The studios are run by some of the dumbest people on the planet. Just look at most of the crap they produce! They are a pathetic lot of supervises who have fought every effort at innovation yet somehow think they know best what the consumer wants. Not. They only think about their pocketbooks, the consumer be damned. This effort is bound to fail just like all their past stupid mistakes. They should really study Steve Jobs and what made him, and Apple so incredibly successful. Give the consumer ease of use, high quality, and great customer service and they will pay for it. Step one, look at the quality of your product you clowns!
It is still not possible to rent Blade Runner on iTunes in Australia*. You have to buy it for AUD$17.99 (Currently US$17.91) compared to the US iTunes store where I can buy it for US$9.99 or rent it for US$2.99
I really would like to know what they actually think is the cause of content piracy...
*First World Problems
Really? Blade Runner (terrible movie by the way) is only NZ$17.99 (AUD$14) in the NZ iTunes store, you can buy it on Blu-ray for a similar price.
Duh! Hey clown fish, the studios are setting the price, and they still think its too low!
Are they? If that is the case they must have no interest in digital downloads, it is cheaper for me, and I get a higher quality product to get a disc sent half way around the world than get a digital download locally..
And what's with the name calling, usually a sign of someone that has no argument...
The bottom line is: Who the fuck wants to pay a premium to own a movie they are going to watch once? It makes no sense.
But having said that, if I open a 'film club' account with 25 of my best Internet buddies (whoever they may be), would we all be allowed to watch the movies we buy legally? Just hypothetically speaking?
Exactly, why pay for one movie when you could get a couple months' subscription to a streaming or DVD rental service for the same money? Hardly anyone is going to watch it more than once on any sort of regular basis
This sort of business model of "owning" the film in whatever form was dead several years ago, it's just bizarre that Hollywood still hasn't grasped this
Hey there , trying to find optimum near insightful penny stock news letter? .
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I have never brought a video from itunes, and the way they are going, I never will.
+1
I haven't either. I don't mind 720p for my bedroom TV, or even Den TV (50" 1080p)- but for my media room (110" and 1080p) I have to watch Blu-Ray now. The difference between 720 and 1080 is vastly different.
I know I'm in the minority (in Dallas where media rooms are dime a dozen because our house pricing is so fantastic)- but Blu-Rays are amazing quality, and it won't be replicated for a while. 50gb discs (where on occasions like Avatar- 50gb is JUST the movie) are going to make it impossible to duplicate the sound and video quality because you'd need a 25TB hard drive to keep all my movies (500).
I know I'm a dying breed- and people will eventually choose convenience over quality, but things like this will hopefully help get the studios a little more physical media sales. Unlikely, but hopefully.
BTW- Blu-Rays aren't that expensive. You can get them used at Blockbuster for Buy 5 for $20 all day long (and almost brand new releases at that)- www.blu-ray.com Great deal site.
What are you people pissing and moaning about? Did any of you even bother to read the article? It's just seems like most of you read that it involved the movie studios and NOT working with Apple then jumped onto the "if it's not Apple, it must be crap" bandwagon.
It sounds like a great, simple idea to me. If you buy a physical copy, you get access to a digital copy as well. Through one account. A copy that isn't tied to Sony devices or Apple devices or Samsung devices or any other stupid limitations like that. If a device has an Ultraviolet application, it can play the movie. It's not stuck tied to iTunes thankfully. Sorry, I know a lot you here love being tied completely to Apple, but that's not for everyone.
... You then have perpetual rights to that movie throughout all members of the UltraViolet group. ...
Of course, 'perpetual' in this context means until they decide to shut it down in a couple of years.
It's pretty obvious what the motivation of the studios is here. They want to completely control all access to content and eliminate any distribution competition so they can fix the prices of what are essentially micro-monopolies. Consumers should, and I think will, reject this service, mostly because it will be too complicated and unreliable.
Of course, 'perpetual' in this context means until they decide to shut it down in a couple of years.
It's pretty obvious what the motivation of the studios is here. They want to completely control all access to content and eliminate any distribution competition so they can fix the prices of what are essentially micro-monopolies. Consumers should, and I think will, reject this service, mostly because it will be too complicated and unreliable.
And what? Go with the micro-monopoly of the iTunes Store instead? Different gatekeeper, same problem. That's also the issue with relying on streaming services; they might have the movie one month, but next month their license to it might be gone.
And now they're giving us a remake of 'Footloose'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beakernx01
You nailed it. They're all business school, profit- and shareholder-value maximizers. They don't think about what the consumer wants. Studios, and music labels before them, all start from the point of how can we sell OUR STUFF for the MOST MONEY. It's the single/album/VHS/cassette/DVD/Blu-Ray/digital re-packaging of the same stuff to sell consumers what they already bought several times over in a new format. Frankly, I think that when I bough Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" on 8-track, I should have been covered for at least the cassette "upgrade." Then they look at what Apple has done, and say, well we can sell our stuff that way. Apple, on the other hand, starts by looking at the user and asking what do they want (and often adding but don't know they want it) and what are the most convenient, desirable ways to give it to them. As I've read several times in recent days, people at Apple were charged with making products that they would want to use. The rest build something that meets their sales and marketing goals and then hope we'll want to use it. Look at Netflix. They barely said the word Qwikster and the thing is dead before arrival. At least I'll give Netflix a fist-bump for paying attention to the 27,000 commenters on their blog on the subject. They're still paying for being moronic though.
If you buy a physical copy, you get access to a digital copy as well.
They have that already minus the cloud. Last movie I got that included a digital download, the code didn't work. When I contacted their tech support they told me I was out of luck. Nice work folks, instead of fixing the problem (which probably would have just been emailing a code that works) you got me to never buy one with a download included - I guess ripping the disk is a better option after all.
Screw that. The customer is at the mercy of the failed technology and has no recourse if the studio doesn't deliver what was paid for.
The studios are trying to protect something not worth protecting. DVD and physical media are dead. It is dead for music and it will be dead for movie soon. Partner with Apple, Amazon and Netflix and they are set for life to milk those companies as they do all the heavy lifting of distribution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipsism
I could swear I keep hearing that Blu-ray is the totally awesome wave of the future and iTunes Store movie quality is unwatchable.
Physical media is far from dead, but it's certainly in decline. Blu-ray is up about 20% over last year and I believe last year at this time it was up 46% from 2009 (I don't have access to the numbers from where I am.) DVD is certainly down, but is being largely (but not completely) replaced by BD sales. IIRC, U.S. physical sales grosses are equivalent to theatrical boxoffice, so the numbers are still quite large.
Furthermore, 2011 will be the first year that digital downloads will exceed physical media in the music business.
If there's any proof that physical media is not dead, it's the furor over the recent Netflix decisions and reversals in their attempt to isolate the physical media business.
The fact is that physical and digital media will exist concurrently. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. And Blu-ray remains the way to view movies with the highest picture and sound quality, especially at home. Having said that, there are plenty of people who have no problem watching a movie on their 3" smartphone.
Partnering with Apple, Netflix, etc., does not set anyone "for life". If you want proof of that, look at the music industry. U.S. industry sales (for both physical and digital combined) are now half of their 1999 peak and that's not even taking inflation into account. However, the music industry has one major disadvantage that the the film industry doesn't have: what's killed the music industry is the fact that due to digital downloads, it's once again become primarily a singles market.
Some other posters are proposing date and date home video distribution for movies. Although some studio execs agree with you, this will kill the theatres. If you kill the theatres, you kill the budgets for movies and most movies will have the quality of "direct to video" releases. IMO, the industry should return to longer theatrical windows to insure that theatres survive, because movies are becoming a commodity that no one really cares about anymore, but that will never happen because they're more concerned with quarterly cash flow than anything else, which is why all the CEOs care about is opening weekend. IMO, the industry is on a slow train to suicide.
All this studio cloud thing is really about is providing a way for purchasers of physical product to be able to also watch their purchases on other devices without the studios having to supply a "digital copy" in the physical package. And for people who move away from physical or don't want the physical, they'll have the infrastructure already in place. This isn't necessarily a bad idea as long as ALL the studios, including the independents and the TV show distributors participate. But Disney going its own way is insane. And at the very least, it provides competition to Apple and Netflix, which will encourage them to keep prices low and quality/experience higher.
Now that Jobs has unfortunately passed away, is there any connection left between Apple and Disney? I'm surprised they wouldn't just jump on with iCloud.
The connection is as strong as ever. The estate still owns the assets. Who will own the estate might become apparent via the probate court, but more likely, the majority of the Billion$ were in trust already, and the ultimate beneficiaries will remain a closely-guarded secret.
Unless Steve was a financial wizard (not so far fetched) the bulk of his money was managed by third parties already. When you are dealing with Billion$, it is usually more work than one man can handle. A whole company's department-worth of people are likely employed doing nothing but handling Steve's money.
Usually, Wall Street Types handle the money for rich corporate CEOs and their families. I think it likely, or more likely than before, that Wall Street will handle the Billion$ and will turn them into even more Billion$ for Steve's chosen beneficiaries.
So for now, the Disney stock and the Apple stock are most likely still controlled by the same Wall Street Types.
Are these guys insane? Who is gonna set up a separate account for each studio or a grouping of studios?
Maybe not so much of a problem:
In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the six diversified media conglomerates whose various movie production and distribution subsidiaries command approximately 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian box office.
90% of the market is controlled by six entities. Apple users are decidedly mainstream, so it is likely that even a higher percentage of them are mostly customers of only the big 6. And the big 6 are banding together, so most likely, most Apple customers will be content with only signing up once or twice.
Sure, the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently - they might watch indie flicks. But the Apple customers are likely to be content with the mainstream.
They have that already minus the cloud. Last movie I got that included a digital download, the code didn't work. When I contacted their tech support they told me I was out of luck. Nice work folks, instead of fixing the problem (which probably would have just been emailing a code that works) you got me to never buy one with a download included - I guess ripping the disk is a better option after all.
Screw that. The customer is at the mercy of the failed technology and has no recourse if the studio doesn't deliver what was paid for.
You've never bought a faulty product before? Even if it had worked, you're currently still stuck in one of two ecosystems: iTunes or Windows Media Player. If I'm getting a digital copy, I'd rather it be just like the disc it came with, free of restrictions to a particular ecosystem.
Are these guys insane? Who is gonna set up a separate account for each studio or a grouping of studios? Just think of this ridiculous process: buy a dvd, go to their site, create an account, agree to a bunch of terms, watch your movie.
Did you even read the article? You set up one Ultraviolet account to access all of your movies, not a separate account per studio. It's not really much different than what you'd do to access content from the iTunes Store.
I could swear I keep hearing that Blu-ray is the totally awesome wave of the future and iTunes Store movie quality is unwatchable.
You might want to widen your sources of information. Most of them say neither, but instead, say that Blu-Ray is SOTA and iTunes is mediocre in quality.
But if your only take-away is that physical media is dying, you'd be close to accurate.
I gave away all of my CDs to friends. I kept the DVDs, but I can't imagine that they will survive much longer. Most movies are not worth watching repeatedly. My music collection is now fully digital (except for the vinyl, which often sounds better), with much of it lossless, and so I have lots more shelf space.
The really spectacular movies are still better on DVD, or at least, are better on DVD unless one wants to use multi-gigs of disk space to store them.
A home media server with multi-terabyte RAID is in my future, but not quite yet.
Comments
Really? Maybe you should have a look at the price of a movie from Apple, there is something that is overpriced.
Duh! Hey clown fish, the studios are setting the price, and they still think its too low!
It is still not possible to rent Blade Runner on iTunes in Australia*. You have to buy it for AUD$17.99 (Currently US$17.91) compared to the US iTunes store where I can buy it for US$9.99 or rent it for US$2.99
I really would like to know what they actually think is the cause of content piracy...
*First World Problems
Really? Blade Runner (terrible movie by the way) is only NZ$17.99 (AUD$14) in the NZ iTunes store, you can buy it on Blu-ray for a similar price.
Duh! Hey clown fish, the studios are setting the price, and they still think its too low!
Are they? If that is the case they must have no interest in digital downloads, it is cheaper for me, and I get a higher quality product to get a disc sent half way around the world than get a digital download locally..
And what's with the name calling, usually a sign of someone that has no argument...
The bottom line is: Who the fuck wants to pay a premium to own a movie they are going to watch once? It makes no sense.
But having said that, if I open a 'film club' account with 25 of my best Internet buddies (whoever they may be), would we all be allowed to watch the movies we buy legally? Just hypothetically speaking?
Exactly, why pay for one movie when you could get a couple months' subscription to a streaming or DVD rental service for the same money? Hardly anyone is going to watch it more than once on any sort of regular basis
This sort of business model of "owning" the film in whatever form was dead several years ago, it's just bizarre that Hollywood still hasn't grasped this
Hey there , trying to find optimum near insightful penny stock news letter? .
I have one you need to check out I try and hold the best and tonic information , thus if this really is of interest to you personally delight check out my penny stock newsletter.
A real ANDROID!!!!
Cheers
These cloud-based repositories will let customers stream or download a digital copy of their physical purchases on a wide variety of devices.
Therein lies the problem for me, I don't want to buy physical disks anymore.
Digital copy to download/stream or no purchase.
I have never brought a video from itunes, and the way they are going, I never will.
+1
I haven't either. I don't mind 720p for my bedroom TV, or even Den TV (50" 1080p)- but for my media room (110" and 1080p) I have to watch Blu-Ray now. The difference between 720 and 1080 is vastly different.
I know I'm in the minority (in Dallas where media rooms are dime a dozen because our house pricing is so fantastic)- but Blu-Rays are amazing quality, and it won't be replicated for a while. 50gb discs (where on occasions like Avatar- 50gb is JUST the movie) are going to make it impossible to duplicate the sound and video quality because you'd need a 25TB hard drive to keep all my movies (500).
I know I'm a dying breed- and people will eventually choose convenience over quality, but things like this will hopefully help get the studios a little more physical media sales. Unlikely, but hopefully.
BTW- Blu-Rays aren't that expensive. You can get them used at Blockbuster for Buy 5 for $20 all day long (and almost brand new releases at that)- www.blu-ray.com Great deal site.
Therein lies the problem for me, I don't want to buy physical disks anymore. Digital copy to download/stream or no purchase.
That's coming. As I mentioned above, I would argue the point of Ultraviolet is to move movie ownership from the physical to the digital world.
It sounds like a great, simple idea to me. If you buy a physical copy, you get access to a digital copy as well. Through one account. A copy that isn't tied to Sony devices or Apple devices or Samsung devices or any other stupid limitations like that. If a device has an Ultraviolet application, it can play the movie. It's not stuck tied to iTunes thankfully. Sorry, I know a lot you here love being tied completely to Apple, but that's not for everyone.
... You then have perpetual rights to that movie throughout all members of the UltraViolet group. ...
Of course, 'perpetual' in this context means until they decide to shut it down in a couple of years.
It's pretty obvious what the motivation of the studios is here. They want to completely control all access to content and eliminate any distribution competition so they can fix the prices of what are essentially micro-monopolies. Consumers should, and I think will, reject this service, mostly because it will be too complicated and unreliable.
Of course, 'perpetual' in this context means until they decide to shut it down in a couple of years.
It's pretty obvious what the motivation of the studios is here. They want to completely control all access to content and eliminate any distribution competition so they can fix the prices of what are essentially micro-monopolies. Consumers should, and I think will, reject this service, mostly because it will be too complicated and unreliable.
And what? Go with the micro-monopoly of the iTunes Store instead? Different gatekeeper, same problem. That's also the issue with relying on streaming services; they might have the movie one month, but next month their license to it might be gone.
You nailed it. They're all business school, profit- and shareholder-value maximizers. They don't think about what the consumer wants. Studios, and music labels before them, all start from the point of how can we sell OUR STUFF for the MOST MONEY. It's the single/album/VHS/cassette/DVD/Blu-Ray/digital re-packaging of the same stuff to sell consumers what they already bought several times over in a new format. Frankly, I think that when I bough Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" on 8-track, I should have been covered for at least the cassette "upgrade." Then they look at what Apple has done, and say, well we can sell our stuff that way. Apple, on the other hand, starts by looking at the user and asking what do they want (and often adding but don't know they want it) and what are the most convenient, desirable ways to give it to them. As I've read several times in recent days, people at Apple were charged with making products that they would want to use. The rest build something that meets their sales and marketing goals and then hope we'll want to use it. Look at Netflix. They barely said the word Qwikster and the thing is dead before arrival. At least I'll give Netflix a fist-bump for paying attention to the 27,000 commenters on their blog on the subject. They're still paying for being moronic though.
If you buy a physical copy, you get access to a digital copy as well.
They have that already minus the cloud. Last movie I got that included a digital download, the code didn't work. When I contacted their tech support they told me I was out of luck. Nice work folks, instead of fixing the problem (which probably would have just been emailing a code that works) you got me to never buy one with a download included - I guess ripping the disk is a better option after all.
Screw that. The customer is at the mercy of the failed technology and has no recourse if the studio doesn't deliver what was paid for.
The studios are trying to protect something not worth protecting. DVD and physical media are dead. It is dead for music and it will be dead for movie soon. Partner with Apple, Amazon and Netflix and they are set for life to milk those companies as they do all the heavy lifting of distribution.
I could swear I keep hearing that Blu-ray is the totally awesome wave of the future and iTunes Store movie quality is unwatchable.
Physical media is far from dead, but it's certainly in decline. Blu-ray is up about 20% over last year and I believe last year at this time it was up 46% from 2009 (I don't have access to the numbers from where I am.) DVD is certainly down, but is being largely (but not completely) replaced by BD sales. IIRC, U.S. physical sales grosses are equivalent to theatrical boxoffice, so the numbers are still quite large.
Furthermore, 2011 will be the first year that digital downloads will exceed physical media in the music business.
If there's any proof that physical media is not dead, it's the furor over the recent Netflix decisions and reversals in their attempt to isolate the physical media business.
The fact is that physical and digital media will exist concurrently. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. And Blu-ray remains the way to view movies with the highest picture and sound quality, especially at home. Having said that, there are plenty of people who have no problem watching a movie on their 3" smartphone.
Partnering with Apple, Netflix, etc., does not set anyone "for life". If you want proof of that, look at the music industry. U.S. industry sales (for both physical and digital combined) are now half of their 1999 peak and that's not even taking inflation into account. However, the music industry has one major disadvantage that the the film industry doesn't have: what's killed the music industry is the fact that due to digital downloads, it's once again become primarily a singles market.
Some other posters are proposing date and date home video distribution for movies. Although some studio execs agree with you, this will kill the theatres. If you kill the theatres, you kill the budgets for movies and most movies will have the quality of "direct to video" releases. IMO, the industry should return to longer theatrical windows to insure that theatres survive, because movies are becoming a commodity that no one really cares about anymore, but that will never happen because they're more concerned with quarterly cash flow than anything else, which is why all the CEOs care about is opening weekend. IMO, the industry is on a slow train to suicide.
All this studio cloud thing is really about is providing a way for purchasers of physical product to be able to also watch their purchases on other devices without the studios having to supply a "digital copy" in the physical package. And for people who move away from physical or don't want the physical, they'll have the infrastructure already in place. This isn't necessarily a bad idea as long as ALL the studios, including the independents and the TV show distributors participate. But Disney going its own way is insane. And at the very least, it provides competition to Apple and Netflix, which will encourage them to keep prices low and quality/experience higher.
Now that Jobs has unfortunately passed away, is there any connection left between Apple and Disney? I'm surprised they wouldn't just jump on with iCloud.
The connection is as strong as ever. The estate still owns the assets. Who will own the estate might become apparent via the probate court, but more likely, the majority of the Billion$ were in trust already, and the ultimate beneficiaries will remain a closely-guarded secret.
Unless Steve was a financial wizard (not so far fetched) the bulk of his money was managed by third parties already. When you are dealing with Billion$, it is usually more work than one man can handle. A whole company's department-worth of people are likely employed doing nothing but handling Steve's money.
Usually, Wall Street Types handle the money for rich corporate CEOs and their families. I think it likely, or more likely than before, that Wall Street will handle the Billion$ and will turn them into even more Billion$ for Steve's chosen beneficiaries.
So for now, the Disney stock and the Apple stock are most likely still controlled by the same Wall Street Types.
Are these guys insane? Who is gonna set up a separate account for each studio or a grouping of studios?
Maybe not so much of a problem:
In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the six diversified media conglomerates whose various movie production and distribution subsidiaries command approximately 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian box office.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_film_studio
90% of the market is controlled by six entities. Apple users are decidedly mainstream, so it is likely that even a higher percentage of them are mostly customers of only the big 6. And the big 6 are banding together, so most likely, most Apple customers will be content with only signing up once or twice.
Sure, the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently - they might watch indie flicks. But the Apple customers are likely to be content with the mainstream.
They have that already minus the cloud. Last movie I got that included a digital download, the code didn't work. When I contacted their tech support they told me I was out of luck. Nice work folks, instead of fixing the problem (which probably would have just been emailing a code that works) you got me to never buy one with a download included - I guess ripping the disk is a better option after all.
Screw that. The customer is at the mercy of the failed technology and has no recourse if the studio doesn't deliver what was paid for.
You've never bought a faulty product before? Even if it had worked, you're currently still stuck in one of two ecosystems: iTunes or Windows Media Player. If I'm getting a digital copy, I'd rather it be just like the disc it came with, free of restrictions to a particular ecosystem.
Are these guys insane? Who is gonna set up a separate account for each studio or a grouping of studios? Just think of this ridiculous process: buy a dvd, go to their site, create an account, agree to a bunch of terms, watch your movie.
Did you even read the article? You set up one Ultraviolet account to access all of your movies, not a separate account per studio. It's not really much different than what you'd do to access content from the iTunes Store.
I could swear I keep hearing that Blu-ray is the totally awesome wave of the future and iTunes Store movie quality is unwatchable.
You might want to widen your sources of information. Most of them say neither, but instead, say that Blu-Ray is SOTA and iTunes is mediocre in quality.
But if your only take-away is that physical media is dying, you'd be close to accurate.
I gave away all of my CDs to friends. I kept the DVDs, but I can't imagine that they will survive much longer. Most movies are not worth watching repeatedly. My music collection is now fully digital (except for the vinyl, which often sounds better), with much of it lossless, and so I have lots more shelf space.
The really spectacular movies are still better on DVD, or at least, are better on DVD unless one wants to use multi-gigs of disk space to store them.
A home media server with multi-terabyte RAID is in my future, but not quite yet.