-Ray player. I think there is room for both physical media and digital downloads, but I find physical media give me more options and flexibility.

[squatting hen]

Originally Posted by squatting hen

Well...I preordered a blu ray for my second disc purchase over the past two years. Lego Scooby Doo Beach Bash. Plan is to sell off the blu and DVD disc since all I wanted was the digital copy, as I assume it will be a difficult code to find on the forum.

My previous purchase.... Guns N Roses - Appetite For Democracy 3D: Live at the Hard Rock Casino for $4.52.

Update.... Just canceled my preorder at Amazon and bought it from Vudu. Vudu's price was lowered to be cheaper on digital compared to the blu, and I had a few dollars of credit. Almost got me there....

[dublinbluray108]

I just read an article from The Guardian Newspaper website which explains entertainment consumption in the UK which accounts for the first six months of 2017. The year on year figures come from the Entertainment Retailers Association which represents home entertainment products and services in the UK.

Physical Home Video sales there dropped by £78 million to £321 million which is a drop of 20%.

Digital Home Video sales increased by 15% YOY (year on year) to £669 million.

Physical music sales amounted to just £198m for the first six months of the year; which is an increase of 2.5% thanks to new sales of vinyl.

Separate sales figures of Vinyl in the UK grew 37.6% to £37.3 million. Big sellers in that format were The Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Divide by Ed Sheeran and The Guardians of The Galaxy Soundtrack. These albums made up some of the top five selling vinyl records.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...-by-ed-sheeran

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Alchav, are you still hopeful of fibre delivered great looking content? NN looks like it's being scrapped and already Verizon have apparently (I read) started to throttle services that are not their own. Only a matter of time until they move on to fibre.

Well AT&T with their DirecTV and Time Warner are pursuing Content, Verizon has some options too. Both are starting to role out Fiber again, so I would say yes to great Content. I'm banking on both to upgrade our Infrastructure in the U.S., and Google is ramping up too.

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by dublinbluray108

Physical Home Video sales there dropped by £78 million to £321 million which is a drop of 20%.

Digital Download Home Video sales increased by 15% YOY (year on year) to £669 million.[/url]

That's even worse than the U.S. where physical shrank by 15% in Q1. I thought Europe was supposed to be a relatively stronger disc market because of the lack of digital retailers. Perhaps not.

The digital number is not download only. It includes subscription which must be the majority of the £669M. If it's a similar ratio to the U.S., EST is somewhere between £119 (37% the size of physical) and £214M (32% the size of subscription).

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by dublinbluray108

I just read an article from The Guardian Newspaper website which explains entertainment consumption in the UK which accounts for the first six months of 2017. The year on year figures come from the Entertainment Retailers Association which represents home entertainment products and services in the UK.

Physical Home Video sales there dropped by £78 million to £321 million which is a drop of 20%.

Digital Download Home Video sales increased by 15% YOY (year on year) to £669 million.

Physical music sales amounted to just £198m for the first six months of the year; which is an increase of 2.5% thanks to new sales of vinyl.

Separate sales figures of Vinyl in the UK grew 37.6% to £37.3 million. Big sellers in that format were The Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Divide by Ed Sheeran and The Guardians of The Galaxy Soundtrack. These albums made up some of the top five selling vinyl records.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...-by-ed-sheeran

No suprise there. Netflix and Amazon are everywhere. Sky store is picking up the slack with rentals along with ITunes and Amazon. We won't get a true account until streaming subscriptions are separated from Digital HD. Disney have a subscription service here and I hear Marvel and Star Wars could follow in the near future. I think the industry has already established that the U.K is a subscription hotbed. BBC Iplayer is huge here and gets a ridiculous amount of usage per month.


Don't forget, anyone signing up for Amazon Prime is automatically a Prime Instant customer and they would count that.

I am going to grab as many back catalogue as I can over the next 2-3 years. It will be vital to have access to my favourite titles as going forward, it will be messy. I will then move on to 4K and I am considering a region free player to expand my options.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Zu Nim

That's even worse than the U.S. where physical shrank by 15% in Q1. I thought Europe was supposed to be a relatively stronger disc market because of the lack of digital retailers. Perhaps not.

The digital number is not download only. It includes subscription which must be the majority of the £669M. If it's a similar ratio to the U.S., EST is somewhere between £119 (37% the size of physical) and £214M (32% the size of subscription).

There isn't a lack of digital storefronts, the lack of UV storefronts are the problem. In other words, the U.K is not protected by a digital locker.

We have Netflix (potentially could expand to selling or rentals) Amazon Instant, ITunes, Google Play, Sky Store, Sony PS store, Xbox store, Talk Talk store and subscription wise we have Amazon, Disney, Shudder, Filmstruck, BFI, MGM, Now TV, Wuaki and Virgin store.

Also, a big factor I feel is the illegal boxes in use in the U.K. I suspect Kodi boxes, Fire sticks etc.. are responsible for the drop in sales.

Bluray is up slightly this year but of course DVD is in free fall.

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

There isn't a lack of digital storefronts, the lack of UV storefronts are the problem. In other words, the U.K is not protected by a digital locker.

Thanks for clarifying that. Maybe having a digital locker isn't an important enough feature to prevent people from switching to digital. Subscriptions don't have lockers after all.

Also, a big factor I feel is the illegal boxes in use in the U.K. I suspect Kodi boxes, Fire sticks etc.. are responsible for the drop in sales.

Kodi/piracy isn't responsible. Digital grew by 15% (£78M drop, physical dropped by 20% (£87M gain). The home video pie doesn't grow much but the size of the slices is changing year to year. If piracy was killing home video the total sum would be shrinking and it isn't. The pounds switched from physical to digital.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Zu Nim

Thanks for clarifying that. Maybe having a digital locker isn't an important enough feature to prevent people from switching to digital. Subscriptions don't have lockers after all.



Kodi/piracy isn't responsible. Digital grew by 15% (£78M drop, physical dropped by 20% (£87M gain). The home video pie doesn't grow much but the size of the slices is changing year to year. If piracy was killing home video the total sum would be shrinking and it isn't. The pounds switched from physical to digital.

Digital EST isn't going to make up for the decline in DVD. Subscriptions will. I think collecting in general is going to be short lived in the Digital realm. People in general, it seems are happy just to watch a film once these days. Or wait until it comes to tv or subscription and catch it again.

[squatting hen]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Digital EST isn't going to make up for the decline in DVD. Subscriptions will. I think collecting in general is going to be short lived in the Digital realm. People in general, it seems are happy just to watch a film once these days. Or wait until it comes to tv or subscription and catch it again.

For us, there is just to much out there to watch the same titles over and over again. With working and having a family, there just isn't the time, and what is available today is exponentially higher than what was available 5-10 years ago.

Subscription services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, are easy and have plenty to watch.

[JustinLH1125]

Never knew this thread was around so I'll put my two cents in. My only experience with digital codes was when they were in their infancy. Back when I only had DVDs, any movie that came with a digital copy I'd keep it until I'd perhaps need to sell the movie. I believe I did that with Rambo 4, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, and the first Transformers, the first two I know for sure were redeemed on iTunes on an old account I had. At the time, I knew the way I was with movies and it hadn't changed, even when I upgraded to Blu-ray via my first PS3. I always seemed to prefer disk to digital because I felt the better quality came from the source instead of a digital stream. Don't get me wrong, there are some movies I own digitally that actually play well, but I've always personally preferred to play a disc, even if it means extra effort to put it into the player as opposed to logging into an account and streaming it.

As far as subscriptions go, I still enjoy my Netflix and Hulu for movies and TV shows and my wife and I have been using them on and off since 2011. However, we've been consistent with the same account for the last couple of years for Netflix. Hulu we ended up scoring a 1 year subscription for like $15 on eBay a couple of years ago, then we found another one for like $35, however now they've seemed to crack down on people selling those subscription codes for cheap. Despite that, it's a service that my wife and I gladly pay for. It comes in handy when we miss an episode of a show we might watch on FOX or NBC and the next day it'll be up on Hulu. So subscription streaming is a good thing. UV streaming has just never really taken off with me though.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by squatting hen

For us, there is just to much out there to watch the same titles over and over again. With working and having a family, there just isn't the time, and what is available today is exponentially higher than what was available 5-10 years ago.

Subscription services such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, are easy and have plenty to watch.

Yeah, that's what I was saying. Disc is the last collectors market. I don't mean Digital aHD is going away tomorrow but it will fade as most Switch to subscriptions. I hate the idea, but I think that's where we are heading.

[wolfpackTri]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Yeah, that's what I was saying. Disc is the last collectors market. I don't mean Digital aHD is going away tomorrow but it will fade as most Switch to subscriptions. I hate the idea, but I think that's where we are heading.

It will not fade. Itunes still allows you to buy music. You can have subscription and also buy digital movies.

This doomsday stuff needs to stop.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by wolfpackTri

It will not fade. Itunes still allows you to buy music. You can have subscription and also buy digital movies.

This doomsday stuff needs to stop.

It alłows you to buy music BUT Apple will want a uniform streaming solution across the board. Music, tv and eventually movies. I guarantee talks will already have started.

Also, you UV guys may soon be under the thumb of Disney if rumours are accurate. Good luck with that! Hope you don't all enjoy adult themed films because they sure as heck won't allow anything like that in their digital locker. Like I said a while back, PG and at the very best PG 13. Disney will be worried about their 'image' by allowing horror or violent thrillers be stored in their Keychest solution.

[abbottd]

Thanks to Zu Nim for putting this together! Here's a link to the list of current movies setup for Movies Anywhere:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...wkdixOJxY/view

[wolfpackTri]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

It alłows you to buy music BUT Apple will want a uniform streaming solution across the board. Music, tv and eventually movies. I guarantee talks will already have started.

Also, you UV guys may soon be under the thumb of Disney if rumours are accurate. Good luck with that! Hope you don't all enjoy adult themed films because they sure as heck won't allow anything like that in their digital locker. Like I said a while back, PG and at the very best PG 13. Disney will be worried about their 'image' by allowing horror or violent thrillers be stored in their Keychest solution.

Where do you come up with this nonsense?

They can license the technology for others to use. It doesn't mean Disney will control everything.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by wolfpackTri

Where do you come up with this nonsense?

They can license the technology out for others to use.

They can enforce restrictions though, that's the thing. It's their service after all.