The studios have perfected double dipping. They know exactly when to release a movie and how to market it so people will re-buy the same movie they may have purchased only a year ago. I've purchased Terminator 2 three times!
You're advocating VOD without ownership - pay per view and subscription - correct? PPV is for renters - people who don't want to spend the money to actually buy the movie, so nothing changes there. In a subscription model, however, you have thousands of movies bundled together for a flat monthly fee. This is fine for older movies or movies that don't have blockbuster appeal, since they hardly sell any copies at retail anymore (case in point: netflix streaming service). But for a movies like LOTR, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc... these movies by themselves can generate billions of dollars at retail. How can studios leverage that into a subscription service?
Oh and btw, the Rush Hour movies actually did quite well in the theaters and video, why do you think they made 3 of them? :smile:
I don't really agree, if you look at numbers each re release sells less than the previous ones. As for rush hour , your not getting my point , they were block busters, but if you look as time has gone on the original ones have sold less and less with each re launch.
Take many big block busters from when dvd first came out or were big on vhs and see how big they are on bluray when they are released. Some blockbusters don't stand the test of time.
The PS3 is able to use a more powerfull compression today, that is not really interesting in any way though.
It would have to be a standard that is widely supported if it were to actually be usefull. And you would still need some pretty heavy duty connections on a big scale.
The irony of all this is that i used to have VOD service some 8-10 years ago, it wasn´t a wide selection but it was big enough to waste alot of time and money with. VOD has been here for so long and it´s never taken of in any big way. Imho it would have to be so standarized that every TV supported it out of the box. And i think i can see a trend towards that with tv's getting more and more features that lean towards that, specifically DNLA.
Though the current rush to HiDef Flatcreens kind a means that the big chance to make this a standard feature may take some time with everyone upgrading now.
The ps3 doesn't use it so it doesn't matter. The 360 itself can also use better compresion. Thats not the point. The point is the combination of higher download speeds and better compression. You don't need something widely supported either. If netflix supports it then you get a million or more netflix subscribers that can use it and as time goes on the devices that can use it will drop in price.
I'm glad you used a vod system 10 years ago.I used a disc based on 10 years ago also. Do we get medals for this ? There are many people out there who don't care to own movies. There are many people out there that don't want to pay $25-30 usd for a copy of howard the duck on bluray.
Look at bluray players , there is an lg one that supports netflix streaming. Its obvious that bluray itself isn't enough to sell the players anymore because people want more options than just buying expensive discs that they might watch once or twice and put away and take up space.
People are buying these huge flat screen tvs to save space. But they are buying big bulky bluray players. You can make a streaming platform much smaller than an optical one just based on the extra room left over from not having an optical drive in it. If they design it right it can big a big seller.
But what I really think is going to light the fire under bluray is when Netflix and MS announce streaming to the zune. Thats what is really missing with the vod. We have so many devices and the streaming is currently only going to 1 or 2 devices in our lives at the moment. The first company that can expand that to the majority of products in our lives will take over the market.
This is a good point. I know many that are content with their current dvd versions and won't buy again. I'm definitely not one of those and have since migrated to blu-ray. However, some of my blu-rays are so good, like the Pixar movies, that I can't really imagine buying them again in the next 5 to 10 years. I've double dipped in the past, but that was usually because the first pressing of the movie disc had a bad transfer, etc. For example I will likely double dip my Total Recall and Robocop blu-rays because the first ones are so bad. But for many of my other blu-rays I'm basically done, there is no need to rebuy them any time soon since they look fantastic, and they are totally cracked by anydvd so I can raid them. I can't imagine this represents the optimal scenario for studios since I'm sure they would love to hit me up for cash regularly. But as it stands for many movies they have now lost any more money from me for many years to come. That's a fundamental problem with disc vs. online, with online they can keep raiding my wallet monthly.
Except for a few select titles i'm not rebuying my dvd collection. LOTR , SW , IJ and BF and others I will buy again , but for each one of those there are 5 or so that I wont even think about it. I've been trying to make my purchases bluray from now on though however they aren't making it easy. I heard alot of good things about big bang theory and i went to the store and season 1 is out on dvd but not on bluray. Can't find a release date for it either same with how i met your mother. But I can't see myself going out and rebuying my scrubs seasons , smallville seasons and other seasons again either. It was a one time deal. Because quite frankly the dvds upscaled by my 360 or ps3 or hd dvd palyer look at least as good as the hd broad casts of the shows so there is no reason to go out and spend on the bluray verison.
The studios can always introduce new BD profiles for the advanced features. As long as there is a business case, it is not impossible. Not to mention the most popular Blu-ray player is the PS3. They don't have to start from zero base.
what do you do about compresion. in 2011 with the new xbox , netflix might team with ms and create a new codec for that hardware that provides much better compresion than what was used when bluray was ratified. lets go out on a limb and say the ps3 can't run it (which would be fair considering the age diffrence in tech) Do you now go out and make a profile that basicly kills off 50m units or so by that time (if not more) Perhaps you use quad layer discs where the first two layers have the older codecs and the second set of layers have a new codec. But now your encoding twice and using more expensive discs which equals a more expensive product.
I hope though all the playesr out there can play quad layer discs. I'd love complete seasons on 2 discs.
It is already more convenient to download songs/movies than going to the stores. The problem is not because the convenience is not here yet. It's just that there are enough room to accomodate more than 1 medium. Downloadable media and packaged media have their own pros and cons; some artificial, some inherent. It's also a regional phenomenon due to high infrastructure requirements.
I don't think we've seen a real push yet for vod. I think netflix is the first step towards this. Its growing at a steady pace and the introduction of a streaming only package and hopefully more tv shows and movies avalible will only push that faster. As i said earlier in this thread, a deal with ms for zune streaming and even windows mobile streaming all on the same account as your xbox and pc would push things evne further for them. No vod service has given us the total package and when one does things will explode for them.
