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DreamWorks Animation CEO: Movie Downloads Will Move To Pay-By-Screen-Size

Posted by Unknown on from the uh-huh dept.

Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Dreamworks Animation, speaking at the Milken Global Conference in California, opined that the future pricing model for movie downloads will revolve around screen size. In his view, larger screens will incur larger download prices. As he says, 'It will reinvent the enterprise of movies.' Unclear is how physical dimensions, rather than just resolution matrix, will be determined. Will we soon be saying 'hello' to screen spoofing?" Can you fake the physical dimensions reported in the EDID block when the connection is using HDCP? Aside from the implication that this would mean more DRM (and seems pretty unworkable, but with the rise of locked bootloaders on even x86 hardware...), the prices he predicts seem alright: "A movie screen will be $15. A 75-inch TV will be $4. A smartphone will be $1.99."

21 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Stretch that anus! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bend over and take it boys! Hope your anus is been pre-stretched!

    1. Re:Stretch that anus! by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bend over and take it boys! Hope your anus is been pre-stretched!

      I'm a Comcast customer. I can assure you that my anus is more than capable of taking anything at this point.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    2. Re:Stretch that anus! by newcastlejon · · Score: 3, Funny

      A Comcast customer with a fat pipe?
      Hmm. Something about that just doesn't quite ring true.

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
  2. Projectors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Will they be able to tell how far away I have my projector from the wall?

    1. Re:Projectors? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm sure that would fall under the most expensive category, just to be "safe."

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  3. Or.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or they'll all continue to be free..

  4. value scales with screen size by Noah+Haders · · Score: 3, Insightful

    this makes sense based on my own experience. I get a lot more value from a movie in my home theater than I do from watching the same movie on my phone. So if I have to pay $5 to watch it on my big screen tv, I'm not going to pay $5 to watch it on my phone!!! The post implies that katzenberg is making an arbritrary technical distinction. in fact, what he's saying is that customer value scales with screen size, and the price should too.

    1. Re:value scales with screen size by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So by your reasoning you should pay $1.00 for a song you will listen to on your home theater, but only $.50 for one you will listen to on your iPod?

      And therein lies the problem.

      I'm willing to pay $15-$20 for a CD I own, can take home and rip to MP3,and play on whatever damned device I so choose.

      Fortunately, I live in a country where that's covered by fair use.

      These guys just want to change the definition to "well, no, you haven't bought anything, you've licensed it, and we will dictate how and when you use it".

      At which point, they'll never get another dime from me.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. EDID spoofers are common... by Kenja · · Score: 4, Informative

    Any video switching equipment for HDMI/DVI will often use a small device such as Gefen's HDMI Detective to store the EDID of the screen and convince the video source that it is always connected. It would be trivial to store a "fake" EDID in such a device that reports a smaller screen.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  6. We already have a unit of measure for billing by thechemic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We already have a unit of measure for billing which is referred to as "mega bits per second". Now they want to bill us by "screen size per viewing"? Every @#$%'ing time I try to go legit, they force me back to illegal downloads with their senseless bullshit.

    --
    Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
  7. Re:A computer will be $X by postbigbang · · Score: 3, Funny

    Watch the cost of 4K cameras soar as a direct result.

    Oh, excuse me, I'm the flight attendant I've noticed that you're breathing more than the other passengers. We're going to have to charge you for that.

    Oh? No more limit on your credit card? Step outside, please.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  8. Re:Er..."pricing is alright?" by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    wouldn't they really want to charge on # of viewers?

    Long term, they absolutely want that.

    If they could, when you pop in a DVD, you'd submit your credit card to pay for the view, and charge according to the number of people in the room.

    They want all sorts of things where they keep gouging us for the price and keep their revenue stream constant.

    But, they might find people suddenly saying "to hell with that", and go read a book.

    And, of course, the book publishers want the same damned model where you pay to re-read your book, because clearly owning books and not compensating the publisher every time you read it is theft, right?

    And, since they basically pay the lawmakers to give them what they want, I won't be at all surprised if the assholes at the *AA manage to make it law that every time I watch a DVD I bought I have to pay them, and also pay for screen size, and also pay for # of viewers.

    This push to make IP and copyright laws drive everything we do is eroding our concept of property, and turning it into a rent-every-time model. And, I'll stop watching before that happens.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  9. Much ado about nothing by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you ask me, odds are 70% he was just using "Screen Size" as a proxy for "Resolution" in the first place, either because he doesn't know the difference, or (more likely) was talking down to the audience. In any case, it is one person's speculation about the future, nothing more.

  10. Modified EDID possible by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Can you fake the physical dimensions reported in the EDID block when the connection is using HDCP?

    Yes. The EDID block is not encrypted.

  11. Whoo hoo! by gehrehmee · · Score: 4, Funny

    Whoo hoo! My 51" hdtv's EDID data says it's 7" in size. Everything's coming up Milhouse!

    --
    "You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
  12. summary is misleading by Khashishi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Jeffrey Katzenberg might have said "you pay for the size", this does not mean he explicitly meant physical dimensions and not resolution. This suggestion was added in by the article submitter to make him sound more idiotic than he probably is. I'm sure if you were actually talking to Katzenberg and you pressed him on the issue, he would clarify that he used the term size as a proxy for a combination of resolution and compression quality which one would expect for a TV vs a cellphone.

  13. Re:Pay per pixel? by darkshot117 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except more and more phones are higher resolution then most HDTVs already. A lot of people will have a 55 inch TV at 1080p but a smartphone with 1440p at least in just a few years. So paying per pixel or per size is pointless as neither tells you anything...

  14. Re:no concept of digital technology by sconeu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No. They *do* understand it. They don't like it. They want to kill it in its current form.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  15. Re:Pay per pixel? by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Phone version will likely be far more compressed. It's not the "pixels" you're sending nowadays when it comes to video, but key frames and data about changes to the frames (rough simplification of modern video compression algorithms).

    So your movie version will be encoded using highest possible quality, TV size will be medium and phone version will be low. This will result in massive differences in file size.

    This is doable.

  16. dead wrong by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Reality is probably closer to:
    "we'll try ever harsher and dumber DRM and rights constriction in order to stay the eventual decline of our business model."

    Or:
    "Only suckers will pay the premium, everyone else will just pirate to their little hearts content. This change will do nothing but increase the number of people paying 0 dollars."

  17. Re:Pay per pixel? by shipofgold · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What he says and what he can do are two different things. I don't doubt that they are trying to work out a scheme where the screen identifies itself accurately, but I think it is much easier (and not unreasonable) to charge for resolution.

    You want to watch 720p on your 15ft screen, have at it...but we have this 4K version that you may be interested in for only a few pennies more!

    I will love it when they start suing for watching the movie on the wrong screen.