2012 trends/guestimates/ predictions. (1 Viewer)

[jcroy]

All of that being said, there was a huge article in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend explaining and analyzing the ongoing dearth of physical dvd product. The article mostly blamed this on the rapid adoption of digital distribution, streaming and so on. This certainly does not bode well for those of us who do--and will always--prefer physical product. But what it does mean is that increasingly, the physical dvd format will become a niche market. We are that niche market, and need to identify ourselves as such. We need to continue to lobby the studios for physical product. Such dvds will increasingly be available only through online sites such as the Warner Archives. Forget about mass releases in B&M stores. That marketing model is phasing itself out of existence. But as a niche market, we can and should continue to support physical product purchase through the Archives, Shout, amazon, and other similar sites. My personal wish is that if all of this becomes the case, that the dvd producers will avoid burned dvds and stick to pressed dvds that supposedly are more reliable and last longer. If we are a niche market, and there's not a lot of us, and we're the ones buying those products, we must convince them to do so.

Are you referring to these following articles? http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/09/technology-post-dvd-hollywood.html http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/25/business/la-fi-cover-dvd-future-20110925-1

 

[jcroy]

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.


... 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.

I think I completely missed the "boom years" for tv shows on dvd. I didn't pay much attention to the dvd market until recently, and wondered why the dvd market seemed so "sedated" these days (ie. very little excitement). Previously I had very little to no interest in dvds of movies and tv shows. Before 2010, I only had around 20 dvds and one tv show box set (The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection). I only recently became interested in buying classic tv shows on dvd, within the last year or so . (I suppose going through a midlife crisis can do that ). But I noticed that many classic tv shows I wanted were no longer on the shelves at local brick & mortar stores like WalMart, Best Buy, etc ... (I remember back in the mid-2000's, the dvd sections at brick & mortar stores like WalMart, Best Buy, etc ... use to be huge in comparison to what they are today. Today they seem to be about half the size of what they once were). Eventually I found out that many classic tv show dvd sets were ending up in the bargain bins at local brick & mortar stores like: department stores, grocery stores, discount stores, and even a few gas stations (of all places). So over the last six months or so, I ended up going on a huge "binge" scavenging through the bargain bins and found many of the classic tv dvd sets I wanted for around $15 each (or less). (I was picking up a lot of cheesy action type tv shows I use to watch when I was a younger, such as: The A-Team, MacGyver, Miami Vice, Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, Starsky & Hutch, etc ...). With streaming becoming more popular and dvds becoming less popular, at times I wonder if we'll ever see subsequent later dvd season sets which have not been released yet, such as for tv shows like: Simon & Simon, Hart to Hart, Silk Stalkings, Baretta, Charlie's Angels, etc ... Perhaps I have been lucky so far, that I have been able to find almost all the classic tv dvd sets I wanted at a low price, before they completely disappeared from the market. I'm sorta glad I didn't pay $40 or $50 (or more) per dvd set, back in the mid 2000's.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Streaming or downloading sounds like a bad case of 'look what we can do technically', and about as appealing to me as bathing in lava, it seems to be more of an attraction to 20-somethings and even younger. Since we're not all robots yet, I want the product in my hand for my player, please.

I'm not into streaming at present since I prefer to collect physical media since I own the media and am not being limited in my private use of that item by encoded streaming.

I suppose it depends on what motivates the individual to make a purchase. Many DVD "collectors" don't even have time to watch all the shows they buy, so downloading is going to hold less allure when you won't have something in your hands to hold. But if you just want to watch the show, when and wherever you desire, it really makes very little difference what format the media is in. I also collect vinyl records, and will be the first to admit that this is a separate and entirely different hobby that just listening to music. People do both, and should be free to choose the path they desire.

Well, as one "collector", I will question your "many collector" point. Perhaps that's correct, but I'm not in that category. I rotate my viewing with my DVD collection and as a result, I have very few sets on the shelf that I haven't begun viewing and zero DVD sets that are still unopened. As for streaming, I'm not up to date with the techincal info but correct me if this is incorrect here: If you purchase a streamed item, you can't burn that movie or show to the physical media of your choice. That's my understanding of current streaming encoding protocols. If that's true, that is a major reason why I'm not a proponent of streaming. If I buy something from a studio, I think that I should have the right to burn that item for my private collection. That way, if or when I decide to unsubscribe to Netflix/Amazon, or any provider's streaming service, I'll still have that series or movie available for re-viewing on my schedule and it won't be unavailable.

Similar experiences here too, for various Universal manufactured dvds. They're all across the board, with no rhyme or reason. (For instance). One of my Knight Rider season 3 disks, freezes on all on my stand alone dvd players. But it rips fine without any problems from my computer dvd drive. One of my Law and Order: Criminal Intent season 5 disks, freezes on all my stand alone dvd players and even the XBox 360. But it rips fine on my computer dvd drive. One of my Miami Vice season 2 disks, freezes on the computer dvd drive (whether watching or ripping). But it plays fine on the stand alone dvd players. (Similar story with one of my The A-Team season 4 disks). On one of my Baretta season 1 disks, it freezes with two episodes being literally unwatchable on all my stand alone dvd players and the computer dvd drive. But it plays almost fine on my XBox 360 console. On the XBox 360, it only freezes at around the dual-disk layer transition. (One can fast forward or rewind on the XBox 360 to get around the freeze point, and missing around 2 or 3 seconds of video). This was my third copy of Baretta season 1, after two previous exchanges from the store. It seems like it freezes at almost the same spot on disk 1. (Perhaps the store just got a bad batch, all with a very similar problem?) Then again, I only paid 9 dollars for the dvd set brand new (two weeks ago). Not going to complain too much about a dvd which I effectively paid 3 dollars for.

Your points bring up something that's always been stange to me, given a format that's been around since '97? There seems to be a considerable amount of inconsistancies in the format that I would have expected to have been debugged over the years. I've been fortunate with most of my studio purchases where they play without problems on my standalone player.

I think I completely missed the "boom years" for tv shows on dvd. I didn't pay much attention to the dvd market until recently, and wondered why the dvd market seemed so "sedated" these days (ie. very little excitement). Previously I had very little to no interest in dvds of movies and tv shows. Before 2010, I only had around 20 dvds and one tv show box set (The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection). I only recently became interested in buying classic tv shows on dvd, within the last year or so . (I suppose going through a midlife crisis can do that ). But I noticed that many classic tv shows I wanted were no longer on the shelves at local brick & mortar stores like WalMart, Best Buy, etc ... (I remember back in the mid-2000's, the dvd sections at brick & mortar stores like WalMart, Best Buy, etc ... use to be huge in comparison to what they are today. Today they seem to be about half the size of what they once were). Eventually I found out that many classic tv show dvd sets were ending up in the bargain bins at local brick & mortar stores like: department stores, grocery stores, discount stores, and even a few gas stations (of all places). So over the last six months or so, I ended up going on a huge "binge" scavenging through the bargain bins and found many of the classic tv dvd sets I wanted for around $15 each (or less). (I was picking up a lot of cheesy action type tv shows I use to watch when I was a younger, such as: The A-Team, MacGyver, Miami Vice, Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, Starsky & Hutch, etc ...). With streaming becoming more popular and dvds becoming less popular, at times I wonder if we'll ever see subsequent later dvd season sets which have not been released yet, such as for tv shows like: Simon & Simon, Hart to Hart, Silk Stalkings, Baretta, Charlie's Angels, etc ... Perhaps I have been lucky so far, that I have been able to find almost all the classic tv dvd sets I wanted at a low price, before they completely disappeared from the market. I'm sorta glad I didn't pay $40 or $50 (or more) per dvd set, back in the mid 2000's.

Sounds like you had a good plan. I was halfway on the money-saving timetable. Since I did get into the TV/DVD collector scene around '03, I did spend some more $$'s than I would have had I waited until recently but I rarely spent more than ~$30 per season excluding the split-season CBS sets. Streaming, well, we'll see how that goes with trends. There are several series that have been continued in the streaming market that aren't available on DVD and that's good for those that are set up and into streaming. There's not been a lot of the streaming titles that have persuaded me to get there yet.

 

[jcroy]

Your points bring up something that's always been stange to me, given a format that's been around since '97? There seems to be a considerable amount of inconsistancies in the format that I would have expected to have been debugged over the years. I've been fortunate with most of my studio purchases where they play without problems on my standalone player.

These days Apple sells computers without any optical drives. This and along with dvds becoming less and less popular, I'm not particularly optimistic about the hardware manufacturers ironing out the bugs from dvd players. I wouldn't be surprised if at this point, they largely don't give a damn anymore. :f (ie. From a business perspective, why bother improving a declining or "dying" technology?) One of the few methods left to improve dvd drive performance, would be to hack the drives to just read the raw unprocessed dvd disc data and processing the raw data by software on a computer (ie. deinterleaving, reed-soloman error correction, etc ...). Albeit in the end, this long hard road may very well be an exercise in futility, especially for dvd discs one only paid $5 for (or less).

Sounds like you had a good plan. I was halfway on the money-saving timetable. Since I did get into the TV/DVD collector scene around '03, I did spend some more $$'s than I would have had I waited until recently but I rarely spent more than ~$30 per season excluding the split-season CBS sets.

Back in the mid 2000's, I thought about picking up some tv dvd box sets like Miami Vice, Magnum PI, etc ... when they were first originally released. But then I heard a lot of complaints about the Universal double sided flipper discs having major problems, from friends and online. So at the time, I didn't think it was worthwhile spending $30 to $40 (or more) on such tv dvd box sets with major problems. Earlier than that (circa early 2000's), there weren't really any tv dvd sets that I was interested in. I more or less stopped regularly watching scripted tv shows sometime in the late 1980's. By then, I only really watched random tv episodes whenever I was bored and channel surfing (such as first run shows like Silk Stalkings, MacGyver, Law & Order, Star Trek TNG, etc ...). I wasn't a big enough fan of such shows like Law & Order, Star Trek TNG, Stargate SG-1, X-Files, etc ... to want to buy the dvd sets back when they were first released in the early 2000's (at sky high prices, IIRC). Fast forward to today, tv dvd sets for $15 (or less) is a lot easier to swallow when having to deal with discs with problems. I'm not going to complaint too much about discs which I effectively paid $4 each (or less). Missing a few seconds or even a few minutes of video, I can live with. Most of the time it's not too hard to guess what went on in the missing video.

 

[jcroy]

I suppose it depends on what motivates the individual to make a purchase. Many DVD "collectors" don't even have time to watch all the shows they buy, so downloading is going to hold less allure when you won't have something in your hands to hold.

At this point in time, I'm starting to run into this "problem". The few tv series where I have watched all the episodes on dvd, are Stargate (SG-1, Atlantis, Universe), Caprica, and the Battlestar Galatica remake. Lately I've slowly been making my way though the tv dvd sets of Knight Rider, The A-Team, MacGyver, The Incredible Hulk, The Bionic Woman, Hart to Hart, Numb3rs, and The Dukes of Hazzard. I still have numerous other tv dvd sets which I haven't watched yet, such as: TekWar, Greatest American Hero, The X-Files, Lie To Me, Firefly, Psych, The Closer, Starsky & Hutch, CHiPs, the original Charlie's Angels, Airwolf, Wonder Woman, The 4400, etc ... These are all tv dvd sets I have purchased within the last 6 months or so, for around $15 (or less) per set. (Before 2011, I had very little to no interest in buying tv dvd sets).

But if you just want to watch the show, when and wherever you desire, it really makes very little difference what format the media is in.

This may sound paradoxical. For some strange reason, I find that I am less likely to watch something if I have the dvd and/or if I can stream it anytime I want. Before I started buying a lot of tv dvd sets (ie. before 2011), I found that I was more willing to watch tv shows at their appointed scheduled broadcast times, for both first run shows and reruns. Around 4 years ago or so, I started to regularly watch scripted tv shows again (after almost 20 years of not really giving a damn about television). At the time, I was "religiously" watching CSI reruns on Spike and AETV every day (even if they were episodes I have seen before). But when I had some of the CSI dvd box sets, I found that I had less and less interest in watching CSI, whether on tv, dvd, or online. (A friend loaned me some CSI and CSI:Miami dvd season sets at the time). Today I don't really watch CSI, other than some random episodes via channel surfing whenever I'm bored.

 

[jcroy]

But getting older and recognizing, though perhaps not always accepting, that not everything is going to last or is meant to last, perhaps living in the moment sometimes isn't such a bad thing. I'm coming to terms with the fact that as far as this hobby goes, I no longer need to own EVERYTHING. For right now I am enjoying the best of both worlds and looking upon my collection, including the more fleeting collection of titles in the stream queue, as the best of both worlds for however long it lasts. I don't begrudge the future its say nor do I fear it, but I also like to have at least some of my past remain close at hand.

I can certainly relate to this on a more general level. In recent times, I have been going through a long drawn out midlife crisis. Knowing that I have a propensity for compulsive collecting type behavior from when I was younger, it took me a very long time to eventually accept that I no longer need to own everything. It took me a long time to get over this in other niches, such as collecting music cds, books, etc ... Today I don't even think anymore about "completing" my music cd collection. (The notion simply doesn't occur to me anymore). As I got older, I came to the realization that for most of the music cds I was buying, I only ever listened to them once or twice. In the end, it turned out most of them were largely mediocre or outright crap. I suppose stuff that I use to find exciting and entertaining when I was a teenager, may look somewhat different through the eyes and ears of a middle aged adult. I think if most of my music cd collection were to suddenly disappeared overnight, I probably wouldn't miss much of it. In the short time I have been collecting TV dvd sets (ie. around 6 months so far), I have not purchased many tv shows that I did not watch at all back in the day (even in genres I like). I have mostly been buying tv shows which I have nostalgia for, such as cheesy action type shows from the late-1970's and 1980's. At this point, I haven't picked up any tv dvd sets of shows which were around before the mid-1970's. I haven't picked up many tv shows from the 1990's and 2000's, other than a few which I occasionally watched whenever I was bored and channel surfing, such as some cop shows (ie. Law & Order, etc ...) and science fiction stuff (ie. Stargate, X-Files, etc ...). If I'm able to keep my compulsive collecting tendencies at bay, then there probably won't be many more dvd sets left for me to buy. It may very well be the shortest lived hobby I ever had.

 

[JamesSmith]

Just to finish up this thread, for the most part I don't think we'll see big releases like the Adam West Batman series, Blake's 7 or some of the "big" possibilities. But we will see a good many shorter-lived cult shows make it out via WBA or indepedents like Shout, GoodTimes, etc. Westerrns like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train, and The Virignian will continue. The former two at a snails pace which will make their fans cry out in pain. I'm sure most of us would have guessed this prediction. James