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The End of Physical Media
L-s-L69 writes "The register is reporting that Forrester is predicting that a third of all music sales will be made by downloads in the next five years. They also predict that almost 15 per cent of films will be viewed by "on-demand" services such as rather than by DVD or video by 2005. "
Such as what?
Hooray, five years of tinny-sounding 128-kbps MP3s rather than properly sampled CD-audio tracks!
MP3s are great because they're portable, but they still don't sound as good as compact discs. Never mind the fact that downloading an entire MP3 album pretty much requires broadband to start with.
I used to have HomeChoice at home, and it was excellent. The only reason I stopped using their service was because I moved out of the area they cover, and I miss them very much.
:-)
They use a DSL line with a set-top box which splits the signal into two parts: one for video on demand, and the other to plug your computer (or network) into. The video service has an archive of TV programmes in all kinds of genres, as well as music videos and the most recent news bulletins from a variety of sources.
Plus you can also 'rent' movies from them, just by clicking a few buttons. You get to play it as much as you like for 24 hours and the cost is comparable to (if not better than) the Blockbuster round the corner. You can pause, fast-forward, rewind, no problem. It works great.
It's fast, very usable, convenient, cheap and it works. I have seen the future and it is video on demand. And no they're not paying me to say this.
--
Karma: Chameleon (you come and go)
Does anyone here live in the Boston area? Have you actually tried to use Comcast's "On Demand" feature? At least 75% of the time I try to watch something, it skips, or audio drops out, or there are horrendous artefacts, or it just won't start. We actually considered ordering an On Demand movie last weekend, but when the preview wouldn't even play, we gave up and watched Jason X on Showtime instead.
(Jason X is a fine film. Really.)
I don't, either...but the stuff that comes through the cable is almost always pan-and-scan. My TiVo is fairly good at finding older stuff that's not on DVD...but if it's available on DVD, I'll add it to the Netflix queue.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Don't mean to be nitpicky, but it's really not the end of physical media as much as a change in media and transport methods. The physical media becomes the hard drives on the servers and user PCs and set tops. The biggest change is that the transport method shifts from a sneaker net based on optical discs and the postal system to a wired network, which is still "physical" in that packets of electrons through air and wire become the transport medium. Just more efficient.
I'll say it then. The last time my Windows XP box crashed was with Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor which was around March 2002. I have a 40 GB hard drive filled with just applications. All of my docs and mp3s, etc. are on another 100GB hard drive that 3/4's full. My girlfriends laptop and desktop also have XP and have not crashed since they were upgraded - about a year ago. My parents also have XP and I have not heard from them anything about it crashing.
Now I don't claim to have uptimes like my Slack server but then again I never tried.
"Music and studio executives are finally beginning to understand that they must create new media services through channels that consumers will pay for. Consumers have spoken - they are tired of paying the high cost of CDs and DVDs and prefer more flexible forms of on-demand media delivery," he said.
Hmm, according to this article over at azcentral , DVDs are "a freight train that can't be stopped".
Full article text:
DVD sales up 57% in 1st half of 2003
Greg Hernandez
Los Angeles Daily News
Aug. 4, 2003 12:00 AM
LOS ANGELES - The DVD express continues to gather steam.
During the first six months of 2003, a phenomenal 427.2 million DVD units were shipped to retailers, representing a 57 percent leap compared with the same period a year ago, according to the DVD Entertainment Group, an industry trade association.
"This is a freight train that can't be stopped," DVD Entertainment Group President Bob Chapek said. "We are enjoying the momentum and looking to the future for continued growth with an eye toward what is next."
Fueling the growth in software sales are the 10.3 million DVD players that have already been sold so far this year, easily outpacing the first half of 2002 when 7.3 million players were sold.
There are now DVD players in close to 50 percent of all U.S. homes,with more than 66 million players sold in the past six years.
These robust hardware sales are connected to the soaring sales of DVD software.
Overall, the number of DVD units shipped in North America has reached nearly 1.8 billion since the format was launched in mid-1997, according to figures compiled by Ernst & Young for the trade association.
Now, back to the crappy article at hand...
According to Forrester, music sales are set to increase by more than half a billion dollars in 2004 thanks to online revenues.
Equally, on-demand movie distribution channels will generate $1.4 billion by 2005, while revenue from DVDs and tapes will decline 8 percent.
Yeah, they will be down from 100 gazillion dollars to 92 gazillion dollars.
What is this wild speculation garbage? Someone actually gets *paid* to think up this crap? The DVD industry is a huge part of the movie studios' revenue. Even if there were a way to deliver online movies, they would still be raking it in. And they aren't going to change their proven moneymaking business. Look at the record industry, and their unwillingness to change. Hell, they won't even consider change towards a *proven* market for their product. So you think the stakeholders in the DVD market will gladly switch away from their "free" money?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.