Like it or not, SD DVDs must go away
 

What I think everyone is failing to realize, the studios don't really care about us. This isn't about what can we do to make the consumer enjoy the movies better. It is about what can we do to make the consumer purchase our movies. I know, everyone knows an insider. I use to work at a major studio in the feature production department and still have a lot of friends there. What the studios are after is what is going to prevent us from dropping an entire dvd on a torrent or some other share site. They think if they produce movies that are over 20 GB, it'll be too hard to download. Studios are also looking at anti-piracy protections on the discs which Sony is swearing up and down that their's is better. No one will be able to copy a blu-ray according to Sony. This format war will be over as soon as one is cracked and copied. I told my friends at the studio, 20GB may prevent many from downloading but as soon as someone can copy the new formats and convert it to divx, they will be facing the same losing battle. This is the reasoning that DVDs are going away. As far as the studios are concern, SD DVDs must go away if the home box office is to continue to grow and not shrink because of piracy.

Strange you would say that since we have posts saying the exact same thing daily in this forum.

That may be one of many reasons that studios would prefer people buy high def material instead of SD. But it can't be the only reason. That would be awfully shortsighted. Sure, it may be a problem today to download 20GB+ files, but in a few years even that shouldn't matter. High-speed internet speeds are increasing all over the country and hard drives continue to get larger and larger. 20GB might seem huge today but in a few years it will probably be no different than someone dl'ing a DVD movie today.

Exactly. When SD-DVD first came out nobody imagined that with broadband and whatnot how easily downloadable they'd be.

[singing]The circle of life[/single]

I think it's more of a factor that all the high-selling catalog titles have already been released and there's nothing left but new releases. The ridiculous amount of regurgitated SE's trying to lure people back to the same titles over the past few years would certainly help support that.

And yet they still won't go back and re-release their non-anamorphic discs. One would think that those releases alone would guarantee the hard-core buyers would pick them up.

At this point, any upgraded to anamophic DVD release would likely indicate a new HD transfer, meaning that some hard-core buyers may decide to wait out for the inevitable HD disc. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some studios have held back on some anamorphic DVD re-releases so they can do a day-and-date release with the HD discs.

I agree completely. If an anamorphic Abyss or True Lies were announced tomorrow (my two most wanted anamorphic remasters) I don't think I would care as it would just be a signal to me that the BD versions are on the way, and as I have waited this long, I could wait until I have a HiDef player cwith those films available.

A year ago, I'd be on that like butter on corn.

Not me. I'm sick of movies like Presumed Innocent and the Power of One being shown on HBO HD. The masters are out there and I don't think that any of the titles I have in in non-anamorphic are going to be on HD any time soon. Unless there's a rumor, I'm still picking them up.

Hell, I'm in for Home Alone, Big, The Doors and Bugsy this Fall.

What about people like myself who pretty much prefer watching HD-DVD over going to the movie theater.

What do studios think about that?

Oh no, I'm definitely waiting on The Doors. It's from Lionsgate, who have been aggressive in releasing their limited catalog on BD, before, you know... I wouldn't be surprised if it already was in the pipeline to be released on the same day as the DVD before they pulled their upcoming titles to, you know...

I'd buy an anamorphic The Abyss so fast it would make your head spin. :)

They've postponed ALL their discs. They're not releasing anything else before they start releasing on both formats. And The Doors isn't on the release list.

Where does "Descent" fit into that statement?

They hate you. And have probably dispatched hit men. Watch your back!

Yes, there's still plenty of REGION 1 dvds that have yet to get a proper 16x9 transfer. To name a few that I'm still waiting on getting:

The Game!!!!
The Abyss
True Lies
Breakdown
Broken Arrow
Scream
Ransom
Armageddon

Ha. Too bad. I have 4 of those in NTSC. :)

Don't studios make more money on a disc purchase than a theatre ticket?

I'm sure they'd prefer families going to see their movies at the theatres, to like them, & then drop $$ down again to buy the disc. Unfortunately we live in different times than say the 80s & 90s, alot of people prefer to watch movies at home & with the HD era alot of people just wait for the inevitable home release so they can pause, rewind, & just enjoy movies at home without the need to deal with more people than they have to. In some ways it's almost like what's the point of going to the theatres anymore? I'd also like to say studios release alot of pointless crap these days & just keep on pumping it out to make a buck.

These are the days of conveince & getting out is inconveint for many.

Well, I meant that they may have been planning to release it, but decided to pull titles before it would have been announced.

They think your blatant piracy hurts janitors and set dressers. All hail the MPAA!

It's the double edged sword they have built with dvd. Ultimately they want us to go and drop money on a ticket, walk out with nothing in hand, and then pick the same product up on dvd.

When the VHS rental market was popular people were encouraged to go to the movies more because they had to wait 1-2 years before seeing a lot of the films hit VHS. Now we have films hitting dvd within months and people would rather just wait to own.

I know I don't go to the theater anymore. But I also don't want dvds to die. Just got MST3K Vol. 10 and I don't mind that it isn't HD-DVD. In fact, I may not spend the extra $20 on it if it were.

And the only way to stop piracy and codes from being cracked is to marry them to a machine, and consumers won't bother to buy them. Studios just have to realize that everything they release will eventually be hacked. I think the best way to keep piracy at a minimum is to keep the product cheap. I can't imagine downloading a dvd movie when most dvds are under $10 now.

What they really need to do is kill Netflix and all the other rental places. But that won't happen either.

By the time stuff like MST3K is coming out on HD DVD, it won't be much more expensive than DVD is now, methinks.