Will Kino be Paramount in finally bringing much wanted films to Blu? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

I miss both Peter and Martin. They were class acts in this business.

Yes, they were and treated us well during our Meets.

 

[Dick]

Yes, they were and treated us well during our Meets.

Well, at least Fox is still providing nice source materials for niche companies to release on Blu-ray. Hardly anything from Paramount. I mean, geese, they have this 4k restoration of WAR OF THE WORLDS all set to go, but, like Netflix-made films, they're holding them hostage for streaming only. Call it an inevitable business move in our current climate if you will...I call it treason.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, at least Fox is still providing nice source materials for niche companies to release on Blu-ray. Hardly anything from Paramount. I mean, geese, they have this 4k restoration of WAR OF THE WORLDS all set to go, but, like Netflix-made films, they're holding them hostage for streaming only. Call it an inevitable business move in our current climate if you will...I call it treason.

Well that's a different argument as the people running Paramount back then are long gone.

 

[Robin9]

Well, at least Fox is still providing nice source materials for niche companies to release on Blu-ray. Hardly anything from Paramount. .

I've recently bought three Blu-ray discs sourced from Paramount; A Man Alone, Lisbon and The Last Command.

 

[rdimucci]

Paramount has a robust restoration program.

To what end? If a was a Viacom stockholder, I'd object to Paramount throwing money down a rat hole. Expenditures with no plans for revenues from the assets being preserved.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

At the moment, they seem to be experimenting with debuting their new restorations on digital platforms like iTunes and Vudu. They've just releases brand new, state of the art 4K restorations of The War Of The Worlds and It's A Wonderful Life on those services. There's also a new 4K DCP of It's A Wonderful Life that's available to repertory bookings.

It seems to me that they are trying to monetize the content and actively seeking revenue streams for it. But I can understand their reluctance to release a disc. At present time, physical media sales of catalog titles are way down; a typical catalog title can only be counted on to sell hundreds of copies, maybe a couple thousand if it's a high demand title. It may be that Paramount has decided that it's not worth the time and expense to do that. The cost of authoring the discs, replicating them, distributing them to retailers, and then accepting returns for unsold product, and having to them store or dispose of that product, may be more than the profit that it could reasonably be expected to generate. Or, it could be that doing so would yield them only the tiniest of profits - perhaps enough for a smaller label like Twilight Time or Kino to get by on, but not enough to justify the effort for Paramount. On the other hand, the digital releases carry no authoring or replication costs, and the only distribution cost is the expense of sending a hard drive with the data file on it to the digital services.

From a stockholder point of view, a shareholder might reasonably ask why Paramount would put the effort into releasing a disc that will sell a small number of copies, when there's a greater profit margin and greater audience demand for the digital version.

 

[Paul Rossen]

Wouldn't Paramount be adding to their revenue by licensing some of their titles to say Criterion, Kino and Twilight Time?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Sure. And they are in the process of doing that. At present date, though, they are only licensing out titles that they have never released on DVD before. There is nothing to suggest that they couldn't expand that agreement in the future if it works out well for them.

My suspicion is that they're looking over their internal numbers for how much those titles they had previously released on DVD sold and trying to determine what the best path forward for those titles may be. Considering that two years ago, Paramount didn't really have a home video department at all, all of these baby steps strike me as encouraging signs. They're waking up from their slumber, looking at what the state of the world is, and trying to figure out what their best moves are.

 

[Dick]

Sure. And they are in the process of doing that. At present date, though, they are only licensing out titles that they have never released on DVD before.

Not true of the Criterion titles.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

True, I should have been more clear - I was referring to new licensing deals like the ones they've recently made with Kino.

I wasn't aware that Criterion was currently releasing Paramount material, I thought it had been a while since they had licensed something out to them.

 

[battlebeast]

To what end? If a was a Viacom stockholder, I'd object to Paramount throwing money down a rat hole. Expenditures with no plans for revenues from the assets being preserved.

EXACTLY.

 

[battlebeast]

At the moment, they seem to be experimenting with debuting their new restorations on digital platforms like iTunes and Vudu. They've just releases brand new, state of the art 4K restorations of The War Of The Worlds and It's A Wonderful Life on those services. There's also a new 4K DCP of It's A Wonderful Life that's available to repertory bookings.

It seems to me that they are trying to monetize the content and actively seeking revenue streams for it. But I can understand their reluctance to release a disc. At present time, physical media sales of catalog titles are way down; a typical catalog title can only be counted on to sell hundreds of copies, maybe a couple thousand if it's a high demand title. It may be that Paramount has decided that it's not worth the time and expense to do that. The cost of authoring the discs, replicating them, distributing them to retailers, and then accepting returns for unsold product, and having to them store or dispose of that product, may be more than the profit that it could reasonably be expected to generate. Or, it could be that doing so would yield them only the tiniest of profits - perhaps enough for a smaller label like Twilight Time or Kino to get by on, but not enough to justify the effort for Paramount. On the other hand, the digital releases carry no authoring or replication costs, and the only distribution cost is the expense of sending a hard drive with the data file on it to the digital services.

From a stockholder point of view, a shareholder might reasonably ask why Paramount would put the effort into releasing a disc that will sell a small number of copies, when there's a greater profit margin and greater audience demand for the digital version.

Not everyone likes digital and streaming. I can’t put a stream of ORDINARY PEOPLE on my DVD rack, can I?

And besides that, most streams are AMERICA ONLY, because lord knows the rest of the world shouldn’t be allowed to watch these films.

If sales are lagging, go the MOD way and let people buy at their leisure.

If they did a Blu MOD of ORDINARY PEOPLE, I’d snap it up in a heartbeat! And I know other here would buy It, too.

Make it fair so EVERYONE can watch.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Not everyone likes digital and streaming. I can’t put a stream of ORDINARY PEOPLE on my DVD rack, can I?

And besides that, most streams are AMERICA ONLY, because lord knows the rest of the world shouldn’t be allowed to watch these films.

If sales are lagging, go the MOD way and let people buy at their leisure.

If they did a Blu MOD of ORDINARY PEOPLE, I’d snap it up in a heartbeat! And I know other here would buy It, too.

Make it fair so EVERYONE can watch.

I understand your frustration, unfortunately, there's just not enough of us buying catalog titles to persuade the studios otherwise. It's the way it is, whether that's fair or not which isn't much different than just about everything in life.

 

[Mark-P]

Not everyone likes digital and streaming. I can’t put a stream of ORDINARY PEOPLE on my DVD rack, can I?

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I in fact do put stream purchases on my movie rack. I buy slim cases super cheap in bulk and print out the iTunes artwork so the they can sit on my shelf along side my Blu-rays and DVDs.
There's another forum member who rips his iTunes purchases to BD-R. I really don't see the advantage to that as the BD-R won't be any better than the original stream or download, although I suppose you would have something should you ever go off-grid.

 

[Richard V]

I know it will never happen, but The Keep

 

[filmnoirguy]

While I can not say who told me, but yes, they have no interest at the present. The person that told me is involved with Paramount.

A few years ago I also read that Paramount wanted to concentrate on releasing their newer films on video and were not planning on restoring the classics to Blu-ray, even though they have done so with a few like Sunset Blvd. I wrote to them requesting A Place in the Sun and Hud on Blu-ray but never got a response.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

I wrote to them requesting A Place in the Sun and Hud on Blu-ray but never got a response.

There's a 4K DCP of "A Place in the Sun" (and "Romeo and Juliet") making the rounds. If they're not going to release it on disc themselves or loan it out to a boutique label, hopefully they'll offer it as a digital download like they did with "It's a Wonderful Life".

 

[DalekFlay]

From a stockholder point of view, a shareholder might reasonably ask why Paramount would put the effort into releasing a disc that will sell a small number of copies, when there's a greater profit margin and greater audience demand for the digital version.

Are the streaming/download versions really selling either though? Last I read those sales numbers were very low, and growing very slowly compared to expectations. I've read several articles that basically say people are switching to watching stuff included in their subscriptions, and maybe renting some others, but largely not buying movies anymore.

From my perspective we're heading back to an 80's and 90's style "most people rent" system where purchasing and collecting movies is a niche collector's hobby, be it disc or digital.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Are the streaming/download versions really selling either though? Last I read those sales numbers were very low, and growing very slowly compared to expectations. I've read several articles that basically say people are switching to watching stuff included in their subscriptions, and maybe renting some others, but largely not buying movies anymore.

From my perspective we're heading back to an 80's and 90's style "most people rent" system where purchasing and collecting movies is a niche collector's hobby, be it disc or digital.

https://geeks.media/the-paywall-will-be-the-death-of-streaming-as-we-know-it

This article sums it up best...

~Ben

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That article is scary.

I am a huge geek. The nerd of nerds. Am I going to pay an additional $5 or $10 for CBS’s crappy streaming service just to watch Star Trek? No I’m not. I will find another way to watch it.

If a so-called huge geek isn’t willing to spend $5 to watch a new Star Trek series, and feels that the very act of being asked to pay for it entitles him to circumvent that process and entitles him to pirate the content - this is all over.

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again - the biggest battle that content producers face in 2019 and beyond isn’t about getting customers to change their preferences from physical to streaming media - the biggest battle is simply getting people to pay for the content they consume.

The entire entertainment ecosystem collapses when a critical mass of people decide they’re entitled to watch whatever they want without paying for it.