Not convinced it's just content or the lack of content.

LaserDisc lays some doubt on the "content is everything" conjecture. Didn't every studio release content on the format? Yet the price of players, content, and the flipping thing kept it from mass adoption. It has various levels of interest in different markets, too. Same product, same studio support -- different penetration. Japanese consumers took to LaserDisc more so than the US for instance.

And yet, VHS came in and took over. Nope, there's more to it than simply content or restriction of content. The product itself must be compelling and consumers must get it. Not to say consumers don't get Blu-ray.

-beebs

Pardon the threadcap, but why don't they just cut out the 4 second cameo that Chen had in DK and then that wouldn't be a problem. Anyway, that guy is a tool.

Actually, as far as physical media formats are concerned LD is the best example as to why the studios, as content-providers, are in a key position to dictate the market.

Outside of the US, Japan, and to a lesser extent Germany, LD was a severely restricted format with major gaps in release-dates. Furthermore, in traditionally strong markets, such as the UK, France, and Scandinavia certain LD titles were largely available as imports only. The studios were not particularly impressed with sales (which was the reason they never encouraged growth outside of the traditional markets I mentioned above) and this was why VHS arrived as a rental-format.

Of course, VHS and renting gave birth to Blockbuster and eventually the studios had to share with a party that grew so powerful that it became essential to their business. This is where DVD appeared and forward thinking "independent" minds, such as Warner's Liberfarb, mainstreamed DVD as an "owner"-format. Second parties attempted to resurrect the VHS-rental market status quo (DIVX) but were effectively shut down by the majors.

So, the impact of the "sharing" I mentioned above was eventually softened by the fact that the studios refused to provide rental-windows for DVD and essentially guaranteed its robust growth during the last 6-7 years (which much later on transformed in Blockbuster seeking to earn their business again by backing BD).

All of this by the way has me firmly convinced that downloading, and all of the other non-physical "formats" that some are fantasizing about, are poised to fail dramatically and remain wishful thinking in a foreseeable future. As the current state of the downloading market reveals, there are too many parties who wish to be the "middle man" and "share" with the studios. In addition to the fact that the infrastructure for such a market is also a disaster waiting to happen, and there are too many platforms that depend on secondary parties addressing compression, encoding, etc, it is naive to consider that the studios will be looking to build an active downloading market where they will be willing to share just as they did in the past with Blockbuster (which is the reason why you have all these scattered little platform-players by the way).

With other words, if downloading ever becomes a lucrative idea for the studios, and they decide to explore it as a reliable source of revenue, it will be done according to their terms and preferences...and this certainly isn't something Microsoft, Apple, and a few other willing to dominate corporate businesses are keen on accepting.

Pro-B

But, Professional Bass, my point was content isn't EVERYTHING. Sales play just as big a role. If the customer's don't show up for the format, a format with studio support is still not a given. Of course, the era of LD and the era of Blu-ray are quite different in terms of consumer content "ownership".

You know, I'm sure the studios would like to control everything and make tons of money. But, that's not the way business works today. Partnerships and channels are how businesses grow and protect against the future. Finding new or more customers and getting product to those customers is a big deal. I can't see any studios lamenting the, what, 20 Billion in rental related revenues last year? That's an incredibly successful channel play. The studios get revenue out of people who wouldn't see a movie in theaters or buy the $20 DVD. That's a win the way I see it.

Sure, I'm certain the studios want control over DD stuff. But, money will talk and so will competition. If one studio finds 250 million in Digital Download revenue... how will other studio execs say "no way, too many strings attached to that quarter of a billion"? They wont.

Clearly isn't not time yet for downloads... but Blu-ray also hasn't backed up the money truck yet either. We'll see... 2009 should be a good year for Blu-ray. 2010 will be a year, I think, we might first see signs of downloads standing on it's own. In fact, I'm surprised how well Netflix stuff works on BR, Roku, and Xbox. If this goes through 2-3 generations before Q4 2010... it might take the studios united to keep it down. And we all know how well the studios like to line-up together.

There may be a prolonged downturn in the economy. If so, and if the studios scramble to find new revenue, I can see them embracing just about anything. We'll see.

Blu-ray is nice, though.

-beebs

Anyone that thinks the studios are ready anytime soon to rock the (admittedly decreasing but still huge) cash cow of DVD is either a fool or is on the take.

If 2DSEs were phased out, it STILL wouldn't matter all that much because most people only watch the movie, and most copies of any given movie sold, are the 1D versions. You could hook the die-hard DVD collectors by dumping SEs, but you won't gain all that much more than you've gained now, and it will be a LONG time before studios think about fucking with their customers with release dates and such. DVD is far too entrenched.

We all make these points over and over again, and the zealots read off their Sony-provided agenda, but it changes nothing.

BD does not have to replace all DVDs ever built to be considered successful. I consider it successful now.

The thing with DVD is although sales have been declining, it still does crazy sales numbers. Most people haven't stopped supporting the format, they're just not buying as much as they used to.

DVD players are still selling very well. People are picking up their 2nd or 3rd players for other rooms in their house, for the mini-van, etc. DVD-ROM/DVD-RW drives come standard with desktop and notebooks and people are using those devices as another way to play DVDs. 22" - 24" LCD monitors are so cheap now and large enough that many people with watch movies on those.

DVD is too entrenched and well supported for it to go away anytime soon.

If we completely ignore the whole picture and just pick out things that support your view, then yes, you're correct.

If we instead look at everything and pick something like UMD, which Sony was promoting and had studios on board, according you to, it wouldn't matter if consumers bought it or not.

In reality though, people didn't accept it and the studios dropped it because it wasn't selling.

At least if you're going to post stuff to support your point and disprove mine and my example of UMD, why not post some articles showing how successful UMD is? You can't because it wasn't and it wasn't because the studios didn't try. It didn't sell.

My point is proven.

DVD isn't dead yet guys, it's still outselling Blu-ray, so don't worry yet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081225/music_nm/us_dvd

Don't worry Blu-ray, DVD is going down

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/40333/113/

This sort of baiting really doesn't do anyone any good.

Trust me, you will notice the difference. I only picked up a blu-ray player because of the price this year (Magnavox Walmart Black Friday $128 player), and I am now phasing out buying movies in standard format because the picture is just so dang sharp. To inaugurate my player I tried out the blu From Russia With Love, and one of the first things I noticed was the paintings in the background when a chess match is going on early in the film, I could see the detail on the paintings quite clearly, and suspected that some of the clarity would be lost on a standard copy of FRWL, so I placed a sd copy in a standard dvd player, and whoa!!, the paintings were all fuzzy and the image was very soft compared to the blu copy.

It is the items in the background, pictures, items with writing on them, that really stand out with clarity when you upgrade to blu. I used to think that some of the fuzziness of background images in movies was intentional, a trick of the camera / special lens / done in the post production process, and yet when you look at the paintings in a film like FRWL, fresh after viewing them in standard def, you have to shake your head and be amazed at how much of an upgrade blu is.

As long as places like Fry's and Amazon continue to price most catalog blu ray titles at $10-20, and the price of new releases will continue to come down enough that I can get them for no more than $20-22 when they first hit the stores, I can see Blu existing side-by-side with standard for the next 10-15 years, and perhaps a generation from now (20 yrs, give or take a few), overtaking standards. Standard dvds are so long-lasting, that it makes no sense to phase them out now, and unlike vhs tapes, the image does not get noticeably worse as you watch the film a million times (I remember watching Pollyanna, Darby O'Gill, Annie, etc., so many times that I could actually begin to see where the image on parts of the tape had started to degrade).

There is hardly any need to argue this any further at this point. I am going to wait and see how things play out and hopefully when trends begin to emerge we will be able to continue our discussion.

Finally, when posting an article to prove your point it is probably a good idea to provide a direct link to it, or at least a date. Dates really do put things in perspective...(specifically, in regard to your second piece which is absolutely, positively, not an indicator of the current mood at Warner pertaining to Blu-ray).

Pro-B

Content is what secures sales. Without content everything else you have -- DVD, BD, HDDVD, 4K, etc -- is just that, a tech platform.



You can still have partnerships, the point is, the studios will have to be the stronger partner. Faux-Blockbuster "partnerships", as seen in the past, in my opinion are now unthinkable.

Pro-B

Knew I forgot something. Good catch and links posted.

And the dates for both, including the second, is December 24, 2008.

As for waiting till trends emerge, I'm more of discussing your point of view of studios having the say in whether a format will succeed or fail instead of consumers. We both know UMD has proven that to be wrong but if you really want, I can't post articles where studios dropped support for the format since consumers weren't buying it(or one could go to a store and see how most don't sell them anymore).

It wasn't directed at blu-ray at all.

You're wasting your time. It's better to just ignore and move on. You'll get no where with him.

I think there is one thing that we can all agree on: Blu-ray is not one of the worst tech of 2008. Closing thread.

namja
Moderator, DVD Talk Forums