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

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Alex82

When Avatar had a colossal box-office success almost 10 years ago, a lot of people were afraid that 3D films would take over eventually and the studios would only care about 3D.

And look, they are still doing "conventional" films and 3D has its place.

Relax Steedeel, even if interactive films become a reality in the future, a lot of film makers will create their films the same way they do now or 10 or 20 or 50 years ago.

I honestly can't imagine a director like say, Paul Thomas Anderson creating interactive adventures if that becomes a reality.

[Show spoiler]

And lets say interactive films are the only thing that studios do in the future... we still have over a century worth of regular movies to enjoy without worrying about such thing.

If it goes all digital in the future will we have sufficient access to those films though? I doubt it.

[Steedeel]

I just see the perfect (disaster) storm of all these new methods of providing content. I have talked at length about OBM (Object Based Media) which treats video, stills and audio as objects that can be manipulated, rearranged and Personalised and it just so happens that interactive content works like a dream within this system. It allows users to shorten any content to suit them while trying to keep the ‘meat’ of the story in place.

So in essence, if you watch, say, Game Of Thrones, you could slash a set amount of time from the episode so it fits in with your commute. I can see it now. More and more (imo) the industry is catering to people who can’t be arsed to sit and watch content without fidgeting or losing interest if there are no explosions in a five minute time period.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I just see the perfect (disaster) storm of all these new methods of providing content. I have talked at length about OBM (Object Based Media) which treats video, stills and audio as objects that can be manipulated, rearranged and Personalised and it just so happens that interactive content works like a dream within this system. It allows users to shorten any content to suit them while trying to keep the ‘meat’ of the story in place.

Yes, and the pause and chapter forward buttons let us manipulate the content to suit our whims too.

What's our point?

Originally Posted by Steedeel

So in essence, if you watch, say, Game Of Thrones, you could slash a set amount of time from the episode so it fits in with your commute. I can see it now.

So what? Is anybody going to be forcing me to slash any time from the GoT episodes I watch?

If so, how?

If not, then wtf do I care about any of this?

Originally Posted by Steedeel

More and more (imo) the industry is catering to people who can’t be arsed to sit and watch content without fidgeting or losing interest if there are no explosions in a five minute time period.

Ah, yes...the MTV Quick Edit ADD argument...definitely an oldie but a goodie.

I miss the 80s.

[dublinbluray108]

From my own experience; whenever a big kids movie gets released in my own country. There are usually tons of kids watching the movie in the cinema with either their own families or school classmates alongside them. It's very encouraging to see this happen quite frequently from Ireland; an seemingly advanced country to little to no access to high speed fibre broadband outside of urban areas.

To give you one example; the last kids movie that I watched in the cinema with my mum from last year was Paddington 2. The amount of kids along with their families watching it with us was absolutely incredible. The place was packed out with all of the seats being filled up just to see that movie. I have observed this phenomenon on numerous occasions when watching other kids movies in the cinema over the years whether it is screenings for The Muppet Movies, Cars, The Lego Movie, Ice Age, Epic you name it. This trend may or may not equal cinema screenings of kids movies elsewhere in the world. But when a cinema trend like kids movies get popular anywhere; the studios & cinema chains will experience huge audiences & box office takings from that part of the audience coming in their direction.

If kids like their favourite movie so much here in Ireland; their parents will either buy the physical copy of the movie or see it on one of the Sky Movies Channels for them to watch on the big screen at home. I don't think that watching a movie as a stream or a download would be a very big trend in Ireland. It is more of a niche trend among people living in the country.

[dublinbluray108]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

https://www.thewrap.com/choose-adven...vie-works-fox/

Sigh.

Why can’t they just leave well alone?

Yep I agree. I think this idea personally is an awful load of nonsense & a pure waste of anyone's time. I do not like the idea of this being put on films at all. I think that some people may suggest this being a very good idea in the short term. They can be open to this idea if they want to opt-in to it. I don't like the experience of allowing a movie being subject to a public vote from a small subset of people watching a cinema screen to attain my perceived outcome of a film. I just think it's whole aim of letting us having control instead of the director is a complete waste of time. I think people by & large would not be in favour of this at all. They probably throw a lot of scorn to this idea becoming reality if they eventually become disappointed if their own choice does not come up on the big screen.

[The_Donster]

Originally Posted by Groot

I dunno man, I could for a film that let's me control Thor with my....fingers.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by dublinbluray108

Yep I agree. I think this idea personally is an awful load of nonsense & a pure waste of anyone's time. I do not like the idea of this being put on films at all. I think that some people may suggest this being a very good idea in the short term. They can be open to this idea if they want to opt-in to it. I don't like the experience of allowing a movie being subject to a public vote from a small subset of people watching a cinema screen to attain my perceived outcome of a film. I just think it's whole aim of letting us having control instead of the director is a complete waste of time. I think people by & large would not be in favour of this at all. They probably throw a lot of scorn to this idea becoming reality if they eventually become disappointed if their own choice does not come up on the big screen.

That I can agree with. It would be fine for home viewing, but at a theater it's gonna leave some folks salty. Unless the idea is people will come back for a different experience if they didn't like the first or want to try something else. Still, seems...odd for a mass scale release.

These books went out of style so maybe a handful of big releases and it's done.

Unless they re-release movies like Infinity War and let me control the ending. Bring it on. Forever and always.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Vilya

How movies are shot is irrelevant.

Disc playback never has to pause for buffering nor does its image deteriorate due to fluctuations in resolution. No dependence upon inconsistent ISP's nor reliance upon overwhelmed and poorly maintained servers.

Having a commercial movie theater rely on internet access to present a public showing of a movie is patently absurd. The fact that theaters DO NOT rely on servers, and the internet connections to them, is ample proof that doing so would be a very, very bad idea. Too many ways for too many things to go wrong.

Theaters audiences expect a reliably consistent experience and the highest quality in image and sound reproduction. That is why they rely on a local hard drive, and SSDs at that. Server based content can not, and does not, meet that standard. Remote access to servers only increases the risk of failure. Audiences dislike failure.

Originally Posted by alchav21

How about Server to Server, you know they can put Servers anywhere, even in Cinemas or your ISP, with Fiber connections or course. The Studios just want to sell Movies, and for their Movies to be secure.

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Regardless of where are the servers are located they are controlled by the studios and distributors. Discs are controlled by the people who own the discs, instead of the companies who own the rights to the movies on those discs.

Well this Thread stalled out, talking about Interactive which is just a Gimmick, and those soon die out. When I talked about Movie Distribution from a Server to a Cinema Theater Server it was on a Private Fiber Network. I'm sure if they are smart they're not running around with HHD's, SSD or Disc from Theater to Theater. They will just Download the Full Movie and put it on the Cinema Server. That is why I think we are headed in the same direction, but of course we use the Internet to Stream our Movie Collection from a Provider. 4K Discs will be for the people that don't have the Bandwidth, or prefer this method. For 8K+ we'll have to see what kind of Mobile Storage Device will be used.

[Vilya]

Theaters get their movies one of two ways, on hard drives or by download.

"Now that all movies are distributed as digital files, they are delivered to theatres two ways. The first method is to send a hard disk drive to the theatre with the movie and all of the trailers that the studio wants to have shown before the movie. Each theatre gets one copy of the movie and will copy it from the hard drive to the servers in each auditorium where the movie will be shown.
The other distribution method that is growing in popularity is to download the movie from a communications satellite or to get it through a high speed internet connection. To do this the theatre needs a satellite reception dish and a library server where the movie is received and stored. Once on the library server, the movie file is sent to the playback server in the auditorium where the movie will be shown.
With either distribution method, the movie is encrypted with a strong encryption system. A digital key is sent to the theatre for each server that will run that movie, allowing the movie to be shown in that particular auditorium. Each key will only unlock that one movie on that one playback server, and only for a specific time period during which the movie can be played. If the movie's run is to be extended, then a new security key needs to be sent.
With this encryption system a single version of a movie can be distributed to thousands of cinema auditoriums, but the presentation of that movie is authorized and controlled by the distributing studio - right down to the individual auditorium and the hour of a particular day."

https://www.quora.com/How-do-movies-get-to-cinemas

Google and a 60 second search yields the above result and makes my earlier post to the contrary wrong. I just done auto corrected myself.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Well this Thread stalled out, talking about Interactive which is just a Gimmick, and those soon die out. .

Its all interactive now!!!! you say it will die out but all media is interactive! It may take a few years but we always get a remake, spider man has had like 10. you think a movie needs more depth well i give you the 3d conversions all of which you can control interactively with a remote.

a bit tongue in cheek but i'm just taking a crack at your its all digital mantra. It doesn't make any sense in the conversation to call physical and digital the same since physical is ownership while digital is a license. The laws are competently different for the two different media types physical does not equal digital in any meaningful way for these discussions. Hopefully my earlier paragraph makes it clear how flawed your logic is when you equate physical with digital.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by veritas

Its all interactive now!!!! you say it will die out but all media is interactive! It may take a few years but we always get a remake, spider man has had like 10. you think a movie needs more depth well i give you the 3d conversions all of which you can control interactively with a remote.

a bit tongue in cheek but i'm just taking a crack at your its all digital mantra. It doesn't make any sense in the conversation to call physical and digital the same since physical is ownership while digital is a license. The laws are competently different for the two different media types physical does not equal digital in any meaningful way for these discussions. Hopefully my earlier paragraph makes it clear how flawed your logic is when you equate physical with digital.

That's not quite right. When you buy a disc, you own the physical disc and (in the U.S. and many, but not all other countries), you have the right to re-sell it, but your rights are still limited. You can't, for example, make copies and sell the copies. You can't show it publicly and charge admission. In those respects, digital is exactly like physical. And the laws are not really different. The copyright law does not distinguish between physical and digital. A published work is a published work.

[x7q3]

If its a movie I really like, I buy it on Blu-ray. With physical media, you get the physical product. You can play the disc anytime you want. There's no Internet connection or Internet account needed. Blu-ray offers the highest quality picture and audio.

Owning the physical product is nice. You get to display the cases on your shelf. Properly cared for, a Blu-ray/DVD should last many, many years. I have DVD's that are definitely almost, or definitely over, 20 years old.

I can see how... if people didn't care about quality, how they'd just buy a movie on Vudu/Amazon Video/iTunes/Google Play, etc. I understand how convenient just clicking a button is.

I would rent movies on Vudu/Google Play, etc, but if I like a movie enough to buy it, I'm gonna buy it on Blu-ray. I even prefer the SteelBook/Limited Edition if available.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

But as you said, you have the right to re-sell the disc. The laws are completely different when it comes to physical and digital in that area.

You have the legal right to re-distribute your physical copy and the studios do not have the legal right to prevent you from accessing your physical copy.

You do not have the legal right to re-distribute your digital copy and the studios do have the legal right to prevent you from accessing your digital copy.

While both physical and digital have legal limitations, digital has far more legal limitations.

No. I touched heavily on this a few days ago.

https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/...-never-closed/

the tl;dr version is that the ruling said that you can't resell the digital file, but you can sell the medium it is sitting on.

It's a little more technical, but you can in fact sell your digital copies in some forms.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

So none of that can apply to streaming, only downloads.

If you have UV/iTunes copies, you're free to download them.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

But you can't sell an iPad full of movies, that's piracy. There's no way to differentiate between the digital version you legally own and a copy of it.

As I understand it: in the US it isn't illegal to sell your iTunes, UV, Vudu, Steam, PSN, XBL, etc. account. But it also isn't illegal for them to ban your account for selling it (or even trying to).

The amount of control a person has over their physical collection versus their digital collection isn't the least bit comparable.

The court I referenced above found it legal to sell them on physical media, such as a disc drive.

You may very well have more control over your disc collection, but besides resale and guaranteed continued access until the disc dies/cracks/replaced by something else...that's all you got. I don't resale (only ditched my VHS because I didn't want them anymore and it was actually my dad who asked and I said I didn't care at the time and still don't) and I'm not worried about continued access to my digital movies. If it all goes away, I knew what I signed up for and I'd venture to guess many/most that have changed do too. I'm free to rebuy them on the secondary market or other format that replaces UV.

If your concern is access, fine don't buy digital. Right now no-one is forcing anyone to do so. Maybe I'm undervaluing money but I don't expect $10-$20 items to be with me until the end of all things so someone having a collection of a few hundred movies (like the average person would, not me, but for example purposes) having to spend $2000 again 10-20 years from now isn't some unfathomable, terrible thing to me. But that's me. Adobe Photoshop 1 yr licensing used to cost more. In some cases, still does depending on the product add-on licensing. It's the way things are going now and people are adapting.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

That's why I don't buy digital and you're absolutely right: no one is forcing anyone to do so.

But as less people buy physical, more titles will only be available digitally. No one will have the ability to guarantee continued access to those titles.



Not true. Most titles that are removed from digital collections will be titles that are no longer profitable to offer. You won't be able to buy them again, they'll be completely unavailabe.

That's why I feel it is important to not only support physical media myself, but to also urge others to support physical media as well: to make sure as many titles as possible remain available to everyone who wants them.

It's not about me personally controlling my collection, it's about putting control of each title in as many hands as possible.

Is this going under the premise that everything at that point is digital? So the dvd/blus/4ks/whatevers next never existed?

There will always be copies of everything...somewhere.

Right now you can buy a 16TB hard drive, store around 320 full sized movies for $300.

I'm sure hard drives are gonna keep getting smaller in scale but with higher storage and a cheaper price tag. Still, right now you can download and make back-ups of everything. You'll never lose it. It consolidates space, allows for customization, you can make your own video playlists, etc if you go down this path. You can set up media centers, stream all over your house, it's an awesome setup if you move around a lot or wish to share media at the same time with someone else in the home.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I'm not the least bit worried about any of the titles that have already been released physical media. Fortunately nothing can make those titles disappear.

I'm talking about the movies, TV shows, video games, songs, etc. that haven't been released on physical media. As more and more people support digital instead of physical media there will be less titles released on disc. That's why I only support physical media and urge others to do the same: so more titles continue to be released on physical media.

Okay. But still, isn't downloading/making backups just a viable option for all of this? If I can buy a movie on VUDU and download the HDX, it's never going anywhere? Am I missing something with this? I'm not even being a smarta** I'm genuinely curious why you have an issue with/don't find this to be a viable option.

Games are a different animal as for bigger, multiplayer games, like Overwatch, it won't matter whether digital or physical exists years from now because the game won't work and as it is it's much more convenient to buy digital games as you can switch games or mirror games easier, less harsh on the drive of the system, faster load times, etc.

[bruceames]

Physical and digital are always going to be around. The notion that physical is going to disappear eventually is ridiculous. There will always be a market for it. To say there isn't would be like saying there are no disadvantages to streaming and that physical brings absolutely nothing to the table that streaming already doesn't have.

Speaking of streaming, it's important to distinguish "a la carte" streaming to purchasing individual movies (EST or, Digital HD). Physical only competes against the latter, as new content, which makes up most of physical sales revenue, is only available (if it is) after the physical sales well has run dry several months down the road.

EST sales growth has already started to stall, around 1/3 of physical right now. So digital doesn't seem to be taking the world by storm the way some people may think. Netflix and Amazon main competition is with the cable/sat arena, especially since an increasing percentage of their content (especially of their most watched content) are their own TV shows.

[bruceames]

Why is it that some movies that are on the VUDU servers for current owners, are no longer available for sale? What is the rational for that? Could it be a sign that they eventually want to phase it out of their system completely? Or that it will cycle back on sale at some point, to try to create some kind of "get it while you can" demand that Disney employs with their catalog?

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Groot

If I can buy a movie on VUDU and download the HDX, it's never going anywhere? Am I missing something with this? I'm not even being a smarta** I'm genuinely curious why you have an issue with/don't find this to be a viable option.

The last time I looked into this it could be done using ONLY a PC and you had to use their app for playback (DRM). UV made a lot of claims and promises about hardware support that was never fulfilled. Now most studios seem to be abandoning UV and singed up with Disney's Movies Anywhere. Let me know when you can download one of these and play it on dedicated hardware, i.e., a Blu-ray player with app.

4K MA downloads, forget bout it. Have you looked into what it takes to play a UHD BD via a PC? It can be done but ONLY after using very specific hardware, software and jumping through many hoops. And it is not cheap .