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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. "
So here's the question: what effect do these predictions have on the ways in which companies in control of these industries approach their market? Do companies move to prevent the predicted move to electronic means or do they embrace it because of it's new seeming inevitability? Or has Forrester taken the very effects of its own findings release into account? And if so, might companies recognize this and try to undermine the research adjustment by acting differently than it otherwise would. Don't you just love how these silly little viscous cycles can come out of attempts at predicting trends in a market so easily controlled?
... but in some way they assume that dl'ing music and movies generates revenues ????
After you download the movie/music, you still need physical media to store it. It may be your hard-drive or your CD-ROM. The title sounds almost like you store the files in thin air.
The article says that CDs and DVDs will become obsolete. I think this is wrong. There will always have to be at least one hard copy that can't easily be deleted. Moreover, it says that people have already started to shun buying CDs. People haven't stopped buying CDs, they are just buying more blank ones. For those who see no need to spend several hundred dollars for an MP3 player in their home stereo or car, and then spending all the time and frustration installing it and syncing it with their PC, burning downloaded music onto CDs is a very viable alternative.
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
I share your beefs with the user experience, but those can and probably will be resolved as the technology is refined. Cable box DVR's, e.g., could allow local caching for smoother rewind and fast forward.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
"...almost 15 per cent of films will be viewed by "on-demand" services such as rather than by DVD or video by 2005."
So all codec, player, bandwidth, and DRM issues will be ironed out in the next 15 months? Sweet. </sarcasm>
I don't know where I first heard it, but the best way to do on-demand (at least for a handful of current films) would be to send them to your TiVo in the middle of the night withou you even requesting it, then you just pay for a key to unlock it. But still, I'm big into ownership--pretty much anything worth seeing is worth paying $10-$20 to have forever.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
My guess is that broadcasted (cable/airwave) media and physical media will always coexist to fit different niches in the marketplace to fulfill different needs.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I would rather think that DVD's will become cheaper and will flourish.
I doubt that within 1 1/2 years, online multimedia will make the leaps and bounds necesary to replace DVD. But, I do think that they will make enough progress to signifigantly drive down the prices of DVD due to the competition.
I for one, prefer DVD's to online because of bandwidth, availability, features, etc.. Also, having the DVD play connected to the internet could enhance the DVD, while not replacing it..
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
I can see the point about downloaded music becoming the norm, although I think you'll always have a hardcore group of audiophiles who will want a physical (analog) recording to play on top-shelf equipment. But I have to disagree with the prediction about on-demand movies. My girlfriend's 80-year-old mother (who is not at all tech-savvy) is wowed by the difference in quality between a DVD and digital cable.
What's even more significant is the archival nature of DVDs: it's easy to watch what you want when you want, and they're inexpensive enough to produce that there is a plethora of obscure, old, special-interest or otherwise non-mainstream titles. On-Demand can only handle a finite number of titles, and I'd imagine that the vast majority will be new releases.
Given the cost/benefit situation as well as more limited access to less popular or less current titles, I don't forsee the demise of the DVD or other similar future format (blue laser DVD?)
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Something cleverAre highly doubtful in general, much of the time. I'd really hate to say it, but a lot of it is corporate-funded pandering and dreaming out to try and force the market in a certain direction.
I think most people lost their faith in the powers of technological prediction when whole the flying cars by 1990 fell through.
People like to own things. It's the hunter-gatherer in us. The author does not understand consumers if he thinks that on-demand services is going to satify collectors. People want to own tangible things - whether it's a table or a DVD. Often times renting something is not enough. They are not as fond of paying for something they get to enjoy once.
besides the point, a perfectly clean/organized TV area is the sign of a sick, sick mind ;)
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Well yes, that's their hope. If you can't store it on anything than you have keep paying for your connection and pay again every time you watch something.
The media kills your wallet with a financial death by 1000 cuts.
What's more is the fact that "on demand" viewing is a push model disguised as a pull model. They who control the pipe get to control that which is available to you for your "demand." Think Clear Channel and the pop music machine become endemic to all media.
Of course this will only work if your media is taken from you or rendered usless by force, because, of course, what you want downloadable media for in the first place is to record it to permenant media for viewing, well, on demand. Like maybe on your boat 10 miles out of sight of land or your mountain getaway cabin or wherever.
Sure people want the convienience of on demand media from home, so they can record the shit on cheap, free and open storage media.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a cupboard full of tapes, CDs and DVDs. Not to mention the fact that such are true on demand media.
KFG
If "they" seriously want to push this angle, they will be disappointed with the result. People want media they can take anywhere. I, for one, absolutely insist on being able to listen to Bach's 2nd Partita for unaccompanied violin while sitting in a rowing boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Never mind how I'm supposed to get there :-)
Most people do not have the resources to lug their broadband connections around on their backs. Most people, in fact, don't have broadband connections at all.
That's assuming the company continues to trade throughout your lifetime. Also assuming they don't decide to change the rules and hit you in the pocket anyway as a matter of policy.
But something has to give. If the copyright holders are gonna play hard ball about eliminating fair use, what's the motivation for the consumer to pay for the broadband that's got to be there for these services to work? It seems to me there are two courses.
1. P2P becomes fair use and broadband adopting goes through the roof.
2. Fair use is essentially eliminated and broadband stagnates.
I find it hard to see both happening unless broadband gets extremely cheap by, for instance, being subsidized by the copyright holders that want to sell these new content services. You can't beat up the customer in the jungle ball approach that has been taken and then play dumb when they won't subsidize the infrastructure for your new business model.
Bah. Production and distribution in both new and traditional media are marginal costs. The money is in controling the distribution chanels and the marketing. Any band could get a half million CDs made. The trick is getting radio stations to play your song and Best Buy to stock the disc (in a prominent location). The bandwidth providers are a commodity. The money will still flow to who has the power to decide what gets heard.
bance.net
This is utter bullshit. The same kind of baseless claim could have been made years ago concerning pay-per-view movies. PPV and VHS rentals have similar quality, yet, PPV hardly displaced VHS rentals. While in more upscale markets the Ballbuster is stocking mainly DVD's, the point is clear - it takes a superior PHYSICAL medium to displace a physical medium.
Check it out - how many cash strapped friends have you offered to help them convert their DVD's to SVCD's - so they can sell the DVD? The picture quality on a TV is almost identical, but people love their DVD collections.
The idea of owning a set of films is attractive to many movie fans.
Since the DMCA - and the way that the big nosed middleman of Hollywood made me buy a DVD player (to watch Matrix & South Park) - I only harbor bitterness, and I will personally get rid of all my media - so long as I have perfect backups.
Well, if any of this download-on-demand stuff is ever going to happen the FCC, Congress and the various ISPs had better get their act together and make serious broadband happen. Whether than means fiber to each home, data along the power lines, high-speed DSL, or whatever technology they pick, none of this will happen until we starting seeing 25 mbit/s or more to the home at least. A hundred would be better.
I was on @Home back in the days when they delivered 4 mbit/s symmetric. Pretty good for an internet connection but still nowhere near what is required for truly on-demand anything. Now under Comcastoff I get 1.5 mbit/s down and a whopping 256 kbit/s up and that's on a good day.
Personally, I'm not holding my breath.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
When we "suddenly" move to content delivery via the internet (which has been tried, tried and tried again and every time it has failed; anyone remember "push content" and those "nifty" clients?), where will the accountability begin?
For example, IIRC, there is a competitor to iTunes, for example, which only allows the user to download the song once. What happens if the computur crashes? What is going to happen if the user no longer likes that artist and wants to sell the music?
For example, recently I bought a Dvorak music box set to replace the numerous number of single CD's. I then proceeded to sell those CD's. What happens if I want to do the same thing with on line music.
Also, another thing Forrestor fails to realise is that there still a *VERY* large number of the computing population that do not have access to broadband. In Australia, for example, broadband take up is low, why? because there are terrible pricing like $60 a month for 500MB download.
When the consumer looks at that vs. $60 for Foxtel, heaps of channels and they can watch it morning, noon and night without incuring any "consumption" charges as with the case of broadband, no wonder the uptake isn't that high.
Ultimately, that is what is going to kill the adoption of on demand content.
"The difference between pornography and erotica is the lighting" - Woody Allen
Okay, I thought this was interesting. I got to thinking though, if by 2005 physical media will be well on its way out, that would mean that the vast majority of consumers of DVD (and whatever) would have to have broadband service (with the exception of on-demand via digital cable or satelite, but again, this infers broadband).
So, I went and googled and found this study that basically says that by 2005 only 40% (or so) of US house holds will have broadband service. This too, is a forecast. So, it just seems to me that this projected date of 2005 is a bit, well, optimistic?
sad robot making broken music
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Rental prices are dramatically low. Its $2 or less at Blockbuster and mom-and-pop rental stores were driven out of business because they could hardly compete on price. Chains are the only ones staying afloat due to lower costs. Most stores compete on service and selection, and supplementals.
For example, blockbuster lets you keep older rentals for a week. New rentals for several days. Most local shops let me only rent for 2 days. Blockbuster has a wide selection. The only local place that I've seen that beats their selection is a chain in Philadelphia called TLA. They have a mammoth collection that would make any movie buff cry tears of joy.
And finally, for the impulse buyers, they have new titles on sales as well as for rent, and they have previously viewed titles for the price conscious consumer.
Ondemand is about the price of old rentals, but that's because you are "paying for convenience." The prices used to be in the $10 range for PPV movies and events. That price continues to drop so I bet PPV will drop to $2 soon. If rentals can't continue to lower costs, that's when they'll be in trouble.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Here's what I'm aiming/waiting for: 1) Never buy music on some physical media again. 2) Never walk to Blockbuster again. 3) Never print photo en-masse again 4) Never receive paper invoice again. 5) Never archive my paper invoice again. 6) Newspaper? Books? When will get decent device to view them instead of wasting perfectly good trees?
Number 1) will require that the labels understand that. And they'll have to share the savings. $.99 a tune won't cut it. I won't pay more than $.50/tune. You cut the middleman, that's saving #1. No brick-and-mortar store, that's saving #2. No distribution infrastructure, that's saving #3. And we could go on. So come on labels, shares the savings and you'll see the average Joe like me won't stop at a typical collection of 200-300 CDs. You'll still make plenty of money. Also required is decent DARs (digital audio receiver) that don't impose their UI and don't store music locally. sO FAR http://www.prismiq.com/products/index.asp looks the closest to what I have in mind...
#2 requires video-on-demand. Pay-per-view probably already dented the video/DVD industry somewhat. I don't know how much. Someone on this thread said he prefers buying CD over using v-o-d. How many people want to see how many movie twice? Very few to both answers is my guess. So I won't pay more for a permanent copy. v-o-d is coming. We just need the bandwidth to come along. Oh and good software.
#3 starts with digital camera. My Canon S40 does wonder. Took 3K pictures while on the road for 6 months earlier this year. You need a good tool to manage all this however. What's your preferred one? I tried Adobe's, Jasc's, Apple's and ACDSystem's solutions. Adobe won't let me try with more than 250 pictures. Dang! Ruled out, since it's doesn't allow for a realistic test. Jasc Photo Album is sluggish when there's a lot of pix. Also too buggy. iPhoto? C'mon, give me a break. I just bought a Powerbook. Love the Mac but only Apple bigots can pretend iPhoto rules. In fact, it sucks (ask me why?). Best of show goes to ACDSee. It does _nearly_ everything I'd like and with just a little more work, it would manage any kind of document, not just photos, with flying-colors.
#4 Service providers are picking up on that one. At least some. Schwabs, Etrade, the banks (Wells Fargo finally got that) all give a choice to opt-out of paper delivery. Not so with PAcbell, Verizon, PG&E (at least last I checked).
As for 5) The ones I still get on paper, I will start scanning. But I need a good filing management system.
#6 One edition of your preferred newspaper requires that someone cut down all the trees on an area roughly the size of a football (american or european, you pick) field. I haven't tried the tablet PCs yet but anyway, before they're any use they need to be more mainstream. What's the screen luminosity like? Anyone tried those? Are you getting headaches after a while? Eye fatigue? Are they light enough to take out anywhere (or nearly)?
What do you think?