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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.
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?
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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!
Such as what?
Well, the story submitter put something there, but we're not licensed to view it. Sorry.
Don't feel bad. In a day or two, he won't be able to view it either.
Please help metamoderate.
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)
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.
Yes, 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.
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 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
-Ladd
Don't Panic.
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
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.