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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. "
I've used the on demand viewing for at home, but haven't been 100% happy with it.
The whole pause, fast forward, etc... is laggy and inaccurate. I don't like it.
I don't like only being able to watch it for 24 hours, give me lifetime viewing for 15$ then we're talking.
As of right now it's just a waste of money as always.
I mean in the worst case scenario this will only mean pay-per-view and draconian DRM.
BOO! TERRO
I believe this will in fact happen, and the ironic thing here is that a lot of the customer's dollar (yen, etc.) will be shifted to the bandwidth providers, rather than the creator of the content. This is really the opposite of the renaissance for artists internet distribution was hoped to provide.
(Related one-time-no-financial-interest-rant: How many hours of quality reading do you get in a week on Slashdot? Toss your five bucks into the hat already...)
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Services such as OnDemand on cable are way too over-priced. It's usually $3.95 per movie. I'd much rather buy a used DVD for 10 bucks instead. It's the same reason I never rent anything from Blockbuster (Overpriced American movie rental store). I don't see DVDs dying anytime soon. It may get marginalised like VHS in a few years, but it is unlikely to "end" as mentioned in the title
How is this the end of "physical" media? So is this stuff just going to be stored on nothing? It's rather misleading.
I am over here... now I am back over here!
I think they just project the last five years onto the next five years, and if you do that then the findings aren't unreasonable. On the other hand you could point out that PDF has been around for ten years and grown explosively, but hasn't replaced printed media yet.
I think what these guys keep confusing is that CONSUMING and COLLECTING are two different mindsets, and physical media will always have a market for those of us who like to accumulate.
With a digital copy it'd be just a matter of decrypting the file, sending it along and there you go. If DeCSS was the best the industry could come up with then I don't forsee any online media protection scheme being hard to crack.
And as for the reduction in costs being passed on to the end user? Doubtful - they'll just be absorbed as profit because if people are happy to pay current prices, why reduce them? CDs were cheaper to produce than tapes yet are more expensive.
PDF is less convenient (to read) than physical media. But MP3s are more convenient (to listen to) than physical media. That's why people rip even CDs that they own into their MP3 players
People who collect MP3s are also collectors. I definately feel more like a collector when I occasionally log onto a P2P system then when I am in a CD store. While I am in the P2P system it is pure hunting and gathering with no concern about cost. When I am in the CD store it is about deciding which of the CDs are worthy my hard earned money (and let's not forget the space they take up in my CD rack).
On the one hand it is cool to look at my rack and see the stuff I own summarized nicely. But on the other hand, physical media is a pain in the ass. CDs and DVDs are really poorly designed media. Way too fragile. For DVDs: too many silly restraints about skipping FBI warnings and advertisments. For CDs: not enough information density.
If I could leave that all behind I probably would.
"PDF has been around for ten years and grown explosively, but hasn't replaced printed media yet."
It hasn't completely replaced printed media, or replaced it everywhere, but it has replaced printed media to an extent. I routinely receive products with no printed manual, but either a PDF on a CD or else just on a website somewhere.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Five years ago the MegaCorp I worked for at the time was just beginning a merger with another MegaCorp. At that time we had almost completed our Win3.11->Win NT4 migration. The other company had gone from Netware/Win3.11 to Netware/Win95.
The PHB's at the other company spent a large amount of time and energy lobbying our CIO to go with Netware for everyone. One of their key points was the fact that Gartner had stated in several research papers about that time that Netware was going to be around for quite sometime and was a viable long term technology strategy for the corporate IT environment.
Riiiiight.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF