Not just 3D, is Blu-ray media dying? (1 Viewer)

[DavidJ]

At the end of the day, if someone is laying on their deathbed and they want to pass on their collection, all they need to do is give out their username and password...

And that is what "Rosebud" will be in the remake of Citizen Kane---an Ultraviolet password.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

I feel that there is an unhealthy level of paranoia regarding companies "pulling the plug" on a digital collection. It simply wouldn't happen, ever. Why? Several reasons:

I completely disagree.
1. A company simply has to file for bankruptcy and voila, no more content under the old agreement and the 'new' company can start over, even if it is the same people. Notice how home video is done by a separate company even if they have the studio's name as part of it.
2. Servers cost money. Streaming out to customers costs money. There is likely limited space on the servers. Some movies may simply be removed from the servers to make room for other movies. Or those ongoing costs will be used as the excuse for filing bankruptcy or instituting an additional pay per view charge. Physical media has a one and done cost but streaming costs the content owner money continuously.
3. Obsoletism. You paid for just 480p or 1080p and we now only support 2160p. Pay an upgrade fee or lose your rights.

These things already happen with online video games that require connecting to the company's server rather than P2P for multiplayer. Eventually gaming companies stop supporting an old game. Many studios have filed for bankruptcy and then sold off their assets. There is no requirement for the new company to honor the digital rights of the consumers with the previous company. Amazon has already erased e-books off of people's Kindle without their permission. They were sold and bought on good faith but because of some legal BS, suddenly everyone is a pirate and their purchase is erased without a refund.

People should be extremely skeptical of streaming only 'rights' because from a practical POV, how can a company keep its promise of perpetuity given there are real constant ongoing costs to maintain them when the company only got a fixed amount up front? At best streaming will be a yearly membership fee with discounts on PPV or access to everything but for a limited time with monthly / yearly renewal and specific content is not guaranteed.. I don't see how streaming can survive with a single price giving everlasting access for free. It doesn't add up and always gets into the red after some amount of time.

 

[Persianimmortal]

Unfortunately, I know at least 2 tech pros who accepted extended gigs overseas, and not only had zip, zero, zilch access to their iTunes content while accessing the 'Net via foreign IPs, but also had problems with their accounts when they did eventually return to the U.S. and/or to Canada. That was true a couple of years ago; can't say whether it still is.

But in terms of virtual media, we do not live in a gypsy global village...yet.

Yes, at the moment companies do enforce regional restrictions as I've mentioned. However, it still bears noting that your tech friends didn't lose their iTunes accounts or lose their digital libraries, they just ran into the issue of regional restrictions, which can also occur with physical discs (region coding). Their mistake was in assuming that they could switch countries automatically and continue using their digital library with no action on their part. You need to manually change your iTunes country as per this Apple Support Article. Otherwise Apple's systems, like most account security measures, will typically flag a foreign IP as an unauthorized attempt to use an account (e.g. a foreign hacker gaining access); Apple will also restrict the iTunes account's content to the country which matches the billing address.

It's important to note that these types of restrictions are not inherent to digital collections, they are, as I noted the legacy of antiquated regional restrictions which we've long faced for physical products, based on regional rights and distributor monopolies. Looking forward, there's every chance that companies will see the benefits of centralized global distribution. It may take some time, but it will happen.

...Disney can.

(For whatever reason the studio or otherwise copyright owner of the material wishes to withdraw distribution of their title from ALL formats, including television, theatrical and home-video.)

Completely different issue to the one I mentioned. The original content owner can and should quite rightly maintain control over their property. After all, Disney spent millions creating their films; you've spent maybe a few hundred dollars at most buying copies of them. Copyright owners can decide to withdraw distribution of any material in any region, but if you've already purchased a Disney movie on disc or download, do they force you to delete it or destroy it? Again, consumer law steps in here and protects your purchase. Basically, content owners would very quickly find themselves facing a class action lawsuit if they sell movie downloads under false pretenses (e.g. hidden limited use), or perform a bait-and-switch, or just "pull the plug" willy-nilly.

There's a difference between healthy caution (caveat emptor) and rampant anti-corporate paranoia.

People should be extremely skeptical of streaming only 'rights' because from a practical POV, how can a company keep its promise of perpetuity given there are real constant ongoing costs to maintain them when the company only got a fixed amount up front? At best streaming will be a yearly membership fee with discounts on PPV or access to everything but for a limited time with monthly / yearly renewal and specific content is not guaranteed.. I don't see how streaming can survive with a single price giving everlasting access for free. It doesn't add up and always gets into the red after some amount of time.

I'm referring more to a download model rather than streaming, because downloading alleviates ownership anxiety to a certain extent as I've mentioned, and it also allows people on slower connections to still download high quality content, just more slowly over hours or days rather than the having to have a rock-solid high bandwidth connection to stream something like 4K media in real-time. So I'm banking on digital download being the major component of a future model, rather than streaming.

Your points regarding the way this download model works in PC gaming are countered firstly by the fact that the mechanisms you speak of (having to be connected to the Internet to use certain aspects of a game) are anti-piracy measures. They were, and still are, absolutely necessary due to literally 80-90% piracy rates for single-player offline-only games. In fact it's reached the point where single-player offline-only games are now virtually non-existent on PC because of the lack of ability to protect them against piracy. So most major PC games now have a key online component, or are online-only. It's no secret that the most commercially successful game on PC - World of Warcraft - uses an online-only monthly subscription model which prevents piracy.

This means that downloaded movie purchases, like games, need to be protected by some sort of authentication platform. We've already discussed two very popular examples here: Steam and iTunes. And the truth is that to create and maintain such a platform takes a huge amount of money and resources. Which in turn means that it can't be done by just any mickey mouse fly-by-night operator who comes along promising the world, then goes bust. I don't see the movie studios investing in, or trusting their products to, such operators. Both Valve (the company behind Steam) and Apple (iTunes) are very successful and are no doubt going to carry on providing their services for years to come. People aren't scared of buying Apple hardware and making iTunes purchases with the worry that it will all suddenly go bust; same story with the Steam gaming platform - some people own literally thousands of dollars worth of PC games in their virtual libraries.

But even if some unforeseen circumstance causes financial chaos for a major company providing a download/streaming service, and they go bust, there are plenty of companies that will snap up their infrastructure and clients and continue providing the service, as long as it's profitable to do so. Before being bought by Google, YouTube was rapidly going broke, spending tens of millions of dollars on bandwidth and server costs with no real model for recouping their expenses. Because their model was viable and popular, Google came along and bought them out. Facebook, Google, Apple, numerous other companies have huge cash reserves ready for just this purpose.

Again, I appreciate that most of us love physical discs, but with even a little of bit of contemplation, it's easy to see that digital files stored on 50GB plastic discs in blue plastic cases is not the future of how media is going to be widely distributed and consumed.

 

[Ejanss]

Completely different issue to the one I mentioned. The original content owner can and should quite rightly maintain control over their property. After all, Disney spent millions creating their films; you've spent maybe a few hundred dollars at most buying copies of them. Copyright owners can decide to withdraw distribution of any material in any region, but if you've already purchased a Disney movie on disc or download, do they force you to delete it or destroy it? Again, consumer law steps in here and protects your purchase. Basically, content owners would very quickly find themselves facing a class action lawsuit if they sell movie downloads under false pretenses (e.g. hidden limited use), or perform a bait-and-switch, or just "pull the plug" willy-nilly.

There's a difference between healthy caution (caveat emptor) and rampant anti-corporate paranoia.

It's just that those who download NEED to caveat:
The owners might (abstract supposition) or might not remove the download, and it makes a good academic argument, but after all that's finished, they still can't remove a purchased disk.

We're not "paranoid", we're just wondering what strange force of nature is preventing everyone from erring on the side of caution--If you're not preserving your movie forever, just what are you in it for?
"Eh, I don't need my favorite movie, I just need a place to watch it once in a while." Those who give up their control for convenience deserve neither.

I'm referring more to a download model rather than streaming, because downloading alleviates ownership anxiety to a certain extent as I've mentioned, and it also allows people on slower connections to still download high quality content, just more slowly over hours or days rather than the having to have a rock-solid high bandwidth connection to stream something like 4K media in real-time.

And then keep it somewhere...Assuming they have data-storage space for it. Unless, of course, they throw it out to make room for something else, in which case the movie wasn't really forever, after all.
Fortunately, iTunes and most other download sites keep the records of everything purchased for...as long as they promise to, which means if the customer threw out the movie and wants it again, he has to download it. Again. And people on slower connections can download it more slowly again over hours or days rather than having a rock solid bandwidth connection.
"Well, maybe they'll have some kind of backup flash-drive to save it!" Oh, some kind of physical media, then?

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Your points regarding the way this download model works in PC gaming are countered firstly by the fact that the mechanisms you speak of (having to be connected to the Internet to use certain aspects of a game) are anti-piracy measures. They were, and still are, absolutely necessary due to literally 80-90% piracy rates for single-player offline-only games. In fact it's reached the point where single-player offline-only games are now virtually non-existent on PC because of the lack of ability to protect them against piracy. So most major PC games now have a key online component, or are online-only. It's no secret that the most commercially successful game on PC - World of Warcraft - uses an online-only monthly subscription model which prevents piracy.

Piracy is a false argument. The point is you claim that there is no danger of a company removing access to a digital download forever into the future for a one time charge. That has been proven false in the gaming world because games are eventually retired because the company will no longer provide the required servers to play it because the number of people playing it no longer justify the expense and there is no additional income from the game. That same cost model exists in digital downloads of movies and they are far bigger files and there is no reason to expect a different result.

Of course the piracy argument could be used to eliminate the ability to own movies too. "It's no secret that the most commercially successful home video company uses a monthly subscription to prevent piracy." I guess DIVX was just 20 years too early.

 

[Worth]

The owners might (abstract supposition) or might not remove the download, and it makes a good academic argument, but after all that's finished, they still can't remove a purchased disk...

And then keep it somewhere...Assuming they have data-storage space for it. Unless, of course, they throw it out to make room for something else, in which case the movie wasn't really forever, after all.

Actually, content owners can make a physical disc unplayable via firmware updates if they choose to do so. And nothing is forever. Formats become obsolete, tape wears out and discs can rot and become unreadable.

 

[Worth]

Of course the piracy argument could be used to eliminate the ability to own movies too. "It's no secret that the most commercially successful home video company uses a monthly subscription to prevent piracy." I guess DIVX was just 20 years too early.

That, I suspect, is the studios' end game. They've fought every technology that's come along that allows you to keep a copy of a movie tooth-and-nail. They effectively had a pay-per-view system in place for 60 years, and have been fighting to get it back for the last 40. I don't think the day when you need to authenticate a copy via the internet in order to watch something is far off.

 

[Persianimmortal]

Piracy is a false argument. The point is you claim that there is no danger of a company removing access to a digital download forever into the future for a one time charge. That has been proven false in the gaming world because games are eventually retired because the company will no longer provide the required servers to play it because the number of people playing it no longer justify the expense and there is no additional income from the game. That same cost model exists in digital downloads of movies and they are far bigger files and there is no reason to expect a different result. Of course the piracy argument could be used to eliminate the ability to own movies too. "It's no secret that the most commercially successful home video company uses a monthly subscription to prevent piracy." I guess DIVX was just 20 years too early.

Game servers are retired only when the game reaches a point where there are few people playing the online component of that game. They're not suddenly revoked for no reason. In some cases games are patched to allow third party servers to run them. In other cases, companies have released patches which remove any need for online authentication where the single-player portion of a game is reliant on it.The reality is that even those Blu-ray Discs which we love so much now are going to be practically useless in 20 or 30 year's time when everyone has moved onto 4K or 8K as standard, just as VHS copies of movies are now considered trash. No format, whether in physical or digital form, is built to last forever. They all have built-in obsolescence. At some point even finding a working player for a physical format will become a challenge. Not to mention the pointlessness of it, since it will be much lower quality than the latest format. Hard to imagine now, but as I say, a couple of decades from now I'm pretty sure enthusiasts will scoff at Blu-ray quality.Anyway, if you really believe that a company is going to generate massive ill-will and consumer resentment, and cut its own throat commercially and legally, by suddenly and randomly revoking rights to digital products, I can't see how we can continue to have a rational discussion. I think I've posted enough of my thoughts on this subject. It will be interesting to see how things pan out, and I'll leave it at that.

 

[jcroy]

Somewhat related tangentially.

From an historical perspective back in 2005-2006, Sony attempted to disrupt cd ripping with really nasty DRM which also disrupted normal functioning of a computer. Several states launched legal action against Sony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

 

[Persianimmortal]

Aside from the fact that the rootkit issue demonstrates precisely the huge repercussions and public outcry of just what happens when you try something like that, the entire issue was also exaggerated beyond belief by people with no tech expertise - a good example of paranoia-driven hysteria.PC magazine ran an article on the issue, quoting Mark Russinovich, a Microsoft technical guru, who uncovered the rootkit:

When the press got hold of the story, the extent of the problem was somewhat exaggerated. Russinovich points out that Sony's rootkit doesn't exactly provide hackers with an on-ramp to your PC. "Sony's rootkit is only exploitable if the user can be lured into downloading something or tricked into installing some sort of malware that would take advantage of it," he explains. "If someone can get software to execute on your machine in the first place, they might as well install their own rootkit."

Basically it was nowhere near as dangerous as the Wikipedia article or others claim. It was a massive mistake by Sony, an overzealous application of DRM during the early days of fighting online piracy, and it cost them dearly in terms of litigation and reputation.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I had read that the UK was the country in Europe where Bluray was selling best of all yet there are some Hollywood titles that have been released in Europe or elsewhere first and in some cases the UK misses out altogether.

As per usual, the Brit market is perverse. For example, if you're a Brit and want to watch Poirot, one of ITV's most successful titles in the UK and a perennial favourite on the ITV HD broadcasts, then you have to get the Spanish edition of the programmes. The same goes for umpteen other hugely popular titles.

The future is going to be streaming for one very simple reason - Joe Six Pack will love it. No more need for houses to be cluttered with shelves of discs. We've already seen what will happen from the success of music downloads and electronic books. In the long run, I doubt whether movie lovers will suffer over quality and range of titles, because the niche market for art house movies is sufficiently large to justify offering them for rental (and plus, the royalty costs will be tiny or non-existent for many of them). However, picture and sound quality will suffer, in the same way that mp3, whilst perfectly okay, isn't a patch on top notch hi-fi.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Persianimmortal,
Your arguments are not ones that show the home video industry will allow downloads of a movie forever; they are arguments the industry will use to claim and then enforce that the notion of 'pay once and watch forever' is obsolete and unsustainable in a streaming / download world. There simply won't be enough consumers who want that model and refuse the PPV or subscription model to make it happen. So you are right that the industry won't create massive ill will by arbitrarily revoking rights to digital product because those rights as we have them with physical media won't exist to revoke and I'm right because there won't be a way to download 'your' movie in perpetuity to maintain the status quo equivalent of physical media.

 

[Jari K]

I think the digital distribution model works if we're talking about e.g. smaller (well, or medium size) video games or film rentals. Something that's fast, casual, etc.If we're talking about "owning" something, let alone "collecting", digital distribution is a poor choice. Since those digital copies are tied to different copy protections, platforms, softwares and whatnot, you don't really "own" anything. And there are NO guarantees that those digital games and films actually work after several years.Of course the question is: Should they work/play after several years? For many people, probably not.Another question: If they don't need to work after several years, then what should be the price range? Certainly people don't want to pay 20, or even 15$ for one film in a "digital form"? Or will they?

 

[bruceames]

Actually, content owners can make a physical disc unplayable via firmware updates if they choose to do so. And nothing is forever. Formats become obsolete, tape wears out and discs can rot and become unreadable.

Player owners can likewise make a player un-updatable if they choose to do so. I have no plans to update mine.

And yes you can actually make it "forever" (practically speaking) if you really want to. HD DVD is obsolete and yet it's forever to me because I have made ISO backups of everything important to me and have 2 software programs that will play it. So the whole format is running on software (which is not being updated).

 

[Ejanss]

Actually, content owners can make a physical disc unplayable via firmware updates if they choose to do so. And nothing is forever. Formats become obsolete, tape wears out and discs can rot and become unreadable.

And to similarly borrow the words of Mr. Kane, why, those Blu-rays should be practically unreadable after another.....ten thousand playings?

 

[Jari K]

"Actually, content owners can make a physical disc unplayable via firmware updates if they choose to do so."My second PS3 is not even registered to PSN/online. So you don't really have to dl firmwares. PS3 works fine as a DVD/Blu-ray player.Games are another matter, though.

 

[Yorkshire]

Actually, content owners can make a physical disc unplayable via firmware updates if they choose to do so. And nothing is forever. Formats become obsolete, tape wears out and discs can rot and become unreadable.

This is why I want Blu-ray Disc to be as successful as possible.

I rip all of my discs to HDD. I back up the HDDs. Twice. One lot I keep in a completely different building (for what it's worth, in a different city).

If things start to look dodgy I already have 4 Media Players which will play back 1080p MKVs with any sound format.

The day the studios pull the plug on physical media, even if all downloads from them on are going to be heavily restricted, I have my entire DVD and Blu-ray Disc collection safe.

Forever.

Steve W

 

[jcroy]

This is why I want Blu-ray Disc to be as successful as possible.

I rip all of my discs to HDD. I back up the HDDs. Twice. One lot I keep in a completely different building (for what it's worth, in a different city).

If things start to look dodgy I already have 4 Media Players which will play back 1080p MKVs with any sound format.

The day the studios pull the plug on physical media, even if all downloads from them on are going to be heavily restricted, I have my entire DVD and Blu-ray Disc collection safe.

Forever.

Steve W

Must get expensive buying all those 4 TB hard drives. (Or 5 TB HDDs).

 

[David Wilkins]

I think BD will be with us for quite a while, but the market will be closer to the kind that drove laserdisc. Yes, the big mega-market that drove DVD is dying fast, but the world is plenty big enough to support niche markets, just as LD was back in the day. Players will cost more, discs will cost more, but the "just buy it" mentality that was marketed to us, and helped result in $5 discs never was sustainable anyway. I say, let it become a niche market. I'm an Oppo kind of guy, anyway. I won't like the higher disc prices, and I'll be more selective…but wait, I've become more selective anyway. Long gone are the days when I would have 5 or 6 DVD's ship every other release day.

I think places like TT, Olive and Criterion could do even better in the long run. The hobby and the pastime isn't likely to die. The real movie lovers who crave a superior viewing experience will be served by smaller, more select providers than the major studios.

 

[bluelaughaminute]

As per usual, the Brit market is perverse. For example, if you're a Brit and want to watch Poirot, one of ITV's most successful titles in the UK and a perennial favourite on the ITV HD broadcasts, then you have to get the Spanish edition of the programmes. The same goes for umpteen other hugely popular titles.

The future is going to be streaming for one very simple reason - Joe Six Pack will love it. No more need for houses to be cluttered with shelves of discs. We've already seen what will happen from the success of music downloads and electronic books. In the long run, I doubt whether movie lovers will suffer over quality and range of titles, because the niche market for art house movies is sufficiently large to justify offering them for rental (and plus, the royalty costs will be tiny or non-existent for many of them). However, picture and sound quality will suffer, in the same way that mp3, whilst perfectly okay, isn't a patch on top notch hi-fi.

I think you can get away with less than perfect sound easier than you can with video.
Depending on where you listen to it the lower quality of MP3 is not always noticeable.
Inferior video quality is always noticeable unless watching on tiny screens.
Will collectors die out ? I don't know but certainly for collectors downloads and streaming content as a purchase rather than a rental is not an option . I would never do it unless the option was there for me to take that content and put it on a disc myself - which I would be happy to do .
If Hollywood won't let me I won't buy their product.
I gave up with VHS in the early 90's simply because I got tired of returning tapes that were faulty. I basically gave up movies completely until I got into Laserdisc . I would be more than happy to do it again if streaming became the only option.
I don't mind rentals or catch up tv by streaming but buying it is something I would never do .
I'm sure I'm not alone.

I agree the UK market is silly but thanks to the internet the dedicated collector has access to content wherever its released