Format War Won - by the Internet?

[admin]

While the audiophiles and first-adopters argue about HD DVD and Blu-ray, the rest of the world moves on, unknowing and uncaring. We've predicted not once but many times that the new formats were doomed from the start. A recent article on Forbes is predicting not only the demise of CDs, but of ALL physical formats! Well, knock us over with a feather. We never would have guessed.

Discuss "Format War Won - by the Internet?" here. Read the article.

 

[bigbangtheory]

While the audiophiles and first-adopters argue about HD DVD and Blu-ray, the rest of the world moves on, unknowing and uncaring. We've predicted not once but many times that the new formats were doomed from the start. A recent article on Forbes is predicting not only the demise of CDs, but of ALL physical formats! Well, knock us over with a feather. We never would have guessed.

Discuss "Format War Won - by the Internet?" here. Read the article.

That's right. Leave it to Forbes to inform us of these eventualities.

I wish they could explain to me though why I still don't have a flying car.

 

[stratman]

Though I don't put much stock in anything reported by FORBES, especially market trends as predicted by them, I do agree with the trend of physical media disappearing to a niche market as in vinyl. CDs will still be produced for a small segment of the market so will DVDs, I'm still not sure on the fate of high def DVDs though as they're still a niche and the rest of the A/V world is moving on. You can see the future just by looking at what kids are adopting today, we have a new generation of "conditioned" kids who think of CDs what we use to think of vinyl once the fabled CD made it's appearance.

The future is somewhat clear, the studios want you to "lease" the music or movie, but they can control how many times you watch it and where you can watch it. So far I'm lucky all the music I've ever liked and enjoyed made it to CD and my collection is complete, anything I add now is just gravy, so barring a catastrophe I don't need to bow down to the media moguls. As for downloading movies, well I have Netflix that fits the bill for the moment.

 

[smurphy522]

Well there you have it from FORBES! the Future of A/V physical media and its inevitable demise. In general I agree with that prediction but venture to say it will be much longer out than 5 years from now. My Ouija board told me 13 years!

 

[Audioholics]

You guys are killing me - lol.

 

[sholling]

I'm going to call BS on Forbes on this one - at least for 10 years. CD sales are falling because the price of CDs are still ridiculously high, and the number of songs worth listing to on a CD is way too low. Usually only one or two. iTunes etc is successful allows they the consumer to cherry pick songs and works well on middle of the road broadband.

Video is another animal. A video is one entertainment per disk (no cherry picking motive) and people only buy videos that they want in a permanent collection. Everything else they rent. Still I like the idea if it were cheap enough. The problem is it would take forever to download a 20gb high-definition video over your average <1.5mb DSL connection. We in the US have lower very high speed (>10mb/sec) Internet availability not to mention much lower high speed penetration than either Japan or South Korea, and availability isn't looking to improve much. AT&T refuses to deploy fiber to the home (FTTH), and Verizon is strictly cherry picking its FTTH deployment. The only alternatives are the cable companies who have implemented draconian download caps. With the current FCC leadership firmly in the hip pocket of AT&T/Verizon this situation isn't likely to improve. In fact it's likely to get worse as both telcos move their Internet offerings toward an AOL style 'walled garden'.

Then there is storage. Adding several HD videos to a permanent collection would eat up massive amounts of storage. Then let's not forget that backup becomes an issue.

I suspect the premise that high definition DVD becoming just a niche market has a 50:50 chance of becoming reality. If the standard had solidified right off and the price dropped fast enough I think it would have been a success. But Sony's stubborn insistence on playing the spoiler has probably delayed public acceptance too long and will continue the delay at least one more year. Still if HD DVD payers drop below the $120 Joe Sixpack acceptance price point soon enough then there is still a chance.

If there is a winner here it's Direct TV with its huge investment in additional satellites and its roll out of enough HD content to finally drive the publics interest/excitement in HD. It's a very small window of opportunity that I fully expect the home electronics industry to blow.

 

[autoboy]

Video will take the same route as audio did. Soon, it will be possible to take your entire video collection with you on your ipod, and then play it back on the ipod screen, or via the mini HMDI (please god come up with a better connection format) on the ipod. Until then, you will continue to see physical media for video.

With this you have the portable take anywhere play it anywhere format of physical media, the capacity to take your entire collection, the flexibility to play it on the ipod, or connect it to your HT, and the ability to own the content.

On Demand services, while nice, are not portable, are not widespread, and will not be viable as mainstream solutions until we get everything wireless with enough bandwidth to support it. They will remain niche rental type solutions that will gain in popularity, and may replace rentals, but will not take over physical media. The harddrive and efficient portable HD players will be the future of owning your video.

We already have devices capable of this, and once the movie studios separate their asses from their heads and make video available in a smart way, we will start to see kids hooking their ipods to their TVs and playing their TV and movies. The initial quality will be DVD or even slightly worse, but they will advance quickly. We may even see portable projectors within 5 years that can replace the TV completely and we will be faced with explaining to everyone why their wall makes a terrible projection screen, and the general public will go on about how they don't care about quality and the rest of us will sit back and bemoan the damn kids for ruining video and forcing all of us to watch crappy DVD quality compressed to 4 bit color movies on a textured cream colored wall while we cling to our precious HD/BD movies like they were made of vinyl.

Damn, that took a long time to spell out on my Ouija board.

 

[mtrycrafts]

If there is a winner here it's Direct TV with its huge investment in additional satellites and its roll out of enough HD content to finally drive the publics interest/excitement in HD.

I hope they have hardened their satellite investments against EMP

 

[mtrycrafts]

You guys are killing me - lol.

Isn't that why we are here to do?

 

[Derelict]

I am still not sold on the idea. There certainly are advantages to getting rid of the physical formats, but one aspect that is often overlooked is societal impact and the way we pesky humans tend to behave. We enjoy sharing our movies with friends and hearing back from them about what they thought, it builds bonds of friendship and security, you start with loaning someone something small and if they return it, it builds trust. If they don't then you know not to do it again.

What I am getting at is the lesson taught to us by e-books with its promised and predicted revolution that was going to make physical books an archaic concept. It's just never happened. People liked collecting, sharing, loaning and holding a physical format and they still do. I think the same may be said of movies. But then I could be totally wrong.

As for the music movie comparison, I do agree the cherry picking idea has some value.

 

[davidtwotrees]

My Andy Rooney Imitation

You know, I guess I can see the allure of the Ipod with the ability to carry a gizillion songs........even if it is low rez and definately not for me. I like to relax when I listen to my music, and have it sound like I am there with my favorite musicians in my own home...........
Would someone please tell me the allure of watching a movie on a tiny little screen? Wouldn't the larger than life actors all look like Lilliputians?
And why is it all the fortune tellers that say the physical disc is dead make it sound like handling a cd is like handling a manhole cover?
Didya ever wonder why is it that the pro download crowd makes it sound like a cd costs $500? Or your favorite artist only makes two out of ten songs that are worth listening to?.......................

 

[autoboy]

Maybe you aren't talking specifically about my post, but I feel like you might have missed one of my points. The (future) video ipod that I suggest, will have an HDMI port on it that will allow you to hook the device up to your home theater, just like current ipod's audio out allows you to hook the audio up to your HT. The video output on early version is likely to be DVD quality, but I feel that with future versions, increased capacity, and better electronics, the quality may eventually reach HD levels. It is kinda like a portable Tivo/DVD player. Going down to a friends house? Take that 24 episode and plug into his HDMI port on his 100" screen to watch the show. On long flight to China? The player has already synced up to your tivo and all your shows are there so you can catch up on your TV. It is a pretty cool concept really.

As for watching it on a little screen? I've played with my brother's video ipod for awhile now that he has a iphone, and I do enjoy putting my recorded videos from TV onto it and watching them on the go whenever I have a spare half an hour. Most SD content looks like crap anyways, a smaller screen can actually help. Think of this like we think of casual music listening vs critical listening. When just sitting around your house listening to ambient music, the quality is not as important as when you sit down and want to specifically enjoy really good music. When I am watching TV just to pass time during my lunch hour, or when I am sitting in an airport waiting for my delayed plane, the quality and size is just not a factor. I won't go out and watch Heroes on my 2.5" screen, but an episode of Scrubs can be quite enjoyable.

 

[stratman]

The future is MOD, manufacturing-on-demand, read the "Harry Potter meets Content Agenda" thread in movies section. You'll understand why the studios are going this way and leaving the other formats behind: lots of $$$$ and protection.

 

[davidtwotrees]

I was kinda digging at your post, Autoboy.......but not in a bad way. I guess if an ipod could carry content and upload it to a bigger screen would be allright...........
I guess I don't see the urgency to carry around a thousand hours of media with me wherever I go. I'm 46. Maybe its an age thing. I see the under thirty crowd in social situations and they spend as much time with their gadgets as they do talking to one another.
I helped a friends kid do his Eagle scout project. We painted the large basement of a chruch. I supplied the spray equiptment and know how. Nice kid. Except he had a hard time working because his ipod and cell phone were so interesting.

I want less gadgets and more exellence. Or, less ipod, more sacd....

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

"Future events such as these will effect you in the future."

 

[autoboy]

You are welcome to dig at my post. That is the point of all this. No offense, but it's the kids that determine where the technology is going. And it is going towards mobile, take it all with you, and multitask to the point of being unproductive. I'm 28, so I see it differently than you. However, I am kinda right in the middle of all this. You never had a cell phone growing up. I didn't get one until college. It is the kids that are growing up now that are driving technology farther than anyone realized they would. Just look at MyYearBook.com. It is run by a 19 year old girl who started it in high school. These kids are savvy, and know what they want.

Still, we have all the $ and the electronics makers won't neglect us either, and that's why today's economy is so impressive. You have the option of choice. More than any other time in our history. As the DRM problems get worked out, and they will eventually as the old media moguls retire and the techie new folks take over, then we will have so much access and choice in our entertainment that you won't ever want to work! I'm already addicted to the internet. I should be working!

 

[jinjuku]

My biggest concern with movies, and delivery on a Physical medium vs. Internet is the doctrine of first sale. I can purchase a DVD 2nd hand for $3, I can also sell what I have purchased. How would this work for something I downloaded by purchase and then no longer want?

Is that model going to dry up with the passing of physical media? Is this something that has been orchestrated to the consumers ultimate demise?

 

[sholling]

I hope they have hardened their satellite investments against EMP

So do I. They finally have mine working.

 

[Pwner_2130]

While the audiophiles and first-adopters argue about HD DVD and Blu-ray, the rest of the world moves on, unknowing and uncaring. We've predicted not once but many times that the new formats were doomed from the start. A recent article on Forbes is predicting not only the demise of CDs, but of ALL physical formats! Well, knock us over with a feather. We never would have guessed.

Discuss "Format War Won - by the Internet?" here. Read the article.

In my honest opinion, Forbes is way off with their prediction, for several reasons,

- If down loadable content is going to be provided, the industry will force a majority of the population to pay for at least >5 mbps internet connection, and consumers hate being forced. Many people will find that the monthly bill is too high a price to pay for all the HD content.
- The internet may "win" this war at some point, but I would say their victory is at least ten years out, due to the current limitations of DL speeds. Maybe when ipv6 is implemented, internet 2.0 is built,( if that ever happens) media-on-demand will become a reality.
- People simply love to have movies sitting around. My group of friends love having their DVD collection as much as music lovers of the 60 and 70s loved having the LPs piling up everywhere. When the content becomes something you can't pick up and feel, it cheapens the product. The same has happened with digital photos, seeing them on a nice LCD screen cheapens their quality, at least to me. The same is true with mp3s on an ipod. Compared to a cd, the quality just sucks. If you're actually listening. anyway.

 

[fmw]

- If down loadable content is going to be provided, the industry will force a majority of the population to pay for at least >5 mbps internet connection, and consumers hate being forced. Many people will find that the monthly bill is too high a price to pay for all the HD content.

It is worse than that. Where I live >5 mbs internet connections are not available at any price. I've even offered to buy a T1 line to no avail. And that is true of millions of people. There are millions more without an internet connection at all. Do you suppose the studios will want to ignore selling content to all these millions? The percentage of consumer purchases via internet are still less than 15% of the total. 5 years? 10 years? 15 years? Physical media won't go away in my lifetime.