Another problem of watching/listening to content without owning it on a piece of persistent media is that over time it can be altered and you may lose the ability to see/hear it altogether.
A perfect example of this is ol' George himself with his "Special Edition" versions of the original Star Wars movies. Yeah, he added some nifty effects, but he also altered a scene (search for "Han shot first" in any Star Wars related boards or slashdot to see that one...). Now you cannot get the original versions anymore (unless you get VHS copies or a copy on Laserdisc) and George would have you believe that it never happened.
I'm not a fan of a world without some form of persistent media for copis of content I paid for.
<EDIT>the solution, if it done properly, when you purchase a movie (or anything really) you obtain the rights to view that movie, that's what you're paying for ... NOW, you own the rights to that movie, IF every piece of gear you own is capable of playing that media you can play it ANYTIME on anything, and you only download the media once.... if in the future there ARE no PHYSICAL discs then you can't copy and burn to start with.... It's almost like having an iLok, or a Dongle, something that you carry with you at all times that just carries your licenses, and nothing else... and the only way it CAN play is if you have your dongle plugged in to authorize it to play... I am sure they will have some biometric system in the future.
God no! Smacks of 1984, Gattaca etc. I'm all for consumer rights. No more licences/personal details/your life on database All I want is a physical copy of a film that I want to see at ANY time at MY convenience ANYWHERE I choose. I buy the rights to view when I buy the disc. Simple.
Alliance.. indeed, a trip to the cinema is just so expensive now that it's hardly surprising the popularity of video/DVD rental and home cinema has exploded in recent years. Pity about movies in recent years (budgets go up/quality goes down). \
IMHO Mr Lucas has his head up his ass if he believes that VOD (streaming or otherwise) will replace DVD or 'hard-copy' movies.
Reminds me of a similar reaction I had about 15 years ago when I read an article with George Lucas predicting that we'd be making movies with video cameras in the not so distant future. Man, I laughed my ass off and pronounced Lucas insane.
Now, back to that F900 I was lining up for my next shot....
no, you're missing the point. you keep saying there will be rental stores, but the whole point i'm trying to make is that this idea would mean the end of dvds and hard copies altogether. theregore, anyone without cable and broadband would be SOL if they want to watch a movie (other than at a theatre). how could there be rental stores if there are no longer hard copies.
therefore, i hope this never happens. it is way too controlling and i am 100% against it.
_alliance_, I understand your point. Here is some history for ya:
The initial release of the CD in the early 80s did not make records disappear overnight. The initial releasae of DVD did not make VHS disappear overnight. It takes time to reach market saturation. Therefore we'll see DVDs for years to come. So Blockbusters will still be around, just don't owe their stocks.
Several companies are working on boardband over powerline. I have my fingers crossed...
Will DVDs and other hardcopies disappear? Tough question... The iPod generation is totally comfortable purchasing over the net, but my parents are still using their cassette tapes. Hardcopies will eventually disappear, but it will take time.
Bandwidth will be a major bottleneck for the success of download media. Mine is 3Mbps. That takes hours to download a movies. That will take days to download HD movies... Singapore has 22Mbps DSL. I can only dream...
Another limitation is bandwidth cap. Mine is set at 10GB per month. A typical DVD is 8.5GB. Am I going to watch ONE movie per month? (I know I am stretching it.)
Someone has to solve these technical limitations before we can move to the next step. Don't worry, DVDs will be here for a while.
i couldn't afford pay per view if i couldn't get dvd's i'm talking about kids movies. the way they watch the same video over and over and over and over again, i'd go broke in a week
The transition to digital ephemera replacing things like DVDs is clouded by the ham fisted, head-up-the-ass, DRM loving, customer suing antics of the content owners.
Sure, digital downloads make technical sense, which is what Lucas knows best. And with some kind of tiered pricing for "limited viewing window", ala the rental model, and "burn it to your HD DVD for archiving", ala the DVD purchase model, it might even make financial and consumer demand sense.
But raise your hand if you really think the studios are going to manage a clean transition.
I mean, "we heart mal-ware" Sony is typical of how the big media outfits view digital: as an opportunity to make you pay for things forever, or so crippling the idea of "ownership" that they might as well have an operative lurking outside your house.
And of course, as they make the whole business of simply acquiring their product in a form consumers will recognize as "owning" so fraught with DRM and and compatibility and hardware issues that they drive people screaming to peer networks, they'll use the evidence of "pirating" as an argument for even more restrictive use agreements, DRM tar balls and remote ownership of your operating system/DVR/playback device.
Something like iTunes could actually turn out to be godsend in this scenario:
a third party who runs the download business and who has the volume to demand some consistency and fairness in pricing and DRM implementation.
I must be old or something but I do not ever want to see a movie more than once, with very very rare exceptions so I think I have purchsed maybe 2 DVD's in my 47 years on this earth. I never bought a VHS movie (my kids own every movie ever made on the other hand).
People used to collect LP records. Then CD's, now most of us are content with our iPods and purchase only the best albums on CD. I think DVD's will go the same way.
I think VOD is a great idea. There are so few TV shows worth watching and the few that are worth watching, are not worth scheduling your life around. So buying a TV eposide or two, so I can watch them on a business trip to Asia or something is cool (even though I will probably never watch them again).
The consumer's will decide what they want with their $$.
I think DVDs will be around for awhile. BUT...I see the computer and tv becoming one. I do agree with Lucas about pay per view. I think this will be done thru the computer. Huge libraries of movies that you could download for a short time or download for good. No hard copy. Just a digital file that you could store on your hard drive.
Its much more convenient then going to the video store down the road or ordering thru netflix.
If you really think about it, this is the way things are moving.
lucas is right as broadband becomes universal, either the studios have a business model for downloads that make sense or the pirates will eat them for lunch witch is happening already--its too easy. look at blockbuster vs netflix , itunes vs retail outlets. see who watches and listens those are the most internet savy of us all. they have a different morality--downloading isn't stealing. as broadband broadens the $$$$ go down, and the studios need someone to "hold their hands" that will be jobs who is a studio owner wierd brothers but he is one of them. so he should know, because pirates hurt him too. they can have a model that has first run for download 1 week after release. they have to have a dis incentive to steal. so the price has to be right and available.
I wish going to the movies was an "event" like it used to be. I miss going to huge old theatres that have balconies and shit to watch movies, makes you feel rich. It'd be even better if they brought back the multipul movies per showing like they used to because the 13 bucks CAD I pay for a movie isn't worth it half the time.
Yes it was fun going to the grand old theatres, with the big screen. My favourite theatre had a balcony, with a spiral staircase that sprawled open like the old fashione movies. Wonderful meeting your date on that staircase.
Anyway, people like the experience of going to the cinema, and like he said, it is rather like going to a sports event.
And the wise following observations by MiMac and kenaustus are right on. I want something that I can look at that has some quality feel to it, and that I can keep in my library cellar to take out at the right time.
But Lucas is probably right, that the movie coming out at the same time on _____ media(option download) and the theatre will be arriving soon.
[quote]One major problem with streaming movies across a broadband connection is the amount of bandwidth needed to do it successfully to a large audience. All those pipes need to be paid for. An expensive procedure.[/quote[
I suspect that a peer to peer system would be employed, where the majority of the infrastructure is provided by the customers themselves. Valve already does this with Steam/Half-Life 2. If it's mass market, it's likely to be more successful that even BitTorrent was in its (unlicensed download period) heyday.
I heard he's making a 3D version; does that count?
Only if '3D' stands for; Drama, Dialogue & Darth Maul.
I heard there's a version out there with an actual plot and a decent screenplay, but it never materialized...so I'm beginning to think it's just one of those pesky internet rumors such as Y2K destroying the world and the one about Lois from 'Smallville' getting naked this season.
One would think that as long as there is a market for watching in a theatre, and for buying hard copies, that those will exist.
But Lucas says that the cost for doing prints is 20 million for an A movie in the lab, from reading the interview. Well, he should know something about it. He must be thinking about his costs here in America. Sounds steep.
One would think that as long as there is a market for watching in a theatre, and for buying hard copies, that those will exist.
But Lucas says that the cost for doing prints is 20 million for an A movie in the lab, from reading the interview. Well, he should know something about it. He must be thinking about his costs here in America. Sounds steep.
I've read independently that the cost of a print for a two hour movie is around $3000, so if you open at 3000 screens nationally in the US, that's $9 million. I can't easily find stats for how many screens there are in the US as I'm in the UK and have to get to the shops now, but $20 million seems perfectly reasonable as a global prints bill by the time you've done the French, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese versions, whilst the US prints get recycled here in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa etc.
That's why a newly released film here in the UK often looks like its been dragged through a hedge backwards, and why Dolby Digital Cinema is such an important development for the economics of the exhibitor industry, as well as the production industry.
Once ipv6 gets fully implimented (http://www.ipv6.org/) you could subscribe to a video service in which you would pay an particular amount for how many different ip addresses you want allowed to view the content. ipv6 would allow every appliance (every chromosome for that matter) in the world to have its own individualized ip address and therefore your phone, computer, tv, and ipod could have access to that content at anytime.
In the future you wouldnt need to own the content since a subscription service in conjunction with ipv6 and a nationwide highspeed wireless connection would allow you to have access to the content at anytime. Why own the song or the movie if you could have all the movies and music that have ever been created for only $19.95 a month and get that content anywhere
Once ipv6 gets fully implimented (http://www.ipv6.org/) you could subscribe to a video service in which you would pay an particular amount for how many different ip addresses you want allowed to view the content. ipv6 would allow every appliance (every chromosome for that matter) in the world to have its own individualized ip address and therefore your phone, computer, tv, and ipod could have access to that content at anytime.
In the future you wouldnt need to own the content since a subscription service in conjunction with ipv6 and a nationwide highspeed wireless connection would allow you to have access to the content at anytime. Why own the song or the movie if you could have all the movies and music that have ever been created for only $19.95 a month and get that content anywhere
I dunno. I think there is sort of a "thing" about ownership that ubiquity of download options doesn't really change.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of people still like the idea of having "libraries" of stuff, for the same reason people buy books or prints to hang on their walls.
I know that the DVD rental model doesn't really work that way and that most people don't have extensive video collections, but there is still "something" about completely dematerializing the entire delivery chain, where "content" ceases to be "things" and becomes sort of an evanescent data froth, that I think runs counter to many people's emotional relationship to things like movies (or books or music or art).
I mean, even the shift from CD library to iTunes playlist still involves ownership, and a sense of "place", residing on your hard drive. I think that's why the subscription services are having a fairly tough time of it; at some point the economics runs into the "I don't actually own any music" vibe.
Same with TiVo and DVRs in general: you still "have" the recording, it's just on a drive instead of tape. Ditto Torrent files and such.
I suppose as a generation grows up with the idea of just grabbing stuff out of the data sphere on a "leased" basis, comfortable that it will always be there and accessible, just as if it were on a local drive or on a shelf, that might change of course. But it might be a kind of an innate human thing, where we just don't feel like we "have it" unless it is "in our house", and we will continue to want to "have things".
This is about generating an adjacent revenue stream to double up on a single source of content.
No one is going to sit on their ass watching streaming only video and Pay-per-View only.
This is a ploy to wrench more money out of Consumers, period.
The notion Cable and Satellite subscribers want to pay per channel that is currently being suggested wreaks of companies running out of ideas and instead of improving or providing compelling new content they are switching the distribution mechanism.
What scares them more and with Apple should really scare them is NOT STREAMING FEATURE FILMS, but STREAM PODCAST B-MOVIE ORIGINALS FROM MOM AND POP OUTFITS.
Evil Dead with a digital camera, some decent lighting and some hungry script writers are all around. What is the current barrier is the post-production costs.
Garner teams of independent consumers with enough brains to run such tools like FCP, Shake, etc., and presto! We have a whole underground market STREAMING LIVE!!
Those movies will bring all the quirkiness that old cinema used to have and what is actually missing in today's CGI galore weak scripted blockbusters.
The George Lucas's of the World are scared shitless that Technology that is advanced enough to pull this off is now available to the average consumer and with the backbone of the Internet continuously widening the barrier to have remote location filming on a budget is now possible.
Imagine SVN or other revision control repositories of Films, and other media. Imagine folks working together on open projects for the sake of Art.
Now imagine people willing to pay $2 for these movies knowing they aren't as fancy as LucasArts, but most certainly the subject matter will be there for them to choose and not be limited by what the Censors choose for them.
Comments
A perfect example of this is ol' George himself with his "Special Edition" versions of the original Star Wars movies. Yeah, he added some nifty effects, but he also altered a scene (search for "Han shot first" in any Star Wars related boards or slashdot to see that one...). Now you cannot get the original versions anymore (unless you get VHS copies or a copy on Laserdisc) and George would have you believe that it never happened.
I'm not a fan of a world without some form of persistent media for copis of content I paid for.
Originally posted by Gm7Cadd9
<EDIT>the solution, if it done properly, when you purchase a movie (or anything really) you obtain the rights to view that movie, that's what you're paying for ... NOW, you own the rights to that movie, IF every piece of gear you own is capable of playing that media you can play it ANYTIME on anything, and you only download the media once.... if in the future there ARE no PHYSICAL discs then you can't copy and burn to start with.... It's almost like having an iLok, or a Dongle, something that you carry with you at all times that just carries your licenses, and nothing else... and the only way it CAN play is if you have your dongle plugged in to authorize it to play... I am sure they will have some biometric system in the future.
God no! Smacks of 1984, Gattaca etc. I'm all for consumer rights. No more licences/personal details/your life on database
Alliance.. indeed, a trip to the cinema is just so expensive now that it's hardly surprising the popularity of video/DVD rental and home cinema has exploded in recent years. Pity about movies in recent years (budgets go up/quality goes down).
Originally posted by MiMac
IMHO Mr Lucas has his head up his ass if he believes that VOD (streaming or otherwise) will replace DVD or 'hard-copy' movies.
Reminds me of a similar reaction I had about 15 years ago when I read an article with George Lucas predicting that we'd be making movies with video cameras in the not so distant future. Man, I laughed my ass off and pronounced Lucas insane.
Now, back to that F900 I was lining up for my next shot....
Originally posted by _ alliance _
no, you're missing the point. you keep saying there will be rental stores, but the whole point i'm trying to make is that this idea would mean the end of dvds and hard copies altogether. theregore, anyone without cable and broadband would be SOL if they want to watch a movie (other than at a theatre). how could there be rental stores if there are no longer hard copies.
therefore, i hope this never happens. it is way too controlling and i am 100% against it.
_alliance_, I understand your point. Here is some history for ya:
The initial release of the CD in the early 80s did not make records disappear overnight. The initial releasae of DVD did not make VHS disappear overnight. It takes time to reach market saturation. Therefore we'll see DVDs for years to come. So Blockbusters will still be around, just don't owe their stocks.
Several companies are working on boardband over powerline. I have my fingers crossed...
Will DVDs and other hardcopies disappear? Tough question... The iPod generation is totally comfortable purchasing over the net, but my parents are still using their cassette tapes. Hardcopies will eventually disappear, but it will take time.
Bandwidth will be a major bottleneck for the success of download media. Mine is 3Mbps. That takes hours to download a movies. That will take days to download HD movies... Singapore has 22Mbps DSL. I can only dream...
Another limitation is bandwidth cap. Mine is set at 10GB per month. A typical DVD is 8.5GB. Am I going to watch ONE movie per month? (I know I am stretching it.)
Someone has to solve these technical limitations before we can move to the next step. Don't worry, DVDs will be here for a while.
Originally posted by Mac~N~Cheese
Was there any mention in that interview of a timetable when good Star Wars Prequels would replace the ones he made?
I heard he's making a 3D version; does that count?
i think i know schrek 1 and 2 by heart.
Sure, digital downloads make technical sense, which is what Lucas knows best. And with some kind of tiered pricing for "limited viewing window", ala the rental model, and "burn it to your HD DVD for archiving", ala the DVD purchase model, it might even make financial and consumer demand sense.
But raise your hand if you really think the studios are going to manage a clean transition.
I mean, "we heart mal-ware" Sony is typical of how the big media outfits view digital: as an opportunity to make you pay for things forever, or so crippling the idea of "ownership" that they might as well have an operative lurking outside your house.
And of course, as they make the whole business of simply acquiring their product in a form consumers will recognize as "owning" so fraught with DRM and and compatibility and hardware issues that they drive people screaming to peer networks, they'll use the evidence of "pirating" as an argument for even more restrictive use agreements, DRM tar balls and remote ownership of your operating system/DVR/playback device.
Something like iTunes could actually turn out to be godsend in this scenario:
a third party who runs the download business and who has the volume to demand some consistency and fairness in pricing and DRM implementation.
People used to collect LP records. Then CD's, now most of us are content with our iPods and purchase only the best albums on CD. I think DVD's will go the same way.
I think VOD is a great idea. There are so few TV shows worth watching and the few that are worth watching, are not worth scheduling your life around. So buying a TV eposide or two, so I can watch them on a business trip to Asia or something is cool (even though I will probably never watch them again).
The consumer's will decide what they want with their $$.
Steve
Its much more convenient then going to the video store down the road or ordering thru netflix.
If you really think about it, this is the way things are moving.
I like it. And movie studios will like it too.
Originally posted by ecking
I wish going to the movies was an "event" like it used to be. I miss going to huge old theatres that have balconies and shit to watch movies, makes you feel rich. It'd be even better if they brought back the multipul movies per showing like they used to because the 13 bucks CAD I pay for a movie isn't worth it half the time.
Yes it was fun going to the grand old theatres, with the big screen. My favourite theatre had a balcony, with a spiral staircase that sprawled open like the old fashione movies. Wonderful meeting your date on that staircase.
Anyway, people like the experience of going to the cinema, and like he said, it is rather like going to a sports event.
And the wise following observations by MiMac and kenaustus are right on. I want something that I can look at that has some quality feel to it, and that I can keep in my library cellar to take out at the right time.
But Lucas is probably right, that the movie coming out at the same time on _____ media(option download) and the theatre will be arriving soon.
I suspect that a peer to peer system would be employed, where the majority of the infrastructure is provided by the customers themselves. Valve already does this with Steam/Half-Life 2. If it's mass market, it's likely to be more successful that even BitTorrent was in its (unlicensed download period) heyday.
Originally posted by wmf
I heard he's making a 3D version; does that count?
Only if '3D' stands for; Drama, Dialogue & Darth Maul.
I heard there's a version out there with an actual plot and a decent screenplay, but it never materialized...so I'm beginning to think it's just one of those pesky internet rumors such as Y2K destroying the world and the one about Lois from 'Smallville' getting naked this season.
But Lucas says that the cost for doing prints is 20 million for an A movie in the lab, from reading the interview. Well, he should know something about it. He must be thinking about his costs here in America. Sounds steep.
Originally posted by NordicMan
One would think that as long as there is a market for watching in a theatre, and for buying hard copies, that those will exist.
But Lucas says that the cost for doing prints is 20 million for an A movie in the lab, from reading the interview. Well, he should know something about it. He must be thinking about his costs here in America. Sounds steep.
I've read independently that the cost of a print for a two hour movie is around $3000, so if you open at 3000 screens nationally in the US, that's $9 million. I can't easily find stats for how many screens there are in the US as I'm in the UK and have to get to the shops now, but $20 million seems perfectly reasonable as a global prints bill by the time you've done the French, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese versions, whilst the US prints get recycled here in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa etc.
That's why a newly released film here in the UK often looks like its been dragged through a hedge backwards, and why Dolby Digital Cinema is such an important development for the economics of the exhibitor industry, as well as the production industry.
In the future you wouldnt need to own the content since a subscription service in conjunction with ipv6 and a nationwide highspeed wireless connection would allow you to have access to the content at anytime. Why own the song or the movie if you could have all the movies and music that have ever been created for only $19.95 a month and get that content anywhere
Originally posted by johnsocal
Once ipv6 gets fully implimented (http://www.ipv6.org/) you could subscribe to a video service in which you would pay an particular amount for how many different ip addresses you want allowed to view the content. ipv6 would allow every appliance (every chromosome for that matter) in the world to have its own individualized ip address and therefore your phone, computer, tv, and ipod could have access to that content at anytime.
In the future you wouldnt need to own the content since a subscription service in conjunction with ipv6 and a nationwide highspeed wireless connection would allow you to have access to the content at anytime. Why own the song or the movie if you could have all the movies and music that have ever been created for only $19.95 a month and get that content anywhere
I dunno. I think there is sort of a "thing" about ownership that ubiquity of download options doesn't really change.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of people still like the idea of having "libraries" of stuff, for the same reason people buy books or prints to hang on their walls.
I know that the DVD rental model doesn't really work that way and that most people don't have extensive video collections, but there is still "something" about completely dematerializing the entire delivery chain, where "content" ceases to be "things" and becomes sort of an evanescent data froth, that I think runs counter to many people's emotional relationship to things like movies (or books or music or art).
I mean, even the shift from CD library to iTunes playlist still involves ownership, and a sense of "place", residing on your hard drive. I think that's why the subscription services are having a fairly tough time of it; at some point the economics runs into the "I don't actually own any music" vibe.
Same with TiVo and DVRs in general: you still "have" the recording, it's just on a drive instead of tape. Ditto Torrent files and such.
I suppose as a generation grows up with the idea of just grabbing stuff out of the data sphere on a "leased" basis, comfortable that it will always be there and accessible, just as if it were on a local drive or on a shelf, that might change of course. But it might be a kind of an innate human thing, where we just don't feel like we "have it" unless it is "in our house", and we will continue to want to "have things".
This is about generating an adjacent revenue stream to double up on a single source of content.
No one is going to sit on their ass watching streaming only video and Pay-per-View only.
This is a ploy to wrench more money out of Consumers, period.
The notion Cable and Satellite subscribers want to pay per channel that is currently being suggested wreaks of companies running out of ideas and instead of improving or providing compelling new content they are switching the distribution mechanism.
What scares them more and with Apple should really scare them is NOT STREAMING FEATURE FILMS, but STREAM PODCAST B-MOVIE ORIGINALS FROM MOM AND POP OUTFITS.
Evil Dead with a digital camera, some decent lighting and some hungry script writers are all around. What is the current barrier is the post-production costs.
Garner teams of independent consumers with enough brains to run such tools like FCP, Shake, etc., and presto! We have a whole underground market STREAMING LIVE!!
Those movies will bring all the quirkiness that old cinema used to have and what is actually missing in today's CGI galore weak scripted blockbusters.
The George Lucas's of the World are scared shitless that Technology that is advanced enough to pull this off is now available to the average consumer and with the backbone of the Internet continuously widening the barrier to have remote location filming on a budget is now possible.
Imagine SVN or other revision control repositories of Films, and other media. Imagine folks working together on open projects for the sake of Art.
Now imagine people willing to pay $2 for these movies knowing they aren't as fancy as LucasArts, but most certainly the subject matter will be there for them to choose and not be limited by what the Censors choose for them.
It took them quite a while to get this feature length film done.
I hope this kind of thing catches on.