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

[Groot]

Millions of people stream hours of music every single day. It cost less than $500,000 for Spotify to stream music to 30 million people all day and night. You guys are really overestimating the cost to offer digital movies. It’s much, much less than product distribution of physical media.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by Groot

Millions of people stream hours of music every single day. It cost less than $500,000 for Spotify to stream music to 30 million people all day and night. You guys are really overestimating the cost to offer digital movies. It’s much, much less than product distribution of physical media.

you do know the difference in data between a song and a movie right. a person could play music for a week straight and they would use less data then the guy who is streaming one movie. Take whatever spotify has to pay to stream music and multiply it by like 5000 for the economy of scale to deal with doing digital movies.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by veritas

you do know the difference in data between a song and a movie right. a person could play music for a week straight and they would use less data then the guy who is streaming one movie. Take whatever spotify has to pay to stream music and multiply it by like 5000 for the economy of scale to deal with doing digital movies.

You do know that those same cloud servers are used and the cost doesn’t change?

Take two seconds of your day and look up CloudFlare and Amazon AWS. This isn’t expensive. At all.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I don't think you understand cloud storage in the slightest. All data is stored on hard drives. "The cloud" is just access to someone else's hard drives over the internet.

LOL. No where did I imply that drives weren’t used. This shit is spread out over multiple servers all over the place, making cost per gig less than a cent. I actually have a degree in IT management and I have licenses with Disney for some of their copyrights and trademarks for prints and marketing so you can either listen to me or continue to talk down to me.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...nam-style/amp/

Maybe that will explain to you how the videos cost peanuts, using YouTube metrics for an example. Unlike YouTube these servers won’t deal with the constant added content and downloading, but streaming costs less than a penny over a network are the exact same thing.

But thanks for trying to make me out to be a moron.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by Groot

You do know that those same cloud servers are used and the cost doesn’t change?

Take two seconds of your day and look up CloudFlare and Amazon AWS. This isn’t expensive. At all.

You should more try comparing it to google or you tubes expenditures http://www.slate.com/articles/techno..._on_trees.html . It takes a stupid number of servers to stream hd quality movies and all of those hard drives in all of those server have a life expectancy well under 3 years.

Theirs a reason google lost money maintaining youtube for so many years. Streaming video is not at all cheap. Hell at this point you have to bribe Comcast just to get your content to consumers now net neutrality being done away with.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by veritas

You should more try comparing it to google or you tubes expenditures http://www.slate.com/articles/techno..._on_trees.html . It takes a stupid number of servers to stream hd quality movies and all of those hard drives in all of those server have a life expectancy well under 3 years.

Just did. Read my prior post. Still doesn’t equal the cost you guys are making it out to be. On average, it would be $5 million for 100,000,000 movie streams at even 5mbps.

Your guys scenario is no one is making purchases and it’s just running into the ground. The digital purchases and streams pay for themselves. Not to mention the marketing and backside benefits. It nets them just as much money as selling discs and then some. They can learn about the viewer and market.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

So $0.025 per GB per location per year. Let's say a 4K movie is 30GB and is stored in 30 locations to achieve enough backups and good streaming quality in every location.

That would be a cost of $22.50 per year to store each movie. If hundreds of thousands of movies aren't selling anymore that is millions of dollars to store movies that no one is buying. Every year. Forever.

Who cares? In 20 years I hope to god no one is this upset about seeing Kim Kardashian’s old nose now that it’s disappeared from streaming.

Do you not realize that all this data is somewhere online? And in all honesty if no one is watching the content why do we need to keep it like an obsessive hoarder?

The constant influx in content is not going to make this stuff available forever, just like your discs may degrade over time it shouldn’t be a huge deal to replace with other content.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I said no one is buying. I didn't say no one is watching. No one should have their movies taken away just because they aren't popular enough to continue selling.

Optical discs have an expected life span of around 300 years. If they can make it past 125 years they will have outlasted copyright and everyone will be able to legally distribute those movies online.

I absolutely think digital distribution is the best method for public domain content. But for everything else it's better to have a format that doesn't require constant support from the copyright holders.

Someone took the persons paid Kardashians away from them? For shame.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Pressed optical discs have an expected life span of around 300 years. If they can make it past 125 years they will have outlasted copyright and everyone will be able to legally distribute those movies online.

copyright never ends just wait till Disney is about to lose its rights to snow white or Micky again and I bet we see another extension.

Even if they do enter the public domain you will have to find original film negatives and rescan them the 4k remasters themselves will still be copyrighted. with the amount of time copyright lasts it will be almost impossible for the public domain to function at all for films.

[Vilya]

I think I read that the servers in a data center had to be replaced every 7 to 9 years and that a commercial server cost roughly $2000+ each. I believe I also read that each server uses about $732 in electricity costs per year. Collectively, that sounds like a lot of expense without including the cost of the staff necessary to keep it all running nor the cost of the facility maintenance.

As more films become available and in 4K besides, the demand for ever more of these servers will increase along with the costs of running them. Will the incoming revenue keep up with that growing cost? They must think so.

I do not know what it costs to distribute physical copies of a film on disc, but discs are not in circulation indefinitely; they go in and out of print. Not all of them are being distributed at any given time. Sales data should guide the decision on what titles and how many are to be distributed.

Servers need to maintain the entirety of their ever growing inventory in perpetuity while disc distribution can be more easily tailored to meet cyclical demands. Or so it it would seem.

Regardless, it is the studio's business and I have no doubt that all of these costs are duly considered and both methods of distribution, physical and digital, are profitable enough for the existence of both to continue for the foreseeable future.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I mentioned thousands of movies being removed and posted a few examples. I didn't even look at most of the examples I posted and one of them happend to be about the Kardashians. Why is this such a sticking point with you?

You clearly cannot name a movie of merit that’s gone and just trash TV shows or cancelled ones, so it’s amusing to have this much fuss over it. I’d love to see the pages of angry folks that their KUWK seasons were removed from their accounts and they will not be able to remember Kylie before her surgeries.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I think I read that the servers in a data center had to be replaced every 7 to 9 years and that a commercial server cost roughly $2000+ each. I believe I also read that each server uses about $732 in electricity costs per year. Collectively, that sounds like a lot of expense without including the cost of the staff necessary to keep it all running nor the cost of the facility maintenance.

As more films become available and in 4K besides, the demand for ever more of these servers will increase along with the costs of running them. Will the incoming revenue keep up with that growing cost? They must think so.

I do not know what it costs to distribute physical copies of a film on disc, but discs are not in circulation indefinitely; they go in and out of print. Not all of them are being distributed at any given time. Sales data should guide the decision on what titles and how many are to be distributed.

Servers need to maintain the entirety of their ever growing inventory in perpetuity while disc distribution can be more easily tailored to meet cyclical demands. Or so it it would seem.

Regardless, it is the studio's business and I have no doubt that all of these costs are duly considered and both methods of distribution, physical and digital, are profitable enough for the existence of both to continue for the foreseeable future.

Exactly. It’s mind blowing people think the likes of Disney and Universal would be backing and pushing for digital if it wasn’t profitable for them.

[Groot]

It’s on VUDU, still in libraries that bought it. But okay, you don’t buy digital so you won’t know this.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

It's absolutely profitable for them. But continuing to host old unpopular movies will cut into their profits so they'll stop doing it.

I've never known of any company that continued to support their old unprofitable products. It's worth it to piss off a small percentage of customers if it saves millions of dollars in the long run.

I share that concern. They can delete any content they choose and for any reason without offering any compensation. It is written right into the EULAs that people readily accept. They put that language there for a reason and it was for their benefit alone. The inclusion of these terms makes me wary. There is an impending sense of a screwing to come.

Conversely, those same EULAs guarantee practically nothing. These agreements could not be more one-sided in favor of the provider.

With my discs, I only have to contend with that two sentence FBI warning at the beginning of playback; no EULAs. As I have had very, very few discs fail to play across all formats, they seem like a far safer bet to me.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Groot

Who cares? In 20 years I hope to god no one is this upset about seeing Kim Kardashian’s old nose now that it’s disappeared from streaming.

Do you not realize that all this data is somewhere online? And in all honesty if no one is watching the content why do we need to keep it like an obsessive hoarder?

The constant influx in content is not going to make this stuff available forever, just like your discs may degrade over time it shouldn’t be a huge deal to replace with other content.

With respect, that goes against everything I stand for as a film lover and collector. One of the big pluses I get thrown back at me constantly about Digital is the fact you can still have all your films without taking up space. Now that would be utterly redundant if I can only have some of my collection and not all. I may not watch Leon or American History X for a couple of years but I sure as heck want to watch them again (in high quality) at some point. I can watch most films multiple times and I would be pissed if I couldn’t.
With disc, I can return to films I bought 8 years ago with ease and enjoy them in excellent quality.

I also don’t buy this ‘hoarder’ mentality. I have around 850 discs now but I live in a apartment and I am a neat freak. I hate clutter. I have two display cabinets either side of my HT housing all the discs and they look fine, neat and organised. A hoarder makes it sound like we sit in our homes surrounded by discs.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Groot

I can live with that. Nothing lasts forever, not dwelling on it. If an album gets it's tracks removed from Apple Music I don't run to spotify or whatever exclusive service they have to listen to it. I just listen to something else. I don't care enough to get bent out of shape over it.

Originally Posted by Groot

That isn’t how copyright or licensing works....at all. The only time that has come up is when contracts didn’t have home video licenses in general in the contracts and some had to be retooled. Nothing is gonna make them remove a track for a film on a purchased digital copy.

Your examples are mostly garbage cancelled tv shows and Kardashian crap? Yeahhhh.

Originally Posted by Groot

Who cares? In 20 years I hope to god no one is this upset about seeing Kim Kardashian’s old nose now that it’s disappeared from streaming.

Do you not realize that all this data is somewhere online? And in all honesty if no one is watching the content why do we need to keep it like an obsessive hoarder?

The constant influx in content is not going to make this stuff available forever, just like your discs may degrade over time it shouldn’t be a huge deal to replace with other content.

Originally Posted by Groot

Someone took the persons paid Kardashians away from them? For shame.

Originally Posted by Groot

You clearly cannot name a movie of merit that’s gone and just trash TV shows or cancelled ones, so it’s amusing to have this much fuss over it. I’d love to see the pages of angry folks that their KUWK seasons were removed from their accounts and they will not be able to remember Kylie before her surgeries.

Groot, with all due respect, your attitude on this is everything that we are concerned about in the long run, and exactly what the studios and content providers want.

I personally don't give a flying crap about the Kardashians, either. But if that is a piece of content that was offered up for purchase digitally and someone bought it because it was of interest to them, then they should have ongoing access to it. Just as I should have access to any content that I buy, regardless of how popular it is and regardless of how some others feel about it. It's like the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

I'm sure there are at least some movies that you very much enjoy and want ongoing access to that aren't necessarily ones that lit the box office on fire or are particularly popular across the board. If some content is removed down the road, there's no guarantee that none of your personal favorites will be impacted, as opposed to something that you just never cared about in the first place, or weren't as big a fan of.

The problem with your "movies of merit" concept is by what measure is a movie given this prestigious "merit?" There are some that most people would universally agree upon, but then there's other content that would fall into more of a gray area.

It is a slippery slope of justification when we start saying that some titles are okay to be removed, but not others. Because the second that it is deemed acceptable for any content to be removed, it becomes easier for more and more content to be gradually be removed when/if it suits the studios and/or content providers for one reason or another, which will eventually impact content that more people do care about, even if it doesn't impact the absolute most popular titles.

The thing is that digital distribution of movies and TV content is still relatively young. The fact that someone who bought a piece of content a few years ago on Vudu, which now is no longer available for purchase, can still access it today doesn't not guarantee that will be the case 5, 10, 15, or 20 years from now. And if that piece of content is among that person's favorites, but is not the most mainstream/ popular title, then there is a danger of it being removed down the road.

Regardless of whether or not hosting files digitally is less costly than physical media manufacturing, as PenguinInfinity has pointed out, physical media does not have an ongoing cost for any company involved with making and distributing it after a particular title is discontinued and all copies have been sold (in terms of first hand retail).

But hosting files that they can no longer sell does come with an ongoing cost. Even if that cost is relatively minimal, if the number of titles that they can no longer make money off of keep adding up, then over time that can add up to a decent enough of an ongoing expense that they may look at that and consider dropping some of that content down the road. Plus with digital still being relatively young, you have people who have opted to go digital still buying a lot of catalog titles. But down the road, overall sales may slow down when people have bought most of the older content that they care about, and are only buying newer titles. At that point these services won't be bringing in as much money as they once were, while still hosting older files that they aren't making money off of. At some point they will be looking as those costs and considering what is best for their bottom line.

It's true that some discs may degrade or succumb to "disc rot" over time. And that would suck. But in that event, there are still other copies out there, able to be purchased. As long as copies in good condition still exist, there is recourse for someone effected who really cares about that title.

Plus, assuming that any discs were manufactured within reasonable quality standards (and are not defective due to poor manufacturing), on sheer principle, there is something that I find far more acceptable about a physical product wearing out over time due to use than I do about a piece of content being removed by an external party, taking away my access to it. The latter is more akin to someone coming into your home and taking some of your movies, or any other physical items... as opposed to any of those items just wearing out over time. And for those of us buying physical media, since a lot of it comes with the digital copy anyway, we can redeem that, have our discs, and have both forms as a fail-safe if the other becomes inaccessible to us.

"Hoarding" is a word that is flippantly thrown around far too often these days. Ever since those reality shows have brought it into the public consciousness, people like to evoke it regarding any kind of sizable collection of anything (be it physical, or in this case digital), even when well organized and handled neatly... which is the exact opposite of "hoarding."

The bottom line is that if someone pays for a piece of content, and it is not a rental with a specified limited time frame of being accessed, they shouldn't have to worry about it being removed. But that concern is very real.

The EULAs that everyone who buys things digitally agrees to are all one-sided, in favor of the service provider. They technically have the right to remove any content at any time. While I'm sure they will be careful about that, nothing is guaranteed.

Things could be removed intentionally due to costs, or a piece of content could be bought by another studio, or otherwise have the rights to it put into some legal gray area, and it could be pulled temporarily or permanently in regards to those things. And there are many other possibilities beyond that.


Even if time eventually proves that little to no content is ever removed in our lifetimes, we have no way of knowing that now. We aren't being given any guarantees or promises, and what we have to agree to on the digital side of things expressly states that we have no guarantees in that regard. There's little reason for us to put our eggs all in one basket that someone else is in control of and can take away at any time (which they are flat out stating in the service agreement).


Now if you don't care what happens to your content, that's your prerogative. But your mentality on this is very dangerous both in terms of these purchases erroring in favor of the consumer that buys them, and for film preservation in general. If more people think that way, it just further allows them to be taken advantage of in these regards.

I'm sure even others here who have fully embraced digital and purchase most of their content that way would disagree with your overall attitude on these things, and would have a big problem with content being removed.

It doesn't matter if someone has 10 titles or 10,000, and would never be able to watch all of that content more than once (if even that) in their lifetime. If they purchased it, they should have access to it. And even if someone has more content than they can realistically watch, it doesn't mean that the titles that they do regularly rewatch will not be among those effected when and if access to some content is removed.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

That may be true. But at least we'll continue to have access to all the movies on disc for hundreds of years after the digital versions disappear.

I sure hope you read the User Agreement before you signed that immortality deal.

Those things never go the way the signatories think they will.

[octagon]

Does all of this EULA talk remind anybody else of all the dire prognostications leading up to the release of UHD players?

My god, reading those threads you would have thought that federal troops were amassing in all the major population centers just waiting for orders to go all Fahrenheit 451 on our asses.

UHD players were gong to require a constant internet access and providers were going to be able to turn off access to our discs at will.

It was quite the show but at the end of the day all that sound and fury amounted to exactly nothing.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by octagon

Does all of this EULA talk remind anybody else of all the dire prognostications leading up to the release of UHD players?

My god, reading those threads you would have thought that federal troops were amassing in all the major population centers just waiting for orders to go all Fahrenheit 451 on our asses.

UHD players were gong to require a constant internet access and providers were going to be able to turn off access to our discs at will.

It was quite the show but at the end of the day all that sound and fury amounted to exactly nothing.

What was wrong with that? We have a right to be concerned about that type of thing. We live in a reactionary world now, it’s no different regardless of subject. Entire organisations react to social media. Who is to say they weren’t planning this UHD thing full scale before they read and heard about the backlash?

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Who is to say they weren’t planning this UHD thing full scale before they read and heard about the backlash?

Occam, that's who.

is it possible that a bunch of multinational corporations changed their plans because of some posts on some message boards? Sure, I suppose that's possible.

But the much simpler explanation for the disconnect between prediction and reality is that the people running around with their hair on fire were just plain wrong.