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DVD and Blu-Ray Sales Nearly Halved Over Five Years, MPAA Report Says (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In its annual Theatrical Home Entertainment Market Environment report, the Motion Picture Association of America described an immensely sharp drop-off of physical media sales over the past five years. According to the data, which was obtained from DEG and IHS Markit, global sales of video disc formats (which in this context means DVD, Blu-ray, and UltraHD Blu-ray) were $25.2 billion in 2014 but only $13.1 in 2018. That's a drop in the ballpark of 50 percent.
Don't expect 8K Blu-rays or other emerging quality-focused formats to turn the tide, either. Market data published by Forbes showed that the aging, low-definition DVD format still accounts for 57.9 percent of physical media sales, and 4K Blu-rays are only 5.3 percent. With drops that sharp, you'd expect apocalyptic financials for companies making and distributing movies. However, while there are certainly losers in this trend, the overall industry actually grew over the same period. Home entertainment spending grew 16 percent in 2018 thanks to surges in consumer spending on digital video services from players like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. The report says that subscriptions to online streaming services grew 27 percent globally to 613.3 million in 2018, surpassing cable subscriptions (at 556 million) for the first time ever. "However, cable still drives more overall revenue than streaming -- it was the highest revenue platform in 2018, with $118 billion globally," Ars notes.
Don't expect 8K Blu-rays or other emerging quality-focused formats to turn the tide, either. Market data published by Forbes showed that the aging, low-definition DVD format still accounts for 57.9 percent of physical media sales, and 4K Blu-rays are only 5.3 percent. With drops that sharp, you'd expect apocalyptic financials for companies making and distributing movies. However, while there are certainly losers in this trend, the overall industry actually grew over the same period. Home entertainment spending grew 16 percent in 2018 thanks to surges in consumer spending on digital video services from players like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. The report says that subscriptions to online streaming services grew 27 percent globally to 613.3 million in 2018, surpassing cable subscriptions (at 556 million) for the first time ever. "However, cable still drives more overall revenue than streaming -- it was the highest revenue platform in 2018, with $118 billion globally," Ars notes.
How are you going to sell as much physical media when physical retail stores keep closing, and Amazon keeps trying to push customers to do streaming?
fp?
Breakfast served all day!
DVDs and CDs are so last decade.
Everyone around here buys LPs, except those who realize tape is even better.
No, I'm not joking.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What I find most disturbing about the trend is how the younger generation seems to have lost the ability to discern the abysmal video quality of streaming services from the usually way better video quality from physical media.
I can only speculate that when you grow up watching stuff mostly on tiny smartphone displays, you are prone to impaired eye-sight. At my biblical age, I can still see within seconds whether a UHD BluRay conveys a true 4k image or is just a cheap 2k upscale. But many of my younger colleagues seem to not notice any difference, even when I point out the most obvious areas on a paused still image. And even less are they able to see how compression artifacts differ from ordinary motion-blur in high-motion scenes.
Therefore I expect the downward-spiral of readily available digital video quality will continue, with ever decreasing bandwidths and ever more aggressively "lossy" video codecs replacing actual image details with guesswork.
While physical sales have declined, overall sales are up by $15B because of digital purchases. The article somehow doesn’t mention that.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Pretty sure sales of Betamax, VHS, and Laserdisc movies are down too... what's your point?
I know, right? And don't get me started on how hard it is to find good phonograph cylinders anymore.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Without Blockbuster, where can you go get a DVD? I mean, I am really finding it hard to rent anything in VHS.
You know, the supposedly next big thing in "inexpensive" write-once storage.
what percentage of those sales are to Netflix and RedBox video rentals.
They have no way of tracking sales of "used" Blu-rays and DVDs, which are both pretty healthy, but the MPAA can';t profit off those sales (yet)
Wish I had mod points
comments like this keeps me coming here
You only get mod points when nobody has anything worth modding or they've already been modded appropriately or you want to join in on the discussion.
Or you take a few days off and they just expire.
That's not really true, but sometimes it feels like it.
Wish I had mod points, too. Not to mod this up or anything. I just wish I had mod points.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
You're followed by a post saying overall sales are up.
And yet you're right. They'll still say it. If not to get their way lobbying, as the familiar pacifier put into the faces of The Holy Shareholders. Sorry I didn't bring you more free money, sirs. I would have, if it wasn't for those meddling pirates.
for the trees apparently.
My guess is this is due to the fact that their executive levels are all staffed with older generations who grew up under different rules.
Time to hire some new blood if, for nothing else, to learn what needs to be modified with their business model.
Here's a tip:
The " new " generations doesn't want to be bogged down with physical stuff. They want the content available to them, on demand and a la carte, with an infinite choice of platforms to experience said content. ( Phones, Tablets, PCs, Consoles, etc )
They don't want to have to buy*:
( * Multiple times every time the format changes. See Betamax -> VHS -> Laserdisc -> DvD -> Blu Ray -> 4K -> Streaming -> ? )
1) An industry approved Smart Tv.
2) An industry approved content player.
3) An industry approved audio system.
4) A dozen different subscription services because exclusive content can only be found on Service X or Y.
Your physical media sales are down because the new generation is learning that, most of the time, steaming is " good enough ".
It doesn't compete with the likes of BluRay or 4K ( streaming video compression sucks and I have yet to see any stream with 7.1 DTS / ATMOS ) but " good enough " is where most of your sales are going to be.
If you don't do something about the exclusive content being locked into Service X, you're going to start seeing your streaming services die off as well and get replaced with the always reliable Yarr Matey versions.
The sooner you figure out that non-exclusive streaming is where things are going, the better the odds your business will survive to see the next evolution.
Young's entire argument applies at noticeably low resolutions. There is always a digital resolution at which any given expert will find a digital recording indistinguishable from a clean analog, assuming that such an analog recording exists.
What a load of pretentious crap.
No sig today...
Young's entire argument applies at noticeably low resolutions. There is always a digital resolution at which any given expert will find a digital recording indistinguishable from a clean analog, assuming that such an analog recording exists.
For playback, CD is enough for any human ear.
There's a half-argument for going to 48kHz because it allows for a more gradual rolloff in the reconstruction filter, and I wouldn't argue against it, but all this 192kHz/24bit stuff being thrown around by "golden ears" is rubbish. 16 bits and 44/48kHz is more then enough for playback.
No sig today...
but am watching high-def videos daily. I've never had a blu-ray disk player either. Had dome DVDs and a player but haven't been using them for the past few years. Who ever buys this physical garbage any more when everything is available over the net?..
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Wow. That is probably one of the most complex and ignorant things I've ever read on the subject.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I can still tell the difference, but I simply don't care. An idiot behind a ludicrously expensive camera is still just an idiot behind a camera. I can almost always tell if there's an idiot behind the camera within five minutes, regardless of video format.
More generally, camera = script + casting director + DP + director + editor, these being the core of the essential creative team (costumes, sets, and special effects are plus items, but not essential).
The talent component is complex. You don't always need Tom Hanks. I've seen many productions featuring five people you've never heard of who hit it out of the park (for a small value of "park", minus the preposterous spectacle we're usually sold instead of a competent story).
Bad news bears for us that still want a digital product, but not in streaming form.
>bad for network infrastructure(creating a peak hour)
>bad for picking winners and losers(subscription models reward all)
>bad for quality(reducing bitrate reduces bandwidth costs)
>bad for accessibility(they locked 4k behind certain intel cpus and windows 10 edge browser)
>bad for portability(no internet, you're fucked)
>bad for editing and making the dankest memes(no file)
All I want is a steam like platform on which they offer full seasons or the movie in AV1 wrapped in mkv for a set price and a similar review system(to stop them fucking with the bitrate).
Is that so much to ask for?