Who doesn't dream of the ability to watch whatever we want, whenever we want, in the highest quality we can get? We realize we have to wait for this home media utopia, but we would like to know, how long the wait is? A few of people in this world that have the ability to delay our dreams (Hollywood studio execs) were on a panel last week at the Content Delivery and Storage Assn. conference, and one of the few things all four panelist agreed on was that downloads and streaming was a long way off from supplanting DVDs. The panelist went on to explain that the reason was limited bandwidth available to most, but we'd beg to differ. Not that we expect them to admit the real reason, which is probably because they haven't figure out how to replace DVD revenues. The problem for Hollywood is that if you had the ability to watch any movie you wanted, whenever you wanted, for $3 or $4, then why would you ever buy another DVD for $20? So in other words, one of the main reasons why downloads and streaming hasn't been more successful is because of 30 day release windows and 24 hour viewing limits. This is where the business world and consumers don't see eye to eye, while we are looking for the next great thing in home media, they are looking for a way to increase profits -- not that we have a problem with that, just saying.
posted March 14th 2008 4:37PM
Ben, I was able to get the gist of your post, but I think it would really help your readers if you edited it. I think you meant supplant instead of supplement, which kind of changes the meaning of the sentence. There are bunches of sentence fragment problems too, where the commas are making it hard to get at your meaning. I'm not trying to be a pedant, I just think it might help more people get your intended message out of what's really an interesting post. Cheers.
Thanks, it's amazing how much easier it is to proof your own work after you've stepped away from it for a while.
Once again i want to OWN my media . Not rent it , Unless i am renting it on purpose , i hope VOD never really takes off because right now HD is not really HD .. VOD reminds me of when i bought a divx dvd player way back when and not the good kind
well you do own media in digital distribution system. We have XBox Live as a great example. Once you buy the right to a movie in digital form you can always redownload if you data gets corrupted, a huge benefit over actaully having the media where you LEGALLY can't backup because you'll be breaking the law and if your disc becomes unplayable you will be forced to spend ANOTHER $20.
The key thing here is that WE CAN have digital distribution now, but movie studios are the ones who are refusing to provide content. I think it's time for consumer strike this time around. Unfortunately the popularity of digital downloads needs to grow to a large level so people really see the convenience. Already in rental market digital downloads are whooping ass.
We want content to be accessible, to be cheap and we want to be able to watch it anywhere and digital downloads give us that and much more.
@NFINITY:
Isn't XBL just movie rentals? I'm pretty sure you don't buy the movies.
I agree that digital content that is easily transportable is ideal, but let's be real, studios are going to DRM the shit out of any downloadable content they put out so we will be stuck at square one. With discs, it's almost a sure bet that we will be able to copy it and compress for portability or for streaming throughout the home at better quality than what DL's would give us. Legal or not, if I bought the movie and have a copy of it on my PC, I'm quite OK with that.
Anyhow, I agree with the studios. Physical media ain't going nowhere, and I like the idea of owning the movie, not some crappy compressed to shite rental.
Exactly , you dont own anything on Xboxlive , just rent it , Well shows don't run out, movies do , but i want to be able to do with my stuff as i see fit not locked down on one platform etc...
@Nfinity
“Once you buy the right to a movie in digital form you can always redownload if you data gets corrupted, a huge benefit over actaully having the media.”
You assume that the movies available now will forever be available (and that the service you download it from will always be in business). Neither is guaranteed and this is what is so problematic about DRM'd downloads. Until you have absolute control ovger where and when the file is stored and played you don't really "own it".
It happens all the time in the music world. eMusic for example lets you re-download as well but if an album gets pulled by the label off the site for any reason whatsoever, it is no longer there. Because all this stuff is licensed it can just as easily be pulled.
The only way digital sales will work is if storage gets cheaper and the DRM goes away. DRM can be deactivated making the movie you bought useless (a la Google Video). Until high quality (not HD-lite please) downloads are available without DRM and storage and backup process is simplified I am not interested in downloads as anything other than an occasional diversion.
@Deeznuts
Yes XBL is a good example because i own TV Shows in HD. So it works that way.
@Minimalist
Now you are just pushing your own way of thinking that has little with reality. iTunes is an example of successful digital service that offers all content.
The whole point is that studios give the content. The same way you can't rebuy a disc with the movie you want, it's the same with digital, there's no difference only there's less change that you won't have your movie, simply because they don't have to REINVEST in making physical copies. In this case, AGAIN, digital downloads win.
Convenience, the price and the in-home availability of movies and TV shows is huge. Even today we see a huge benefit of digital downloads. I own all new CSI Miami HD shows and much much more shows in HD from XBL that I simply can't buy on DVD or Blu-Ray. They show up for downloads like a day after it was on TV. This is huge!
It's obvious that the digital downloads is the way to go. Redownloadable content is the way to go. So you can either own a copy on your hard drive, but if you don't want to, you can buy and redownload. This is clearly a great way of owning movies.
@Jon
Actually for someone who wants to OWN their media, you're pretty resistant of the best way to own your own media: Having an electronic receipt.
Say you're on a road trip and you bring your favorite movie with you, then all the sudden without you realizing it, the disc falls on the floor and the for the next few hours it's getting completely destroyed as it gets scraped across the floor.
Now unless you've illegally copied your DVD you're completely screwed, but with a digital purchase, all you'd have to do is go to whoever you bought your movie from and ask for a new one and your old one to get de-authorized.
Also, with a digital copy of your stuff it's much easier to back your stuff up (to HDDs), versus having to rip ISOs or copy from DVD to DVD.
As was mentioned in the article, the real reason DD has not taken hold is because of ARTIFICIAL limitations in the distribution. Someone just needs to come up with something like MS' Plays For Sure but for Video and problem solved. Also, tell the movie studios to get their collective heads out of their ass and quit restricting digital movie release dates.
Oh and btw, as is evidenced by the downfall of HD-DVD, I don't really think anybody cares about "interactive features". They just want to rent the movie, watch it once, and be done with it. If they want interactive, they'll whip out their laptop or phone and pull up IMDB.
Oh and I agree with Nfinity, optical media is beyond dead.
USB flash drives, HDDs, online media sharing (Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, etc), online movie rentals, is where we're going (already mostly there?). I really hope Jobs can kick the movie studios' ass like he kicked the recording studios' ass to get rid of DRM. Start with Disney, Jobs...start with Disney!!
No one is questioning your position on the ownership matter, but the current stance is 180º backwards in direction of their previous stance that people are downloading them without payment (a la piracy).
So, on one hand they claim people are illegally downloading them and the other hand they do not want to download them. These studios need to make up their minds, adopting ONE position on the matter, and stick with it.
BTW, I routinely download movies over the Internet at a rate of 2-3 per day and I am on my ISP's slowest plan (4Meg).
@Nfinity..
You and everyone else supporting this crap needs to take a hard look at the terms of service of these service. Rentals are one thing, and I think streaming media is a good idea for this.
But for purchasing movies, downloads are a complete and utter nightmare.
In systems such as Amazon Unbox, when you "purchase" a movie YOU DO NOT OWN IT!!!! You are ONLY "purchasing the right" to watching the movie unlimited times. You CANNOT sell your copy, give it to a friend, and your ability to watch the movie can be revoked at any time at the will of the IP holder or Amazon. If you uninstall the Unbox software you will lose any ability to watch purchased media. If you attempt to keep Unbox from constantly calling home to verify security, you will be unable to view any media.
YOU HAVE TO AGREE TO ANY SOFTWARE UPDATES no matter what kind of draconian spyware the software update introduces onto your system, or once again you lose access to all "purchased" media.
There are so many OUTRAGEOUS conditions that this is truly a DISASTER for consumer rights.
*WARNING* BEFORE YOU CONSIDER USING A DOWNLOAD-TO-OWN MOVIE SERVICE, read the following from the popular BoingBoing.NET blog, entitled "Amazon Unbox to customers - Eat shit and die"
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/15/amazon-unbox-to-cust.html
@Sam Winter
First of all you're splitting hairs (aka. irrelevant)
Second of all, it's not any different with DVDs. When you buy a DVD you don't actually OWN the rights to the DVD, you're just owning a license. That's why the MPAA currently forbids any software that "rips" DVDs and why they're actually ALLOWED to do that.
Anyways, you're entire argument will be irrelevant once the MPAA matures to the place the RIAA has gotten to with allowing DRM free movies and they'll have absolutely NO control over your movies, PERIOD.
Oh and as a follow up to the above:
http://www.dontquotemeonthat.com/Video_files.htm
My favorite part is where it says:
"This DVD is for private home viewing only, it is not LICENSED for any other use"
See that word up there ^^^ ?? That's right LICENSED, you don't technically OWN that DVD you just own the LICENSE to be able to use it in any DVD player for a single person home use.
I haven't rented a DVD since I got my aTV take-2 update.
And my GF cancelled her Netflix sub.
We've rented several times with aTV though.
some of the off-the-record comments:
when one of the studio executives (panelists) was asked if 2008 holiday sales would decline from 2007 holiday sales, he replied that holiday 2008 is a "long way off."
They are a long way off. Fact is that downloads have lower quality than the equivalent DVD or BD, have zero features, cost close to full price, cannot be resold / lent, are locked to a specific device, take hours to download, and are sold by dozens of mutually incompatible vendors.
I think downloads are fine for movie rentals but you would have to be stupid to buy movies in this format. Downloads are not going to take off until downloading is simplified and the DRM is dumped or the industry rallies around a single DRM standard.
Well Said. And if downloads ever do take off, its not gonna be on a locked platform like Xbox live or apple whatever. Its gonna be on a drm free pc service where the download can be burned to disc and lent to friends if you desire.
"Peer to peer file sharing will never make any impact on the in-store sales of music CDs." - Recording Industry mouth piece circa 1998
They may have made an impact, but nothing significant in terms of how much these guys make. There all still filthy rich. So artists only get $20 million a year instead of $25 million. Oh no, stop the downloads, pay the artists.
A few points about music with regard to this discussion. First off, electronic music wouldn't have taken off without the MP3 music format. You can copy music from device to device and manage it however you like. MP3 is a uniquely versatile file format.
Apple, MS and Sony have tried to infect music with DRM but there has been a backlash. I expect many iPod users steer clear of iTMS and use it for their own DRM free music. Microsoft and Sony's forays into DRM have been a total disaster. It's no wonder that everyone trying to take the DRM out. Amazon & Apple sell unencrypted tracks these days and probably use passive watermarking to detect file swapping.
The only way digital movies will take off is if it gains a clue of what happened with music. PeopleThe current situation where you are locked into Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, Apple or whoever and their proprietary, incompatible, device locked services is intolerable. It might be okay for people who want to rent movies, but you'd have to be insane to buy movies in the current market.
Physical formats don't have anything to worry about for a long time yet.
I'm not sure I follow your point regarding "electronic music" and MP3.
The music industry was caught off guard by technology. And it wasn't just MP3 alone. It was also peer to peer networking. Digital music players. The internet. And if you recall, just before all of this happened, the industry had raised prices on consumer music citing the increased cost of marketing music (ie, videos). All were factors.
And I'm not sure I follow what you're saying about DRM. One of the major reasons for the introduction of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs was for the inclusion of better DRM technology, to protect the movie studios from what happened with the music industry. DVD had limited protection that was the cracked early on. And although DVD represent significant value to movie studios, it's also a source of a problem they would like corrected. One of the reasons why some studios have been slow to embrace digital distriubtion is because of DRM concerns. They don't want high defition versions of their product copied.
Digital distribution has already started. You can go to any number of websites, and watch content. Hulu for example offers TV -and- movies. ABC has high def content after their shows appear on TV. If you're a Netflix subscriber, you can choose to watch certain movies digitally, streamed to your computer. Apple offers movies and TV. Microsoft does the same with their Xbox 360. Sony is planning to offer digital content via their PS3. To me, I really don't care what format the content is in. BUT, if you feel the need to equate an MP3 like format for movies and TV, then it would be DIVX.
I think physical formats should worry. Digital is the future. It may not happen overnight, but it will happen. Digital has changed music. It's changed photography. It'll change movies.
Downloads won't take off until DOCSIS 3 becomes spread around, or Fiber technology really takes off and is made AFFORDABLE. Rural counties in Washington State get fiber off grants, just because my county is listed in the King County planning committee, it is alot more expensive for fiber and it is owned my the big teleco. Also, there needs to be deregulation of ownership in markets, just screw the markets and open it up to everyone, everyone can have a chunk of it and two of the same should be able to compete in the same area.
Rolling out fiber is the LEAST of hurdles digital downloads needs to overcome to achieve mainstream success.
Bigger issues look like they will remain unsolved in the near future:
1. Walled garden ecosystems and related DRM hassles. If Vudu (or Apple, or Amazon Unbox, or TiVo, etc) goes under what do I do with my 300 dollar box and their lack of DRM support for the content I have already bought? Media being directly tied to a single company's proprietary hardware and their continued online presence is a huge problem. We need a universal standard, not 20 proprietary ones.
2. Storage and backup issues. Downloading itself may be is simple and cheap. What happens with the content after you receive it is neither.
3. Lack of content and unwillingness of studios to give unfettered access to back catalogs will make sure downloads are just this decades Video On Demand... useful every once in a while for an impulse rental but certainly not a main source of content.
LOL.. Seriously minimalist.. you are talking about these things as impossible. Are you for real. Just look at what happened only 5 years ago. Remember the technology in 2003 and see it now.
Don't be silly and defend the future. Optical media is on it's way OUT, there's no doubt about that.
Storage and backup is completely irrelevant. As long as you can redownload movies you buy, which is not a problem and systems already work this way now storage becomes a non issue. Not that it's an issue today. 1TB drive is like $200. It can fit like 100 full 1080p movies.
Your defense of ancient optical media is really silly. Nobody is telling you to stop buying optical media.. but the future is in digital. It's already very obvious. Next 5 years, we can expect all problems fixed and plenty of content. Even Blu-Ray is giving you digital copy. iTunes is growing, Xbox LIve is growing .. they all work PERFECT and already offer a lot of HD content.
This whole bandwith talk is ridiculous too. YOU DON'T NEED 100mbps connection. Nobody says you need to STREAM HD. Even at 5mbps cable speed, you can download a movie in about an hour or so, thus making this whole bandwith issue really nothing.
People wait Netflix for 2 days to get movies, they won't wait an hour to not leave the house? Are you for real?
"Don't be silly and defend the future. Optical media is on it's way OUT, there's no doubt about that."
Don't be naive an underestimate the time that these transitions take. Optical media will indeed go away. The question is how long will it take? 75% of music is still sold on CD's, 5 years after the start of the iTunes store and 9 years after Napster. Amazon has just now begun to sell un-DRMed music. Music has at least a 7 year lead on video and if it is taking this long to transition video is not going to happne overnight... or even within 5 years.
Physical media is hardly "irrelevant" when it still makes up the vast majority of sales. Seeing the future and actually getting there are very different things.
"As long as you can redownload movies you buy"
Which Apple does not let you do.
"Your defense of ancient optical media is really silly."
I never said I don't want downloads. I just don;t want downloads the way they are NOW. And i think all this pontificating about how physical media is "dead" is the worst sort of hyperbole. The majority of money to be made right now is still in physical media.
@NFinity
Stop being such a moron just because HD-DVD lost the format war. That was ALL YOU SPOKE ABOUT FOR 2 YEARS.. and now you're on the downloadable media train? PLEASE....
Lets look at reality here, at least for the United States. The USA has a pathetic consumer broadband infrastructure. The issue is not whether someone has a 3Mbit connection or a 10Mbit connection, the problem is that the aggregate bandwidth available to go around is MUCH smaller than anyone realizes.
Just because everyone in your neighborhood buys "10-Mbit" access DOES NOT MEAN that the system can actually support everyone with that service actually using 10-Mbit service at the same time. Especially with Cable systems, the available bandwidth has been severely oversold at both the city and regional level. Also, since whole neighborhoods share the same coaxial cable, there are also physical bitrate limits imposed, although this is helped with the rollout of DOCSIS 3.0. Still, if HD rentals and HD streaming became a very popular, widespread practice, it would slow your service to a crawl without major infrastructure upgrades.
Until now, it hasn't been an issue, with 90% of internet users only using minimal bandwidth (think reading news, booking flights, researching dog breeds, email, etc). Now it's starting to change, with youtube, podcasts, online video, etc creating a much larger demand for bandwidth. You can already see the consequences starting to happen. The Cable companies are taking draconian measures on P2P/bitorrent NOT because of some new-found altruism for combating piracy, but because it allows them to recover bandwidth instead of actually upgrading their system.
Not only that, but ALREADY, telco's are talking about throwing out the "unlimited" service paradigm (which only existed as long as you never really used any of your bandwidth) and putting download caps back into place. If they do this, YOU CAN GUARANTEE it will be like 20-30GB for the most popular "tier" of service. Now how exactly is everyone going to replace all their DVD rentals and purchases with a cap that allows at most 1-2 HD downloads a month?? Mark my words.. I guarantee we will see this type of capped service return to cable broadband in the United States within the next two years.
Now I really hope I'm wrong, and there is some hope now that full fiber-to-the-home fiber optic networks are being rolled out, at least in some specific areas. Verizon seems to be the only large scale "semi-national" provider, there are many smaller regional and municipal networks starting to be formed. Although DOCSIS 3.0 will definitely help cable, fiber to the home is really the only long term solution for wired broadband.
@Sam Winter
You're wrong....
http://www.freepress.net/news/31276
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/031008-verizon-100gpbs-network.html
The issue is not whether downloading will replace SD DVD.
The issue is whether downloading will be a significant competitor in the high def market, thus ensuring Blu-ray will only ever be a niche product & will never take over from SD DVD - a high def market already significantly diluted by things like HD TV DVRs etc etc.
In that regard downloading will be a growing and significant element (which is why, no matter what some mouthpiece might say, the studios are all signed up to it in one form or another already).
They think they can manipulate the market - but as the P2P quote in regard to CDs illustrates only too clearly they are plain wrong in their reflex and continual controlling fantasies.
It'll happen sooner than most people would think. Just look at the trend.
maybe not this year or next, but in 3-5 years, we will see an increase in bandwidth and more openness toward this type of medium.
I was all for the physical ownership, but after several years with mp3 and digital songs, I really haven't bought anything physical in terms of CDs. I am little hesitant about buying digital copies for movies, but that'll soon change over time as we all get used to and confidence improve over time on these type of medias.
I think that so long as consumers are willing to put up with a fragmented, piecemeal approach to digital distribution, things won't improve. It's like blu-ray and hd-dvd... I don't care who or what wins in the race for digital downloads to take off, but I really want to see some unified, and universally ratified, standards. The last thing any of us wants to be is the guy who chose the wrong option from a sea of mutually incompatible technologies and gets stuck with loads of content that winds up stuck on some dead, abandoned box.
until I can get a movie that is in the exact same quality as a Blu Ray movie with the same sound options and all of the extras, I will not download to own my movies. I've rented movies from iTunes and that was fine if I really wanted to watch a movie at that moment. But the quality wasn't even as good as DVD. I rented Ratatouille as an example. I went out the next day and bought it on Blu Ray. It was like watching a totally different movie.
Just the other day, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that he expects their company to earn $1 billion from all things digital, an increase over 2007 numbers. Now digital encompasses a number of areas, but at a McGraw Hill Media Summit in New York, he says kids are embracing digital media, making it a part of their daily lives. "In the years ahead, broadband on the computer will be the primary source of entertainment for kids," he predicted. "It's just as important to them as the TV set now." He expressed satisfaction with Disney's relationship with Apple's iTunes Store, noting his company has sold 4 million movies via iTunes and 40-50 million TV episodes.
It's not IF digital will replace disc, it's WHEN and HOW soon. The shift has started, it's just a matter of more and more people embracing the idea, and technology offering a mainstream option. And there's new options all the time. For example, Hulu just went live.
For me, I'm done with owning a library of movies. It's just too expensive to buy a disc for a movie that I watch once, maybe twice. Any movie watched more often, I'd have to really like, and of the several hundred movies that I currently own, those that I watch more than 3 times, I can count on two hands.
You know if this was a discussion on physical media the HD-DVD fanboys would be complaining about unfinished specs and excessive DRM while the Bluray fanboys would be crying about the need for one format, 1080P/24 and the need to fill up that 50G. Maybe they are both right about what digital delivery needs in the short run to be competitive.
While Stevie Wonder could see the eventual demise of HD-DVD coming, no one foresaw how quickly it collapsed. I expect that Bluray will soon become the leading physical format but I fear that its success will be short lived. We could have another "one format" confrontation and the result won't be welcomed nor will the customer make the choice. Studios will reach a decision point whereby they realize that they can reduce their production expense by using cheaper authoring methods, drop all the extras and of course the physical accoutrement if they stop releasing on Bluray, leaving you with no choice other than to go digital for movies neat.
This isn't going to happen until the fiber presence is overwhelming. I would say this, if you just like to watch the movies you don't have to do anything. If you watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the 3 sets of commentary then you have a lot to worry about. You better buy all of the important movies that have good extras. It is not likely that they will be available digitally. More than likely years from now we will reminisce about such extras like some do about long lost extras only available on Laser Disk.
In no way should this be seen as me agreeing with NFINITY, at least not for a few years.
I do not think downloadable or streaming content will put an end to ownership (and thus bonus content and extras). If there is money to be made the studios will continue to supply the product. The success of movies sales at Wal-Mart and Best Buy as well as the success of rentals through Netflix and Blockbuster proves there is tons of money to be made through both business models). Rental and sales are totally different markets and the studios aren't going to hastily give up a profitable revenue stream when some cable company rolls out some fiber. They will find a way to please both groups.
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Thanks!
I can watch a DVD pretty much anywhere I carry it. For the $3 or 4 download price, I would demand the capability to make a hard copy for my personal use, one I could watch on a plane or in a car, at a friends house, camping, whatever. If I can turn on the TV now and make a hard copy of a movie on VHS or DVR, and OWN it for personal use, why should this be any different. If you don't want folks to copy intellectual property, DON'T SELL THEM THE TOOLS THAT MAKE IT POSSIBLE.
HAHAHAHAHA WTF!?? Are these the same "executives" that said internet downloads will never replace CD sales?!?!?! hahahahahaha whatever... idiots. VOD is going to replace physical media. People just dont want the clutter anymore. Home entertainment "PC/servers" are the future of the industry.