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.

Comments

Well that's not so shocking

[PCM2]

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?

Re:Well that's not so shocking

[markdavis]

>"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?"

And when discs are barely offered. And when prices are still too high. And in my case, when I want at least 3D for those movies which were and are still not offered. Jacking up prices by offering 4K discs, which nobody really needs or wants, didn't help either. And make sure to frustrate customers who BUY YOUR STUFF with irritating "previews" and unskippable crap. And offer more expensive "bundles" of DVD/Bluray which gives the customer one potentially useless disc, but at, you guessed it, higher prices (as if it adds value).

Streaming can be nice- if you never want 'net-less access, and have good and unlimited bandwidth, and don't mind paying forever for content parts that disappear without notice, and don't mind the picture falling apart or suddenly going to 100P for a while, or studdering occasionally. Oh, and don't mind "subscribing" to more and more "services" to get what you used to get from one place.

Everyone buys LPs here

[WillAffleckUW]

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.

Generation Smartphone with impaired eye-sight?

[ffkom]

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.

Re:Generation Smartphone with impaired eye-sight?

[squiggleslash]

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.

Younger generation huh?

I can't tell the difference between Blu-ray and Amazon/VUDU over my Comcast connection unless, for some reason, the bandwidth is constrained and the feed has to drop to a lower resolution. I don't see any artifacts and even back in the days when this was being introduced, I remember seeing people making comparisons between AppleTV's HD services and Blu-ray and finding it hard to come up with examples where there were any real differences - generally the only things that perform badly at 6Mbps are big fiery full-screen explosions.

Is it me? Well, in addition to poorer resolution, I could always see the artifacts in DVD. Even on a shitty SD CRT. So my eyesight isn't that bad.

This is not to say that someone with a trained eye can't tell the difference, I'm sure some can. But even among those, I'm fairly sure for most people streaming quality is "good enough".

I don't think it has anything to do with people being "young", I think you're just a jackass.

Re:Generation Smartphone with impaired eye-sight?

[Drethon]

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.

I had my CRT TV well into the time of LCD displays, just bought a 4k tv a year ago or so because the costs have come down. Honestly I still don't care about BluRay as a crappy show in UHD is still a crappy show and few good shows in standard definition lose much of what makes them a good show. Though I will admit a few documentaries or movies in UHD are fricken gorgeous compared to standard def.

Missing major points

[UnknowingFool]

While physical sales have declined, overall sales are up by $15B because of digital purchases. The article somehow doesn’t mention that.

Re:Yeah

[fahrbot-bot]

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.

You have to wonder

[bobstreo]

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)

Re:Yeah

[martinX]

Wish I had mod points, too. Not to mod this up or anything. I just wish I had mod points.

The MPAA can't see the forest

[nehumanuscrede]

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.

Re:The CD and the Damage Done

[Joce640k]

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.

Re:The CD and the Damage Done

[jwhyche]

Wow. That is probably one of the most complex and ignorant things I've ever read on the subject.