Physical media is here to stay!

[Ilya]

With the growing popularity of Internet streaming, some may think that physical media is about to go away. I don't think so!

I agree that streaming is the future and will dominate physical media. But I am not convinced that physical media will go away completely anytime soon. People like to own things, people like to collect things and people like to buy presents for others. And when they do, they look for better quality, better overall experience and something tangible.

While streaming will follow the cable and satellite content delivery methods and will settle on "good enough", physical media will continue providing the best possible experience: better video and sound quality, exclusive extras, interactive features, even things like cover art, poster inserts, etc.

And I think it is in the best interest of the movie industry to keep coming up with some good incentives for us to continue buying physical media: it can get more money from us by selling us disks. In fact, the more ways it has to sell us the same movie the better! TV and home video didn't kill movie theaters completely, even though it is no longer the main way of watching movies. For the same reason, I believe, in one form or another physical media will stay around for a while: it provides a different kind of experience, and because of that, there will be some demand for it.

The movie industry doesn't want us to stop going to theaters or to stop buying disks and switch to streaming instead. What it really wants us to do is to buy all of the above! It doesn't view streaming as a replacement for other forms of content delivery. It views it as an additional revenue stream! It wants us to go to the theater on the opening week, it wants us to stream the movie or view it via cable/satellite and it also wants us to go and buy that special edition disk with its exclusive extras! The movie industry will do all it can to preserve the physical media as one of the revenue streams. Physical media is here to stay!

 

[Ramy]

I also don't think physical media will go away for the simple fact that our infrastructure couldn't handle all streaming going on at the same time.

 

[TheForce]

The theater industry needs to continue to supply incentives for us to go to the theater or that activity will die! Just look at what that industry has done to evolve and excite new generations. Now every theater is a multiplex, with stadium seating, 11 channel audio, 3D, many with IMAX screens and massive sound systems, complete fast food restaurants and some even serving alcohol, including cocktails.

Physical media will also die off unless it can offer something unique. One past argument for the physical media is that you get all those extra features on a BluRay disk while streaming and downloadable content is just the movie. Very recently, that advantage was made obsolete by the ability of one Blu Ray player to now permit not only streaming of content ( main movie only) to the player but also permit an iso file of the complete bluRay disk file structure to a hard drive and be played back just like there was an optical BD media in the tray. While no current service is licensed to offer download service for people to obtain these large iso files, it is only a matter of time before that will be a new business center service. Sure it will require lots of bandwidth and hard drive storage but the technology is now here to do this. I am currently serving up my own collection of 3DBD.iso files as well as my own 2DBD.iso files stored to a 2Tb hard drive plugged into my OPPO BD-93 player. No longer will I burn my projects to optical expensive media to play in my home theater.

Will optical media go away? I agree there will always be a small faction who will hold onto this 20 years from now, just as today we still see a very tiny market for record turntables and tube amps. Physical media is here to stay as long as there is an interest in collecting antiques!

I also don't think physical media will go away for the simple fact that our infrastructure couldn't handle all streaming going on at the same time.

I see you believe that progress and development stops as of today! Remember, 10 years ago the top typical internet speed was barely fast enough to stream mp3 music. Moores law isn't dead.

 

[jayn_j]

The itunes model isn't streaming. It is online delivery of downloadable content. Movies could be the same, but I tend to think the physical DVD/BluRay media is definitely threatened. People like convenience and are willing to give up quality. Heck, looking at the average guy's setup, he isn't close to using the capability he has. Frankly, 90% of people won't notice HD Lite. These are the folks that put up with VHS and rejected laser because VHS could record (although they never bothered to figure out the timer)

My Best buy is down to a single rack of CDs. Good luck finding anything but Top 40. These days people give itunes gift cards, not CDs.

 

[Juan]

(Circa 1990) I remember walking into a record store to check out a vinyl LP..I came back the next day(to make the purchase) and the Vinyl LP's were all gone and replaced by CD's.. Some day soon the same thing will (soon) happen to DVD's..people will buy an "Empty Box" and go download the movie at home... and the quality will suffer greatly..(yes I prefer analog Vinyl to a digital 'copy"

 

[diogen]

Physical media is here to stay

I think the issue is not whether physical/optical media will be replaced by streaming.
But will there be ever another format enjoying the success of the DVD.

I don't think this will ever happen again.
Premium quality for a premium price will probably be around: DVD-A, SACD, BD (probably), etc.
Heck, even LP sales go up over the last few years!

Selling the consumer a new copy of the same movie/album was RIAA/MPAA goal of yesterday.
Today they would much rather prefer charging you for every "presentation".
And that means eliminate physical media and prevent any form of copying.
Since they are not so good at the latter, they don't press too hard on the former.

I believe the labels/studios will never give up the idea of preventing the consumer to make a copy.
That is an almost impossible goal in the physical world: once the standard is set and broken
there is not much you can do. Just look at the fatre of the DVD and BD format.

With streaming it is much easier.
The format can be updated on a daily basis if needed. Just look at WMA.

Hence, I think one day streaming will be the new DVD.
BD (most likely the last optical format) will stick around in LP's role...

Diogen.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

For Phisical Media to survive I think that it must provide the best quallity possible.

Sure you can say that some streaming is HD, but only on phisical media can you have the ability to get perfect quality every time.

Thats what the Bluray makers need to strive for, to provide unmatched quality.

 

[gadgtfreek]

If Vudu could stream lossless audio with HDX, and I could get HSI that was higher 10mbps or higher, Id leave optical in a heartbeat

Lot of ifs there.

 

[TNGTony]

The issue won't be with the content providers but with the cost of the service and internet throttling and caps that is starting to take place with many ISPs rather quietly. And the need for many to have something tangible in their hands they can hold and use whenever they want.

 

[Ilya]

I think the issue is not whether physical/optical media will be replaced by streaming.
But will there be ever another format enjoying the success of the DVD.

With flash memory following and even beating Moore's law, I suspect that future physical media will be silicon-based.
Something like a miniature SSD drive with built-in smartcard-like security.
Huge storage that is hard to copy and with unlimited possibilities for DRM!
Will it be as successful as DVD? I am not sure. Too much competition from other content delivery methods.
But I think it will nicely coexist with those other delivery methods and will complement them (each offering its own advantages).

 

[dfergie]

X-Stream had lossless audio with high bitrate video but unfortunately couldn't get off the ground... our loss as the demos we saw were pretty cool!

 

[gadgtfreek]

The issue won't be with the content providers but with the cost of the service and internet throttling and caps that is starting to take place with many ISPs rather quietly. And the need for many to have something tangible in their hands they can hold and use whenever they want.

Thats my biggest issue. 6mbps DLS, which runs about 5.4 in testing (not fast enough for HDX, before they even add lossless audio in). No cable HSI in my area, and Uverse is years away.

 

[diogen]

With flash memory following and even beating Moore's law, I suspect that future physical media will be silicon-based.

I have no doubts that GB density will continue to go up.
But the moment you copy the movie/album/etc. onto a "disk" (whatever that is), you have to offer a player for that disk.
And that creates two problems:
-convincing the consumer to spending money to buy the player;
-giving the hacker a copy of the file to break the DRM.

It's so much better with a Netflix-like service!
Whenever an exploit is found, the software player is forced to update...

Diogen.