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Sony Warns Demand For Blu-Ray Diminishing Faster Than Expected
Lucas123 (935744) writes "Sony has warned investors that it expects to take a hit on expected earnings (PDF), due in part to the fact that demand for Blu-ray Disc media is contracting faster than anticipated. In two weeks, Sony will announce its financial results. The company expects to post a net loss. Sony's warning is in line with other industry indicators, such as a report released earlier this year by Generator Research showed revenue from DVD and Blu-ray sales will likely decrease by 38% over the next four years. By comparison, online movie revenue is expected to grow 260% from $3.5 billion this year to $12.7 billion in 2018, the report states. Paul Gray, director of TV Electronics & Europe TV Research at market research firm DisplaySearch, said consumers are now accustomed to the instant availability of online media, and 'the idea of buying a physical copy seems quaint if you're under 25.'"
Especially when those copies come with awful DRM.
They should re-tool all of their factories, embrace the inevitable, and minimize (or prevent) losses by marketing it for storage and reducing the price of the discs and drives. The only thing that can save Blu-Ray now is to re-purpose it.
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Was it even ever popular? I never had a Blu-Ray player in my house and I have only held a internal player once in my hands. In my opinion, Blu-Ray has failed as a successor to DVD. Even in the autumn days of DVD, you can find disks and players everywhere. With the better Blu-Ray, adoption had been hurting and it has never seen the lift-off its predecessor had. I doubt that a successor to Blu-Ray will fare much better.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Because you media types went and fucked it up as hard as you could. I am the sort of person who would like to buy a fair bit of Blu-ray movies. I don't mind movies on disc, I have a player, and I'm fussy about picture and sound quality. Blu-ray is noticeably better than streaming video on my system.
However, greed and stupidity have screwed it up. For one it is just too expensive. I'll see a new movie int he store and the Blu-ray version is $10 above the DVD version. No, I'm not paying you for the extra bits. It does not cost you more to make. I'm not going to go and drop $35 on the Blu-ray version of something.
Then there's the DRM. "That wouldn't affect you unless you are a pirate!" you say? Bullshit. So while my TV setup is nice, by far the highest def system in my house is my computer. It has a high end home theater speaker setup connected to it, and a professional monitor. So I wanted to watch one of my Blu-rays on it. It has a BD-RW, it has software, it has a GPU with the stupid "secure" drivers, and everything is HDCP compliant. So I fire it up and... no dice. See I mirror my video signal, one goes to the monitor for display, one goes to the soundcard to provide clock for the audio. That isn't allowed, even though every device is HDCP compliant.
It also means should I wish to watch on my laptop, I'd have to buy it a Blu-ray player and lug the discs with me, there's no ability to copy them over.
Is it any wonder I'm not more interested? I have a few Blu-ray discs, but not many, and I don't buy them often. I'm not paying an inflated price, and part of their interest, the extremely high quality, is dulled by the knowledge that they won't work on my highest end system.
Netflix may not look as good, but it is cheap, and it works on, well, everything I own practically.
Quality snobs will have their local storage. I expect prices will go up.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
I don't quite understand the logic of the editorial statement at the bottom, given that online streamed videos are also bound by "awful DRM". This stopped streamed videos from playing on Linux and on rooted Android devices for years (I think the situation is gradually improving due to better workarounds etc.).
Besides, at least I could rip and watch my DVD's on my devices - I know it can be done with BluRay, but they made it unpleasant enough to deter me exactly as they (Sony) intended. Now that me and guys like me just aren't that interested, I can't say as I'm surprised how things are ending up. Must break their hearts over there at Sony, eh? Doesn't break mine.
Blu-ray support is the biggest pain in the ass in our very tweaked media center. HDCP lag, endless ads at the start of each disk, incredibly complex software installs that frequently fail all in the name of 'security.' Try this security ... we will no longer tolerate your product. Now we're safe, how 'bout you?
Sony fought *hard* to make Blue-Ray the dominant standard. It was basically "everyone and their brother behind HDTV" vs. "Sony and a couple of their bestest buddies behind Blue-Ray" until Sony spent a ton to get exclusives and woo studios away, all so that they could monopolize the next generation of movies (and not repeat the Betamax experience).
As somone who hates to see companies monopolize technology, the fact that all their efforts were largely wasted makes me very happy :-)
It would be interesting to see how it breaks down per decade, series, movie. :)
A lot of people many have big dvd classic collections and dont need/want to spend $15-40 again.
With tv and cable has a lot is in endless rerun - no need to buy that one movie you *might* have got with dvd.
4k will be telling. Enjoy your fancy new movies via super fast vdsl2 mate
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Sony, a company with two divisions that want to choke each other.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
What with the much lower quality video and far worse compression artifacts streaming has, also having to be connected to the internet to watch a movie, and also often having to pay per play rather than a pay once model, it totally boggles my mind that people prefer streaming video to blu-ray and even DVD.
I'm much more inclined to believe that its really Hollywood that is killing off Blu-Ray (and any other form of physical media) rather than Joe Public.
Hollywood have had so many bad experiences with successfully applying DRM to physical media, they've now turned to trying to do away completely with any/all forms of physical copies being in the hands of Joe Public. In mybook, thats a BAD thing for us.
...for those of us with projection screens. When you're looking at a 150" screen projecting at 1920X1080, a blu-ray is gorgeous, just like being in the theater. At 25mbits / sec, artifacts are nonexistant. With the reduced bitrates and resolutions of even "HD" streaming, it all shows up. Streaming is not quite there yet due to last mile problems at least here in the states.
At this year's NAB conference in Vegas, 4K was starting to take over in a really big way. I was flabbergasted by the difference in adoption between last year and this year. Everyone had 4K gear. I don't know how long it will take that to filter down to the consumer market, but I don't think streaming services are going to be able to keep up at all for a while. A 4K disc format will hopefully be in the offing.
That being said, Blu Ray has been a pretty raw deal for small and independent video producers. If you want to make a video and publish it on Blu Ray officially, you have to pay the Blu Ray consortium a hefty royalty fee up front and you are obligated to use DRM even if you don't want it. They have come down hard from the beginning so that you can't go to any replication house and get replicated BRDs made without going through this process. You're limited to burning BD-R discs on your own if you don't want to deal with that. Fortunately BD-Rs are 100% compatible with all Blu Ray players, unlike DVD-Rs and DVD players, which were very problematic with compatibility. (that's a long story in and of itself)
I was initially happy that Blu Ray won over HD-DVD until I found out how bad it was to actually just get something replicated onto BRD. I don't know that HD-DVD would have been any better though.
The publishers were already experiencing this issue when they forced 30+ day delays before Redbox and Netflix could carry their movies, hoping to get in as many sales as possible. Now, I won't be surprised to see that exclusivity period creep up to 45 days or even 60 days.
I never bought a Blu Ray player. Why? Because the DVD was such a disappointment. We were promised all these features that never materialized. The only feature that DVD used was the feature that kept the consumer from skipping content, fast forwarding over commercials at the beginning of DVD, and of course DRM that makes it hard to copy onto the hardisk. So if you don't want to be tied to a DVD player, the best option is a subscription to Netflix. And since Bluray is DRM incarnate, unless one want to live in the 19th century, it is a trade off that most younger people choose not to make, Bluray becomes a non starter. The validity of these statements is shown by the inclusion of digital copy on some DVD and Blu Ray. If bluray had this a standard feature from day 1, I suspect it would have been widely succesful. But like DVD, the main goal of Blu Ray was to screw the user.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
And in some cases the video is exactly the same (grain per grain) as the DVD, and perhaps even with inferior audio and features. The studios decided to just ship out any crap and we would pay a premium because it was on BluRay. Some of us fell for it once or twice but eventually learned and went back to buying DVDs. Blame downloading services if you want, but I much prefer to own a physical DVD than a DRM crippled download of lower quality with repressive DRM or not even having the download at all, just watching and then having nothing. And I do like the extra features on discs and the ability to watch again or even lend the disc to a friend. There are lots of advantages to physical media, but several disadvantages to BluRay. I expect some studio execs would rather blame downloading for the decline in BluRay sales than take responsibility for decisions they made.
And, yes, I know that DVDs have DRM too, but it tends to be much less of a problem for most users.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
1) Whole seasons of television on fewer than half the number of disks as DVD.
2) When the burners get faster and cheaper, convenient backups. But realistically, Blu-Ray is too small for geeks - you want a backup medium that's at least 10% if not 20% of the size of your data set so a full backup won't be a huge stack of disks. You also want the differential backup from several weeks or months ago vs. today to fit on one disk.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What gives here - downloadable media most certainly does not have DRM, my torrent client says otherwise! Please go and read about "prohibition" and "designed obsolescence". Thank you.
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Complaining about DRM right after a snarky comment about how old-fashioned it is to want your own copy of a movie was the best laugh I've had all day. Because the only people who complain about DRM on video discs are people who want their own copies. Meanwhile, the oh-so-modren approach of streaming movies from cloud services is wrapped up in all sorts of DRM, as well as the certainty that you'll lose access to them one way or another down the line (the main legitimate argument against DRM).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I know one person without home internet who bought one only to find out that new discs would refuse to play on the stock firmware. Great job Sony.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
and blue rays, but with hulu+netflix I won't normally let her buy them. I think people still like media, but at $25+ bucks a pop for a Blue Ray (and with a pretty weak economy) I think ppl are settling for what they can afford.
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I'd love to own more movies/tv shows in Blu-ray. I love the quality of the audio/picture. But the amount of hoops you have to jump through just to get the damn thing to play makes it a painful experience.
I have several devices in my house that *in theory* can play blu-rays, but the reality is that its usually easier to just download a blu-ray rip and watch that (despite owning the blu-ray itself).
Classic DRM- annoys the legitimate customers, whilst the 'pirates' provide a better product.
That's because streaming from Netflix or Amazon just works, on your TV, on your phone, on your computer.
BluRay often doesn't work, and when it doesn't work, it usually because of the DRM.
When DRM is invisible, people don't even realize it's there.
>"Especially when those copies come with awful DRM. "
Um, and streaming doesn't? There is just as much DRM on Netflix/etc. Plus it has its own limitations:
* I can't use it on any of my many Linux machines.
* I can't use it without an Internet connection.
* I can't get QUALITY without a GOOD Internet connection.
* I can't use it at all if that Internet connection has blocking.
* They have the ability to FORCE the user to watch anything they want- commercials, previews, copyright notices, public service announcements, etc.
* The quality or playback is far more likely to change or be interrupted.
* Streaming is often very "clunky" when it comes to fast forwarding and rewinding.
Was it even ever popular?
Oh yes. The quality is absolutely better than DVD, and still much better than streaming.
That said, I stream a lot of shows and video - but some selected movies I love I still buy on Blu-Ray because you can't beat 50GB of data locally cached.
I can see why the absolute sales of Blu-Ray have declined because people used to buy the "filler" movies on DVD that you can now easily stream, so the sales of filler stuff on BluRay must be dropping like a stone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Stargate was released on BluRay with the exact same video as the DVD, an awful two channel audio track, and even fewer subtitles than the DVD. After an up swelling of complaints from the public they did release a better version. But even a few years after that I bought a copy at WalMart and it ended up being the inferior older BluRay version, even though it was freshly sent out stock. I damn well assure you that I'm not going to buy the better version now that I know it exists. This is not the only case of studios doing this.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The FA says that Blu-ray disc sales are increasing, but overall disk sales are slowing because DVDs are contracting so quickly.
Quoting the article. "Last year, about 124 million Blu-ray discs were sold in the U.S., a 4.2% increase over 2012, according to IHS Technology. Even so, because of reduced pricing for the format, revenue only increased 2.6%. DVD sales, which have been plummeting for years, dropped 13.6% last year."
Blu-ray data rates are far higher than anything you can stream today, and people who care about that (not many of the commenters apparently :) ) apparently are still buying discs.
I do come from the movie business, so I surely have a different perspective; but to filmmakers quality is paramount.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
...maybe the predatory pricing has something to do with it. Cut the price more than a token 1-2% and then see what happens.
... hard drives are much cheaper and faster to backup data with than blu-ray discs. Blu-ray discs were too costly for the storage they offered vs hard discs and added only the most marginal improvement over DVD for video vs the size of the files. The cost, speed and size of hard drives far outpaced blu-ray. You get a 10 discs at 25GB a piece that is only a measily 250GB for roughly $12-16 bucks. You can get a 3 Terabyte hard drive for around $100, it's faster to copy and record things to and you can re-use it.
That's because streaming from Netflix or Amazon just works, on your TV, on your phone, on your computer
Unless your Internet is down. Or slow. Or a high-quality stream will saturate it (hello, DSL!).
Or you're HBO, beholden to the whims of cable companies, and the cable company has to approve any device which wants to stream HBO content. You want to use HBO GO on Comcast? That's fine, but you're doing it on your Roku or PC, not your PS3. There's a fully functional PS3 HBO app, but Comcast disallows it, for no other reason than they can. This happens even if your Internet provider is not Comcast and thus Comcast's servers are not involved.
Or you want to stream something not available through Netflix or Amazon. ( A good portion of things)
Or you don't want to be beholden to a company which can cancel your plan and lock you out of all the content they carry at any time.
Or you want to watch the decent extras.
Or you don't want to pay for subscriptions to 2+ online services just to get the content that you could get for $11/month from Netflix's dvd-by-mail.
The instant availability of titles is the only advantage streaming has. That's a nice feature, but shit, you give up SO MUCH to get it.
I've bought a number of them when the price came close to the price of the same thing on DVD (or when the package has both kinds of disk). My original assumption was that the encryption would be reliably cracked pretty quickly. That didn't really happen, so now I've got a bunch of disks that won't play in un-updated players, won't play on my PC that has a Blu-Ray drive, etc. When I buy a movie (a rarity, now), I tend to go for the DVD first. Blu-Ray is pretty, but it's a pain in the ass, and it's generally not worth the hassle and extra cost.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
What gives here - downloadable media most certainly does not have DRM, my torrent client says otherwise!
That's nice, but that's not what anyone else refers to by "streaming."
But I can see myself torrenting FAR more in the future than I do now.
I'm an old fart (comparatively) on Slashdot, and so I still buy physical media. Streaming is great until the content provider yanks it from the service you use, or moves it to a competing service in an exclusive deal (cf. HBO's recent deal with Amazon; no more Wire on Netflix, I suppose). Do people really want to subscribe to ALL of these streaming services? Or, hey, go pirate it off some torrent and hope the DRM cops don't start sending letters with invoices for $2,000 in fines.
In contrast, you can buy the DVD or Blu-ray and (hypothetically) rip it to whatever format, or make a backup DVD or SD card for the family minivan.
You can also give it to someone else, sell it, or even bequeath it to your heirs.
I'm not a pirate, yarrr... but Blu Ray sucks. I've had issues with newer discs not playing on my legit player. The mandatory previews, etc are just bogus. The only reason for blu ray is because the netflix streaming catalog is so limited. This and the HDCP nonsense. DVI should have won, but as open source, it never had a chance.
Streaming from Amazon doesn't "just work".
It's pretty much as proprietary as iTunes is. Only Amazon brand Android devices support it. If you have any stuff bought from Amazon you are just SOL if you want to use it on your Android phone.
On the other hand, ripped physical media doesn't have that problem.
It's like an iTunes file without the DRM.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This summary has it wrong. Read the article and its BluRay sales that are still increasing, presumably due to the quality problems (both audio and video) currently inherent in streaming. Anyone with a 60" or better LCD and a decent sound system will notice the difference immediately. Despite the DRM.
It's DVD sales that are cratering, due to the following factors:
1. Streaming quality is competive with DVD.
2. Why buy DVD when BD is better?
3. Easy piracy due to non-invasive DRM.
I still buy DVDs and Blu-Rays rather than streaming media because I can always rip them (despite the DRM) and play them on any of my devices, vs paying the same price and only playing on Amazon/Google/whatever-compatible devices (read: not all of the devices I own that can play the video).
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Are these formats unsuccessful?
+ PlayStation Game Disc (CD-ROM based)
+ PlayStation 2 Game Disc (CD-ROM based)
+ PlayStation 2 Game Disc (DVD-ROM based)
+ PlayStation 3 Game Disc (BD-ROM based)
+ PlayStation 4 Game Disc (BD-ROM based)
+ PSP Game Disc (UMD based)
+ PlayStation Vita Game Card (BD-ROM based)
Until you get hit with the overages while trying to stream high-definition video outside of an urban area. Satellite and fixed cellular Internet have low monthly caps.
So here is the deal. When you place such idiotic DRM on the media as to make it nearly impossible to play with anything other than the latest bluray player that is constantly updating the encryption firmware this is the result. This will of course be used to support yet more invasive monitoring of ISP and their traffic and force yet more moronic laws for monitoring and removal of "Suspected" infringing content from sites. Just FYI, AnyDVD HD from Slysoft is awesome and works like a charm. Not cheap though! Fuck you Sony, glad to see you take it in the ass again. Stop being assholes and treating me like the one or two percent that actually steal content and give me my movies sans DRM and maybe I will buy a whole lot more of them.
You need to start driving around the poor parts of town. DVD kiosks are in the grocery stores or they're being sold at the drug store, and video rental shops are still around.
Personally, I don't often have a desire to see a movie more than once.
Let me guess: you don't have single-digit-year-old kids who gladly rewatch a favorite animated film.
In fact usually I can rent a movie online a few times before it would add up to the cost of buying a hard copy anyway.
Unless you're buying the hard copy used at the local pawn shop.
and no you don't have to have an Internet connection to watch a movie you've previously downloaded.
Unless the player decides it has to "renew authorization" right now. And as I understand it, rentals are streamed, not downloaded.
Generally you stream once for a lower price than you pay for a bluray disc. For rental only, DRM is fine. For purchasing a product though DRM sucks. I laugh at the streaming stuff on Amazon where it ways "rent or buy" when it's obvious that the buy option does not mean that you own the product. Same with bluray, why spend $20 (or whatever they cost) for a movie that you watch only once or twice. Sure it's a bargain if you've got kindergarteners who want to watch Lion King every weekend but owning a disk outright doesn't seem that good a deal financially. (except for getting disks as gifts of course)
That's nice, but that's not what anyone else refers to by "streaming."
So you've never heard of PopcornTime.
Funny, I've found physical media to be quaint SINCE i was 25. I only buy a physical copy of something so I can rip a copy for myself, and I only do that when I cannot find a non-physical copy of the movie or song. It's been a few years since I wasn't surprised when somebody buys a physical copy of something. I just don't understand why anyone keeps doing it.
So, it's like an iTunes music file since 2009?
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So far the main advantage of BluRay is that you can get a HD copy at a reasonable price where you can actually get rid of the DRM in most cases. Currently this makes using a BluRay just as illegal as pirating the movie. If they would stop adding DRM, they would not only reduce the production costs (DRM is expensive!), but also give the customers what they want.
There are no poor parts of down. Everyone has a smartphone, modern laptop, high speed internet connection, cash to burn, and is only interested in the latest hot list of content. No one I socialize with uses DVDs, therefor such people do not exist, they must be a myth like those people without ID cards.
Amazon streams just fine on a Roku player
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
3/4 U-matic was a huge success. Betacam was a huge success. 8mm was a big success. 3.5" floppy was a HUGE success.
DAT was a failure.
MiniDisc was not a failure. It was big in Europe and Japan.
DVD was partially Sony's work (split with Matsushita, just as CD was split with Philips).
A lot of the reason people think Sony has a penchant for failed formats is Sony creates a lot of formats. You can't fail if you don't try.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Truths: "Cinavia DRM: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blu-ray’s Self-Destruction"
But there is no legal alternative. AACS may suck in principle, but it has been broken. I can buy a Blu-Ray and rip it bit-for-bit. There is no other HD content you are offered you can do this for. Netflix? Nope. Amazon/iTunes/UltraViolet/etc.? Nope.
And HDCP? It sure is a pain in the butt. But it is on every other bit of legal HD studio content too. You cannot watch Hollywood HD content on any device in your house unless it has a built-in display (like a laptop, tablet or phone) or has HDCP. It's not just Blu-Ray, it's Netflix, iTunes, etc. So if you're going to put down Blu-Ray for that, you're just going to have to turn pirate or else watch in SD.
The thing that really gets me about Blu-Ray, which other systems don't have, is all those stupid forced previews before the movies. As long as the studios put that junk on their Blu-Ray discs, they are going to discourage people from buying Blu-Ray discs. And that's on top of the existing discouragement of having to buy a drive.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It was definitely about the price. If Blurays were the same price as DVDs they would have taken off. To get Blurays from Netflix adds an extra charge - no thanks.
And if a media exec is reading this, make your media go directly to the main menu, and have a menu option to watch the trailers, because in 6 months time no one's going to care. Oh and quit disabling the skip and FF buttons.
for 99% of the movies I see. I rent them an see them once and that's it.
For some reason I don't feel like using money on getting a movie on Blu-Ray.
Perhaps it is my collection of VHS movies I threw out years ago or maybe my LaserDisc's taking up shelf space in my home office(specially those "invalueable" collecters editions). It could also be my smaller collection of DVDs in drawers in the living room that reminds me why I should not buy Blu-ray, but just rent it instead. :)
With HD digital projectors getting below $700 and Blu-ray players getting well under $100 and tons of classic movies on Blu-ray for $15 or less, it should be doing fine.
I can't imagine being dependent on streaming to watch the movies I want to watch. A lot of kids these days only care that it looks good on their phone or tablet.
If I get Blu-ray, it's for high quality shows/movies and I prefer to get a DVD with them. It's rare that I'll buy a Blu-ray only movie. I know that I in theory can back it up, but it's going to cost a bunch of money to get the software and hardware to do it. It's going to be a long time before I have a blu-ray collection that justifies it.
That's really all they need to do, they need to package DVDs with Blu-ray discs at no extra cost. I get my digital backup and if I want to watch the movie in maximum quality, I can.
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And yet the quality of a bluray is much MUCH better than any streaming of Netflix or HBO Go (at the moment).. And even 3D bluray's are really much better than any downloaded SBS/OU version, and the better detail is very important for better 3D (the higher the quality, the less eyestrain/headache (for people who have problems with that))..
Is it quality to have players that don't load the disks, HDCP systems that can't keep in sync between the player and the TV, and so on? That's blu-ray....
Besides, quality isn't paramount to a lot of film makers if you've seen the scripts Hollywood and the media corps have been cranking out the last decade (mostly). They are remakes because doing something new is seen as risky. Reboot and re-reboot. Just an attempt to profiteer again and again off the same basic script/story.
Blu-disk also disadvantages small film-makers. They are the ones whose budgets strain to support BD production. They are also the ones I think that are most obsessed with quality. So the medium and the fee structures associated with it screw over the main people whose work ethic would most align with the higher quality.
I do have a certain fondness for a library of physical media, but there are specific issues with streaming.
Streaming services are not standardised. Sure, everything works with netflix, but what if I don't want Netflix or the other handful of services that are supported? Handing a few companies an oligarchy feels like a bad idea.
Movies that are available now may not be available next week.
I need an internet connection. Okay, my situation here is somewhat specialised, but I spend a lot of time not at home. Hotel internet connections are not perfect. I can rip a bunch of DVDs to my hard disk, or a portable media player, and plug that into a television. This even works in other countries.
DVDs have their own issues. I'm under no illusion about that, but streaming isn't an idea replacement for me.
The picture quality is excellent and puts the streaming alternatives to shame. But every time I play a film that I've bought legally from a reputable shop, they treat me like a dirty, stinking pirate. I get shown lots of warnings and there's lots of unskippable propaganda sequences, I've even seen unskippable ads. Even worse, the player shows an obnoxious "this operation is illegal" when I attempt to skip these things and this warning requires an extra click to get rid of. I love buying a real physical disc and watching proper quality video on my TV, it feels much more like a proper movie night, but they were testing my patience from day 1 and this patience has run out.
The lesson as I see it: don't treat your legitimate customers like criminals. The first thing pirates do is strip these obnoxious warnings.
The problem with streamed media is they lose the rights and bam- you can't watch it any more.
This is my main problem with streaming, aside from the bandwidth issues.
Blu-ray and DVDs both have their irritations, but at least once I've bought a disk it's mine and I know I can rewatch it or lend it to a friend as often as I like. There are still potential problems with longevity but they tend to involve bad firmware updates and DRM-friendly connectivity rather than the disks themselves.
With a library model, it's great as long as what you want to watch is in the library right now, but if you get halfway through a season of your favourite show and then someone's licensing agreement runs out, bam, no second half of the season in the library any more.
I suspect the subscription/library model will have a kind of "golden age" as bandwidth gets good enough and there are only a tiny number of different libraries to subscribe to, but in the long run the most likely positions seem to be market fragmentation (you have to subscribe to several libraries, and your favourite shows might jump around between them) or consolidating into a near-monopoly (with the natural tendency to then push prices up). Neither is good for consumers, and as we saw with music, sooner or later you find people just want to download a permanent, DRM-free copy of what they paid for to enjoy on their own terms, and the world does not end if you give the customer what they want and charge a fair price for it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
DVD kiosks are in the grocery stores or they're being sold at the drug store, and video rental shops are still around.
I live in a small town in the midwest, one of the grocery stores has a redbox and so does the Walgreens. We also have a "Family Video" franchise.
Hollywood still hasn't figured out the two main reasons people don't stock pile movies at home, price and DRM. Netflix and Amazon make it so much easier to watch movies because of this. If new movies cost $5 a piece on Blu-Ray, I'd have a massive collection of BR's instead of 20.
I know one person without home internet who bought one only to find out that new discs would refuse to play on the stock firmware. Great job Sony.
Sony doesn't make all the Blu-Ray players. Besides, people should research stuff and KNOW that it's better to have one hooked up to the network.
Also, even if you don't have the thing hooked up to a network, the manual will tell you how to acquire updates without a connection. You just call them up and they send out a disc.
The reason nobody's buying Blu-Ray isn't soley because of the annoying DRM and non-skippable content and other generally user-hostile 'features' of the format. The average consumer doesn't give a shit about that (and will have no idea what DRM even is.) The reason is that they don't care about the quality loss in streaming content. How they can't see (on a big TV anyway) that the Blu-Ray looks 100% better than what you get from Netflix streaming boggles my mind, personally. When there's a movie that I want to see in good quality (think Man of Steel, Frozen, etc, just to name a couple recent ones) I go to Redbox to get the Blu-Ray. It looks better. Unfortunately, people don't give a shit.
The war on picture/sound quality has, sadly, been won by the apathetic side. (Witness the demise of multichannel audio, DVD-Audio and SACD. Most people think a stereo 128-bit .mp3 file sounds fine. It doesn't.) I'll be renting Blu-Rays until streaming formats (and the necessary bandwidth) are available at the same bitrate as a Blu-Ray. But, the way things are going, BD will die and we'll be stuck with streaming movies that look like Tetris on a big screen. Another case of the consumer wanting 'cheap/convenient' over 'good', aka the Wal-Mart effect.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Unskippable menus and other issues are coming up but honestly, the only thing stopping me from loading up on more BD movies is that ~ $30 price tag for new releases. There's just no way I'm paying more than $15-20 for a movie, period, so I just don't bother anymore.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I'm not normally one to defend DRM, but in what way is the Blu-ray DRM "awful"? As far as I can tell it doesn't require an internet connection. Is CSS also awful? Because as far as I can tell the only difference is that AACS is more effective. The only way I can make sense of the statement is if you mean to say that all DRM is awful, and you're just being redundant.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
After I just got done buying enough Blu-ray equipment to transfer over all of my Betamax vids... sheesh! I thought for sure that Blu-ray would win after Sony paid everyone off. Maybe if they paid the consumer to buy Blu-ray?
Dear Sony,
Please send me $50K USD every year for the next 10 years and I'll consider buying some Blu-ray material.
"it's generally not worth the hassle and extra cost" I think that's the biggest problem. Just like hard copy books, there will also be a market for those who want to physically own something, but the price has to be reasonably close to what it would cost to (legally) download/stream it. Were Blue-Ray movies to be dropped to the same price as DVD's, they would sell a lot more, and still make an obscene profit.
The commentary tracks are the only reason that I buy DVD/BDs. It means that I'll at least watch it twice. ...and more and more often they aren't included any more on the optical formats either, because "commentary doesn't sell discs' apparently.
They aren't included in pirate rips.
While I can't say 'No Commentary, no Sale", it's a _very_ high priority as to whether I'll pay more than GBP5 for a disc.
I was asked once upon a time which would win HD-DVD or BluRay during the beginning of the disk standard wars. My immediate reaction was "neither". I said it would be about online content. When a friend ask he he should get a BluRay player, I said "No, unless you don't plan to use it much".
Not saying I am a futurist, a technological sage, or anything like that, only it was very obvious many years ago that this was the trend, and that it would easily win out over dead physical media. This was many years ago. Executives finally admitting that their business model that they have been trying to prop up is failing now is humorous. Though I suppose perhaps they thought they could make a quick buck, and stretch it out longer, and are now coming to the understanding that they can't totally control what people want.
That battle was won when HD-DVD's security was practically broken. Not that Blu-ray lasted much longer.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I have always maintained that Blu-Ray disks are far too expensive. Now, I'm talking about BR with movies not blank disks. The idea of paying $20-30 for a movie that I'm probably going to watch once is silly. And let's face it...if you're like me, the vast majority of movies are seen once and forgotten about. Even some of the classics that you might watch multiple times (Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, Scarface, Bond movies, etc.) are almost always available on the multitude of movie channels that I have available to me commercial free. For those, I can just DVR it and watch it whenever I want.
Contrast that with my NetFlix subscription. $8 a month with unlimited content. Including a lot of good stuff that you would never find on BR (independent movies, documentaries, etc.). And no clutter from all those disks lying around never to be played again.
You know the old saying? If it flies, floats or fu#ks then rents it - don't buy it. Well, I think we can add BR to that. BR is dead.
The best part of DVD - at least to me - wasn't the resolution, but rather no longer needing to "rewind" (fast-skip also being a nice part).
This was offset by the irritation of some players which didn't let you skip the warning/ads. Luckily cheap players still allowed this, as they ignored the "don't skip" buts. I haven't seen equivalent cheap players in the BD world.
there will also be a market for those who want to physically own something
I'm in that market, generally. I own disks for most of the movies that I'd care to have. On DVD, $3-$5 is a good impulse buy price, $10 is reasonable for something that I'm really interested in, and something in the $15-$20 range *might* be doable if it's something that I really want (maybe one video per year). Blu-Ray *might* be reasonable to me at the same cost tiers, except that it's still less flexible. I can play a DVD on the device of my choice, using the OS of my choice. With Blu-Rays, I'm stuck using an appliance like a stand-alone player or a game console. It's more difficult to use them the ways that *I* want to, and in the most favorable light that I care to shine on them, the inconvenience provides a near-equal offset to their increased quality.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
And as a big surprise to no-one with common sense, like all other gimmicks this expensive gimmick dies out earlier than expected. Honestly, it was a miracle it lasted this long...
Oh, wait. I get it. You need the host files so that you can buy things over the darknet. That explains your host file hack, your complete detachment from the rest of humanity. So - those hostfiles your using keep the police from finding all your kiddie porn?
X^D
Recursion. It's a beautiful thing.
Bullshit.
Christ you are clueless.
You need to see an optometrist.
You seem to be saying that (a) expecting Blu-Ray disks to work with Blu-Ray players isn't reasonable, and (b) people without home internet access shouldn't buy Blu-Ray players.
BTW, who is the "them" you call up, and how are you sure you'll get updates?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Just another A/C.
do loop
You seem to be saying that (a) expecting Blu-Ray disks to work with Blu-Ray players isn't reasonable,
I'm not saying that.
and (b) people without home internet access shouldn't buy Blu-Ray players.
But I am most certainly saying that.
BTW, who is the "them" you call up, and how are you sure you'll get updates?
The company that made it, give their support line a call. For the better quality players you should be able to get updates.
I admit, having the PS3 as my first BR player spoiled me.