pro-bassoonist

Agreed.

The perpetual posts on this site about doom and gloom facing HD media is nothing but well intended. And so is the "logic" being applied to it.

Physical media will always be a viable aspect of the entertainment business (be it games, CDs, DVDs, BRs). People will always look for a physical property to display or add to their collections. It is not a generational thing and I don't see how it will ever become one.

Contrary to what you Namja are saying pricing isn't the decisive factor for HD media either. If it was then HDDVD would have quickly become the mass successor of SDVD. At no point price was the factor that directed the growth of HD. It always was and is content and quality. Pricing was and is a factor for a small, selected, number of early enthusiasts...and it wasn't a factor for many either -- the rest simply went with quality and personal research.

Believe it or not HD will become a mass format. Studios, retailers, and producers are all loking for another product to deliver the profits SDVD did. And SDVD is a capped format. Regardless of all the talk on this site how VOD will break in and acquire a large portion of the future sales...it won't happen. It did not happen with CDs and chances are even smaller it would happen with BR.

The industry needs a steady influx of revenue. So does the economy. Any thoughts that retailers will kindly abandon physical media in favor of...nothing, is just pure demagogy. There are too many side products that are and will be related to HD/Blu-Ray and to think that convenience , the only aspect that VOD could put up to match up against it, will keep it as "niche" is a hallucinatory dream.

Pro-B

chanster

Wrong. I was willing to give HD a shot when the prices for players were cheap enough and it had decent studio support. $200 is the magic price point, according to consumer marketing experts.
see here: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/60135.html for "confirmation"!

Of course if you release players that are cheap with no support, its a waste, which I think HD DVD is now..but I'm not willing to buy a $400 player either....so there it is.

Tracer Bullet

Is that why CD sales are declining and music downloads are increasing?

It always amazes me that everyone seems to miss the obvious point that collectors are not the general public. The general public doesn't care about any of this. They'll gravitate to whatever is cheaper and more convenient.

Goldblum

IMO, there's a huge difference between music and film.

GatorDeb

VOD doesn't come shock-ful of extras and I can't watch it unlimited times for the same amount of money.

I've paid an average of $16 for my HDM, and that includes the price of two stand-along players and the X-Box add-on, and things like Heroes S1, Ultimate Matrix, Planet Earth, and PB S1 all built in to the average per-disc price.

cardaway

But there is a lot more oging on there beyond simply the abillity to download vs. buying the CD. The simple abililty to download things song by song has had a huge impact. Previously those CD's would be purchased for one song which translated into much higher numbers for artists with a hit single. Now one hit single doesn't get an artsit anywhere near as many CD sales.

The closest I can think as a comarision to DVD or HDM is the ability to download one episode of a TV show vs. buying a season set. Maybe if more TV shows were available for single episode downloads we would see an impact in the sales of season sets. I know I can think of a couple sets I purchased for a few of the episodes.

Peep

Keep in mind that CDs sales are dropping at a significantly faster rate than music downloads are increasing. While many people are buying, much more supposedly are "stealing".

cardaway

Good point. Numbers including those stats could be very interesitng indeed.

GatorDeb

When it comes to CDs there's also those listen-to-whatever-you-want-for-a-monthly-fee programs. I have yahoo and for around $80 a year, I get to listen to all the new music and take it with me on a portable player. If I particularly like a track, $1. I like it because I get to discover all kinds of music.

dsa_shea

I would rather hunt down a cd for 10-12 dollars or 5-8 used than pay .99 cents per song to download the songs from the album. I understand the general teenage population as well as a few adults have no problem downloading the songs usually without pay but that doesn't speak for the population as a whole. I agree that there is a huge difference in audio based media and movies and you can't really compare the sales of each format.

Gizmo

I have not bought an actual CD in maybe 5 years. I usually grab them off iTunes as they are cheaper and easier. I have no interest in a physical disc for music.

pro-bassoonist

No it is not wrong!

You made a point earlier that you don't see a difference between an actual disc and a download. Quote:

This statement alone invalidates what you have to say about pricing -- whether or not BD players are priced at 200$ hardly even matters at this point. Why? Because the majority of people who are currently adopting BR are enthusiasts, they care about audio quality, they care about video quality, they care about improvement over what SDVD offered. And they are willing to pay for it.

You also are on record stating that even those films that are on Demand and happen to be butchered, and aren't in the correct aspect ratio are pretty damn close...to the real thing I assume?

Well, pretty damn close, isn't going to cut it for a lot of people -- the extras which the red camp has been touting, compression, and a number of other issues that are close to what an actual disc offers will not break the industry. Pretty damn close isn't going to trounce physical HD media and provide the much anticipated by many disapointed enthusiasts from the red camp mass presence for VOD.

The same people I mentioned earlier are also building collections, these are people who care about detail, people who more likely than not will have the same positive impact on the HD adoption process outspoken SDVD enthusiasts had on the PAN/Scan vs. OAR issue.

Do you see PAN/Scan SDVDs being the norm nowadays? No! Yet it, PAN-Scanning, was the norm for VHS!

People educated each other and the studios followed. The same will happen with HDM media. Once the HD fiasco is finalized, and 2008 is the year when the madness ends, companies, distribs, and producers will follow exactly the same marketing progression they followed with SDVD. There is money to be made here, much more, substantially more than there is with VOD.

Pro-B

Qui Gon Jim

This kind of service is how I see the movie industry going. Hell, Netflix and Blockbuster are huge, and the only part left out is a switch away from physical media.

Right now, with some planning, I can get about any movie I want inside 2 days from Netflix. I think they will move to a set-top VOD model where the turn-around is faster with no USPS, no discs, and instant access. The issue of a disc being unavailable would also go away. Your queue downloads overnight and you are ready to go.

dsa_shea

Start the download now and we'll see you sometime next week. Oh by the way please don't tie up your broadband by using the internet or playing online games because we will need your bandwith.

Tracer Bullet

I don't see anyone here suggesting that HD VOD is going to become viable tomorrow. They'll figure it out, and to suggest otherwise just exposes your biases.

dsa_shea

Nobody has suggested that it will become viable by tomorrow but there are some on here hoping for it to happen. I am biased towards owning HDM rather than downloading it. So what? I would also rather own a physical cd of a band or group I really enjoy than just simply own some downloads of their songs. If someone wants to throw their money to itunes, rhapsody or ppv for their media kick then fine but my preference is to have something for my investment.

chanster

Wrong again. How is saying that I wouldn't mind downloads invalidate the idea that I would get a Blu Ray player if they were less than $200?

Or that the magic price point, as quoted by industry experts is $200???

I think its fantastic that you care enough to dig up my quotes, and thanks for "confirming" them. But there is nothing inconsistent with being OK with downloads and being OK with purchasing a $200 Blu Ray player. Nor am I making up that number, its widely known in the industry.

lizard

Columnist Steven Levy of Newsweek has an interesting wrinkle on broadband and VOD in a column titled "The Net Meter is Running". Lest you think that the plans contemplated would allow lots of bytes before extra charges kick in, get this: And, how much will the overage fees be? Well, Bell Canada is charging C$7.50 per additional gigabyte in some plans.

If this sort of broadband metering catches on, HD movies via VOD could be mighty expensive...

I think I'll stick to discs.

namja

Again, I don't think anyone is saying that VOD will dominate at the current state of the Internet. Look ahead to when the U.S. will catch up to Japan and Korea. Think reliable 50 mbps speeds for $30 a month with no cap. Think that won't happen in 5-10 years? It's inevitable that it will happen ... just like it's inevitable that HD will one day take over SD.

lizard

^5-10 years? You might be right but I seem to recall predictions like that for some years now. Yet we remain stuck with "barely broadband" for large monthly fees.

Even if your prediction does come true in many big cities, it sure won't be the case where I live.

Don't forget that S. Korea and Japan are tiny countries in area and densely populated, unlike the USA. They have better economies of scale there for broadband service.

redbill

When was the last time internet service increased and prices decreased?

TheBigDave

Actually, that's happened to me. I have Comcast (that was formerly Adelphia). I paid extra for the "Preferred" service which is like super highspeed. Over the past couple years, my internet speed has continued to increase. Since then, they've dropped the "Preferred" service and just raised everyone's bandwidth. So I'm paying less than I was 1-2 years ago, and I'm getting faster speeds.

darkside

Here is some reality of what HD VOD currently is.
http://gizmodo.com/352392/vudu-test-...eds-to-be-done
A long download for a 720p version that is destroyed by the HD DVD version.

BD discs have little to fear from HD VOD rentals. Those rentals are pricey and most importantly they aren't up to the quality of BD or HD DVD.

Qui Gon Jim

You are correct. Someone that is looking for the best quality will likely go with the BD version for their collection. What most "VOD Supporters" are saying is that it won't be the collectors, but the average consumer that does and will drive the market. Most people probably wouldn't care or even notice the difference between the two, and if the VOD is cheap and most importantly, convenient, then that is where they will go.

Tracer Bullet

Exactly.

Many people in this very forum have said that some average people can't tell or don't care about the difference between SD and HD. Then we get it suggested that a 720p download "destroys" a 1080p HD disc. Which is true, of course, but this is all inside baseball that most people couldn't care less about.