Panasonic To Cut 10K Jobs, Exit Businesses

[Telemachus]

You know it's hard for me to even think about the decline of physical media with all these movie discs to watch. It's almost like these threads are the only thing reminding me.

[danny24]

Originally Posted by Tim n Tempe

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There is no denying the decline. And as someone that loves physical over streaming, it is painful to see.

Those stats are pretty brutal no denying that. There is plenty of stuff coming out from the boutique labels and a few major studios so they are obviously doing quite well or it would not be worth it for them to make the discs.

[Youreallyareagerbil]

Originally Posted by Tok

What is going to kill the disc market more than anything else is the price of the disc releases themselves. We've gone from $25-30 on a new release 4K to $35 and now we are seeing new releases typically hit $40+. Yes some of us have the income/net-worth to have immunity to inflation but even I'm starting to question if a release is worth what they are asking especially from mainstream studios. Yeah it was cool to get Tombstone but not cool when it was still close to $50 or more if one didn't catch one of the markdowns.

It costs double the amounts you’ve listed to import many North American and United Kingdom 4K titles in to my country, that’s a lot of money to drop for a single title. That’s one reason why I hardly purchase physical media anymore and have given up on upgrading the remainder of my 1080p Blu-ray collection to 4K BD. I have thousands of BD and 4K titles in my collection, between 2016 and 2021 I upgraded about a third of my 1080p Blu-ray collection to 4K BDs, but I basically decided to stop collecting 4K BDs from 2022 onwards, the high prices have made me lose interest.

The second major reason I’ve lost interest in collecting is because it’s become increasingly common to receive brand new discs with scratches all over them because of the poor quality control that’s been coming out of the Mexican replication facility for a number of years, and there has been no effort to fix the problem and stop it from occurring by the studios and distributors. The high prices alone is bad enough, and I straight up refuse to pay $50-$100 per title when plenty of them are being sold with scratches on them.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by cochon

You should back up your own narrative, You are the one making claims, not me.


Talk is cheap, hard, factual evidence is all that counts and so far the only thing coming from you is a lot of blah, blah, blah.

[rebbirds]

Originally Posted by Youreallyareagerbil

It costs double the amounts you’ve listed to import many North American and United Kingdom 4K titles in to my country, that’s a lot of money to drop for a single title. That’s one reason why I hardly purchase physical media anymore and have given up on upgrading the remainder of my 1080p Blu-ray collection to 4K BD. I have thousands of BD and 4K titles in my collection, between 2016 and 2021 I upgraded about a third of my 1080p Blu-ray collection to 4K BDs, but I basically decided to stop collecting 4K BDs from 2022 onwards, the high prices have made me lose interest.

The second major reason I’ve lost interest in collecting is because it’s become increasingly common to receive brand new discs with scratches all over them because of the poor quality control that’s been coming out of the Mexican replication facility for a number of years, and there has been no effort to fix the problem and stop it from occurring by the studios and distributors. The high prices alone is bad enough, and I straight up refuse to pay $50-$100 per title when plenty of them are being sold with scratches on them.

In fact apart from some exceptions (the new Arrow sets of AFOD, FAFDM and TGTBATU, my only blind buy ever) I think nowadays it's much more convenient to collect TV shows sets.

[eChopper]

Originally Posted by Tim n Tempe

the company said it would 'promote the termination of loss-making businesses with no prospect of improving profit.'

Buy the 4K players now. Seriously.

agreed

but they wouldn't be in thisShit if they made 4k players that didn't ShitThemselves on layer changes

Onkyo, Toshiba, Pioneer , Integra ,Denon ,Marantz never had reliability problems until they outsourced critical components to China

When laser diodes were made in JApan , Like Sony did in the late 80's and 90's they were indestructible

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by cochon

Was Oppo losing money when they decided to stop making their extremely popular players?

Yeah because people are cheap and settle for sh1te.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by alchav21

No Hatred or Jealousy, just simple Logic. I have moved on from Discs, with a Fiber connection IMO Streaming looks just as good as Disc. I have always said Streaming from a Server can be just as good as Streaming from a Disc!

This is a point that you continue to ignore, no matter how many times people tell you, I have outstanding fibre, I also have a great ping for gaming, but unlike gaming, films aren’t like for like. The streaming services are heavily compressed, and no matter how good your internet is, that’s not going to influence bit rates.
The streaming services shave bit rates off, to save money and to ensure they aren’t going to exceed carbon use when taxes come.
So picture quality can’t compete, and audio suffers even more.

This is a fact, even if it’s a fact you refuse to acknowledge. Not a single streaming service will increase their bit rates in the future, they will reduce or keep it the same, relying on new codecs, the masses (like yourself) don’t care about fine details and the best quality, but some of us do.

[Telemachus]

How do you think LaserDisc owners felt in 2000 when they knew their format was dead, have to bet a fair number of them still have their collections and throw a disc on more often than not. I do not even see Blu ray or Ultra HD in those straits yet. Even if we only have 5 more years of major studios releases I can deal with that. Boutiques are not gonna stop putting discs out even when that happens. Labels like Arrow or Shout would have a monopoly overnight.

[Chad Rouch]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

This is a point that you continue to ignore, no matter how many times people tell you, I have outstanding fibre, I also have a great ping for gaming, but unlike gaming, films aren’t like for like. The streaming services are heavily compressed, and no matter how good your internet is, that’s not going to influence bit rates.
The streaming services shave bit rates off, to save money and to ensure they aren’t going to exceed carbon use when taxes come.
So picture quality can’t compete, and audio suffers even more.

This is a fact, even if it’s a fact you refuse to acknowledge. Not a single streaming service will increase their bit rates in the future, they will reduce or keep it the same, relying on new codecs, the masses (like yourself) don’t care about fine details and the best quality, but some of us do.

I can't speak for everyone, but when I say "streaming" I mean titles purchased/rented from Apple (iTunes) on an Apple TV box, not the platforms like Netflix and Hulu.

With that established, when I compare titles between the disc and Apple the differences aren't that stark to me, especially for brighter, daytime scenes. So for movies that are primarily daytime, the streaming looks great, like when I recently watched "Pale Rider."

Although primarily darker movies, like "Seven" I got the disc, full-well knowing streaming would struggle with it.

It's also just a reality that with so many boutique labels releasing titles exclusively in 4K on disc, I have to maintain a small disc library.

But I accept that we are on the downslope of the physical media era. It's inevitable that it will go away. It seems that Apple is genuinely interested in improving its services so I hope that when discs die they will have improved their codecs to deliver similar quality. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if Dolby TrueHD is on their roadmap.

I'm pretty happy with my hybrid library and feel it's future-proofed for ate least a few more years.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Chad Rouch

I can't speak for everyone, but when I say "streaming" I mean titles purchased/rented from Apple (iTunes) on an Apple TV box, not the platforms like Netflix and Hulu.

With that established, when I compare titles between the disc and Apple the differences aren't that stark to me, especially for brighter, daytime scenes. So for movies that are primarily daytime, the streaming looks great, like when I recently watched "Pale Rider."

Although primarily darker movies, like "Seven" I got the disc, full-well knowing streaming would struggle with it.

It's also just a reality that with so many boutique labels releasing titles exclusively in 4K on disc, I have to maintain a small disc library.

But I accept that we are on the downslope of the physical media era. It's inevitable that it will go away. It seems that Apple is genuinely interested in improving its services so I hope that when discs die they will have improved their codecs to deliver similar quality. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if Dolby TrueHD is on their roadmap.

I'm pretty happy with my hybrid library and feel it's future-proofed for ate least a few more years.

But the only profitable market is subscription streaming, and even then it will settle on the small amount that do make a profit, look how long it’s taken for Netflix to show profit from when they launched for example, so that’s where the movies will be, especially with exclusives being the pull amongst various services. Digital sales flatlined last year, which is way too early in the format’s life. So I believe that going forward, there will be extra expense IF the data centre’s continue access to digital libraries. Maybe force ads or a monthly charge.

Digital HD was touted as disc’s replacement but the mass market has said “we don’t care about owning movies, we just want access to watch them then move on to the next big release”.
‘New cable or next gen cable (that’s what subscription streaming is)) is disc’s replacement, and we return to the 80’s with essentially, the rental system but online, and no tapes to send back)

As for Apple, they are no different to any other service, they will look to codecs to shave bit rates, not add to them. Although I do agree they are the best of the streamers/service providers. It ain’t no UHD disc though, the bit rates are significantly higher on disc. Apple aren’t going to match those bit rates, not now and not in the future.
It doesn’t particularly appeal to me to be thinking how films will only look good if they are shot in daylight or outside. No such worries with UHD or Blu-ray for that matter. It’s a flawed approach for quality lovers.

For me personally, digital has no value collection wise, so I would just be one of those renters picking and choosing the latest offerings from several services, and of course continue watching my large disc collection and enjoying the better quality, even if I would be mourning the ability to watch brand new films in the best possible quality.

However, that is not imminent, we are years away from that.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

How do you think LaserDisc owners felt in 2000 when they knew their format was dead, have to bet a fair number of them still have their collections and throw a disc on more often than not. I do not even see Blu ray or Ultra HD in those straits yet. Even if we only have 5 more years of major studios releases I can deal with that. Boutiques are not gonna stop putting discs out even when that happens. Labels like Arrow or Shout would have a monopoly overnight.

Many of us collectors knew these price increases were inevitable and have budgeted for it. It’s a passion and it doesn’t stop becoming a passion because it’s more expensive. You get what you pay for.

[cgpublic]

There will be those who will take any thread and use it to air their grievances and create an artificial 'us versus them' dynamic. Speaking for myself, I've been on this board for 17 years and have spent in excess of $30K on physical media, never mind home theater equipment including televisions.

The fact is physical media as a mass market has ended, and without a mass market, there are consequences, such as you cannot reliably purchase a broad selection of new releases at a brick and mortar location in the largest city in America, and many new releases, however many, much sought after and welcomed, are only available in limited editions and or specific packaging, priced in excess of $50.

That's a micro market, not a mass market with shippers stocked full at Best Buy.

Who cares who's to blame? It's irrelevant.

What is relevant is that streaming is at present on track to become a $800B, as in a billion dollar business in 2025, while UHD and Blu-ray is less than $500M, as in a million dollar business in 2025.

That's important, because that's how Panasonic, and everyone else not posting to Blu-ray.com, sees it.

What I'll add is that very few people are complaining that Severance or Andor looks like garbage when streamed via fiber in 4K Dolby Vision & Atmos, because let's face it, it's head and shoulders above cable.

On top of that, and although I'm one of them, there are just so many people who will spend $50+ to buy a Loki or Andor steelbook from Disney who are also subscribed to Disney+.

And guess what, it's not enough to support a mass market.

On topic, the fact is Panasonic is cutting 10K jobs, that's this year, and have informed markets they are seeking to minimize their investment in low or negative growth segments.

With that announcement, take it as you like. Makes no difference to me.

But if you're trying to convince me that Panasonic will still be manufacturing players in 2030, try harder.

[Naiera]

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Tok

What is going to kill the disc market more than anything else is the price of the disc releases themselves. We've gone from $25-30 on a new release 4K to $35 and now we are seeing new releases typically hit $40+. Yes some of us have the income/net-worth to have immunity to inflation but even I'm starting to question if a release is worth what they are asking especially from mainstream studios. Yeah it was cool to get Tombstone but not cool when it was still close to $50 or more if one didn't catch one of the markdowns.

Also this crap of manufactured scarcity is getting old. I get not over producing discs but you know damn well studios have a pretty good idea of possible sales for titles and they purposefully under produce to get away with charging more. The vinyl market has been pulling this crap for years and it may be finally catching up to them with the price creep hitting the vinyl market as well.

This is a niche market that gets smaller every year. The existing customers will have to take on the burden of costs as a result if physical media is going to continue...and that is before even getting into the broader economical inflationary pressures going on today affecting all products and services. This is how every business works. There has to be an incentive for any of the studio or boutique to continue to release discs. It's just the reality of the situation.

With that said, today's prices even at $40 are far cheaper than the $80-120 LD prices of the 1980s and 90s. By comparison and in inflationary terms, UHDs are still a 'bargain' especially considering how far superior the technology has become. $100 in 1990 is $230 today.

People really don't know how well they had it when the format was more 'mass' while inflation was low.

[Tim n Tempe]

Originally Posted by Tok

One thing this list also captures is the severe drop in the number of big hit films which will definitely impact sales. I only have a few of those titles from 2024 whereas the earlier list I have significantly more.

Yeah, it doesn’t matter. Even wildly popular films like GOTG vol. 3 sold less than 500,000 units and films that grossed a billion dollars like Super Mario Brothers didn’t even sell a million units...and that was in 2023. 2024 was much worse, and even took a bigger drop. In fact, the top three sellers of 2024 combined isn’t even impressive.
The market in general is drying up with only the purest of die hard physical collectors (us) caring at all.

Originally Posted by danny24

Those stats are pretty brutal no denying that. There is plenty of stuff coming out from the boutique labels and a few major studios so they are obviously doing quite well or it would not be worth it for them to make the discs.

Oppo dropped out in 2018 because of a drastically shrinking market. That was 7 years ago.
Things aren’t getting better.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

There will be those who will take any thread and use it to air their grievances and create an artificial 'us versus them' dynamic. Speaking for myself, I've been on this board for 17 years and have spent in excess of $30K on physical media, never mind home theater equipment including televisions.

The fact is physical media as a mass market has ended, and without a mass market, there are consequences, such as you cannot reliably purchase a broad selection of new releases at a brick and mortar location in the largest city in America, and many new releases, however many, much sought after and welcomed, are only available in limited editions and or specific packaging, priced in excess of $50.

That's a micro market, not a mass market with shippers stocked full at Best Buy.

Who cares who's to blame? It's irrelevant.

What is relevant is that streaming is at present on track to become a $800B, as in a billion dollar business in 2025, while UHD and Blu-ray is less than $500M, as in a million dollar business in 2025.

That's important, because that's how Panasonic, and everyone else not posting to Blu-ray.com, sees it.

What I'll add is that very few people are complaining that Severance or Andor looks like garbage when streamed via fiber in 4K Dolby Vision & Atmos, because let's face it, it's head and shoulders above cable.

On top of that, and although I'm one of them, there are just so many people who will spend $50+ to buy a Loki or Andor steelbook from Disney who are also subscribed to Disney+.

And guess what, it's not enough to support a mass market.

On topic, the fact is Panasonic is cutting 10K jobs, that's this year, and have informed markets they are seeking to minimize their investment in low or negative growth segments.

With that announcement, take it as you like. Makes no difference to me.

But if you're trying to convince me that Panasonic will still be manufacturing players in 2030, try harder.

I’m not ‘trying’ anything, I’m just pointing out your obsession with this, which harks back over a decade. You are surely familiar with the phrase a broken clock is right twice a day? That’s you basically. No serious collector is kidding themselves, disc is indeed in its twilight years, we know we may have to stock up soon to enjoy our vast collections, you aren’t some all knowing guru, you are just repeating the same thing until one day it’s correct. You will still be doing this in 2030, while no doubt preaching about how the Apple vision pro is the future.

Sorry, but Apple 4K is the economy burger to UHD’s meaty steak burger.

You settled for second best years ago, many of us did not.

Disc isn’t dead yet, my wallet has made that perfectly obvious.

Oh, and read forum rules, dumping on the format and predicting its demise, every year, for well over a decade is against the spirit of this forum.

Shut up please. People aren’t stupid, they don’t need your constant doom mongering and self serving headlined posts.

You, Alchav and Zoetmb should form your own misery cult, and leave us in peace to enjoy the format, however more years it has left.

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Yeah, I've been to Denmark, and agree, it's an all-around bore.

As a native New Yorker, trust me when I say we're never bored, we know how to eat well and have a good time.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Naiera

He predicted this 12 years ago, didn’t you know?

You should know, he wants everyone to know, plus Vision pro is the future, gaming is going to die, film will die, tv will die, music will die, but Apple will standalone in the wasteland, with some unknown future and whatever replaces all those things.

This is the kind of crap I have had to read and from now on, he goes on my incredibly small ignore list.

[Wendell R. Breland]

In terms of physical and digital sell thru global revenue it has, is and will continue to be a small niche market (see chart).

I am just glad that JVC, Sony and others cater to the projector market, Lumagen and madVR caters to the video processing market, that AudioControl ● Bryston ● Emotiva ● Marantz ● McIntosh ● monoPrice ● TAD Labs ● Trinnov and others continue to make AVP (audio/video processor). BTW no need to look for these at Walmart or Best Buy. Some Best Buy Magnolia Design Centers may have some of these items.

[Show spoiler]