Disney+ Disney+ Streaming Service (Official Thread) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Any clue if The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man Homecoming will be available on Disney+? They are part of the MCU but distributed by Universal/SONY.

There has been no definitive answer on this, but I would assume not. If they were, Disney would have to license them from Universal and Sony for a certain length of time, like Netflix does with content from outside studios. I don't think it would be worth it to Disney to pay for that to be on there.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And logistically, how many storage servers would you need to be able to hold everything of a growing library that goes back to 1923, not to mention all the Fox stuff?

Who knows, but if iTunes and Vudu can carry every title digitally that's in print for television and film, I can't imagine that this would be a serious obstacle for Disney. Whatever they put up there will still be less than a storefront like iTunes carries.

There has been no definitive answer on this, but I would assume not. If they were, Disney would have to license them from Universal and Sony for a certain length of time, like Netflix does with content from outside studios. I don't think it would be worth it to Disney to pay for that to be on there.

On the other hand, there's precedence for Disney distributing at least Incredible Hulk, which they packaged in their Phase One box set. It's possible that Disney would indeed license them for the service.

 

[DaveF]

This.

And logistically, how many storage servers would you need to be able to hold everything of a growing library that goes back to 1923, not to mention all the Fox stuff? Then there's the stuff they acquired from ABC 20 years ago. What's going to happen with that?

Disney has, what, a hundred films a year for a century? Ballpark guess? So, 10,000 films. At 50GB each for UHD quality that’s 500TB raw storage.

And single BackBlaze Storage Pod v6 is 480TB. And they have multiples in use.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage-server/

Educated guesses at Google’s capacity is in the exabyte realm.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

I expect that Disney’s steaming needs are no really any more than any other streaming service. And comparatively small compared to what’s already in use by Apple iCloud or Amazon S3 or Microsoft Azure or even Google’s.

Storage is cheap and getting ever cheaper. And new data centers are going up constantly (I live in Data Center USA for all practical purposes).

 

[Cranston37+]

Disney has, what, a hundred films a year for a century? Ballpark guess? So, 10,000 films.

740

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Any clue if The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man Homecoming will be available on Disney+? They are part of the MCU but distributed by Universal/SONY.

Sony owns the film rights to Spider-Man cold, and licenses the character to Marvel for Disney movies that feature him, so I would say there's very little chance that Spider-Man: Homecoming shows up on Disney+.

The situation is more complicated with the Hulk; the film production rights for the Incredible Hulk reverted back to Marvel in 2005 after the studio waited too long to make another Hulk movie after Ang Lee's Hulk. Unlike Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Incredible Hulk was made by Marvel and is owned by Marvel. However, the distribution rights to Hulk movies weren't on the same ticking clock, and Universal retains distribution rights to any standalone Hulk movie -- similar to Lucasfilm's arrangement with 20th Century Fox for the Star Wars prequels. I'm not sure whether or not those distribution rights include home video and streaming.

 

[Chip_HT]

I'm not sure whether or not those distribution rights include home video and streaming.

The last blu-ray release of Incredible Hulk (with the paint splatter motif) was completely a Universal disc. The upside was the lower retail price.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I'm not sure whether or not those distribution rights include home video and streaming.

Universal is the distributor for The Incredible Hulk on Blu-ray. Presumably they struck a deal of some sort with Disney for its inclusion in the Phase One box set, but individual copies of it definitely come from Universal. So I do think Disney would have to license it if they want it on Disney+.

Edit: Chip and I were posting similar information at the same time.

 

[DaveF]

740

Thanks. I was being super conservative. 740 films is nothing. There are HTF members with home libraries ten times that size. It’s under a 50TB storage capacity. I could build that for a few thousand dollars at home.

In any case, if Disney, being the fabled Scorpion, can’t resist its own nature to its own demise, and starts “vaulting” streaming content, it won’t be because they have to pull Song of the South out of data centers or there won’t be room for the three hour Avengers Endgame.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

There was an interview lately with Bob Iger where he basically said the 21st Century Fox acquisition was about two things: Obtaining a majority stake in Hulu, and acquiring 20th Century Fox's film library for streaming deployment. Everything else -- the Marvel characters Fox owned, the motion picture studios, etc. -- was gravy.

 

[David Weicker]

Thanks. I was being super conservative. 740 films is nothing. There are HTF members with home libraries ten times that size. It’s under a 50TB storage capacity. I could build that for a few thousand dollars at home.

But
But is that a fair representation of the required space?
Yes, it would be easy to store one copy of each film. But what happen when 100,000 people try to access the same physical server simultaneously? Or a million users simultaneously?

Database contention is a real problem, usually solved by redundant drives.

 

[David Norman]

But
But is that a fair representation of the required space?
Yes, it would be easy to store one copy of each film. But what happen when 100,000 people try to access the same physical server simultaneously? Or a million users simultaneously?

Database contention is a real problem, usually solved by redundant drives.

Well, not a fair rep of the space even if you are considering just the movies. Once you add the shorts, TV, and miscellaneous stuff and you have an order of magnitudes issue. And that only includes Disney plus the multiple layers of backup

 

[Chris Will]

I think some are in denial with the way the market is going. 50% decrease in physical sales over the past few years and digital sales are not taking off like the studios hopes. What is taking off are streaming subscriptions.

Disney’s best selling disc has been Frozen with about 7.6 million units sold. Let’s say the average cost was $25 (probably a little high), that’s $190 million. Netflix has around 60 million US subs. Now, Disney will probably not get anywhere close to that for a long time but, let’s say they have 10 million after a few years. Just using the $7 a month price (because, let’s face it, most are going to do that) is $70 million per month, or $840 million a year.

I think Disney will be just fine with 840 million per year vs 190 million over the life of the best selling disc. I know that’s just 1 disc but that’s over years of sales. I bet what they have made off their entire catalog of disc sales could be easily match by Disney+ in just a few years if this service really takes off. Maybe my math is off and I’m completely wrong.

 

[Chris Will]

Now for my thoughts on the service.

I’m excited! The price is great and if they really offer what they’ve promised, it will instantly have a better selection of movies than Netflix.

My family and I switched to buying digitally, mostly iTunes, a few years ago. La La Land was the last Blu-Ray I bought. We have been completely satisfied with the quality. Now with the rise of 4K and Atmos from Apple, the quality is even better. Disney said that their service will support 4K which is great because they do not support 4K through Apple (have to use Vudu for Disney 4K). In fact, this announcement has me thinking about holding off on buying anymore Disney titles from iTunes for now. Mind as well and just wait for this service. My big question is will they include extras in this services or will you still need to buy the movies digitally or on disc to get extras?

 

[Cranston37+]

My big question is will they include extras in this services or will you still need to buy the movies digitally or on disc to get extras?

If you look at that video I posted a page back of the Disney+ UI, you can see extras for Captain Marvel right at the end...

 

[DaveF]

But
But is that a fair representation of the required space?
Yes, it would be easy to store one copy of each film. But what happen when 100,000 people try to access the same physical server simultaneously? Or a million users simultaneously?

Database contention is a real problem, usually solved by redundant drives.

Indeed. How will Disney solve it? The same way that Netflix, and Amazon, and Apple, and Google have. Google certainly has far more hours of video in YouTube than all of Disney and Fox's programming combined. In 2015 it was reported that YouTube had an estimated 500 hours of video uploaded a minute. In the three minutes it will take you to read this thread, YouTube had as many new hours of video uploaded as Disney has created in theatrical movies in the past century. And in 2017 it was estimated that one billion hours of YouTube were watched a day.

These streaming services are wonders of engineering and technology. But they're a solved problem. If Disney struggles to keep old movies online because they release two or three new movies a year (and even a few seasons of TV shows), they've got profound problems and will soon fail as a streaming provider.

 

[MatthewA]

Ideally, the service would eventually be able to encompass the entire library — yes, even Song of the South — and provide constant, uninterrupted access to it. In addition to 740 features, there's also TV. That means decades and decades of Wonderful World of Disney, Zorro, multiple iterations of Mickey Mouse Club, the Disney afternoon cartoons, and whatever short-lived shows they made along the way.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I doubt that we will ever see an official release of Song Of The South on a mainstream channel from Disney. But my interest in Disney+ will not be affected by whether or not that single title is included with it.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Indeed. How will Disney solve it? The same way that Netflix, and Amazon, and Apple, and Google have. Google certainly has far more hours of video in YouTube than all of Disney and Fox's programming combined. In 2015 it was reported that YouTube had an estimated 500 hours of video uploaded a minute. In the three minutes it will take you to read this thread, YouTube had as many new hours of video uploaded as Disney has created in theatrical movies in the past century. And in 2017 it was estimated that one billion hours of YouTube were watched a day.

These streaming services are wonders of engineering and technology. But they're a solved problem. If Disney struggles to keep old movies online because they release two or three new movies a year (and even a few seasons of TV shows), they've got profound problems and will soon fail as a streaming provider.

As a recently retired IT professional who dealt with these issues for many years, I concur that it’s not a difficult problem to solve with today’s technology. It’s just a matter of spreading the users across enough properly configured servers with high speed storage, having enough network bandwidth, and enough redundancy to deal with equipment and network failures. It can be easily solved by throwing money at the infrastructure.

 

[Bernard McNair]

I am very interested in the Disney service not so much for Star Wars and Marvel but the chance of revisiting the back catalogue; Zorro, Swamp Fox and all the old live action movies plus or minus SOTS. The price seems excellent value and the fact that it will arrive in the Asia/ Pacific region in 2020 is a real bonus. I only hope that Hulu comes “down under” at the same time.
Glad that I am recently retired and now have time to watch a different show each night!!

 

[David Weicker]

Indeed. How will Disney solve it? The same way that Netflix, and Amazon, and Apple, and Google have. Google certainly has far more hours of video in YouTube than all of Disney and Fox's programming combined. In 2015 it was reported that YouTube had an estimated 500 hours of video uploaded a minute. In the three minutes it will take you to read this thread, YouTube had as many new hours of video uploaded as Disney has created in theatrical movies in the past century. And in 2017 it was estimated that one billion hours of YouTube were watched a day.

These streaming services are wonders of engineering and technology. But they're a solved problem. If Disney struggles to keep old movies online because they release two or three new movies a year (and even a few seasons of TV shows), they've got profound problems and will soon fail as a streaming provider.

As a recently retired IT professional who dealt with these issues for many years, I concur that it’s not a difficult problem to solve with today’s technology. It’s just a matter of spreading the users across enough properly configured servers with high speed storage, having enough network bandwidth, and enough redundancy to deal with equipment and network failures. It can be easily solved by throwing money at the infrastructure.

I was not implying that it couldn’t/wouldn’t be solved. I was just noting that the quoted storage amount (50tb) was grossly underestimating the necessary amount by a magnitude of hundreds or thousands.