Jacoby Ellsbury

Right forum?

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/152659

The days of building your precious DVD collection may be coming to an end sooner than you think. If Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' comments are any guide, the DVD era may be set to come to a rather abrupt halt.

Specifically, Hastings said in an interview with The Motley Fool website (digested here) that DVD will only be the "primary delivery format" at the company for the next two years, though he did add that it would stick around in some fashion for the next decade or two. That's a huge pull back from Hastings' previous prognostication; the Netflix boss had formerly predicted DVD would remain the company's primary format until as late as 2018.

Strangely, Hastings didn't note what would supplant DVD as the company's major movie format, but considering that Blu-ray remains a niche product, with 10 percent penetration or lower among most consumers, he's probably talking about streaming.

Netflix has embraced video streaming in a major way in recent years, and its $99 set-top box remains the method I use to watch more streaming content than any other, outside of the occasional YouTube clip, anyway. (And yes, I know the Xbox-Netflix combo is undoubtedly popular with a huge number of people, too, at least those who don't futilely shun and fear video game consoles.)

Netflix continues to expand its streaming options -- about 20 percent of my queue is now available for streaming, up from roughly 8 percent a year ago -- but Hollywood keeps resisting, much as Big Media did in the early days of digital music downloads. Is Netflix hinting that more studios are climbing aboard the digital bandwagon? And at what point does streaming hit enough of a critical mass to become the dominant movie delivery method? 50 percent of titles available to stream? 80 percent? It's hard to see those kinds of numbers panning out in a mere two years... but maybe Hastings has tricks up his sleeve that we're only just now starting to hear about.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Makes sense to me. For the rental market, streaming with a subscription based service like Netflix is much better. Instead of having to wait for discs, and longer for new releases if you miss it at the beginning, I can just stream what I want instantly.

Comparing what they had to offer in terms of streaming and what they have now is a nice jump and I only see it getting better.

JakeNeff

Until streaming is Blu-Ray quality and includes the bonus features -- won't be happening anytime soon -- I'm not interested.

Jeremy517

Very misleading title. He said that DVD will only be the primary delivery format at the company for two more years. He did not say that the format itself only has two years left.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

As an addition to my previous comment, I want to add that I'm also streaming the stuff to my TV through my tivo, xbox, and roku. If I only could do it through my computer, that'd be a different story. I hate watching stuff on my computer and only do it if I'm doing work at my desk or on my computer or all the other TV sets are in use or the rooms are preoccupied and I have nothing else but I want to watch something.

BJacks

When streaming does become pervasive, I'll be interested to see how it affects the home entertainment market at a whole. Because how many titles have benefited from a popular title being out of stock at a video store, so customers get something else as a fall back? With streaming, there are unlimited copies available of a given film so lesser titles will probably see their numbers drop significantly.

brayzie

I'll still be building it as long as there's movies I want, whether new or used.

For me, there's not big enough reason to upgrade my collection to Bluray, unlike DVDtoVHS.
Most of my collection and future movies I want to buy are from the early 2000's and under so they wouldn't take that much advantage of the image enhancement.
For example, I want to buy "Cat People" but even if it was on Blueray I would still prefer to buy it used on DVD.

Plus, physically, the Bluray's aren't nearly as big of spacesavers as the the DVDs were to VHS. The blue boxes are kind of ugly to me too.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

The big difference is that they're talking more about rental service in terms of format and not people building their collections. I own nearly 8,000 movies and buying physical media is not going to stop for me. Buying digital copies is something I only do if someplace is handing out free credits, like amazon.

For renting, some DVDs have special features that I want to see and honestly, most don't. So when I'm picking movies from Netflix, I can put the ones I know I want the disc into my rental queue and then there's others that I'm only interested in seeing the movie. In some cases, there isn't even a disc to rent but only streaming.

I get about 6 movies per week from Netflix but if I'm in the mood for something else, I just go stream it. The stuff in HD looks really good when streamed and I'm not going to cry that it's not 1080p. I'm more interested in watching movies than going without just because I want a slight upgrade in quality. If I want the best quality, I'm buying, not renting.

Drexl

I'm also not a big fan of streaming due to quality issues. But, I could live with it if it's the only option. I imagine it will get better in the coming years though. I wonder to what extent, if any, NetFlix's mail service will be affected when the USPS drops Saturday delivery.

As far as "unlimited copies" of a title is concerned, you are aware that titles can be pulled from streaming, right? Some titles stay indefinitely, but others come and go. Again though, this is something that could be less of an issue as time goes on, if streaming gets more standardized.

Trevor

I imagine they'll have multiple price points, charging more for popular titles.

zyzzle

Rubbish...

Streaming of course is Good for Netflix's bottom line (more profit by lowering distribution costs substantially), but very Bad for the consumers ultimately. Quality will be lowered, studios will justify this by stating "high" bandwidth isn't available in all households and yet again the bar will be lowered.

For those of us who appreciate quality presentations, this news does not bode well. The studios will be in bed with this idea of streaming also because of DRM and controlling distribution.

It may be 2020 before we can expect Blu-ray quality over streaming movies.

What happens when the power fails... Having physical media is just better!

Rockmjd23

Meh, I'll be using the format for years and years since only about 1/10th of my collection is on blu-ray.

dkedvd

1. If you cannot back it up to disc like you can when downloading a CD off of iTunes then I'm not interested. You cannot rely on your own hard drive and you cannot rely on an online store that holds your information. Take the Nintendo Wii for instance. Once the next gen system comes out all those games you downloaded will only be good for re-downloading (in case you system crashes) for a year or two then the games will no longer be available. Same thing would happen with movies. A company goes under... there goes your movies. New format comes out... There goes your movies. Perhaps from an average consumers point of view this will be over looked and not a concern. But for me as a collector I will no longer be one. Or I'll just have to put on my eye patch and join the ways of piracy to insure I have a hard copy (something I would not want to do but if push came to shove I would). I am very against any form of downloading that cannot be backed up by a consumer.
2. If i cannot find the titles (to own) for $5.00 or less I wont be buying. I buy most of my movies used or on sale. I never have and never will pay a standard price.

So in the end when downloading or streaming becomes the new thing if those two criterias are not met then my days of collecting will be over. I must say this has been my fear for years though. I'll spend all this money on building my collection only to have to stop because of a download only format that is not able to be backed up by the consumer.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

What good is physical media when the power fails?

It's not bad for consumers because then Disney, and other popular stuff to steal, is still available for rent.

For those complaining about quality, have any of you actually watched any of the HD streams on an HD TV? It's not bad at all and it's about the same as an HD broadcast.

Also, the issue presented with Netflix is in regards to renting, not purchasing videos. They aren't talking about sales, just renting which some people seem to be ignoring.

Regulus

By year's end I anticipate having over 15,000 TV Episodes, Over 1,400 Movies and over 500 Movie Serial Chapters. At the rate I am watching them, I calculate it will take over a dozen years to watch them all. Only Heaven knows what will Home Entertainment will be like by then. Needless to say I will considerably curtail my purchases. Continuations of unfinished series will most likely dominate my Purchases from 2010 onward.

Ash Ketchum

My question is--how do you get the mass viewing public to switch to streaming? I only know a handful of young people, students and media grads, who watch movies on-line, either streaming or download--and mostly illegal download. I imagine you can get this bunch to start legally streaming when it becomes feasible enough and cheap enough for them. But what about older people, who are still the bulk of the viewing audience and still the bulk of the DVD-buying public?

As for myself, I only watch stuff on VHS or DVD on my TV set. I don't even watch regular TV anymore. I have too many tapes and discs to watch. I have enough to last me the rest of my life. All I need is a steady supply of VCR's and DVD players. (I have a few of each, brand new, in storage for when the current ones--three VCRS and two multi-region DVD players--break down.)

writer106

I can see that in a couple of years streaming will be bigger in the rental market than discs. I really don't care to stream movies through Netflix. I have never been able to get used to watch movies on computers. I know a few people who don't stream movies through Netflix due to bandwidth/usage caps that their ISPs have in place.

bobert3

I want the physical media, I consider myself a collector of DVDs. I buy DVDs for the movie or episodes on the discs, I also check out the special features. Sometimes I just check out a DVD case because it looks cool. It took me a long while to switch from buying CDs to doing the iTunes or Amazon thing. I think there's a lot longer then 2 years before it becoming number 2 to streaming.

Would we be posting on StreamingTalk.com by then??

resinrats

I get the feeling that even if it only cost ten cents, they would still steal the media rather than pay for it.

hindolio

im not saying this is the same exact thing, but...

people said physical paper would be obsolete when email started to take off

Jigen75

I like the streaming on Roku for TV shows or documentary stuff best. The movies on there are hit or miss a lot of them end up being the full screen versions when you actually play them. And they don't tell you which version it is so you can see a new movie appear for streaming and get ready to watch it and when it starts its in full screen. Thats happened to me a lot. I just stop it and move on to something else.

I have a hard time believing that Netflix will be able to convince most studios to allow their brand new titles to be streamed. At least not for 10 bucks a month for unlimited streaming. I still think the newer stuff and the smaller studios will keep DVD as the main format for a long time.

GenPion

Streaming is OK, but not that great. I wouldn't pay for Netflix (definitely not) if it was just streaming. DVD's and Blu-ray are not going anywhere.

Jon2

Another unspoken aspect that will affect NetFlix's rose-colored, streaming future are the current and ever increasing efforts of ISPs to throttle high speed/broadband use.

I have a hunch that ISP throttling efforts will negate this attempt by NetFlix to deal with current and projected U.S. Postal Service rate increases that are impacting their bottom line.

dkedvd

Hahaha! Yay I'm not alone! And I though I was crazy.

nemein

VCwhat


I think the death of physical media is a bit overstated. It may happen eventually, but years ago didn't they predict the death of CDs and those are still around. Has any studio gone to an online only distribution scheme yet?