iTunes Movies Removed From Library, Can't Re-download! (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

Consumers have moved to subscribing.

Exactly.

In recent years, the perceived value of recorded media (whether it's a movie, a TV show, an album) has almost completely declined. Consumers, in general, are no longer willing to pay high prices for single titles, and it's affecting the entire entertainment industry across the board.

Studios aren't taking discs away because they're mean and want their customers to be unhappy. They're moving away from discs because customers have stopped buying them.

 

[Cranston37+]

One of the biggest drivers of purchased movies are kids movies. Just wait until that Disney streaming service comes out and parents subscribe to that for $10/month rather than pay $20 for every Pixar release. Sales are about to take another huge hit...

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

But I could imagine UHD being the last new physical format, while digital and theatrical standards still continue to evolve. So maybe in 5 or 10 years, some movies will be made in 8K, and there will be an 8K version to purchase digitally, but the only disc will be UHD. Something like that.

I already think 4K is probably overkill for the home. The majority of the benefits from UHD could have been incorporated into a revision of the Blu-Ray spec to include and interpret HDR metadata.

 

[John Dirk]

I’ve been on HTF from near the beginning at one point had about 2,000 discs I was darn proud of.

I currently own not a single disc nor a player to play one on. I don’t even have a CD player in my car.

The funny thing is I’m now enjoying more movies than I ever have. Back in the day if I wanted to watch a movie I had to save up about $20 to buy it (and let’s not talk about laserdiscs). Now, though subscription services, I can watch as much as I want for a low price. Heck, through FilmStruck I watch a Criterion a day with extras for a yearly cost that I used to spend on 3-4 Criterion discs.

I see streaming as a boon for movie fans, not a sad time in the least.

Understood but I noticed "Quality" was never mentioned in this comment. For me, there is that and also absolute ownership at stake.

 

[Cranston37+]

Understood but I noticed "Quality" was never mentioned in this comment. For me, there is that and also absolute ownership at stake.

I am happy to expand on my comments then.

For me, I am more than happy with the quality. And ownership just isn’t an issue when you subscribe to services rather than purchase.

Media today for me, whether it be movies, music, or books, is no longer about collecting and “building a library” and is solely about consuming content.

 

[John Dirk]

I’m not sure that it’ll go away completely but I could also imagine a point in time where they stop improving it.

Right now, if you want the best possible quality for a new film, that’s going to be a physical purchase of a UHD disc

But I could imagine UHD being the last new physical format, while digital and theatrical standards still continue to evolve. So maybe in 5 or 10 years, some movies will be made in 8K, and there will be an 8K version to purchase digitally, but the only disc will be UHD. Something like that.
.

But this still does't address the need for the required bandwidth that goes along with any UHD [or higher] streaming plan, plus 8K is more than any human can even visually digest. The Internet is clearly the new frontier and I think there will soon [there already is] be a war to control it. Most aren't even willing to spring for 4K. No one will spring for the bandwidth required for 8K because no one [myself included] will be able to justify it.

 

[Cranston37+]

But this still does't address the need for the required bandwidth that goes along with any UHD [or higher] streaming plan

Most aren't even willing to spring for 4K. No one will spring for the bandwidth required for 8K because no one [myself included] will be able to justify it.

I’m using the cheapest tier service, 100Mbs, my provider offers, and UHD content plays instantly and smoothly. As I noted a page back, Verizon just introduced 5G home internet with 1Gb speeds (10x what I have) for $49 a month...

 

[John Dirk]

I am happy to expand on my comments then.

For me, I am more than happy with the quality. And ownership just isn’t an issue when you subscribe to services rather than purchase.

Media today for me, whether it be movies, music, or books, is no longer about collecting and “building a library” and is solely about consuming content.

I respect your stance. In my case, I want a disc for every title I'm supposed to "own". Clearly the studios understand there are two sides. Let's see how they respond over time.

 

[John Dirk]

I’m using the cheapest tier service, 100Mbs, my provider offers, and UHD content plays instantly and smoothly. As I noted a page back, Verizon just introduced 5G home internet with 1Gb speeds (10x what I have) for $49 a month...

Again, understood and congrats but yours is not the typical experience.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think as time progresses, though, internet speeds will improve across the board. Meanwhile, advances in compression and encoding will probably continue to shrink the required file size while keeping the same quality. So I think we’re approaching but not yet at the point where a streaming version is of equal or better quality than a disc version.

One of the big advantages digital has in this regard is that the spec can be updated. If someone comes up with a new compression scheme tomorrow that fits a movie’s worth UHD data into a file the size of a single song MP3, Apple can send out a firmware update to all of their AppleTVs overnight and start using it. But the BD (and UHD) specs are locked in place, so even if compression becomes more efficient, disc makers can’t take advantage of that.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

But this still does't address the need for the required bandwidth that goes along with any UHD [or higher] streaming plan, plus 8K is more than any human can even visually digest. The Internet is clearly the new frontier and I think there will soon [there already is] be a war to control it. Most aren't even willing to spring for 4K. No one will spring for the bandwidth required for 8K because no one [myself included] will be able to justify it.

"640K should be enough for anyone. "
-- Bill Gates

Never underestimate the leaps that will be made with future technologies, nor the reduction in cost for those increases. It's quite likely that future network speeds will dwarf what we have today. Some of us remember using 1200bps dial-up modems. Who would have thought then that we would be watching movies over today's equivalent connections?

 

[Todd Erwin]

I’m using the cheapest tier service, 100Mbs, my provider offers, and UHD content plays instantly and smoothly. As I noted a page back, Verizon just introduced 5G home internet with 1Gb speeds (10x what I have) for $49 a month...

Must be nice. I have AT&T's fastest service available in my area, 18 Mbps, and because that is bundled with DirecTV, I get unlimited data. Spectrum just started offering high speed internet in our area, the speed that are offering is conflicting, with some ads saying speeds start at 70 Mbps, others say 100. And all of Spectrum's services were down for several days during a rash of wildfires more than 40 miles away. That outage and the 13 months left in our contract are what are keeping us with AT&T for the time being. Surprisingly, the 18 Mbps service is just barely fast enough to watch Netflix in 4k.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Must be nice. I have AT&T's fastest service available in my area, 18 Mbps, and because that is bundled with DirecTV, I get unlimited data. Spectrum just started offering high speed internet in our area, the speed that are offering is conflicting, with some ads saying speeds start at 70 Mbps, others say 100. And all of Spectrum's services were down for several days during a rash of wildfires more than 40 miles away. That outage and the 13 months left in our contract are what are keeping us with AT&T for the time being. Surprisingly, the 18 Mbps service is just barely fast enough to watch Netflix in 4k.

The fastest AT&T that I have in my area is 50 Mbps which I upgraded to a few weeks ago. I've been an AT&T and DirecTV customer since I moved back to Michigan in 1997.

 

[Cranston37+]

But remember guys, with 5G for the home, which is rolling out in 4 major US cities not 10 years from now but on Oct 1, fast internet will be everyone’s experience.

Unlike your current internet provider, 5G is wireless. That will make it much more accessible because you won’t have to rely on a local company to physically run a broadband cable to your home. It is a much different future we are looking at.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

After having dealt with them professionally for about 35 years, all I can say about AT&T is "yuck". I recently convinced a friend to dump them. She had their DSL service and was paying $100 more per month for her Internet, phone (also AT&T) and DISH Network TV than we were paying for the same services (with 125Mbs speed Internet) via Comcast -- and AT&T wanted her to pay for a new DSL modem to "fix" her lousy service, too. Luckily she had Comcast available in her area.

I know some areas can be restrictive on choices, though. My parents live in rural northern Michigan, and 4G wireless service is the best I can get them. There is no cable TV or even DSL available. Last year I nervously switched them from Verizon 4G to AT&T 4G for a significant monthly savings. Of course, as feared AT&T screwed up the implementation and billing, and it took my 1.5 days to get the issues resolves -- after literally having my trouble call routed all the way around the world from department to department. AT&T isn't a single company -- they are a bunch of individual companies with separate service offerings, support structures and billing systems. Whenever they acquire another company, they never integrate it with their business. After all the split ups, mergers, sell offs, and re-mergers, the company is a quagmire to navigate.

I don't understand how AT&T stays in business.

 

[John Dirk]

"640K should be enough for anyone. "
-- Bill Gates

That quote referred to the physical memory readily available at the time and basically corresponds with Moore's Law. Broadband Internet speeds in currently under served environments will require significant infrastructure upgrades. This sort of thing doesn't happen without return on investment. Where is the incentive to bring broadband to the 15 million plus who currently lack it in the U.S.? I doubt it's in Hollywood which is why I think physical media is going to be around for at least the near future.

 

[John Dirk]

But remember guys, with 5G for the home, which is rolling out in 4 major US cities not 10 years from now but on Oct 1, fast internet will be everyone’s experience.

Unlike your current internet provider, 5G is wireless. That will make it much more accessible because you won’t have to rely on a local company to physically run a broadband cable to your home. It is a much different future we are looking at.

View attachment 49609

This isn't even theoretically possible so I'll assume sarcasm?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

That quote referred to the physical memory readily available at the time and basically corresponds with Moore's Law. Broadband Internet speeds in currently under served environments will require significant infrastructure upgrades. This sort of thing doesn't happen without return on investment. Where is the incentive to bring broadband to the 15 million plus who currently lack it in the U.S.? I doubt it's in Hollywood which is why I think physical media is going to be around for at least the near future.

The incentive is in providing coverage for customers as they travel through these areas, as well as the people who live in them. Cellular wireless has improved in leaps and bound -- both in coverage and speed -- over the past decade. There is no reason to expect that to stop. Competition between carriers for customers drives innovation and improvements.

And my point regarding Gates quote was more general -- we shouldn't limit our thinking regarding technology to its current state or current growth rate. That holds for computing power, network speeds and availability, storage possibilities, etc.

 

[Malcolm R]

The incentive is in providing coverage for customers as they travel through these areas, as well as the people who live in them. Cellular wireless has improved in leaps and bound -- both in coverage and speed -- over the past decade. There is no reason to expect that to stop. Competition between carriers for customers drives innovation and improvements.

They're only interested if there are a minimum number of customers in the area. There are still parts of Vermont that have no cell service, or less than reliable, and some of these are along the interstate highways. And carriers are abandoning some areas that they'd previously serviced because they are not getting enough subscribers to make it cost effective. If these rural areas cannot support investment in cell service they're certainly not going to get broadband internet.

 

[Cranston37+]

This isn't even theoretically possible so I'll assume sarcasm?

Which part?