kefrank

the BDA has a tough balancing act to maintain. the CEs want to sell the hardware at a decent profit, but the studios want enough players getting into homes so that the software can replace the dwindling SD DVD profits for them. that being the case, if production costs come down in the next few months, or the studios agree to somehow subsidize the CEs, it's possible that we could see prices drop sooner than 18 months from now.

cardaway

A bit? To JP6 that's plenty expensive. I also don't inlcude any short term 6 month deals where the price goes up at the end of the deal.

pro-bassoonist

Splatti:

I own a very large library of films where the majority of them are European/Arthouse product and typically go far and away overseas to import films that I believe will never be released at home, or, eventually will come through a poor distributor. Yet...I find your statement above to be utterly dismissive of our own industry.

To say that American cinema is so poor there is nothing of interest for a cinephille, and I know well that you are one, is a statement I totally disagree with. We produce plenty of excellent films each year and there are plenty that are worth owning - low-budget, independent, blockbusters.

I am sorry to hear that you are so disapointed and I can not even begin to imagine that VOD will meet your expectations in terms of variety. If anything, and at best, VOD will be a viable but very small compliment to the industry. The bulk of the business will remain the physical media, sold on line and in stores. As mentioned earlier our economy can not allow such a major portion of the business to be eliminated in favor of a model which has not been able to prove, in any form, that it could be a viable substitution to physical media (online music services are an excellent example and so is online retail in general as far as I am concerned).

Pro-B

Gerry P.

I can pretty much guaratee you that some of "them" (not sure why we're quoting) will go Blu-ray. Many people who buy HDTVs want to know what HD media is all about.

...and not everyone wants a cheapo, bottom of the barrel DVD player.

Peep

It's funny how attractive VOD became with some people the instant HD shit the bed.

VOD will never replace Blu-ray for me. It still pisses me off when I pay $10 to iTunes and get nothing that I can hold in my hands.

When I buy something, I know I will have it forever. I don't have to worry about my VOD providers dropping it in favor of 5 other crap releases. Even if VOD swells up huge, at some point it will reach capacity and releases will start dropping off.

RoboDad

That argument makes no sense. There was no optical competition for DVD, yet prices dropped with each new generation of players. That's the way new technology works. As designs can be simplified and manufacturing processes streamlined, prices come down. And when the proponents of a given technology want to make inroads into an existing market (which, I assure you, BD player manufacturers DO want), they will take steps to try to accomplish that goal.

Will we see a $100 BD player this year? Maybe, maybe not. Will they still be $300 and up? I seriously doubt it. I believe we will see several $200 MSRP players before year's end. Of course, they may be 1.1 players, which I'm sure you will just brush off as "unfinalized".

spainlinx0

I think his argument is that DVD was introducing a new format, and prices dropped naturally over time in order to encourage adoption. Manufacturers didn't cut prices prematurely in order to court adopters between two formats. Prices didn't plummet like they have in the HDM world due to the battle between HD-DVD and BD.

He's saying that now that the war is basically over, the manufacturers would like to see profit, which he is assuming was not at the level of DVD in its infancy because its adoption period was shortened, and prices were lowered in order to compete rather than get a groundswell of adoption.

I have no idea if this is truly the case, or if I'm even interpreting his point correctly, but there you go.

Also, I don't know if BD or VOD will be bigger in the short-run. I think long-term obviously VOD is going to be the mainstream, but I don't know if that's feasible (for high-quality video) within the next 10 years. I think BD will have a decent life, but will never attain DVD numbers. Although I don't think many people expect that it will.

RoboDad

They didn't? I guess my memory must be faulty then. I bought my first DVD player for $750 in March of 1997. I bought my second DVD player (which had better features) in March of 1998 for $300 (it was on sale - I think the MSRP was $350). I bought my third DVD player (which had even better features) in April of 1999 (barely two years after the format's inception) for $219.

So far, aside from Toshiba artificially lowering prices, I haven't seen any plummeting of player prices at a rate any different than during the early days of DVD.

spainlinx0

I said I thought that was his argument. I didn't buy my first DVD player until 2000, and I paid 300 for it then. I don't know how the prices progressed really so I can't comment on that part of it.

namja

What model did you buy? I got my DVD player in October 1999 for $140 (MSRP was $280, but it was $200 at Best Buy). I know this because I signed up for DVD Talk shortly after I bought my DVD player and bought the 3 DVDs for $1 shipped from 800.com thanks to the DVD Bargins Forum here. BTW, my DVD player still works and is currently in use.

mod note: BTW, whoever it was that split this thread off from the BD thread (wasn't me) was genius. Thanks. -namja

namja

Not that you were talking about me ... but I bought my last HDM in October last year. It was Ratatouille (BD). Once I found out that Directv would be offering movies on demand soon, I quit buying movies. With Directv, all the shows/movies that are on the premium channels that month are free. Zero added cost.

As for the future of VOD, I imagine that one day, it'll be ~$5 to watch a movie and you can keep for several days. And you'll have INSTANT access to tens of thousands of movies. So I really don't see the point of buying most movies when I'll have access to tens of thousands. This will most likely happen a lot quicker than HDM catching on like DVD did.

bunkaroo

I believe it was Mr. Tyner.

Burnt Thru

there's was nothing technical preventing this scenario from happening with standard definition movies over 5 years ago, and yet it didn't. this has also been on the cards for books for many years now, with some considering their obselescence inevitable, and yet... here we are, with even higher book sales. perhaps simple being able to do something doesn't mean it's necessarily attractive enough to a large enough group of people to carry it forward at a competitive price?

is there any hard data on the growth of highdef download services as a percentage of hometheatre revenue?

Draven

HD discs for movies I want to own and VOD rentals through a Netflix box would be the ideal situation for me.

cardaway

VOD is currently available "On Demand" on Comcast digital cable, but if that's what it's going to be like, I can understand why it hasn't grown much. The SD movies are less than VHS quality and the "HD" movies are so compressed they look worse than upconverted DVDs IMO. But there is a large selection, I'll give them that.

And I still say the biggest issue is the price. Until somebody can just plug there TV into an outlet for free, then only paying for what they watch, it will never be that big of an impact. Currently VOD requires Direct TV, digital cable, or high speed internet and that's far from cheap when comparing to what other options people have.

namja

That's pretty much how I see it too. The current "On Demand" on various cable systems is pretty sucky, but it's not totally awful. The Directv On Demand (DOD) is supposed to be much better (it is now available to certain model DVRs, but mine's not one of them so I need to wait a bit longer). From what I hear, DOD will be pretty awesome, and it's supposed to have a very large selection soon.

As for the cost, it's a non-issue for me since I am already paying for Directv and cable modem and there won't be any added cost to get the VOD service. Also, most of the movies would be free since they are included in the subscription package (HBO/MAX/SHO/etc), and I'll only have to pay for the new releases. I guess for someone who has no TV & no Internet subscription at home, the costs could be quite a bit, but I'm thinking that if one could afford an HD standalone, then one probably already has a TV/Internet that they pay for?

lizard

Cost may be a non-issue for you but it is a big deal for me. In my rural area I get two channels of TV OTA and the only other option is satellite (no cable here), which has a cost of about $40 a month just for basic stuff, more for high def, not counting hardware costs. The only broadband option is wireless, which runs about $70 a month and is nowhere near capable of HD streaming.

So, about $500 a year just to watch TV and/or $840 a year for broadband internet. Just for the charges for a single year I could buy an HD DVD or Blu-ray player and a bunch of discs.

I realize that in the big city competition leads to lower charges for broadband but how many people think nothing of paying $400 to $500 (or more!) a year for cable or satellite TV? Just to watch TV!

These costs may be chickenfeed to you but they are "unnecessary expenses" to me. I choose to pay nothing for TV, $99 a year for my pokey dial-up internet access, $60 a year for the lowest cost Netflix rental plan, and spend the savings on home theater stuff, which has some lasting value (to me, at least). It is really hard for me to imagine HD VOD being cost-effective for the forseeable future in my area. Yes, the march of technology will make it practical and, possibly, affordable someday, but not for a good long time, IMO. For now, I'll stick to discs.

cultshock

I've been reading video trade magazines for over 12 years (used to manage a video store) and first PPV, then VOD has always been mentioned as a business that was predicted to soon be a possible threat to the video rental, and later retail, business. In all that time, it's market penetration has increased at a snail's pace. IMO, that will probably be the case for quite some time.

Jericho

Are you sure you have that all straight? Because I'm pretty sure the 3 for $1 from 800.com was in 1998 (I know it was before I joined DVDTalk).

I do think it's weird seeing all these threads with the chicken little view of Blu-Ray and HD Media. I mean, I bought into DVD in Septmber of 1999. I came across this site when looking for a DVD player (although I didn't join until a month or more later). It still cost something like $270 from 800.com (although with some free movies tossed in besides the send away rebate movies). That's two years into maybe the most successful medium ever, and it was both expensive (even using internet shopping) and largely a niche at that time.

One can't compare Blu-ray to DVD since the differences aren't as great. People won't adapt as soon. That's just logical. But Blu-Ray's not even two years old and people are just so impataient for adoption to happen. Think back to early 1999 and compare where DVD was and where Blu-Ray is now. It's not so bad. Blu-Ray actually has a presence in B & M stores and IS growing.

These other options like Video on Demand? It's never taken off, even against DVDs. Downloads? Really? Even CDs exist despite the huge music download industry. Will people really have the connection speed and bandwith to do pass downloads of HD content anytime soon? Does one really expect that average person to have that kind of set-up? And does one expect people to really abandon physical media en mass? REally?

dsa_shea

Hoping for VOD demand to be succesful is not for the convenience of acquiring media rather than a hope of getting rid of Blu-Ray and the "Evil Empire" known as Sony. Looking at the past several years there has always been some type of service whether it be VOD or PPV, which has been around since I was a teenager. None of these have replaced nor will ever replace purchasing your own copy of a movie.

cardaway

I know I have all but stopped going to see movies in the theater since very few know how to respect those around them, but most people still go. That is the market that I think could gain some market back if they played their cards right because many people simply don't want a "home theater". They see the theater experience as something completely different than, what is to them, "watching TV". No matter how big that TV gets or quality of the sound, it's not going to touch going to the theater.

I bring this up here because I think that is a big road block in HD VOD ever taking off. Why would people who will always think of it as "watching TV" ever pay more to watch HD VOD? Many fo the people who don't read sites like this (or websites anywhere) are happy watching any size TV so they can get the news or watch the occasional TV show.

A lot of people are still happy with over the air antenna reception, no cable or internet what so ever. Not that they can't afford it, they just choose not to spend their money there. Why would they ever be interested in any kind of VOD?

spainlinx0

I worked at Best Buy which is how I learned about this site (from a coworker), and how I finally got into DVD. Unfortunately I picked up a Toshiba Nuon player, anyone remember that? It was $300 retail, and I think I paid 240 something with my discount. However I can't say it wasn't worth it because that machine is still running for me today.

Oh Nuon. I bought Bedazzled to try out the features. Let's say that wasn't a proud moment for me when I realized this thing was never going to make a dent.

Alan Smithee

I almost forgot about Nuon- that was pretty short-lived and didn't go very far. I've got the Bedazzled disc, were there any other movies that had Nuon features? There were a couple game discs out, I wonder if they play at all on regular DVD players?

I refuse to spend my money on cable because it has completely failed in its original mission, which was to bring perfect-quality reception of things that regular TV couldn't or wouldn't show, and with NO commercials or other intrusions. It's become just more of the same crap as regular TV, only difference being you have to pay for it. I might be interested in video-on-demand if there was anything on it that I actually wanted to see (in perfect quality, with no interruptions or onscreen intrusions) but I've been more than happy just picking up whatever I want on disc.

namja

Not that your post was directed specifically at me but ... VOD through cable or satellite has not been around that long for most people. Even a year ago, only a small minority of consumers had the option of VOD through cable/satellite. Directv launched its VOD service only this month, and only to customers with select DVR models.

I don't think VOD will totally replace owning discs. If there is a movie that you really must own, you'll still buy them. But it will replace most of the other purchases (not really a must have movies). Currently, many people buy these mediocre DVDs that they would only watch once, simply because it was cheap and owning it was convenient. Once VOD becomes "awesome" (instant download, upscaled HD quality, nearly free, etc.), then people will stop buying those discs.

cardaway

Versions of VOD have been around for years, but obvoiously not in HD. And not only for porn either.

I remember ordering a couple movies here and there years and years ago, and I had nothing better than a standard cable box until I went HD.