2012 trends/guestimates/ predictions. (1 Viewer)

[Ethan Riley]

Not to sound like I'm being combative,but why will Paramount continue releasing Dynasty if it's not selling? The same for Melrose Place. I think it has only a season left before it's completed,but there have been other shows that Paramount have abandonded with only a season to go until completion.

What makes you think they're not selling? Those shows are still coming out, as of just a couple months ago. Dynasty season 6 is already available in the UK, and an American release usually follows. One thing to keep in mind is that American soap opera-type shows are at least twice as popular in Europe as they are in their country of origin. That's why Germany gets American daytime soaps on dvd and we do not. If Paramount goes through the trouble to remaster Dynasty for European release, it offsets the costs (a little) for an eventual US release. Don't go by the sales rankings of amazon.com--these shows have huge international appeal (even though most Americans think they're dumb!)

 

[Jeff Willis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

What makes you think they're not selling? Those shows are still coming out, as of just a couple months ago. Dynasty season 6 is already available in the UK, and an American release usually follows. One thing to keep in mind is that American soap opera-type shows are at least twice as popular in Europe as they are in their country of origin. That's why Germany gets American daytime soaps on dvd and we do not. If Paramount goes through the trouble to remaster Dynasty for European release, it offsets the costs (a little) for an eventual US release. Don't go by the sales rankings of amazon.com--these shows have huge international appeal (even though most Americans think they're dumb!)

That's true, "Dallas" is still a huge seller in Europe years after it's been off the air.

 

[Gary OS]

First, let me say how much I've enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts and predictions for 2012. I love it all. I really do. I won't mention the few things my crystal ball has revealed because that wouldn't be a guestimate or prediction. I'll just share my thoughts in general.


1) I still believe the studios general plan is to slowly phase out physical media in favor of streaming/downloading. This seems like an obvious point by now. One need only look at Netflix and what direction they are moving in to give people a clue that streaming is the push. Physical media is on the wane as best I can tell. So it's hard to see a great future for either DVD or Blu-ray, but next year isn't going to see the death of either so anything's possible in the short term.


2) I've not seen any indication yet that studios are willing to go after older, b/w TV material from the 50's/early 60's unless it falls into a "cult" status position (ala Twilight Zone). Some are predicting we'll start seeing I Love Lucy on Blu. Maybe. Maybe not. I kinda doubt it, but it wouldn't shock me either. The bigger issue for me is to see just how much penetration the Blu-ray market will make into 50's/60's TV over all once you eliminate the cult status shows like Star Trek and Prisoner. If we start seeing Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke on Blu-ray, then I'll concede the market made greater inroads than I initially thought. But until I see some solid evidence of that, I'm going to be skeptical.


3) I think the MOD program that Warner is working is fantastic... to a point. It's great if it's your show they are putting out. Up till now they've done little more than scratch the surface with things I'm interested in. And on top of that, we don't seem to get any sold discounts with this model, so that's another reason I'm not keen on it like some others are. Right now, as it stands, I just don't see things being released on a burn-on-demand basis that's really going to get me excited about this model. I hope they prove me wrong. And I hope they do it soon!


Ultimately, I'm going to predict another slight downturn for the classic shows. We've seen a pretty slow downward slope since the Christmas of '08 when things were at their height. From there things have slowly, but surely, gone downhill for me. To be sure, there are still some wonderful sets that are being produced by guys like Shout, Timeless, MPI, and even the big boys like CBS/P. But I'm not sure we'll see as much output in '12 as we saw in '11. I think it will be less. And I'm not adding in Blu-ray new releases from recent shows. That's a completely different ballgame. For my purposes, I'm talking only b/w TV material. That I think will continue to decrease - but I'd love to be wrong.



Gary "still see streaming as the new model the studios want us to embrace" O.

 

[vnisanian2001]

Fox didn't always act this weird, though. Anchor Bay released all seasons of Doogie Howser, M.D., Titus, and Profit (they're now out of print), and even the entire run of the 1960s Daniel Boone TV series came out. Could the economy have something to do with it perhaps?

 

[JamesSmith]

It's kind of funny. One reason I thought up this thread is that two of the shows that I had on my "list' for 2011 DID come out on DVD, those being the Girl from UNCLE and Man From Atlantis. So my score was two out of twenty (that I had down for possibilities) so that gives me a score of 10% for 2011. Yea! Me! Here's another thought: If the Adam West Batman DID make it out on DVD, along with shows like Blake's 7, China Beach, Wonder Years Green Hornet, BJ and the Bear, WKRP in Cincinatti, (with the original music intact) would that lift the DVD market out of the doldrums? Along with other unreleased Holy Grails, would that make any difference? Just a hypothetical speculative question. James

 

[Ethan Riley]

It's kind of funny. One reason I thought up this thread is that two of the shows that I had on my "list' for 2011 DID come out on DVD, those being the Girl from UNCLE and Man From Atlantis. So my score was two out of twenty (that I had down for possibilities) so that gives me a score of 10% for 2011. Yea! Me! Here's another thought: If the Adam West Batman DID make it out on DVD, along with shows like Blake's 7, China Beach, Wonder Years Green Hornet, BJ and the Bear, WKRP in Cincinatti, (with the original music intact) would that lift the DVD market out of the doldrums? Along with other unreleased Holy Grails, would that make any difference? Just a hypothetical speculative question. James

IF the studios aren't releasing those same shows as streamers and IF those shows are not currently available any other way--say in syndication--then it would definitely help their chances for physical dvd sales. But they are streaming Wonder Years, so probably not. If everyone's so slap-happy about streaming, then the physical media market is doomed no matter what they put out. I said in another thread that this hobby is becoming more and more of a niche market. And the studios will try to serve that niche, if they think they can make any kind of money while doing it. If they clean up a certain show for syndication or streaming, someone at the studio could say 'hey--we have this whole show ready to go on dvd, if you want. It may just help us meet our sales quotas for the 3rd quarter, blah blah blah." In that case, dvds will appear. But they're not doing much of this, apparently. Streaming is too attractive, and cheaper for all concerned. And I hate it.

 

[Gary OS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

Streaming is too attractive, and cheaper for all concerned.

And I hate it.

You and me, both.



Gary "unfortunately, that trend (streaming) is definitely picking up speed - and classic TV on DVD is definitely loosing steam" O.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary OS
Quote:

You and me, both.


Gary "unfortunately, that trend (streaming) is definitely picking up speed - and classic TV on DVD is definitely loosing steam" O.

Ditto. For me, the main beef that I have with streaming, and I'll need someone that's knowledgable about it to let me know if I'm wrong about it, is that you can't capture Streaming content for burning to a DVD-R for your private collection. I thought I read somewhere that the streaming content is encrypted or otherwise copy-protected, even when the consumer is buying the content.


Perhaps that's getting it mixed up with downloading. I'm not informed about this stuff but that's my belief about it.

 

[Ethan Riley]

      Quote:

Ditto.   For me, the main beef that I have with streaming, and I'll need someone that's knowledgable about it to let me know if I'm wrong about it, is that you can't capture Streaming content for burning to a DVD-R for your private collection.   I thought I read somewhere that the streaming content is encrypted or otherwise copy-protected, even when the consumer is buying the content.

 

Perhaps that's getting it mixed up with downloading.  I'm not informed about this stuff but that's my belief about it.

 

I just don't trust it. If I pay to stream some tv show, who's to say that the show will still be available in five years? What if they take it down? You're always going to be at the mercy of studio politics, rights holders, digital media distributors.... Whoever puts up a show for streaming in the first place may have their rights taken away, and so the show may disappear. WHEREAS--with physical media, you buy it, you keep it. And it's still there in five years, for whenever you feel like watching it. When I make the investment for actually going out and buying a tv show on dvd, I assume that it's going to be a long-term investment. My home video collection is "permanent," that is, at least until the discs wear out. I have vhs tapes from 1983 and they're still going strong. That's 28 years. I don't assume that anything amazon offers online is still going to be there when I want it 28 years from now. Hopefully, others will begin to look past the immediacy of online offerings. I don't see why people would invest good money for an online library knowing that someone else absolutely has the right to take it away from you at some future date.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley

I just don't trust it. If I pay to stream some tv show, who's to say that the show will still be available in five years? What if they take it down? You're always going to be at the mercy of studio politics, rights holders, digital media distributors.... Whoever puts up a show for streaming in the first place may have their rights taken away, and so the show may disappear.
WHEREAS--with physical media, you buy it, you keep it. And it's still there in five years, for whenever you feel like watching it. When I make the investment for actually going out and buying a tv show on dvd, I assume that it's going to be a long-term investment. My home video collection is "permanent," that is, at least until the discs wear out. I have vhs tapes from 1983 and they're still going strong. That's 28 years. I don't assume that anything amazon offers online is still going to be there when I want it 28 years from now.
Hopefully, others will begin to look past the immediacy of online offerings. I don't see why people would invest good money for an online library knowing that someone else absolutely has the right to take it away from you at some future date.

100% agree. I'm guessing that the major studios are happy about the streaming trend as it returns full control to them, or their perception of that.

 

[ChrisALM]

Gary, Jeff and Ethan - all of your points are right on the money. I'm not meaning to be critical, but I just don't understand consumers preferring streaming to physical media. If you could copy something to a DVD, then in some cases, it might be the only way to obtain something you want. But I don't believe it works like that. But at least then I could see the purpose for it from the standpoint of a consumer. In today's world, the manner in which political correctness hovers over everything, who knows what will be available for streaming by next year, or five years, or if never again? I like being able to go to my shelf and pick out what I want to watch, when I want to watch it. Owning the physical media is the best way of doing that, imho. For those who prefer streaming, then go for it. But, it's just not for me.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisALM

Gary, Jeff and Ethan - all of your points are right on the money. I'm not meaning to be critical, but I just don't understand consumers preferring streaming to physical media. If you could copy something to a DVD, then in some cases, it might be the only way to obtain something you want. But I don't believe it works like that. But at least then I could see the purpose for it from the standpoint of a consumer.
In today's world, the manner in which political correctness hovers over everything, who knows what will be available for streaming by next year, or five years, or if never again? I like being able to go to my shelf and pick out what I want to watch, when I want to watch it. Owning the physical media is the best way of doing that, imho.
For those who prefer streaming, then go for it. But, it's just not for me.

Chris,


Thanks and I also agree with your post. As to why the trend of consumer preference to streaming, I'm guessing that it's related to the portable era, ipads, iphones, etc


I'm not thrilled at studio's being able to keep a streamed movie or series on a server where the purchaser can't capture it for their home use.

 

[Gary OS]

I can't add any more to what Ethan, Jeff and Chris have said. There's not only a huge distinction between streaming and owning physical media (Ethan explained the problems with streaming perfectly), but there's also a difference between streaming and downloading. At least when something is downloaded you have it on your computer (whether for good or only a length of time is another issue) I think of that as being personal property and the ability to burn a dvd-r would be easier. But when something is streamed it never really comes to "stay" in your computer. You are, in a sense, only watching a video pass by just like you'd watch a car pass by your window. You never really have "ownership" of that. This is why I think the studios prefer streaming to downloading. It gives them even that much more control of everything. And as Ethan said, you never know when that server might go down, or that video that you "bought" for unlimited viewing thru streaming might be taken down. For those reasons, I'm just not a fan of streaming, even though it's obvious to me that this is the direction of the future. And it will more than likely be the ultimate death blow to physical media.



Gary "the recent Netflix moves have made it crystal clear where things are headed in the future, IMHO" O.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Thanks, Gary---and another thing is, if you burn something to a disc, supposedly those discs don't last too long. And they also have compatibility issues with differing dvd players. Make it kinda not fun to have them. I already have burned discs that I bought from amazon and none of them play correctly in my bluray player--I have to fire up my old standard dvd player (which is getting old). This whole streaming/downloading sensation (a rubbishy economic model if there ever was one!) has made me rethink the value of my actual dvd collection--I think I'm going to take better care of them from now on. Seems like they're becoming precious goods in my eye! Just the thought of streaming something that I want to own baffles me. It's more like a permanent rental--however, I reiterate that there's no time guarantee on the things you stream and supposedly keep in some online library; the rights holders can revoke those shows at some future date. Rights holders cannot come to my home and steal my dvds (no doubt, they'll try it in 30 years). Pressed dvds and blurays are the only way to amass a decent tv and movie collection. Supposedly a dvd lasts about 20 years or so. I'm betting that a dvd lasts more like 40 or 50 years, in which case, I'll be 90 years old, blind and deaf and won't care about watching them anymore anyway!

 

[Gary OS]

Another big 10-4 to all that, Ethan. We definitely see this issue the same way!



Gary "not much I can add to your last post - you said it perfectly" O.

 

[Jack P]

I'm just speaking for myself but I have thousands of DVD-R from my collecting of sports and other things over the years and not once have I run into a situation where the discs suddenly go bad after a certain period. The key is to (1) use good quality blanks and (2) store them properly. It also helps to have a burner on hand to make new copies when possible. As far as compatability on other machines go, only on once in a blue moon occasions has a disc not played on one machine that did on another but honestly I have had that happen more often with some lousy pressed discs (the BCI release of Match Game for instance) than I have with DVD-R (and the Universal DVD-18s I was forced to recopy to single sided DVD-R just to make that stuff playable!).

 

[Jeff Willis]

Speaking for myself, my experience is the opposite. I have many DVD-R's and I have seen the following:


On more than isolated occasions, I have encountered compatibility issues, where DVD-R's will play on "player A" and won't play on "player B".


I have yet to encounter a compatibility problem with any of my pressed discs. Not once. Pressed discs always play on multiple machines in my experience.


As far as lifetimes, I haven't encountered any of my DVD-R's having shelf life issues. So far, I've had good luck with that.

 

[ChrisALM]

Gary, Jeff and Ethan - all of the points you're making are excellent. I don't like the streaming / downloading business model either. I see why studios like it, they maintain a far greater control over the product. But look at how that control is exercised already in the DVD world. Fox, for instance, releases virtually no classic television and doesn't even want to license out classic television. As a consumer, how can I have any confidence I will ever have ready access to streaming their product when they show so little interest in making it available in the first place? Even if Fox were to start streaming classic TV, how long would they have interest in doing so? If they ever changed their mind and quit streaming, we would all be right back where we were before DVD's came along. No thanks, I'm not interested in that model at all.

 

[vnisanian2001]

Unlike most people, my thoughts are that TV-on-DVD is alive and well. As long as people buy them from amazon and other online retailers, they'll keep on going. I don't think they're some dying fad like some people make them out to be. As for Fox, the people who are currently heads of their home entertainment division have no love for their older shows at all. The only way I could see that happening is for the economy to recover and/or for the current people to be replaced by people with a more realistic and reasonable sense. The problem with Fox is that they act like their older shows are gold, but in reality they're not worth near anywhere near what they think it is.

 

[TVonDVDJunkie05]

I agree with others that streaming sucks and physical media is the way to go and DVD/Blu Ray formats should be supported by as many as possible to ensure that they will be around for a long time. I am a little confused by this whole streaming/downloading issue- can someone clarify for me exactly what this entails?! Are we talking about going to a studio's website and searching for a show and watching it (either free of charge or for a fee) or are you referring to buying an episode or entire season of a show online and then downloading it to your computer's hard drive?! I am not a fan of either but if this model involves paying to watch an episode or full season then I would expect that in return I would have the ability to download and save a copy of the episode or episodes. I don't understand the appeal of going online and paying to watch an episode and not being able to download a copy of it?! The whole point of having a collection of TV shows is the joy of owning these series and watching them whenever you feel like it.


TV on DVD does appear to be on the decline but remember that a lot of series have been released on DVD over the years- I would say that there are more shows that have been released (and completed) then those that have not been released or are incomplete. I don't think physical media releases will die out completely, in the future most DVD releases will probably come from the independents (Shout! Factory, MPI, Timeless Media, Image Entertainment, etc.). The major studios, on the other hand, will probably move to this streaming business that Gary alluded to and will move away from physical media releases. This trend has already begun, here is the current state of affairs regarding classic TV releases from the big boys:


Parmount- Still releasing some classic series but not very many

Sony- No releases of classic series, have opted instead to sub-license out shows to independent companies

Fox- No releases of classic series (S5&6 of The Bob Newhart Show could potentially be the final DVD releases of a Classic series- if they are in fact released?!)

Universal- Still releasing a few classic series, many shows have been sub-licensed out to independent companies

Warner Bros.- Classic TV releases are few and far between, have now shifted to MOD releases for classic series via Warner Archive

I think the MOD program that Warner is working is fantastic... to a point. It's great if it's your show they are putting out. Up till now they've done little more than scratch the surface with things I'm interested in. And on top of that, we don't seem to get any sold discounts with this model, so that's another reason I'm not keen on it like some others are.

While I prefer pressed discs to these MOD releases, I think an MOD release is better than no release at all. Having said that I am not impressed by Warner Archive thus far for two reasons:


1- The lack of releases, I would have expected them to open the vaults and start making more content available then they actually have. So far they have only released a pathetically small amount of older TV series. Are they still getting accustom to this new model of selling their content or is the lack of releases due to other factors such as restoration or music clearances for the shows they are looking at releasing?! I wonder what kind of sales they have had for the classic series they have released thus far- I know the Hanna-Barbera stuff has sold quite well but have the TV shows sold well?!


2- The pricing- For direct-to-consumer releases and considering that they own all of these TV series and films that they are putting out, the pricing is just too high IMO. The costs for MOD releases I would think are quite low compared to pressed DVD's that are sold in retail stores so as far as I am concerned greed is the main reason for the high prices. Unfortunately I think the high price points are going to be a turn off for many potential customers, especially more casual fans. They need to seriously rethink their strategy for this MOD stuff and lower the prices a bit. It appears as thought they are trying to maintain the same profit level as they have for retail releases but with these MOD releases there is no middle man, they are selling directly to the consumer and thus collecting all the profits.