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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?
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.
Such as what?
... but in some way they assume that dl'ing music and movies generates revenues ????
I mean in the worst case scenario this will only mean pay-per-view and draconian DRM.
BOO! TERRO
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 register is reporting that Forrester is predicting that a third of all music sales will be made by downloads in the next five years.
I wouldn't go as far as to say 'sales'...
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?
They said this exact same thing 5 years ago...didn't happen so they are trying again?
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Paperless offices are a reality! No more paper used at offices! News at 11.
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!
How is this new? I've been getting 100% of my pr0n online now for almost 8 years!
.I'm married. I can only imagine what you single guys are doing !!
:)
Heck, I've even got my 51" tv hooked up to a computer for pr0n viewing, and for chrissake.
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
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.
Hmmmm, digital downloads and on-demand content with draconian DRM restrictions? The end to CDs and DVDs? Not bloody likely. People want to own what they buy and they want to be able to share it. People will reject content which is "delivered" (always in transit) instead of controlled and owned. Recording VCRs and rental stores were a boon for Big Hollywood, despite Hollywood's whining. Sharing and pirating generate sales, not stifle them. When will Hollywood learn?
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)
"...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.
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.
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'm commenting on /. stating that the Register reports that Forrester predicts the end of physical media.
I disagree.
Now others might agree/disagree about my commenting on /. stating that the Register reports that Forrester predicts the end of physical media.
foreasster reseach suggests that by 2015, we won't need brains. We'll be the human equiv. of thin clients plugged into the machine. 2015? Good thing we won't be around for it.
.sig
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?)
----------
Something cleverYes, physical media is definitely going away. Researchers are looking into using storage media that only exist in metaphysical planes of existence to store data. Rather than clicking a mouse, the user meditates intensely and mutters a small prayer to Hardus Discus, the god of data storage. They've already found that delusional maniacs can hold up to ten times as much data as a standard hard drive platter.
Are 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.
Somewhat different story for movies, of course. Sending the contents of a DVD at this rate would cost around $12 which is cost prohibitive.
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 really do not see sales of CDs dying out completely. Although CDs do not have quite the same asthetic charm of old Vynil LPs, they are something that can be placed on a shelf and browsed through.
There is that whole ritual of playing music that is rather lost with digital mediums. Where is the "fun" in selecting what you want to listen to from a menu? Its been diluted a lot already from loading the disc on the turntable and aligning the stylus to just shoving the thing into the tray.
For all the evils of the RIAA, I do enjoy having a collection of something phsyical - I can't believe I am alone in thinking this. Sure, I use MP3s, sitting at my desk now I am listening to some, but thats mostly pure convenience while I work. (or procrastinate as the case may be)
I have an iPod... IN MY MIND!h tml
http://www.theonion.com/previous_opinion1.
I can't agree about Jason X, however over here in San Jose, Comcast sucks balls too. Me and the GF tried digital cable for about 6 months and after continuous outages, supposed upgrades, and ordering shows that would cutout during important dialogues or just get all scrambled for a bit during the great sex scenes, we decided to get rid of it. Now we are much more happy with being able to rent/buy a good movie put it in and not have to worry about it skipping (unless the dvd is dirty, but thats rare) - hell we can even pause it and then go back to watching it something digital cables hasn't figured in yet.
Ave Molech Setting
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.
-Ladd
Don't Panic.
I think people will continue to buy DVDs and watch them rather than using "on demand" services (even netflix) just because that seems to be the trend going on right now. Collecting DVDs still seems to be at the beginning stages of growth, and more and more people are getting more and more DVDs.
For the 15 percent claim, I think it's a little too high. For the other claims, they seem reasonable.
paul
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
Is that we are to live in a topsy-turvy world where sound and pictures will travel down galvanic wires (snort!) or through the very aether (guffaw!) instead of being carried on good old reliable phonographs and daguerrotypes .
What next, I ask you? Flying-machines? Women's sufferage? Coloreds sitting at the front of the bus? One can only hope that the imminent dawn of the twentieth-century will put an end to this poppycock.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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
when cd's are compared to songs in ogg, mp3, wma or whatever comprimed music format, not only practical issues should be considered.
an album is more than a list of song on a physical medium, it is a concept.
it might be easier to download a song than go out and buy the cd, but by donwloading it you get less. an album is a concept that goes beyond a single song, or a collection of songs in a well chosen order. it consists of a box with a specific weight, texture, even smell. open the box and you find a booklet giving you images, texts and maybe other things, wich the artist wanted you to see before or while listening to the music.
a cd is not only a physical medium for the music, but for the whole concept that the artist created and gives context to the individual songs, wich helps the music to be understood or enjoyed in a more complete way.
to conclude: an album involves more senses than the hearing alone, a downloaded musicfile doesn't.
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.
When desktop publishing become popular, pundits predicted that it would reduce the demand for paper since what you publish would be saved in soft form -- i. e. a digital file on a computer disk. The pundits said that, in the bad old days before personal computers, you were forced to type or write everything on paper, and of course, producing paper contaminates the environment and increases the rate of destroying trees. Unfortunately, the predictions about reducing paper consumption were wrong because people tended to print everything that they developed in their latest incarnation of Microsoft Word. Consumption of paper actually increased significantly after personal computers and desktop publishing came into vogue.
The problem was distribution. There really was no convenient way to distribute the digital file. When person A transferred a digital file to person B, a floppy disk containing the digital file is also transferred. If you transferred a floppy disk, you would think, "I might as well just print the document. It does not have many pages."
Then, came the Internet. It provides a convenient way to transfer the digital file. The transmission mechanism is also soft -- i. e. digital. The floppy disk is physical: you can touch it and feel it. In short, personal computers alone provide only the means to create soft media. Personal computers plus the Internet provide an end-to-end solution in which the creation and delivery of media is 100% soft -- i. e. 100% digital.
I'm so sick of Forrester research. They've been so pro-Internet for so long that every new wave is a realm of optimism for them. They're predictions are always 'out with the old, in with the new'.
I highly doubt that DVDs are going away any time soon. CDs may not be released as readily, but they thought CDs would die with the advent of the miniDisc. (Who uses that?) The increase in downloading of music has more to do with the paltry and rather pathetically released albums as of late combined with incredibly high prices that with people switching to broaddband for all delivery.
If the switch comes to broadband for delivery by the industry, chances are it will have more to do with corporate greed and the desire for increased control (see failure of DVD Regions to mean anything for more info) that it will with people not desiring physical media.
Today's thought.... Stop piracy and corporate greed. Set fair market prices and compete. Damn oligopolies!The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
"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.
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?
Having recently put some thought into this I have come to the following conclusion: There is a market for Release Date PPV movies. What I mean by this is that while some movies are worth going to the theater to see "on the big screen", many movies I am waiting for "to come out on video" simply because of the inconvenience of movie theaters.
To see a movie in a theater I must not only pay more, but deal with crowds, lines (whether or not I buy tickets online), discomfort (compared to my home), high food and drink prices, increasing amounts of paid advertising, unruly people/kids making various noise, etc. For some movies that I do not feel need a "big screen" (Star Wars does, Serendipity does not) I would gladly pay a higher price to see in the comfort of my own home a la Pay Per View (PPV).
Now, you must contend with the facts... I can have many people in my home versus a ticket each at the theater. I can tape whatever is on my TV versus the difficulty of doing so in the theater. Thus you must make the price comparatively high and install a degree of tamper-resistant (nothing is tamper-proof) technology to facilitate the transaction and discourage casual misuse.
Of course money (ticket sales) would be lost by the theaters. However, there are many movies I have never seen due to theater inconvenience. By the time it is out on video the marketing dollars generated hype has worn off and I don't care anymore. The movie companies ARE losing money on me in this case... I'm sure many of you can cite cases where you thought "I'll wait till its out on video" and then NEVER saw the movie.
Thoughts?
Come play Moral Decay!