Movie execs worried about Blu-Ray

[goddog]

Bboid said:

goddog said:

Bboid said:

I think the whole push behind digital distribution is stupid.  If you think about it, it is just as costly, if not more, to use digital distribution.  Reasons: upgrade internet speed (if you can get broadband at all, Satellite is not broadband, sorry), storage area (ok hd's are cheap but still an incurred cost), you still need to upgrade to a HDTV if you want to watch on a large picture area with hd content, larger chance of corrupt data in transfer.   Now for another negative, no hard copy.  blu-ray prices can only come down from where they are now.  There are players available for under $200 now and there are frequent sales for TV's+blu-ray player/ps3 where essentially you get the player for free and TV is still cheap.  There are packages available right now for a 1080p 37 inch tv + ps3 for $1000.  That is not a bad price for anyone right now.

you missed some keys to digital download, most people who have bradband, already use it for other thngs, so you cant really bundle in that cost. and satalite would eb fine, as long as your not streaming, wich is more just a rental anyway. storage will only increase, one of the rules is your need will increase based on avalible storage, so really no matter how much you get it will not be enough.

also where is this data getting curupted in transfer, most of these people will use the home console, or media center. and if not that a monitor with high definition.... honestly this point is moot because you need an hd tv anyway and a device to play it. 

as for no hard copy, I keep 2 back ups of all my stuff an hd back up done incramentally which all computer users should do (I know they dont) and a disc copy stored off site incase my home burns down. also the whole reason i went digital is someone broke in and stole my dvds, and cds.... nothing else just those it pissed me of and though  i was paid back the 2.5 grand that they stole i  went digita to protect my  investment. 

 

with disks you also have to worry about scratches, and rot.... disk rot sucks. 

something that must be very worrying to blueray is apple lack of support, with them being on the board of blueray and all and not pushing it. steve jobs speaking out saying blue ray is not something worth doing anything about... that hurts even more given his power at disney, there he could effect blueray rollout, and keep it minimal ... 

 

and your final point, your pushing blueray to sell ps3s, here we are talking about blueray having issues making something of itself in the future, not sales for players and tvs this christmas

 

 

my final point is cost for HDTV's and players is not a real issue as several other posters have pointed out as an issue related to blu-ray.  I'm not selling anything to anyone, it is an example.  If you can't read into what I am saying, it is both formats are needed at this point, and for a very long time.  Global digital distribution is years away from being feasible as a stand alone source of HD material.  The only country with a large enough broadband network to support this is Japan.

 

I will revisit a few of my points:

Broadband availability:  I live in the DC metro area and there are TONS of large deadzones where a cabled broadband network is unavailable.  As for satellite, I am not referring to the latency issue.  I am rferring to the fact that it is largely plagued with issues.  I have a house with satellite becasue it's in the middle of nowhere, as do several of my friends and family members and all of us have issues with losing it all together.  The fact is, globally, broadband availability is not widespread enough to support digital distribution for HD content as a whole and a disc format(being blu-ray) is needed to fill in those gaps.  Add in the fact that the size of HD material and compare available broadband speeds and there is an issue with download times.

Corrupt data:  How many times have you downloaded anything and somewhere in the download the data was corrupt?  How many times have you downloaded a movie/tv show/ video and there were visual-to-audio sync issues?  I understand this issue is often refunded for purchased products, but it is an issue.  Disk rot, yeah it sucks.  Scratching a blu-ray, it is incredibly hard to do(but when you do there is no way to fix it).  Major flaws in both sources here.

Hard copy:  Yes most people should back up everything they have(and want to keep) multiple times.  You do it in an ideal manner but as you said they don't do it.  blu-ray is convienent and a large number of consumers enjoy having a physical hard copy.  If they didn't, cd and dvd sales would be non-existant.  Theft is not an issue that applies to the debate of blu-ray vs. digital distribution.  Security issues are up to the individual buyer.

Costs:  Ok I wont use evidence or pricing from anywhere since apparently I'm just pushing products to makes sales that mean nothing to me.  Fact is, price of HD products are coming down.  Most people will upgrade to HDTV's in the coming years as they are becoming increasingly affordable.  BRD players have dropped in price and are prices closely to DVD players with upconversion (referring to the ones that will upconvert closest to full HD).  The last price problem is the disc itself, much of this is related to the scratch resistant polymer.  I would suspect that as time goes by and sales increase these will become cheaper.  I remember paying $30 for a dvd movie when it came out.  Yes it was a more obvious replacement to vhs compared to BRD replacing dvd's and the price dropped fast, but BR's will eventually drop.

 

Conclusion:  Both BRD and DD can provide HD content to customers.  DD is mainly available to people living in hardwired metro areas.  The other can be used universally to those who can afford it.  DD is probably 20 years away from fully replacing a hard physical copy such as blu-ray.  That being said, blu-ray fills the gap between dvd to DD.  Is there reason for execs everywhere to be concerned about blu-ray? yes, and it is largely caused by the recession as was initially pointed out.  But doesnt this also affect DD just as much?  Aside from recession issues you have the relatively slow adoption of blu-ray.  It is still in it's infancy but with it finally prevailing over HD-DVD there will be less confusion to consumers and it can now move into a holiday season as the HD format of choice.  With appropriate advances in technology and the production of diodes and disks, it should result in lowered prices.  Lower prices with strategic marketing will yield higher gains in the movie market.  Hopefully by then broadband networks will be expanded and improved upon and DD will ultimately take over.  regardless, there will always be a market for hard copy media.

 

i can say, i have only had one corruption in the entire time i have used downloads (outside of font transfers, even from local servers). it was back when i used 36k modem and i was redownloading the original command and conquerer (I had deleted my first one for space reasons) we had a power outage and it killed the whole thing... reconecting did nothing and the thing was 98% downloaded had to start all over god that sucked

back to broadband, it is avalible, at minimume in dsl form, in almost all developed areas that are the larger markets for entertainment, an interesting solution to the issue you bring up of rual issues, has been implemented by best buy and mcdonalds of all people, where they localy host broadband, so you can come in and use the internet there to load what you need, from what ive read more current releases would be kept on a local drive, and you could send ahead for requests so they would be ready when you arive, or come back to the location.

 

I would say theft is an issue, though only from what i have observed, i know 4 people who have switched to all digital because of past theft of the library of material. I do not dispute that physical media is good I enjoy it myself. I do foresee more and more people backing up, not because they know to, but because companies will offer it as a free service with use to avoid issues with things like fried hard drives it makes sense in a costomer service solution

I do agree with you on costs will come down, but buying downlaods will be cheaper for users and more profitable for content owners. no matter how you cut it, you can not remove shipping/packaging costs of dvd/blueray, and lost salse on units that were over produced, or even worse producing too few to meet demand, and consumers dont come back to buy under a second printing. with digital all of that goes away.   the content owners get even more value from reducing the middle man, in the new world the internet is the middleman, and we the users pay to get on it to do all kinds of crap.

also i dont doubt there will always be a market for hardmedia, i expect jumpdrives, or a solid state to be the next big real thing. but thats a bit off. 

blueray is just not enough to justify itself (outside of a digital storage media that is) the advance in picture is not good enough (in soem cases none at all if they did not remaster the blueray from original film, and not a vhs, or dvd). it is not a smaller form factor, it does not offer much more in the way of features.

blueray could have been better, one of its main issues is the lack of  a final standard which is due to movie industry worried over piracy, a lack of agreement by large computer companies MS& apple over specs, and production uniformity.

for now it is a subformat being pushed on to a public, that has not look at it favorably. yes this could change, or the industry could force on us by killing new dvd releases, but i dont forsee either one happening.