Surprising Article from Home Media Magazine (1 Viewer)

A pretty downbeat article on the future of EST from Home Media Magazine. Discuss...http://homemediamagazine.com/tks-take/est-emperors-new-clothes

You do know that every time someone says "Discuss..." in a post, no one ever does? ("You're not the boss of me!")

Seriously, though, it's nice to hear one columnist be the first to admit that maybe it's execs "on the coast" who're getting a little overexcited about trends more than the actual users are.
He still wants to fall back on the comforting "Maybe disks are dying anyway?", and come up with theories for it, but it's getting harder and harder with the evidence at hand: The public knows what EST is for, and what it's for, they simply don't use very much.
They still want "something tangible" for their money, but the arguments for why "disk sales are down" haven't significantly progressed since the days when Jeffrey Katzenberg claimed that "DVD was dead" after nobody bought Shrek 2 on disk--We're buying disks, we're just not buying YOURS.

Execs want to get excited about streaming, since it allows them their new "Preorder while it's still in theaters!" gimmick that lets them write off whatever the movie lost in theaters, but how many real people actually do?

The Kookaid has no sugar!

I have to laugh at that article- he posted something a few months ago that just about praised studios for making new movies available on EST several weeks before they're available on disc (which I see as the new DIVX), saying that those were selling well, it would benefit the industry not to have to deal with shipping discs anymore, and to "keep it up guys, it's working." I posted a reply saying how ridiculous that was and he deleted it. I don't think that guy really knows what he's talking about.

I'm not going to switch to collecting movies that way. I have the equipment to do it, and it's been OK for rentals that I only watch one time, but the quality still doesn't match Blu-Ray and I don't want to be at the mercy of companies deciding to take their movies off the servers, which they can and will do.

What is EST and how about a link to the articles?

TonyD said:

What is EST and how about a link to the articles?

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EST = Electronic Sell-Thru ... aka digital downloads / streaming purchases (not rentals)

Hmm never saw it referred to as est thanks Josh.

EST is growing, but it is still a small piece of the pie. I think the early release window is one of the reasons why. I completely agree with the author when he says this:

For starters, the disc business is still quite healthy. Sometimes I think those of us who live on the coast get too caught up in technological advances and trends — 3D, anyone? — to stop and think what mainstream America is doing. And the numbers suggest an overwhelming percentage of people still prefer to buy discs instead of downloads, in large part because of the old "if it ain't broke don't fix it" axiom but also because there's something about ownership that almost mandates a physical object. If we're going to buy something, we want something tangible, not ethereal.

Secondly, I think there's a misconception about the correlation between the rise of digital delivery and the decline in disc sales. Disc sales aren't going down because people are finally starting to realize they can buy movies as digital downloads without having to worry about cluttering up their homes with more "stuff"; they are going down because 1) younger people simply don't have the same desire for owning something that we older folks do (as seen in everything from music to cars and the rise of Uber and Lyft) and 2) the alternatives to ownership are so easy and cheap. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a boxed set of a hot TV show like "Breaking Bad" when I can access the same content at any time on Netflix?

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"they are going down because 1) younger people simply don't have the same desire for owning something that we older folks do (as seen in everything from music to cars and the rise of Uber and Lyft) and 2) the alternatives to ownership are so easy and cheap. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a boxed set of a hot TV show like "Breaking Bad" when I can access the same content at any time on Netflix?"I think 1) is very wrong; or is similarly blinded by an enthusiast mindset. What I see and hear is that people spend their youth collecting stuff, but cut back as they get older. Priorities change. Less time to enjoy the ever-increasing piles of unwatched TV and movies. Less free cash, after mortgage and family, to burn on stuff.This is compounded by the shift in DVRs and streaming services. In my youth, I collected the discs and movies and TV shows. I had ambitions on a vast media library. Then I got an iPod, a Tivo, cable modem.and I need to buy less stuff because I can record it to watch on my Tivo, or rent through Netflix. I care less about buying and owning stuff in my 40s than I did in my 20s. I see my father acting this way: he pays for XM radio; he doesn't want CDs anymore. Hasn't bought a DVD in years, watches everything on PPV or in the theater. So what about the youth, growing up with DVRs and Netflix? Suggest lending them a DVD set of Veronica Mars and they look at you funny, pause, and like speaking to an old dodderer, explain how they have Netflix. And itunes. And torrents. Old learned to buy young, but shed it old. The youth are learning young not to even start to buy media. Maybe they'll rebel in age and start buying. Those who oldies who buy: enthusiasts -- see the threads on 1950s TV shows and Kino films. And parents buying Frozen Blu-Ray to babysit the kids.Here's what I want: modern TV series for digital purchase at good prices. Give me redemption codes with disc purchase and I'll Vudu the heck out of that. Give me legal options to rip and transcode discs, and subsequent quality software, and I'll buy media abundantly to use as I want on my iPods and such. Give me hd TV season downloads for less than $30/season and I'll cobsider it vs waiting for Tivo to find it in reruns.

DaveF said:

Here's what I want: modern TV series for digital purchase at good prices. Give me redemption codes with disc purchase and I'll Vudu the heck out of that. Give me legal options to rip and transcode discs, and subsequent quality software, and I'll buy media abundantly to use as I want on my iPods and such. Give me hd TV season downloads for less than $30/season and I'll cobsider it vs waiting for Tivo to find it in reruns.

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Problem is, TV was made to be more disposable than movies, and there's only two conditions under which you'd want to watch a TV episode: A) Once, and B) Forever.
The episodes you don't know, and those you do; there's very little gray area in between.

If you want to catch up with your latest show, our ingrained instinct for free/commercial/cable television just naturally rejects the urge to pay $1.99 in a poke per episode on Vudu or Amazon, or $20.99 just to watch the entire season. It should be just there for the viewing, even if it's on your Netflix subscription, just like the broadcast channels are there for our cable bill.
And if we want to preserve all our seasons of X-Files for posterity, like hell we'd ever want them to be in anyone else's hands. Their being in someone else's hands sort of prompted the whole point about "preserving for posterity" in the first place.

Basically, what are you paying for? The neat status to be told you can have something any time you want if you pay for it.
If there are cheaper and more effective methods of that, the one you were told was newer and spiffier officially classifies you as Sucker.

All I know is this - I support UV as a fine idea, and don't see it as the mess many do. I currently have 720 UV titles and maybe 10 DMA titles. I am definately an early adooter of home theater media and have been since laserdisc.Having said that, I would say 85% of my titles came from D2D, 10% came from codes I got with the blu, and only about 5% I outright purchased. When it comes to hitting "buy" on something that is $17.99 and I'm not going to get anything in my hands to show for it, I just can't bring myself to do it. If it wasn't for D2D and the 50% off sale Vudu has been running, I never would have built a digital collection at all.

Ejanss said:

Problem is, TV was made to be more disposable than movies, and there's only two conditions under which you'd want to watch a TV episode: A) Once, and B) Forever.
The episodes you don't know, and those you do; there's very little gray area in between.

If you want to catch up with your latest show, our ingrained instinct for free/commercial/cable television just naturally rejects the urge to pay $1.99 in a poke per episode on Vudu or Amazon, or $20.99 just to watch the entire season. It should be just there for the viewing, even if it's on your Netflix subscription, just like the broadcast channels are there for our cable bill.
And if we want to preserve all our seasons of X-Files for posterity, like hell we'd ever want them to be in anyone else's hands. Their being in someone else's hands sort of prompted the whole point about "preserving for posterity" in the first place.

Basically, what are you paying for? The neat status to be told you can have something any time you want if you pay for it.
If there are cheaper and more effective methods of that, the one you were told was newer and spiffier officially classifies you as Sucker.

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I think we're largely in agreement. I no longer care about building a physical library. I want an affordable and convenient way to watch TV shows not currently broadcast. One method would be digital codes sold with digital copies. It's being proven with movies. I don't see any practical difference.

Price is a problem otherwise. As you say, I want to pay about $20 for a season at most (including HD, if available). Paying $35 for a seasons, or $1.99 an episode and I think, that's an entire month of cable or several months of Netlflix, and it loses out.

Re-watchability is a red herring. Movies are more TV than music. I think movies aren't substantially re-watched, and people actually re-watch their library far less than they tell themselves they will when justifying a purchase. (except for kids with their half dozen Disney cartoons that are worn out.)

Well, I am a LONG way from being a typical consumer of media... But I tried to redeem the "free downloadable version" of a movie that I bought on blu-ray and there were so many hurdles to registration and so many tethers to what devices and situations where I could and couldn't use it, I said to heck with it and gave up.

If they want people to adopt digital downloads, the process needs to be seamless for the consumer. Something like Apple's iTunes or App Stores. Simple registration. Log in on each device once to activate it. One central online store to buy from. Once bought, they automatically download to your specified media server and are ready to play with a slick interface like Plex.

Music has proven to me that I'm not married to physical media. I have over 15,000 CDs, but they are all ripped and boxed up in my garage. I would welcome the same thing for movies, but the distribution network needs to clean up its act before I will make the jump.

As far as the question "Why spend hundreds of dollars on a boxed set of a hot TV show like "Breaking Bad" when I can access the same content at any time on Netflix?" goes, I'll say: Because that show won't be on Netflix forever. They lose titles all the time, some stay up for years but some for only a month or so. Also, the quality of Netflix can't touch Blu-Ray, so if you watch it first on Netflix and like it, you'll want to buy it on Blu-Ray to watch again. I've bought several movies on disc after first seeing them on Netflix, though on the other hand I've watched movies first on Netflix that I ended up not liking, and being glad that I didn't buy the discs before seeing them.

Jesse Skeen said:

I have to laugh at that article- he posted something a few months ago that just about praised studios for making new movies available on EST several weeks before they're available on disc (which I see as the new DIVX), saying that those were selling well, it would benefit the industry not to have to deal with shipping discs anymore, and to "keep it up guys, it's working." I posted a reply saying how ridiculous that was and he deleted it. I don't think that guy really knows what he's talking about.

I'm not going to switch to collecting movies that way. I have the equipment to do it, and it's been OK for rentals that I only watch one time, but the quality still doesn't match Blu-Ray and I don't want to be at the mercy of companies deciding to take their movies off the servers, which they can and will do.

Click to expand...

Yes he says one thing one week and then another the next week.

Much of what he talks about in this article from this conference session on Digital Hollywood. The link is here:
http://www.dhsessions.com/Wednesday3.html

He fails to mention in the article though that many on the panel agree that there is a place for sell thru, be it in the form of Physical or Digital.