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

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

That took a dark turn. Fortunately your predictions are absolutely wrong so you won't get to blame the movie studios and millennials for your death.

lol. I’m just being honest. I love my family and have so many happy memories but they are the rare special times. General life I find quite mundane but films is and always has been my passion in life. Without it, well..........

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I can imagine a middle-aged Steedeel in the 1950s:

"All these darn Baby Boomers are just watching half hour TV shows. Films and theaters will be completely gone within 20 years."

Do you see the parallels there? TV shows were and continue to be more popular and more profitable than movies but movies have survived and thrived for another 70 years and I'm sure they will continue to thrive long after we all die.

Very different times though. Back then, it was film, tv, books and music. Now it’s social media, music, Film, tv, gaming, watching gaming, podcasts, books, user generated content etc..

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by penguininfinity

here's a 1920s versions:

"all these silent generation people are just watching movies. Books, artwork, and plays will be gone in 20 years."

and the 1950s response:

"very different times though. Back then it was plays, artwork, and books. Now it's artwork, film, tv, plays, books, and music."

:d

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

That took a dark turn. Fortunately your predictions are absolutely wrong so you won't get to blame the movie studios and millennials for your death.

It's the vegans and their tofu that will do him in.

[cpr3584]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, mobile videos, streaming shows, novels, short stories, magazines, newspapers, video games, paintings, drawings, photographs, pornography, full sports games, sports highlights, comic books, graphic novels, textbooks, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and many other types of media all co-exist and are available on an ever-growing variety of devices.

Some of them are more popular than others and but none of them are in danger of disappearing. New forms of media have never obliterated the previous ones. Even if short form mobile videos become the most popular type of media there is no chance that any of the other types will disappear. The world is a enormous place with lots of different types of people who have a huge variety of tastes and preferences.

The idea that forms of media that are currently enjoyed by literally billions of people worldwide will be gone in a few decades is absolutely absurd.

I find it interesting you mentioned pornography

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by cpr3584

I find it interesting you mentioned pornography

I find it interesting that his mentioning of pornography interests you.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Some of them are more popular than others and but none of them are in danger of disappearing. New forms of media have never obliterated the previous ones.

There are exceptions but yes, that's essentially true and even the exceptions kind of prove the rule because they're so rare.

Something like vaudeville comes to mind. Film and TV pretty much killed vaudeville. Stage plays and musicals and the like have (obviously) survived but live variety shows have pretty much disappeared. Film put them on life support and then TV pretty much finished them off.

But that's very much the exception.

Hell, if opera can survive for centuries I'm pretty sure movies have a few more decades left in them

[octagon]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I thought people only watched opera on their phones these days.

In portrait mode, no less.

edit: oooh, I get it

[dublinbluray108]

Good grief. I just heard now that The Office U.S. is moving from Netflix to NBCUniversal for $500 million.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/nbc-...illion-to.html

That is an insane amount of money just for moving one TV show from one streaming service to another to which it is owned by the original creator. This decision by NBC dwarfs WB's payment of $100 million to Netflix which allowed Netflix in the U.S. to have temporary access to Friends. I mean; if you looked back at the old days when traditional broadcasters would acquire content with putting older shows on movies on any tv channels. That content already got in the past would have been considered to be really cheap. But now; streaming services are now taking that trend to a whole new level which hurts the consumer more when it becomes a reality.

I also reading an article from The Guardian published tonight that streaming services in general will become more expensive in future while also stating an opinion that the golden age of streaming TV is over; i.e. it is already dead.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...sive-heres-why

Here is some interesting facts taken from this article.

Apple is planning to spend $4.2 billion on it's original content for Apple TV+ over the next 3 years.

Amazon is spending $250 million on a new LOTR series.

WB is to spend $500 million to acquire the services of having content from JJ Abrams.

That is some money to spend on acquiring content for various streaming services in the market. The consumer is going to be the hardest hit here with a lot of decisions to make & possible sacrifices about what kind of streaming services they would want to pay for or drop out when trying to pay for a subscription for them.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

lol. I’m just being honest. I love my family and have so many happy memories but they are the rare special times. General life I find quite mundane but films is and always has been my passion in life. Without it, well..........

Once again, there is no evidence whatsoever that your nightmare scenario is ever going to happen, which is not to say that the film industry won't change, because the film industry has always gone though changes.

While theatrical tickets sold have been declining since 1946, domestic box-office revenues for American movie companies reached a record last year of $11 to $12 billion. In the U.S. alone, subscription streaming, DVD, Blu-ray, Electronic sell-thorough, VOD, Kiosks, DVD/Blu-ray subscriptions and brick and mortar retail constituted $23.27 billion (and most of this is full-length TV shows and movies). This doesn't include cable/satellite revenue (except for VOD). You think the industry (and this is just the U.S. - obviously the worldwide numbers are larger) is just going to throw away $34 billion+ in order to focus on short-form content for small screens?

Disney just paid $71 billion for Fox after spending $4 billion for Lucasfilm. AT&T paid $108 billion for Warner. Comcast bought 51% of Universal in 2011 and then in 2013, paid $16.7 billion to get the other 49%. Late last year they became the majority owner of Sky which they bought from Fox.

What do you think these companies paid these billions for? It's mostly for the film and TV libraries. It's not so they can produce short form content. If they wanted to do that, they didn't need to invest $billions for TV and movie content. It's not that they won't also create short form content for devices - but it's not going to replace traditional movies and TV shows.

The fact that people are spending so much screen time on their devices is almost completely irrelevant. Many of those hours are spent playing games, looking at social media sites, watching YouTube, listening to music, etc. People do that with a different head than when they watch movies or TV shows.

Are we going to lose physical media? Yes...we already are. That doesn't mean it disappears, but they'll be fewer releases, fewer boxed sets, fewer restorations, etc. But we're not losing long-form content.

Let go of this silly paranoia.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by dublinbluray108

That is some money to spend on acquiring content for various streaming services in the market. The consumer is going to be the hardest hit here with a lot of decisions to make & possible sacrifices about what kind of streaming services they would want to pay for or drop out when trying to pay for a subscription for them.

I think the streaming companies are on a suicide path, but on the other hand, these are well funded companies who can go for years without earning a profit on the streaming operations.

Amazon didn't earn a cumulative profit for something like 18 years.

In the case of AT&T/Warner, they're using streaming to get phone subscribers. Amazon uses streaming to get people to pay for Amazon Prime, which is far more profitable than selling merchandise. Apple will use streaming to keep people in the Apple ecosystem. Etc.

The question is how many different streaming services will the average person be willing to subscribe to? I heard a report recently that claimed 3 services, but that's based on current pricing. I always thought that cord cutters were fooling themselves that streaming would wind up cheaper than cable/satellite, when they still had to have an ISP.

Who knows - maybe people will get fed up with the different streaming services, especially now that many will contain only the content from one studio and physical media will have a revival. Time will tell.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I think the streaming companies are on a suicide path, but on the other hand, these are well funded companies who can go for years without earning a profit on the streaming operations.

Amazon didn't earn a cumulative profit for something like 18 years.

In the case of AT&T/Warner, they're using streaming to get phone subscribers. Amazon uses streaming to get people to pay for Amazon Prime, which is far more profitable than selling merchandise. Apple will use streaming to keep people in the Apple ecosystem. Etc.

The question is how many different streaming services will the average person be willing to subscribe to? I heard a report recently that claimed 3 services, but that's based on current pricing. I always thought that cord cutters were fooling themselves that streaming would wind up cheaper than cable/satellite, when they still had to have an ISP.

Who knows - maybe people will get fed up with the different streaming services, especially now that many will contain only the content from one studio and physical media will have a revival. Time will tell.

Personally, I have had internet service since about 1994 long, long before streaming existed. Even today, I only subscribe to one streaming service, Netflix, and I have been an Amazon Prime member since it began in 2005, also well before subscription streaming existed. I am a Prime member for the two day shipping of merchandise and I could not care less about any of the crap that they have added to Prime over the years. I seldom stream with Amazon Prime because it is the most problematic streaming service that I have ever used.

My internet service makes 4K streaming possible because of the plan level that I have chosen, but if streaming disappeared overnight I would still have internet service for all of the more important purposes it serves: online shopping, online bill pay/ banking, news, email, gaming, and the ability to research any topic of interest that spontaneously pops into my head- all of which I value far more than streaming. I would have a more basic internet service plan without streaming, but I never see myself canceling it anymore than I would cancel my electric service.

As for the current cost of streaming it is a bargain. I pay $15.99 per month for Netflix and I pay $69.99 per month for internet service which comes to $85.98 per month for both. When I had AT&T U-Verse with cable TV service and internet service I was paying about $210 per month. My current internet service and my one streaming service combined, $85.98, is much cheaper than my former $210 per month AT&T U-Verse bill.

Paying for two streaming services is the most that I ever see myself doing. If streaming prices were to skyrocket, which seems unlikely over the short term with all of this increased competition, then I would have no problem canceling them again. There is no chance that I will ditch my internet service, but I would likely lower my plan's bandwidth to align with my actual needs.

As for the possibility of people getting fed up with too many streaming services, I think it is more likely that they would return to cable TV than to buying physical media. Streaming and cable TV are all you can watch buffets for a monthly fee and the motivations behind having these services are different than that of someone interested in purchasing their content and owning it. Those that rely almost exclusively upon streaming and cable TV for their entertainment are essentially just renters, not buyers. Switching from that renter's mindset to an ownership mindset is quite a change in behavior; they would likely just go back to their old landlord: cable TV. Even if disenchanted streaming customers did decide to buy content again, they might just as readily decide to buy digital content instead.

In any scenario, I think it is a safe bet that everyone plans to keep their internet service.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Are we going to lose physical media? Yes...we already are. That doesn't mean it disappears, but they'll be fewer releases, fewer boxed sets, fewer restorations, etc. But we're not losing long-form content.

As someone who buys a lot of physical media on a recurring basis, I have not seen any reduction in the number of new or catalog releases on disc and I monitor release announcements with a passion. My collection grows every month as does my wishlist as so much gets released that I often have to pick and choose what I can buy now and what must wait until my wallet recovers.

As for this unsubstantiated fear of reduced releases in the future, I laugh in the face of it. I still have no trouble finding the music that I want to buy on compact disc and that format was declared dead and buried long before people even began to murmur about the fate of blu-ray et al.

So many of us think that we can predict the future of oh so many markets, yet I would wager that almost none of us have ever invested in an IPO that became a huge success despite all of our imagined expertise and intuition. Just a bunch of doomsayers ready to pronounce the demise of any and everything, but none capable of predicting the next big success and profiting from that insight at the same time. What good is the gift of so much market foresight when those so blessed seldom, if ever, make a cent from having it?

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Once again, there is no evidence whatsoever that your nightmare scenario is ever going to happen, which is not to say that the film industry won't change, because the film industry has always gone though changes.

While theatrical tickets sold have been declining since 1946, domestic box-office revenues for American movie companies reached a record last year of $11 to $12 billion. In the U.S. alone, subscription streaming, DVD, Blu-ray, Electronic sell-thorough, VOD, Kiosks, DVD/Blu-ray subscriptions and brick and mortar retail constituted $23.27 billion (and most of this is full-length TV shows and movies). This doesn't include cable/satellite revenue (except for VOD). You think the industry (and this is just the U.S. - obviously the worldwide numbers are larger) is just going to throw away $34 billion+ in order to focus on short-form content for small screens?

Disney just paid $71 billion for Fox after spending $4 billion for Lucasfilm. AT&T paid $108 billion for Warner. Comcast bought 51% of Universal in 2011 and then in 2013, paid $16.7 billion to get the other 49%. Late last year they became the majority owner of Sky which they bought from Fox.

What do you think these companies paid these billions for? It's mostly for the film and TV libraries. It's not so they can produce short form content. If they wanted to do that, they didn't need to invest $billions for TV and movie content. It's not that they won't also create short form content for devices - but it's not going to replace traditional movies and TV shows.

The fact that people are spending so much screen time on their devices is almost completely irrelevant. Many of those hours are spent playing games, looking at social media sites, watching YouTube, listening to music, etc. People do that with a different head than when they watch movies or TV shows.

Are we going to lose physical media? Yes...we already are. That doesn't mean it disappears, but they'll be fewer releases, fewer boxed sets, fewer restorations, etc. But we're not losing long-form content.

Let go of this silly paranoia.

To be fair, you have been claiming the death of Blu-Ray for 9 years. Are you really that different?

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I think the streaming companies are on a suicide path, but on the other hand, these are well funded companies who can go for years without earning a profit on the streaming operations.

Amazon didn't earn a cumulative profit for something like 18 years.

In the case of AT&T/Warner, they're using streaming to get phone subscribers. Amazon uses streaming to get people to pay for Amazon Prime, which is far more profitable than selling merchandise. Apple will use streaming to keep people in the Apple ecosystem. Etc.

The question is how many different streaming services will the average person be willing to subscribe to? I heard a report recently that claimed 3 services, but that's based on current pricing. I always thought that cord cutters were fooling themselves that streaming would wind up cheaper than cable/satellite, when they still had to have an ISP.

Who knows - maybe people will get fed up with the different streaming services, especially now that many will contain only the content from one studio and physical media will have a revival. Time will tell.

In that case, studios will just go ad-supported. You could have Netflix, Disney+ And ad supported NBCUniversal, ad supported Apple etc.. you could have two paid and two ad supported no problem. Maybe even five.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I thought people only watched opera on their phones these days.
https://www.opera.com/mobile

Is there any need to join the sarcasm club?

[Wendell R. Breland]

The Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark UHD Blu-ray Disc can now be ordered via Amazon for $39.95 delivered with arrival date as between July 4-8.

[sapiendut]

Aaaand it’s still not shown on amazon.ca

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Is there any need to join the sarcasm club?

I have a lifetime membership. I'm also a member of your most hated group, millennials. We must be sworn enemies.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I have a lifetime membership. I'm also a member of your your most hated group, millennials. We must be sworn enemies.

You are not normally that sarcastic though. I think these lot are rubbing off on you.