Quote:
Originally Posted by
eviltwincustoms 
Humm.. that is odd as I would consider myself as an Average Consumer. And would think that most would take the time to research things before just buying something when they are spending a large amount of money. With the TV's and DVD players at Walmart I wouldn't even venture into buying from them just based on what models they sell. I'm sorry but like the old saying goes, "You get what you pay for." Especially with the 20 dollar dvd players they have crappy processing and if I am correct they have a plastic cover over the pick up beam. Where the more expensive players have actual glass that covers the pick up beam that will not scratch from dust as easily and they will play High defination content and upscale with much better results.
As for why purchase a movie? Well because I would rather have the option to view it at any time I want and to show off my Pioneer 50" HD TV to anyone that comes over, with content that they may be familiar with. If it is only available for 24hrs like the horrible Idea of DIVIX when it came out and didn't evolve into anything worth while.
You are NOT an average consumer
You may consider yourself average, but if you do, you are being very kind in your judgement of other consumers.
The "average" consumer's "research" involves asking the 16 year old at Walmart, "this TV any good?" The 16 year old says, "yeah, it's pretty good." "Research" concluded
You actually know about HD-DVD and Blu-ray's existence. You came to a A/V forum and posted about it. You are no where near "average".
Your comment about owning movies is also spot on. Just look at the way people are with rentals. Late fees used to be a huge revenue stream for rental companies because people very often do not watch the movie they rent on the same day they rent it. They rent it, maybe throw it in that night, get distracted or decide to go out instead and several days later, either return the movie without having watched it, or maybe find the time to half-pay attention to it as most people do.
Movies are just a pass time or a distraction for most people. People like movies for some light entertainment. People like us, who watch movies with interest and see them from beginning to end - we're a minority.
The only reason why VOD might actually work is because it could basically just become another "channel" on the TV. People might channel surf for a while, see that nothing good is on, so they'll hit the VOD demand button and order themselves a movie. The thing is, if it erases itself after only 24 hours, I don't think people are going to be willing to pay very much.
VOD right now is essentially pay-per-view, but with a flexible start and finish time. You pay for one movie and can watch it whenever you want within the 24 hour period. But again, the way people actually watch movies - 24 hours isn't enough. One way would be to have it as a "single viewing" VOD, where you can keep it on your DVR for as long as you want after ordering, but once you watch it all the way to the end - that's it.
The other way would be to make VOD service a monthly subscription. You pay the fee upfront and then you can order however many movies you want for the month.
Thing is, that really isn't necessary. The way I think VOD service SHOULD work is like this: You hit the VOD button, you order the movie for a small price and then it lives on your DVR until you erase it. People run out of space on their DVR's all the time and even if you keep a movie or two on there "forever", so what? It's basically the same as Netflix: I could keep a movie or two on disc from Netflix forever, but then I'd only have one or two rental slots in rotation. Keep the movies on your DVR and you now have less space for all your other recordings: same thing more or less.
So if VOD develops that way (and frankly, as a consumer I would really love it if it were like that, so I hope that it does!), then I could definitely see movies on discs, as a whole, dropping in sales and rentals - rentals especially. People will still want to own movies though and discs will still be the best way to do that. Even if you can download a perfect copy online, you'll need to store it somewhere, so a burned copy onto a disc will still happen when hard drive space gets low or you want to take it to a friend's house.
Discs won't die. They just might find themselves sharing the digital distribution options is all. There's no reason why studios can't still make tons of money from downloads and VOD. Heck, they'd simply be increasing the number of available revenue streams. They might rake in a little less revenue from discs, but they'll make more revenue from streams that were very limited or didn't exist at all in the past! More ways to enjoy content for the consumer and more ways to make money for the studios. CDs still sell and so will DVDs and HD discs. These people who can't see that lowering a little revenue in one stream doesn't mean disaster if you create new streams are just dinosaurs and the sooner they all retire, the better!
Jon
The quality I get basically looks like DVD. The picture is sometimes sharper than DVD, but it also has artefacts due to extra compression, which I would NOT get on a DVD, so overall, I'd say the experience is roughly the same.
