Great article on all the post format war doomsaying... - Page 4

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

True, and that may persuade you to still buy at least some movies as SD-DVDs (especially kid's films). However, most people still rent most the of the movies they watch, so you might as well have a high-def player attached to the high-def TV for your friday night video watching. Eventually there will be more and more of those other players that will handle BD's. I'm certainly not saying HDM will replace SD-DVDs for a long long time, but I do think it will be much more than a niche.

btw, what you say goes triple for digital downloads and their associated DRM, so I still think that's a technology with a lot more hurdles.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I agree. Here is the next challenges for Blu-ray – convince me to buy into it. Not just me, but also people like me.

I have been sitting out this whole HDM technology. I have seen HD displays and it does look better than SD. I still have not been convinced to buy into it though. As a matter of fact the only time I ever think about it when I read these HD forums. Blu-ray still has a hard sell with me and I am more of a movie hobbyist than anyone I know, outside of this forum.

Currently I have a Samsung DVD player that up converts to 1080P and my HD70 projector is 720 displaying on a 113 screen. When I watch a SD DVD I am very happy with the picture and sound quality. I don’t look for imperfections or lack of imperfections while the movie is playing - I watch the movie. To fully take advantage of HD I would have to upgrade my receiver and projector on top of buying the Blu-ray player. Then I would over time have to repurchase many of my favorite DVDs but I would not replace the whole collection. What am I going to get for a return on my investment? Then if a new hit movie came out & I bought it on Blu-ray, it will only play in my theater. It won’t play in my living room, kids bedrooms or portable players that we have. Even if it could, I would have to upgrade those TVs to HD also. Outside of top movies like Harry Potter or Matrix, I never pay more than $7.00 for a movie. BB and Wal-Mart have enough in the $5.00 rack to keep me happy.

My current “cable” is through the phone co. and is not planning any HD programming in the foreseeable future. So with kids getting ready for college, car payments and already having the best set-up on the block, why should I invest more in HD? It is a better picture and audio, but is it worth the added expense? I have asked myself that question since before the holidays and I still come up with “no”. VHS to DVD was a much bigger improvement and even then my first DVD player was a PS2 to help cost justify it. I think Blu-ray players and HD equipment will need a drastic price drop and then it will be phased in while the older SD DVD wears out. So first convince me to buy into Blu-ray and HD equipment, then you will need to convince my wife.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Exactly.

similarly to the way that PCs don't typically come with CD-ROM drives these days... just DVD drives that play a multitude of disc types.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Once again I'll state for the record that I am a blu-ray fan, although my SD collection still massively dwarfs my BD collection.

That being said, a film coming out on BD isn't always an auto-purchase for me. By this I mean that sometimes I still buy the SD version over the BD version. Why is this? A few reasons:

1) Price - Is there any reason for the discs to be priced as they are? The whole thing smacks of charging more simply to make the format appear "elite."

2) I'm not rich - Though there are a lot of forum members with substantial income, grad students like myself sadly aren't counted in their numbers. As a result, I have exactly one Blu-ray player, and it's in my HT. If there is a movie that I might be watching on my laptop during office hours, or as background noise in the bedroom as I read, or on one of other five DVD players in my house, then I simply can't go BD.

3) Extras - There are already instances where the BD version "cheats" consumers out of extras, compared to the SD counterpart, and that is simply stupid.


In the end, I think it's important to remember why we, movie and home theatre enthusiasts, got into the hobby to begin with. At least to me, after years of posting on this forum, it seems to be a simple love for movies. At the heart of this love is the desire to view movies "as the director intended." You can insert which ever axoim you wish there.

This is where I have to give the general public some credit, in that they seem to have finally ditched pan & scan/full frame movies for OAR. Sure, there is still the odd release here and there, and I do indeed still overhear people complaining about "those black bars," but they are few and far between.

DVD is the format that finally moved people into the OAR camp, and elevated countless individuals from mere movie-fan to movie enthusiast.

I just don't see what Blu-ray is offering those individuals. They already have OAR, they already have superior audio (superior to their TV speakers), and "rewinding" is a relic of the past. I can for sure envision people buying a blu-ray player for their home, and even purchasing new releases in BD. However, nobody can honestly believe that millions upon millions of people across the globe are simply going to upgrade their ENTIRE collection, which numbers in the hundreds now in even the most modest of collections, purely for "more resolution."

Ben Affleck wanted me to see "Gone Baby Gone" in widescreen, that much is certain. However, did he really intend for me to see every hair in Ed Harris' goatee? Maybe, but you'll have a tough time convincing the average consumer of that fact.

Lastly, I think we are all missing perhaps the most important reason DVD took off: it was the first time EVER, that most movies were available for the average consumer to purchase. To a niche cross-section of society such as ourselves, those four copies of "2001" on our shelves don't seem silly. Nor do the LD copies sitting on a different shelf. Not so with most people, I assume.

DVD brought movies to the masses, so to speak. It brough OAR, which was a tough battle in and of itself. It brought superior picture and sound, removed rewinding, brought the idea of "extras" and "special edition" to the mainstream.

Blu-ray has better picture and audio.

I'm just not convinced that Blu-ray will even reach 40% penetration. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the technology stays niche forever. Though, I hope I am wrong.

cheers!

Josh

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I'm sure your right about this. As you stated, price is a BIG factor. Why pay $30 for a Blu-Ray film when you can get the SD DVD for half that price? I'm not speaking for myself because if given the choice I'd always choose Blu, but the average consumer will never care enough to cough up an extra $15 for the same film.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

This is where you lost me--where does VHS stand in this equation, which brought thousands upon thousands of movies to the average consumer long before the first DVD was ever pressed???

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Until your ready to make that Blu-ray plunge might I suggest checking into small dish satellite services. Dish DVR Network has a damn good sale for new subscribers by offering a "free" Hi Def receiver/recorder and offers a large selection of Hi Def channels that would suit anyone's taste. The cost may even be less than what your paying for cable through the phone company.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

"I'm sure your right about this. As you stated, price is a BIG factor. Why pay $30 for a Blu-Ray film when you can get the SD DVD for half that price?"

Why do you assume that prices won't come down?

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Nobody "owned" movies during the VHS-era, outside of LD collectors, and those rich enough to afford the "priced for rental" VHS. Sure, there were a handful of releases each year, of movies on VHS which were "priced to own," but honestly, I don't see anyong claiming that VHS was anything more than a "rental medium."

In fact, I know more people that taped movies from TV, commercials and all, or otherwise bootlegged copies (via 2 VHS machines), than actually OWNED movies.

DVD literally elevated movies from being something that you rented when you were in the mood, to something you owned. Something you collected. Something you built an entire room in your house around.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

If I may and strickly speaking for myself, VHS was rental ONLY for me. Oh, I did buy some "used' former rental tapes but stopped this practice as most tapes I bought were simply worn out. New tapes were too expensive for me. SD DVD, on the other hand, was very affordable. With few exceptions, I never paid more than $9 per disc. So it came down to what I would rather do...rent a movie for $3 or buy it for $9. So I figured I was only paying $6 per title.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I agree w/ you for the most part though I don't think quite *that* many people actually bought hundreds of DVDs though. I think the ones who've bought hundreds are exactly the ones who'd visit sites like HTF (or would care to buy the latest-and-greatest anyway). The rest, which is probably well beyond 50% of the DVD households, have probably only bought a handful more DVDs than those "priced to own" VHS tapes -- afterall, somebody's keeping Netflix and Blockbuster in business.

I do also agree that most will not want to upgrade their entire collection to Blu-ray. Heck, I sure don't. But then again, my collection is as big as it is in large part because I ended up buying lots of marginal titles I wouldn't have bought if they weren't so cheap on DVD. In the end, I suspect most folks will just end up spending more or less the same $$$ on Blu-ray as on DVD beforehand. And if BD prices don't quite reach the bargain bin pricing levels that DVD has reached, most will just end up being more selective about what they buy and just end up w/ fewer titles -- the ones they really want on BD -- while spending about the same $$$.

Of course, I'm assuming BD pricing does gradually come down. If pricing really does not come down at all, then yeah, the studios will end up keeping Blu-ray a niche market.

_Man_

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

While I don't, of course, have any hard and fast numbers, but at least in my personal experience, virtually every one of my friends has a collection that at least exceeds 100. And these are mostly students, who, while admitedly often spend their money foolishly, have indeed made a conscious effort to amass a respectable amount of movies.

I would easily place the amount of "households" that buy enough DVDs to have it count as a "collection" far beyond 50%. Heck, you can buy DVDs at the grocerystore now, and it's not uncommon to see familes in the checkout line with their weekly groceries, and the latest disney DVD on the pile, too. Virtually every customer in a lineup at bestbuy or futureshop or walmart has at least one DVD in their grasp, in addition to the rest of their purchases.

I can remember back in the early days of DVD, when I patron my retailer of choice late in the day, and still be assured a new release. Now, I have to make sure I am there within a few hours of opening, or risk being forced to visit a few stores to get a new release. Calgary is big enough (with a population of 1 million or so), and our stores are well stocked, but it still isn't enough for some releases.

I still stand by my assertion, that the 1-2 punch of DVD: cost and truly ground-breaking features, has elevated home movie viewing and the hobby of home theatre from the archaic past of rentals and niche markets, to something that everyone can, and does enjoy. More people own a sizable movie collection that I think a lot of HT enthusiasts think. At the same time, however, "the next big thing" will need to offer much more than a better picture, to sway those millions of customers to jump on board in the same way they did with DVD.

I guess, at the end of the day, I just don't see what Blu-ray is adding to the movies as an art form. VHS was essentially an afront to the entire art, treating it as second-class with its shunning of OAR, and the quite literal dumbing down of movie watching. To misquote Patrick Sun, I don't think movie watching should be a spiritual experience for everyone, but I do think it should be treated with respect.

LD was simply too expensive, too niche. Not much else to say there. But then DVD comes around, and suddenly people see the error of their was vis-a-vis OAR and movies as art. But I have to ask myself, would director's such as Kubrick or Kurosawa or heck, even Lucas, really care that I can see the pores on an actor's face? Is resolution, and thus the format, more important than the film? A lot of people state that they are merely watching a movie in the "best" available format, and if that happens to be BD, then so be it. However, beyond OAR and original audio, and assuming the transfer is such that the colour is completely off (et cetera), is boosting the resolution anything more than a cash grab?

Note that I am NOT saying that "when is the quality too much?" Nor am I saying "why buy BD when something new is just going to replace it?" I am simply asking when is something about respecting the media/art/creator, and when is it really just consumerism and a cash-grab? My big concern with BD is that it will not only turn out to be a cash-grab, but that the general public will see it as such, and it will eventually die.

cheers!

Josh

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

[quote=Josh Dial]Once again I'll state for the record that I am a blu-ray fan, although my SD collection still massively dwarfs my BD collection.

That being said, a film coming out on BD isn't always an auto-purchase for me. By this I mean that sometimes I still buy the SD version over the BD version. Why is this? A few reasons:

1) Price - Is there any reason for the discs to be priced as they are? The whole thing smacks of charging more simply to make the format appear "elite."

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But elite is exactly what this tech is. Most people don't care about a more refined dvd experience . The ones that do and the ones that NEED this (such as owners of fp and other large displays and high end audio systems) are a minority that by the nature of their gear means they will allocate the resources for a better a/v experience. Why shouldn't there be media and tech available to cater to these people and why should this then be low balled in price to attract the favor of a larger buying group that doesn't value it anyway? This will remain a small niche for exactly the reasons you go on to enumerate...and because of that thereis very little reason to expect the price breaks that economies of scale bring. Thanks to that dirty little war we've seen prices and title selection that would likely have taken 3-4 years or longer arrive in half that time. That's why I wasn't happy to see it end so soon. Who on earth actually expects we'll get anywhere near the # of unique, new to HDM titles this year that we likely would have if the war were still raging?That's why some little niggling sense of doom (or rather disappointment) seems totally apropos. The war is over and the result for some time to come will be higher all around costs and a more constricted selection. Some of us did see this coming which is why we got so apoleptic over the disingenuous $.02 of so called insiders promising the moon if only their were a single format.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Who pays 30$? I mean perhaps there are some HD-titles that cost that much (some from Fox, perhaps?), but let´s not start this with these "retail price"-arguments again. We all know, that even when the "retail price" is 30$, it won´t cost that much eventually.. Jeez..

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Actually the sell through pricing of VHS tapes started in 1985 when Paramount priced Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun at $19.95. They were HUGE sellers and with in a year almost every new film that came out on VHS was around that price, or were reduced to that price with in 6 months of release. Most people that I knew had a fairly large collection of pre recorded movies on VHS.

Of course many people still waited for Blockbuster to put their overstock rental copies on sale.

Doug

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I've never paid $30 for a blu-ray or HD DVD. I think the highest I've paid was $25. Most of mine have been $19.95. If your paying $30 you need to learn to shop better.

Doug

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

None of these insiders "promised", that when the war is over, everything changes in a heartbeat. These things take a bit more time. Xmas-time is the next mark when it comes to Blu-ray. People need that 100$ (give or take) "off" from the player-prices and generally some juicy software-sales. Nothing major won´t happen before that (at least I doubt it).

If Blu-ray eventually "fails" (becomes a "niche" etc), at least it´s then "fair play" in some ways. I hated the "format war" from the start and I feel that I already "won" when it ended (as a consumer). I have already that certain satisfaction that we got that "one format". That is what I wanted *first* to happen, after all.

If Blu-ray can´t break through, then so be it. That´s still an better option than to drag some "format war" for 2 years longer and *then* to realize that HD just can´t "break through" (if Blu-ray fails, it would´ve been exactly the same faith with HD DVD) or just that people will grow tired of the whole thing (perhaps some already did..).

Blu-ray for the masses or let´s just "forgetaboutit"? Pretty much, yes. But unlike some other people, I never thought that we could´ve had "two HD-formats".. Hollywood didn´t stop the "format war" (originally, I mean) and eventually we all paid the price for that. Most of all we "early adopters".

But it isn´t over yet..

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I'm sure they will eventually. Never said they wouldn't.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I'm not starting any argument. Best Buy is where I buy most of my stuff because of their Reward Zone. No Country For Old Men, and 30 Days of Night were both $29.99 the week of release, where you could find the SD DVD's of both films for as low as $13.99. But Once again, this isn't about me. I will buy the Blu-ray version every time over the SD DVD. I was referring to the average consumer paying $5, $10, or $15 dollars more for a film, which they most certainly won't do.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Let's face it, most of the mass market buys their software from retailers like BB, CC and Wal-mart. Those retailers are the real indicators for pricing on HDM, not Amazon or other etailers where the educated shopper buys their software.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Are you trying to convince me that during that era (the mid 80s until 97), that people were "movie collectors" by way of VHS? Sorry, I don't believe it. I know first hand that video stores recieved a list of the movies that would be released as "priced to sell," and that that list would be for the ENTIRE YEAR. Moreover, it would never be more than 1 sheet of legal paper long. Further, the movies were almost never really "new releases." They were often older, albeit perhaps only a year or so, but they were almost never the last "big hit," in the theatres.

The exception to this, of course, was Disney. Other than that studio, there weren't really too many big releases on VHS. ESPECIALLY in 1985...

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

We're not trying to convince you about anything, but I knew several people that had a huge collection of VHS tapes that they bought from about 1986-2000 until the pricing of dvds came down and they started collecting them instead. I remembered seeing people browsing BB for VHS tapes before DVD came and took its place. There was a huge segment of movie lovers that skipped the LD format because of various reasons such as price and perceptions about the shape of the disc and bought their favorite movies on video tapes.




Crawdaddy

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I started buying films on VHS in 1990 (not because there weren't any before, but because I wasn't a big film-goer until then--a late bloomer as I was in my early 20s and while I've seen well over 7000 films since 1990, I probably saw fewer than 100 (cinema, rentals and TV broadcasts) in their entirety before then). My DVD collection took a while to overtake my VHS collection (and only because in my 30s I had the means to do so). And I had friends with VHS collections before I started mine. I was always envious of laserdisc collectors, but the cost in equipment and discs was prohibitive in Canada at the time vs VHS.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Jari, i'm glad you got what you wanted ( which seems to be the convienence and satisfaction of future purchase only having to be made on your favorite format.) I on the other hand simply wanted more variety of content at a reasonable price...sooner rather than much later. Maybe i'll get to enjoy that sensation again in 3 or 4 years with bd when it can finally scale up to an efficent enterprise (something that is certainly no the case at the moment..20 months after its introduction).. I seriously doubt the near term ( next couple of years) is going to see anywhere near the same width and breadth of material that we enjoyed the last 18 months have. Maybe not doom, but I don't see all that much to cheer over since what I want at the end of the day is more content not less...and less excuses not more.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

If you think that VHS became a cash cow for the studios based on sales for rental only, I think you are sadly mistaken.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Yes after about 1986 there were very few VHS releases that were priced for rental IE $89.99 or higher or if they were it was only for the first 3 to 6 months to give the rental market it's stab at the pie.

Most releases after that point were under $30 with almost every Paramount release at $19.95. Even Fox dropped the prices of their releases to to around $27. This of course was after they stopped releasing through Magnetic Video Corporation.

All you had to do was goto a Tower Records to see the rows and rows of new VHS movies to know that there was clearly a market for buying movies on tape.

Doug

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Sure you could buy VHS movies, that's what Best Buy sold for many years, as well as other media outlets like Suncoast. But as far as new releases were concerned, the majority sold at retail for close to $100 a pop on initial release (at least during the mid 90's). I discovered this at a young age when I eagerly expected to buy the latest Star Trek movie only to find the store had 1 copy and wanted $90 for it. Every year there would be a few big blockbusters that would go straight to sell through-- usually at Christmas, but that was only for the BIG titles like Batman, Jurassic Park, Forest Gump, etc. Even when DVD was out this was still how VHS was handled. If you wanted to own The Matrix when it first hit home video you could only get it on DVD, the VHS didn't street at retail until several months later.

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

I understand that there were a handful of movie enthusiasts who, like during the LD era, owned a sizeable collection. I'm also not trying to be difficult with this point, but it really is, to me, at the crux of the entire success of DVD as a format.

It's simply not true that the average consumer owned a vast collection of movies on VHS. Even if they did, they certainly didn't impulse-buy them, as is often the norm even with higher-priced DVDs today. There is a book called "Hollywood's Road to Riches," by David Waterman. In it, he outlines the system of two-tiered pricing, and how it was intended to be a money-maker, plain and simple.

I guess my ultimate point is that DVD "unlocked," for lack of a better term, the ability to own movies, especially to own them in OAR, to the average consumer. I maintain that this is the reason so many people switched to DVD. I respect anyone's right to disagree with me. I just don't think that many people owned a large collection of movies before DVD, outside of people with large incomes (which, to be quite fair, is a lot of this forum's membership), and movie fans (which is an even larger portion ).

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Actually, the practice of wide-spread rental pricing continued until late in the 90s, not 1986. The book I quoted in an above post has numerous sources citing this (sorry, my copy is burried, but you can view it online, I think).

Re: Great article on all the post format war doomsaying...

Hmmmmmmmm well I don't know where you live, but I collected films on VHS from about 1979 through the early 90s despite having a laserdisc player. The last movie I paid $89 for was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (I pre-ordered it). I was actually pretty pissed because about 3 months after the release Paramount dropped the price to $19.95.

Again after Beverly Hills Cop and Top Gun made almost as much on VHS as they did in the theaters, the studios realized there was more money to be made selling than renting.

I do know that I paid $28 for Star Trek 4 on a pre order on VHS. Paramount was charging more for Star Trek even then.

Doug