Should Blockbuster call it quits?

[nightflier]

The company is trying hard to convince investors not to jump ship, but at just 22 cents a share, it's not looking good. Netflix in comparison is over $36 a share!

[Auricauricle]

Something about BB always made me prickle. I think it was the owner's sense of morals and decency that seemed to get it's way into the aisles....Whatever happened to the mom-and-pop video rental outfits with the "little room" in the back?

[thekid]

Brick and Mortar stores that sell products that can be downloaded or can be bought on-line at discounted prices really need to provide a "shopping experience". Not sure standing in line at the local Blockbuster while 2 kids argue with their Mom about whether they can buy Skittles or Twizzler's is the type of experience that is going to bring in the crowds.

I think Blockbuster got outflanked by Netflix and they have not been aggresive enough in changing their business model. I look at the prices they are now charging for Movies on Demand and other changes and even Netflix might be a dinosaur in the next couple of years.

[kexodusc]

The company is trying hard to convince investors not to jump ship, but at just 22 cents a share, it's not looking good. Netflix in comparison is over $36 a share!
I'd rather see them stick around than go under, but Blockbuster has to get its act together. I see them making a splash in the mail-order rental business eventually and using their clout to make a go of it.
Chance are Netflix is gonna be in trouble as more people start copying them too. Everyone wants a share of the pie.

[Auricauricle]

I think you guys are right. I don't know if I'm outta my zone here, but I think BB's pockets are deeper than NF's, and I am sure that BB is very hungry....In terms of the Mom and Pops, yeah, well mebbe they need to spruce up the store a bit, but that was part of the charm going, if you ask me....

[02audionoob]

Seems like the idea of having a physical disk to rent a movie has got to become a quaint part of history sooner or later.

[Auricauricle]

(Sniff.)

[Mr Peabody]

They can't go until I use all my gift card! Blockbuster's main enemy is not Netflix. Netflix made it on an original idea, if anything BB is getting greedy and wanting to cut in on NF's market. BB's enemy is Redbox. People can get a movie for $1.00 a night. I like BB actually, I like going in and browsing for movies I may not know about and reading the box. What I don't like is their gimmicky clubs and by in deals. If it was really a deal that might be alright but usually it's not and they have so many squirrelly rules that only make sense to them it's not worth it. You'd think their business might have picked up some since Hollywood Video went under. I'm telling you the key to the B&M video rental stores is your employees. You have to hire the happy people that are willing to go out and help the customer and talk movie with them. I hate if I have a question to have to go up to the counter and interrupt a couple teenie boppers engaged in conversation behind the counter and act like they forgot why they were there.

[thekid]

They can't go until I use all my gift card! Blockbuster's main enemy is not Netflix. Netflix made it on an original idea, if anything BB is getting greedy and wanting to cut in on NF's market. BB's enemy is Redbox. People can get a movie for $1.00 a night. I like BB actually, I like going in and browsing for movies I may not know about and reading the box. What I don't like is their gimmicky clubs and by in deals. If it was really a deal that might be alright but usually it's not and they have so many squirrelly rules that only make sense to them it's not worth it. You'd think their business might have picked up some since Hollywood Video went under. I'm telling you the key to the B&M video rental stores is your employees. You have to hire the happy people that are willing to go out and help the customer and talk movie with them. I hate if I have a question to have to go up to the counter and interrupt a couple teenie boppers engaged in conversation behind the counter and act like they forgot why they were there.

Could not agree with you more Mr. P!

The Movie Gallery that I used to belong to (before they went belly up) used to have an employee recommended section that you could tell was truly their movie choices and made for some interesting pics and gave some personal touch to the store.

Last week when I was at BB several of us had to wait in line because there was only one register. The other two employees were engaged in a conversation with a customer/friend discussing moves and strategies to some new video game.

[Kevio]

Brick and Mortar stores that sell products that can be downloaded or can be bought on-line at discounted prices really need to provide a "shopping experience". Not sure standing in line at the local Blockbuster while 2 kids argue with their Mom about whether they can buy Skittles or Twizzler's is the type of experience that is going to bring in the crowds.Isn't this the experience that movie theaters offer. They're doing OK aren't they?

[Smokey]

Whatever happened to the mom-and-pop video rental outfits with the "little room" in the back?

Oh man, you bring back so much memories. In the store, we always pretend that we're looking over regular video. And then when nobody is looking.......sneak into little room in the back :D

[02audionoob]

Too bad Netflix doesn't have a little room in the back.:wink5:

[pixelthis]

like I have been saying, downloading is the wave of the future.
I just about quit going to rental stores until I GOT into BLU RAY.
So where is sir talks a lot and his constant prattle that downloading is at least
"five years into the future"?
Tell it to the peeps at hulu.com, vuze.com, and all of the network sites that stream content.
The free market hates inefficency, and nothings more inefficent than pressing a movie to a disc, packaging it, taking it to a store and setting it up and renting it,
when all you have to do is push a button on your cablebox remote and enjoy
from a central server, or your computer.
When video rental got started it was the only way to deliver content, but its horse and buggy now.
In other words the video store is

DEAD

[Feanor]

The company is trying hard to convince investors not to jump ship, but at just 22 cents a share, it's not looking good. Netflix in comparison is over $36 a share!

I gave up on BlockBuster. They often didn't have what I wanted -- or I couldn't find it and the staff weren't helpful. Now I use Zip.ca, (Netflix equivalent). Zip has a huge collection that includes films you'd never find a the local BB, plus viturally all TV series and mini-series that have been release of DVD.

[Groundbeef]

I gave up on Blockbuster almost 18 years ago. I was in college, and had returned a movie a couple of days late (I think 2 days). Since I was at home on break, I didn't bother to pay the fee right away.

Anyway, long story short, about 3 months later, my dad called me at school. He was very angry that I had let some "debt" go. I didn't even know what he was talking about. Apparently Blockbuster had decided that I wasn't going to pay my $4.00 (FOUR Dollars). Instead of calling the house, they assigned me to a collection agency.

For $4.00. They sent me to collections for $4.00. I called corporate (hey in college, you got nothing but time...) and chewed some serious ass. I kept going up the food chain. Finally, I think they got tired of me, apologized for the issue, got me off collections, and "forgave" the debt.

I have never given them another nickle. And I never will.

[bobsticks]

What is this "Block-buster"?

[98CRV]

They can't go until I use all my gift card! Blockbuster's main enemy is not Netflix. Netflix made it on an original idea, if anything BB is getting greedy and wanting to cut in on NF's market. BB's enemy is Redbox. People can get a movie for $1.00 a night. I like BB actually, I like going in and browsing for movies I may not know about and reading the box. What I don't like is their gimmicky clubs and by in deals. If it was really a deal that might be alright but usually it's not and they have so many squirrelly rules that only make sense to them it's not worth it. You'd think their business might have picked up some since Hollywood Video went under. I'm telling you the key to the B&M video rental stores is your employees. You have to hire the happy people that are willing to go out and help the customer and talk movie with them. I hate if I have a question to have to go up to the counter and interrupt a couple teenie boppers engaged in conversation behind the counter and act like they forgot why they were there.

The wife and I haven't been inside Blockbuster in quite awhile. There's a Redbox and a similar machine at two different grocery stores in our area...both only charge $1/day. It's more convenient(for us anyway) and a helluva lot cheaper.

[Kevio]

The free market hates inefficency, and nothings more inefficent than pressing a movie to a disc, packaging it, taking it to a store and setting it up and renting it,
when all you have to do is push a button on your cablebox remote and enjoy
from a central server, or your computer.Maybe so for the case of a store like Blockbuster but sending and receiving DVDs in the mail is a higher bandwidth delivery system than your internet connection. I'm still on standard def and even there sometimes can't stomach the compression artifacts on my cable TV. Downloaded video seems even worse.

[Groundbeef]

Maybe so for the case of a store like Blockbuster but sending and receiving DVDs in the mail is a higher bandwidth delivery system than your internet connection. I'm still on standard def and even there sometimes can't stomach the compression artifacts on my cable TV. Downloaded video seems even worse.

It really depends on the source. I have rented about 20 movies through XBOX Live on my XBOX 360. In both HD and Standard Def. It's not "streaming". SD movies are around 1.2 gig, and the HD fare is usually about 4-5GB files.

I realize they are compressed, and the audio isn't full HD, but for $3-4 and the ability to start watching after about 5-10 minutes the quality is quite good.

BTW I'm watching on a 50" Plasma, so it is pretty easy to spot a crappy picture.

[nightflier]

On another note, I should have bought some shares, yesterday, they are now trading at 44 cents. 'Could have doubled my money overnight!

[Woochifer]

Problem with Blockbuster is that they are sitting on thousands of leases, and haven't figured out how to optimize the revenues for the amount of floor space that they have. And key to all of this is that they never found a way to adjust to the new pricing structure that came with the DVD.

Blockbuster basically pushed out the mom-and-pop shops by colluding with the studios for sweetheart revenue-sharing deals. Under those deals, Blockbuster obtained almost limitless access to new releases by agreeing to a revenue split with the studios. Other video stores would have to pay exorbitantly high wholesale costs on new releases, which ensured that they would not have nearly as many copies of lucrative new releases as Blockbuster. This arrangement gave Blockbuster a huge advantage over other video stores, and allowed them to operate with fewer financial constraints.

The landscape fundamentally shifted when the DVD went with a sell-through pricing structure rather than the rental-pricing structure that dominated the VHS market. This eliminated Blockbuster's revenue-sharing cash cow, and put them on more of an equal footing with other vendors. Consumers began buying their movies, instead of renting them. Right now, revenues from video sales outpace rentals by more than 5-to-1. Before the DVD came along, the rental revenues were far higher than the sell-throughs. Blockbuster struggled to maintain their profitability since then.

Blockbuster has to either contract the number of stores, or find new reasons for consumers to spend money in their stores. Their store layouts were designed around their old revenue model where they had exclusive access to new releases. Now, they have a lot of wasted space, with stores that are too big for the amount of revenue that they take in. Still though, Blockbuster stores attract considerable foot traffic, and recurring foot traffic. I thought that the proposed joint ventures with Starbuck's, Radio Shack, and Circuit City showed promise in that they could create new revenue potential for Blockbuster stores. But, none of that came to fruition.

I also thought that Blockbuster could transform into a go-to place where people buy their movies on the release date (sort of like how Best Buy, Target, and Walmart use loss leader pricing to attract crowds on the release date), but they never cared much for stocking their shelves for sell-through items and they kept the prices on their sell-through items high.

[Auricauricle]

I think that Mr. P's mention of Red Box is important to remember. Movie rentals "on the fly", while shopping for chips and beer for the weekend seems like a pretty smart business strategem. I expect with the increased uncertainty over gasoline prices and the inconvenience of having video rental parlors scattered here and there and everywhere beyond is going to drive more people to convenient alternatives. Saying this, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw BB in the supermarket, next to the "Fresh Meat" aisle...

[Woochifer]

I think that Mr. P's mention of Red Box is important to remember. Movie rentals "on the fly", while shopping for chips and beer for the weekend seems like a pretty smart business strategem. I expect with the increased uncertainty over gasoline prices and the inconvenience of having video rental parlors scattered here and there and everywhere beyond is going to drive more people to convenient alternatives. Saying this, I wouldn't be surprised if I saw BB in the supermarket, next to the "Fresh Meat" aisle...

Kiosks only carry a limited selection of recent releases, and about half of video rentals are for catalog titles. Video stores can do quite well by focusing on specific niches and carrying obscure titles. My wife and I used to subscribe to Netflix, but found I usually buy the titles I'm most interested in, and still prefer the instant gratification of browsing through a video store shelf and taking something home for rentals.

[Auricauricle]

Good point. Reminds me of the discussion a couple of months ago, re the demise of the CD. I still think the tactile quality of CD's will make the medium appealing for many (myself included; I just wish they smelled like vinyl). As far as obscure titles, seems to me that should be easily remedied.

Now, you they'll put a "back room" in the kiosk, somewhere?

[Rich-n-Texas]

I almost cancelled my sub to Blockbuster, but last week, 3 BD flicks were delivered to my snail-mailbox rather quickly, so I'm holding out hope, at least for now, that Blu-ray titles won't take as long as they did previously to get to me.

[Rich-n-Texas]

For me, walking in to the back room wasn't the embarrasing part, walking out was. :o

[JSE]

Kiosks only carry a limited selection of recent releases, and about half of video rentals are for catalog titles. Video stores can do quite well by focusing on specific niches and carrying obscure titles. My wife and I used to subscribe to Netflix, but found I usually buy the titles I'm most interested in, and still prefer the instant gratification of browsing through a video store shelf and taking something home for rentals.


The BB near me is suffering badly. It's just not busy anymore. In contrast, the RedBox at the McDonalds right around the corner and the Movie Box inside the grocery store next the BB consistently have several (3 to 6) people in line in the eveneing hours. You can even reserve DVDs online with Red Box now.

However, I still go to BB for Blueray. I am considering trying out NetFlix soon though for the price.

We have actually been using Video On Demand with our AT&T Uverse provider more and more. Sure, the qaulity is not quite as good as DVD and the HD movies are not quite up to par with BlueRay but the quality is pretty darn good. Good enough that when we find ourselves sitting in front of the TV with nothing good to watch, it sure is easy to pull up a list a movies and hit "rent it". :thumbsup:

[nightflier]

A couple of thoughts:

- Blockbuster always had shelves and shelves of the same new release. Talk about a waste of real estate. RedBox doesn't work like that, there's only one spot for the image of the new release with a healthy selection inside.

- Blockbuster's sanitizing program was a turn off for many people. A lot was said about that in years past, but I think that when a vendor tells you what to watch, that sucks.

- On the same note, Blockbuster stores would typically stock titles based on rental rates, and this was neighborhood specific. So this also furthered limited selection on the shelves, another bad idea that drove people to competitors. I remember how NetFlix used to brag about how they had better selection, back when they were starting up (perhpas that's not the case anymore).

- BR movies are still too expensive to own. I know that's just my opinion, but until prices come down to what DVDs are, I'm going to wait. Again, I know some here don't agree, but that's not going to change my mind. In the mean-time rentals is the only cost-effective alternative.

- Blockbuster never have good prices for movie purchases. Even their previously-viewed movies were too expensive. When online movie purchasing started to take off, it was just too easy to compare and Blockbuster was always higher.

- Blockbuster killed Hollywood Video and the mom & pops, at least that's what many people believe. Whatever the case, they were not seen in a good light and once they were the only game in town, the belief was that this was the reason they kept their prices high. With this hanging over their heads, any competitor was seen as a better alternative.

And now for some questions:

- If NetFlix is going to be the only game in town, then is that good for the disk rental industry, or more precisely, the consumer?

- Who does now have the better catalog, Blockbuster or NetFlix?

- What about Hulu? How deep is their catalog? Can they even compete?

- Will Blockbuster be bought out? After all, it's not just the catalog and the contracts with the studios, we're also talking about a lot of real estate.

[Rich-n-Texas]

A couple of thoughts:

- Blockbuster always had shelves and shelves of the same new release. Talk about a waste of real estate. RedBox doesn't work like that, there's only one spot for the image of the new release with a healthy selection inside.
They HAD to keep shelves and shelves of the same new releases because that's what everyone wanted. I'd go into the store and the only thing on the shelf was empty boxes just to indicate the movie was or would be available.

And what's your definition of "healthy" anyway?

[nightflier]

I'm just saying they could have used thinner cases, stacked them 10-deep and saved some space. For some reason it seems like they were always trying to show off how many versions of the same movie they could carry.

Healthy? I dunno. 40-50?

[Rich-n-Texas]

In my local store at least, the New Release section starts on one wall, and continues all the way around to the opposite wall. Some new releases are more obscure so they didn't take up as much shelf space I guess, but there was still plenty of room for all the different categories in the main part of the store. And there were also sections with Ninetendo, Playstation, and XBOX games as well.

Nevertheless, all I do now is go online, browse their website for the titles I want, click a couple of buttons, and off they go. Pretty simple.

I just caught the tail end of a news story one night that indicated NetFlix is soon going to end mail order rentals. Not really a big deal one way or the other for me. :shrug:

[nightflier]

I just caught the tail end of a news story one night that indicated NetFlix is soon going to end mail order rentals.

Where did you read that? You realize that this edges us closer to one of Pix's predictions to actually become true: that downloading will take over everything.

[Auricauricle]

My prediction: In the future, a famous movie will last fifteen minutes.

[nightflier]

15 minutes... I haven't seen that one yet.

[Auricauricle]

I don't blame you...The previews were only a blink in duration.

[nightflier]

I don't think Robert DeNiro likes you saying anything bad about his movies. I can already seeing him reach for a bat...

[Auricauricle]

I remember that one....Pretty tough if I correctly recall....

[Rich-n-Texas]

Where did you read that? You realize that this edges us closer to one of Pix's predictions to actually become true: that downloading will take over everything.
It was on a network TV news broadcast. Don't have details though, sorry.

[Groundbeef]

It was on a network TV news broadcast. Don't have details though, sorry.

I think you are 1/2 right. They are toying with the idea of offering a "Download ONLY" package for those consumers that don't want to wait for offerings in the mail. To completly eliminate the option would be suicide.

I do not belive they are toying with ONLY offering the D/L option.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/daves-download/2009/02/26/netflix-stream-only-subs-could-foretell-fees-for-everyone.html

[Groundbeef]

I'm just saying they could have used thinner cases, stacked them 10-deep and saved some space. For some reason it seems like they were always trying to show off how many versions of the same movie they could carry.

Healthy? I dunno. 40-50?

When I worked at a video store (Hollywood Video), one of the large reason for a very large run of movies was for re-sale after the initial rental period was done. It was about a 1 month time frame and they would sell off about 1/2 the inital stock. Then the next month about 1/2 of remaining stock, and so on. After about 5-6 months they would be down to 1-10 copies depending upon the initial load.

They made pretty good money on the used rentals. Most would sell for $8-10 with a 1 year scratch warrenty. After 8 rentals or so, the movie was "paid" for, so the sale of the used movie was all gravy.

[nightflier]

OK, but why the shelves and shelves of display at BB? Sounds to me like a waste of space.

Also, on the sale price for used rentals, $8-10 is a lot more expensive than what you'll find online, which was one of the other things I pointed out that BB could have done to keep customers.

[Kevio]

SD movies are around 1.2 gig, and the HD fare is usually about 4-5GB files.

I realize they are compressed, and the audio isn't full HD, but for $3-4 and the ability to start watching after about 5-10 minutes the quality is quite good.

BTW I'm watching on a 50" Plasma, so it is pretty easy to spot a crappy picture.Standard definition DVDs are 4-9GB. So unless there's some new magical compression algorithm, the "HD" movies you're downloading have the same or less resolution as today's DVDs.

When I rip a double-sided DVD and compress it down to fit on a single-sided disc, I can definitely tell the difference on my 27" CRT. Curious that you're not seeing anything.

Maybe you just don't have anything better to compare it to so you don't know what you're missing?

[Auricauricle]

So if I go for the 26", I'm good, right?

[Kevio]

Do not mess with the awesomeness of my TV.

[Mr Peabody]

Wooch, you brought up something I always wondered, why BB keeps their retail prices so high. Volume would surely make up for the occasional impulse sale they make. What a great way to create foot traffic. Also it would help to send out newsletters showing new releases and upcoming releases. I got something from them briefly like that then it stopped for no reason.

It's a fact Blu-ray movie retail prices are still too high. I've seen mention of it in articles plus I've seen recent releases coming out on Amazon even at $27.95. It depends on the title but I am surprised the price is remaining high. They need to come down about $10.00 across the board.

Collection for $4.00, that would be funny if it wasn't so sad. That must have been one of those systematic things. How much in the hole would a company go collecting $4.00? Good grief. That happened to us, a doctor charged my wife a co-pay and later realized my insurance had raised the fee. My wife says we didn't get any notice from the doctor but things have been known to go unresolved through her before, any way, we ended up getting a phone call from a collection company for like $10.00. Something that stupid you are tempted to let go for the amuzement but in this day and age of your credit report being your life, you don't dare.

[thekid]

Isn't this the experience that movie theaters offer. They're doing OK aren't they?

You'd be right if I was going to WALL-E or some other kid based film but depending on the film and the film time I can usually avoid that experience at the local theater.

Murphy's Law of Blockbuster states the greater the need for speed you have walking in- the greater number of people at the counter arguing over late fees as you try to check out........

[Groundbeef]

OK, but why the shelves and shelves of display at BB? Sounds to me like a waste of space.

Also, on the sale price for used rentals, $8-10 is a lot more expensive than what you'll find online, which was one of the other things I pointed out that BB could have done to keep customers.

Well, that $8-10 is the high end. Most of the time they would run "sales" and have say "4 for $20" or the like.

I'm not defending the model, just explaining how it worked at Hollywood. Plus, a lot of the space was dedicated when VHS ruled. And they were much larger.

[Groundbeef]

Standard definition DVDs are 4-9GB. So unless there's some new magical compression algorithm, the "HD" movies you're downloading have the same or less resolution as today's DVDs.

When I rip a double-sided DVD and compress it down to fit on a single-sided disc, I can definitely tell the difference on my 27" CRT. Curious that you're not seeing anything.

Maybe you just don't have anything better to compare it to so you don't know what you're missing?

Well, Kevio, there are a couple of differences at play. So lets compare apples to apples.

A DVD also (generally) has several audio tracks (English, Spanish, French) as well as menus, and "special features". It may also have different audio track options, 5.1 etc. So not ALL of the 4.7GB of a SD DVD is the "movie". Strip out all of the extras, and you could be as close as 1/2 the size.

And I'm not sure what ripper/writer you are using but you need a new one if you are noticing a difference between a ripped DVD and your "backup" copy. Either that, or start using Dual-Layer DVD blanks. No compression needed.

The download version has none of that. It is the movie, and in english. No audio options, although I belive the default is 5.1.

And I have a HD-DVD player, Blu-Ray Player, and DirecTV HD. Unless YOU have seen a XBOX 360 D/L I would suggest you are guessing(talking out your ass).

The quality is quite good. I'm not suggesting it's a pixel-2-pixel match. But it is hands down better than the Netflix "streams" that I can also get off the XBOX service. And it's quick, painless, and if I really enjoy the movie, I can then decide to purchase it later from Amazon or a retail store.

[Groundbeef]

Murphy's Law of Blockbuster states the greater the need for speed you have walking in- the greater number of people at the counter arguing over late fees as you try to check out........

When I worked at Hollywood, they were the anti-thesis of Blockbuster on fees. As long as you made a 10% payment on any late balance over $100 (Yes, $100) you could continue to rent. And they NEVER charged extra, or sent people to collections.

I rented several movies to various patrons with HUGE late fee-balances. The highest I ever saw at the place I worked was upwards of $1100. That's one thousand, one hundred. In late fees.

I get pissed if I have like $3.00 in late fees.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Beefy's on a roll today! Beef, did I mention I like your new dentures? Bright & white!

And I have a HD-DVD player, Blu-Ray Player, and DirecTV HD. Unless YOU have seen a XBOX 360 D/L I would suggest you are guessing(talking out your ass).
I don't think Kevio was being mean beef, just sarcastic (you must still have the old version of the GM manufactured sarcasm detector. Rev 2 is in production now).

I don't know how much a d/l'ed BD title costs right now but don't you have to buy hardware to play the BD or SD file on your TV?

Fact is, anything Dumbass suggests is probably wrong (Good LORD where are you Sir T!) so I'll continue to order my Blu-ray titles on line and have the US mail deliver them to me. Seems simple enough.

[Luvin Da Blues]

Beefy's on a roll today!

Should we give GB "player of the game" for his hat trick?

[Mr Peabody]

At least in my area BB don't charge late fees any more.

Why not run up $1,100.00 if no one is really going to collect it.

I'm in Rich's camp, give me the disc.

[Woochifer]

A couple of thoughts:

- Blockbuster always had shelves and shelves of the same new release. Talk about a waste of real estate. RedBox doesn't work like that, there's only one spot for the image of the new release with a healthy selection inside.

That's because when they had their revenue-sharing arrangements with the studios, they had access to literally an unlimited number of new release copies. Their stores would routinely stock 50+ copies of a new release title because the studios did not charge them the wholesale cost on each title. Competitors would have to pay the wholesale cost, and so they could not afford to stock so many copies of a new release title. Upwards of 50% of the rental market consists of new/recent releases, so this was a cash cow for Blockbuster and the shelf space they devote to specific new release titles is a reflection of the popularity/demand.


- Blockbuster's sanitizing program was a turn off for many people. A lot was said about that in years past, but I think that when a vendor tells you what to watch, that sucks.

EVERY vendor selects what to stock and what not to stock. Aside from Netflix, there's not a single video store that carries every version of every title.

What you consider a turn off, many other consumers regard as a plus. Blockbuster basically does not carry adult titles or "unrated" versions of studio pics. But, it's not like they demanded scrubbed versions (like the Cleanplay versions), and when consumers demanded widescreen DVDs, Blockbuster began carrying them.


- On the same note, Blockbuster stores would typically stock titles based on rental rates, and this was neighborhood specific. So this also furthered limited selection on the shelves, another bad idea that drove people to competitors. I remember how NetFlix used to brag about how they had better selection, back when they were starting up (perhpas that's not the case anymore).

Blockbuster's niche is the mainstream market, which is driven by new releases. Until the DVD took over the market, Blockbuster was the only video store that could guarantee a new release title's availability because of their revenue-sharing arrangements.

Netflix has a better selection because they only have to supply a small number of regional distribution centers, rather than thousands of neighborhood stores. And even then, good luck trying to get a hot new release from Netflix during the first couple of weeks. If you have a huge number of catalog titles on your queue list, this doesn't matter much. But, if you want to watch new releases right after they become available on home video, Netflix isn't the best option.


- If NetFlix is going to be the only game in town, then is that good for the disk rental industry, or more precisely, the consumer?

Nope, because for consumers who prefer instant gratification, Netflix isn't a better option.


- Who does now have the better catalog, Blockbuster or NetFlix?

Netflix has the bigger catalog, but that doesn't help if you want a movie right now.


- What about Hulu? How deep is their catalog? Can they even compete?

Different market. Hulu is NBC/Universal's free video streaming service.


- Will Blockbuster be bought out? After all, it's not just the catalog and the contracts with the studios, we're also talking about a lot of real estate.

Doubt that someone will buy it in its entirety. If they go bankrupt, someone might take a chance with acquiring specific assets. The leases would be parceled out in bankruptcy court, and someone might take over several of them, there's no guarantee that they will continue operating as video stores. It's like when Tower Records went under, several of their Bay Area leases got acquired by Rasputin Music, but several of their Southern California locations got turned into Rite Aid drug stores.

[Woochifer]

Nevertheless, all I do now is go online, browse their website for the titles I want, click a couple of buttons, and off they go. Pretty simple.

I just caught the tail end of a news story one night that indicated NetFlix is soon going to end mail order rentals. Not really a big deal one way or the other for me. :shrug:

Doubt that will happen anytime soon. Netflix's online option is still a niche service that Netflix members try out, but don't use as their primary source. As GB indicated, this seems more like Netflix offering up their online service as a standalone option.

[Woochifer]

At least in my area BB don't charge late fees any more.

They don't charge late fees, but if you keep the disc long enough it gets charged to your credit card as a purchase.

[Mr Peabody]

Wooch you reminded me of something you said yesterday and again today I wanted to comment on about BB's distribution deal. That was very significant and probably changed the face of retailers buying movies eventually. I used to work for an electronics store who rented movies to create more foot traffic back in the 80's when renting became big, some of those movies cost $80.00 or more. It took some renting to break even at that. I forget, believe it or not, what movies rented for then. That would be a huge advantage BB enjoyed for a while.

[pixelthis]

Beefy's on a roll today! Beef, did I mention I like your new dentures? Bright & white!



[QUOTE]Fact is, anything Dumbass suggests is probably wrong (Good LORD where are you Sir T!) so I'll continue to order my Blu-ray titles on line and have the US mail deliver them to me. Seems simple enough.

There you go, talking to yourself again.
And you're right, everything you say is wrong:1:

[pixelthis]

Where did you read that? You realize that this edges us closer to one of Pix's predictions to actually become true: that downloading will take over everything.

its going to happen, like when Rich gets laid off and goes insane when his Viagra
runs out.
THIS is a great web site, really.
This is the ONLY place where I can post what is considered common knowledge
everywhere else on the planet and be met with redicule, brickbats , insults,
comments about my mother, etc.
Its like when a modern man drives into a middle age village and they stone him to death,
thinking his car is some kind of demon.:1:

[pixelthis]

ONE of these days I am going to bring up this new invention...fire.
Oughta freak everybody out.:1:

[Kevio]

And I'm not sure what ripper/writer you are using but you need a new one if you are noticing a difference between a ripped DVD and your "backup" copy. Either that, or start using Dual-Layer DVD blanks. No compression needed.

The download version has none of that. It is the movie, and in english. No audio options, although I belive the default is 5.1.

And I have a HD-DVD player, Blu-Ray Player, and DirecTV HD. Unless YOU have seen a XBOX 360 D/L I would suggest you are guessing(talking out your ass).

The quality is quite good. I'm not suggesting it's a pixel-2-pixel match. But it is hands down better than the Netflix "streams" that I can also get off the XBOX service. And it's quick, painless, and if I really enjoy the movie, I can then decide to purchase it later from Amazon or a retail store.

You are right, I haven't seen or even heard about the XBOX service and so I'm asking questions about it, doing some talking out of my ass to elicit responses. Don't take it so personally.

I'm using DVD Shrink for my ripping. And yeah, there's extra stuff on discs - some more than others. DVD Shrink breaks it all out for you and, in my experience, never really amounts to more than 25% of the disc. Titles with lots of bonus material are released as a multiple DVD set.

Based on this and what you've said, I am convinced that the XBOX HD service delivers fewer bits than a standard definition DVD. XBOX still has a chance look better if they have a significantly more sophisticated encoding algorithm than the MPEG2 used on DVDs.

I want to know how this download service compares in terms of picture and sound quality to standard definition and BluRay DVDs.

You've said XBOX is better than NetFlix streaming. You've said that the XBOX quality is "quite good" and that you have the equipment to do a comparison but you've not offered a comparison.

[Luvin Da Blues]

.....This is the ONLY place where I can post what is considered common knowledge.....

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Rich-n-Texas]

:lol:

The picture speaks a thousand words LDB. Your reputation has increased in strength. :thumbsup:
:1:

[Groundbeef]

I'm using DVD Shrink for my ripping. And yeah, there's extra stuff on discs - some more than others. DVD Shrink breaks it all out for you and, in my experience, never really amounts to more than 25% of the disc. Titles with lots of bonus material are released as a multiple DVD set..

Try 1ClickDVD Pro. I've not had compression issues like you are describing. Sounds like a software problem rather than a compression problem. I've not experienced artifacting/bad playback resolution.

But, lets assume you are correct. 25% of a 4.7GB movie is ~1.25GB. But that would only be the special features. The audio options chew up a lot more than that. Cut out all of the foreign audio, and your file is even smaller.



Based on this and what you've said, I am convinced that the XBOX HD service delivers fewer bits than a standard definition DVD. XBOX still has a chance look better if they have a significantly more sophisticated encoding algorithm than the MPEG2 used on DVDs.

I want to know how this download service compares in terms of picture and sound quality to standard definition and BluRay DVDs..

Picture quality from the XBOX service is very good. Again, there isn't artifacting/ghosting/pixelation that is quite noticable from say a Netflix download. The audio is good. It isn't "lossless" but it is surround sound.

The regular download for a SD movie is on par visually with a dvd in the player. HD quality isn't as good as a Blu-Ray at 1080p. But it is better than the SD download.

I don't think there is a difference in the audio track between a SD download or a HD download. I'm not the coding engineer, so I'm guessing on that last point.



You've said XBOX is better than NetFlix streaming. You've said that the XBOX quality is "quite good" and that you have the equipment to do a comparison but you've not offered a comparison.

Well, unless you are sitting in my living room switching between sources, I'm not sure what benchmark you are looking for. Best option would be to find a friend who has a XBOX 360, and rent a movie. It's ~$3.0 for SD and ~$4.0 for HD.

I've said it before. It isn't true HD like when I watch a Blu-Ray. However, for evaluation of a movie that I am considering purchasing, or when the wife and I decide on a whim to see a movie it is a very competent service.

I did the google, and found this comparison chart of the XBOX service versus AppleTV. It has some technical info that may be helpful for you.:
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/16/charted-xbox-live-video-marketplace-vs-apple-tv/

[Auricauricle]

Pix, you oughtta be careful, bringing fire and reason to the masses....One way or another, your asp will either be stoned, burned or nailed. Mebbe some of us benighted fools actually like their thatched roofs and Super 8....Why muck up a good thing?

[Kevio]

Pardon the brief technical interlude...


But, lets assume you are correct. 25% of a 4.7GB movie is ~1.25GB. But that would only be the special features. The audio options chew up a lot more than that. Cut out all of the foreign audio, and your file is even smaller.
Movie-length Dolby digital tracks are less than 500 M bytes. I haven't seen a DVD where you'd save more than 1 G byte by deleting foreign languages. Even if there are a bunch, most of them are usually smaller 2 channel mixes. I guess you can argue it all adds up but I don't think the extras ever approach 50% of the total DVD space used.

...you may now resume trolling with Pix

[Woochifer]

Wooch you reminded me of something you said yesterday and again today I wanted to comment on about BB's distribution deal. That was very significant and probably changed the face of retailers buying movies eventually. I used to work for an electronics store who rented movies to create more foot traffic back in the 80's when renting became big, some of those movies cost $80.00 or more. It took some renting to break even at that. I forget, believe it or not, what movies rented for then. That would be a huge advantage BB enjoyed for a while.

Blockbuster's revenue-sharing arrangement killed much of the competition, because it created a totally unbalanced playing field. The wholesale cost on a VHS release would cost anywhere from $60 to $80 for most releases. Blockbuster did not have to worry about the wholesale cost, so their stores could stock upwards of 50+ copies on a new release. All they had to do was split the revenue with the studios.

One of my relatives used to own a video store, and they would rarely buy more than 4 copies of a new release because with their average rental rate of ~$3 for a two-day rental, each copy would need to be turned over at least 20X before they would break even. And generally, the demand on a new release tails off considerably after about the first couple of weeks. Last thing they (or any other indie video store) need is getting stuck with a big pile of movies that have yet to recoup their cost.

The DVD pricing structure, which went to a priced-to-sell model with a wholesale cost of around $15 per copy, put all of this to an end. Now, Blockbuster has to compete on a more even basis, which might be the main reason why they're struggling. They built their business model around the windfall that their revenue sharing deals created. That allowed them to overexpand, and build stores that were way too big. For Blockbuster, the DVD created a major cost escalation because they now had to pay wholesale cost just like everybody else. For indie stores, the DVD resulted in a dramatic cost reduction because studios no longer had a two-tiered "rental pricing" window on new releases, and they could now afford to stock more copies of the more lucrative new releases.

Now, Blockbuster has been making exclusivity arrangements with some studios that would make them the only place that can rent out certain movie titles. I recall that some Weinstein Company (founded by Miramax's former bosses) titles were available for rental only through Blockbuster. Anyone could still buy the DVDs at other retail stores, but the rental copies were only sent to Blockbuster.

On a related note, Blockbuster's decision not to stock "unrated" or porn titles probably kept a lot of the mom-and-pop stores in business. IIRC, some indie stores generated upwards of half their rental revenue from the "back room."

[nightflier]

What you consider a turn off, many other consumers regard as a plus. Blockbuster basically does not carry adult titles or "unrated" versions of studio pics. But, it's not like they demanded scrubbed versions (like the Cleanplay versions), and when consumers demanded widescreen DVDs, Blockbuster began carrying them.

Whatever it actually was in practice, it was seen as a store telling people what they could and could not watch. If as you say, the "back room" accounted for as much as 1/2 the revenue of mom & pop rental places, then it was probably also decision that cost them. This is not to say that BB didn't address other customer needs like widescreen, but that's a different topic, I think.


Blockbuster's niche is the mainstream market, which is driven by new releases. Until the DVD took over the market, Blockbuster was the only video store that could guarantee a new release title's availability because of their revenue-sharing arrangements.

Despite their shelves full of new releases, there were many times when these were just the cases, and the actual movies were rented out. I'm going to guess that this was actually an irritation to many people, to see shelves of the same movie cases, but not a single available title to rent.


Netflix has a better selection because they only have to supply a small number of regional distribution centers, rather than thousands of neighborhood stores. And even then, good luck trying to get a hot new release from Netflix during the first couple of weeks. If you have a huge number of catalog titles on your queue list, this doesn't matter much. But, if you want to watch new releases right after they become available on home video, Netflix isn't the best option.

I've read this complaint in many places online, but those people I know that have Netflix don't really seem to find this an issue. It eventually comes, so they don't mind waiting a few extra days. I think this complaint is over-blown.


Nope, because for consumers who prefer instant gratification, Netflix isn't a better option.

With downloads (i.e. unlimitted digital copies available), this will become much less of a problem. Granted, bandwidth on new release nights might be stressed, but that can be addressed technologically. Downloads, regardless of quality, should continue to eat away at physical disk rentals for the simple fact that people who really want to see the latest, will place a preference for the disk in the queue, and barring that will settle for the download.


Different market. Hulu is NBC/Universal's free video streaming service.

I wasn't necessarily speaking in terms of revenue, but more in terms of movies downloaded. Hulu is growing extremely fast and the ads, at least for now, are not very intrusive. Yes, the lion's share of its downloads are TV, but once people get used to it, they'll start expecting movies the same way, and eventually new releases. It's just too easy and it's free. I think they are the biggest threat to Netflix as well as Tivo.


It's like when Tower Records went under, several of their Bay Area leases got acquired by Rasputin Music, but several of their Southern California locations got turned into Rite Aid drug stores.

Looks like the SoCal, once again, drew the short straw on that one. :p

[Auricauricle]

Tower Records stored turing into Rite AId pharmacies.....Is that why there are so many DVD discount discs at the pharmacy?? There's a whole wall o' them....

I use Netflix. If you don't care about staying "on top" or current, itis a pretty decent service...

As far as the wall of empties at BB goes, I always thought that was just all reinforcement of an agenda to push a certain movie....Sort of an unsubliminal subliminal ad.

[pixelthis]

Pix, you oughtta be careful, bringing fire and reason to the masses....One way or another, your asp will either be stoned, burned or nailed. Mebbe some of us benighted fools actually like their thatched roofs and Super 8....Why muck up a good thing?


You're right, these guys probably would only hurt themselves.
Like the guy who keeps calling me a "dumbass" when I HAVE FORGOTTEN
more than he will ever know about anything.
Oh well, nice to see someone on this site can take a joke, anyway.:1:

[Auricauricle]

Ni-i-i-ice....Joan of Art, right?

[Rich-n-Texas]

You're right, these guys probably would only hurt themselves.
Like the guy who keeps calling me a "dumbass" when I HAVE FORGOTTEN
more than he will ever know about anything.
You ARE a fvcking dumbass, you dumbass. The way you present your opinions, and that's all they are idiot, the way you think you're rubbing people's noses in your mind chilling predictions with your childish *I told you so* attitude when in actuality nobody really gives a rats ass what you think, is why you get the responses you do. DUMBASS.

Oh well, nice to see someone on this site can take a joke, anyway.:1:
Yeah, we know you're only joking. So am I dumbass. :rolleyes:

[Auricauricle]

That's it! I'm turing the car around right now!!

[Rich-n-Texas]

I don't care! I HATED going to that stupid Drive-in anyway!!! :incazzato:

[Luvin Da Blues]

I don't care! I HATED going to that stupid Drive-in anyway!!! :incazzato:


Rich, he wuz takin' ya to the dentist!

[Rich-n-Texas]

YO!

What did I tell you BONEHEADS about the white text?!?! DON'T PUSH ME!!!

:mad5: :mad5: :mad5:

[Woochifer]

Whatever it actually was in practice, it was seen as a store telling people what they could and could not watch. If as you say, the "back room" accounted for as much as 1/2 the revenue of mom & pop rental places, then it was probably also decision that cost them. This is not to say that BB didn't address other customer needs like widescreen, but that's a different topic, I think.

In some parts of the country, Blockbuster putting in a "backroom" would cost them a lot more revenue than they'd gain. It has nothing to do with "telling people what they could and could not watch." It has to do with what kind of environment they want to convey to THEIR customers. As I said, EVERY store makes editorial decisions on what they carry, and what they don't carry. If you have a problem with Blockbuster's editorial decisions, then you're free to rent from a store more in line with what you'd rather have.

They made a deliberate decision that they wanted their stores to be "family friendly" and having a porno room in the back detracts from that. Even while living in San Francisco (supposedly this outpost of rampant hedonism and anti-chain store sentiment), I knew of parents that would go to Blockbuster rather than the neighborhood video store because they did not want their kids around the unrated and porn titles. Even my wife felt uncomfortable renting from the video store closest to our house because she'd end up standing in line with a bunch of guys holding stacks of porn titles.

People who'd rather have unrated choices in their viewing can simply choose a different video store. Blockbuster's exclusions had the net effect of keeping a lot of these indie stores afloat, so what's so bad about that?

And how is this any different than HBO choosing not to show adult movies on their network, while Showtime does choose to show them?


Despite their shelves full of new releases, there were many times when these were just the cases, and the actual movies were rented out. I'm going to guess that this was actually an irritation to many people, to see shelves of the same movie cases, but not a single available title to rent.

Plenty of titles, just not the ones that someone might be looking for. Since they no longer have the revenue sharing arrangements with the studios, Blockbuster now stocks fewer copies of new releases than before. Their stores obviously haven't adapted to the changing landscape.


I've read this complaint in many places online, but those people I know that have Netflix don't really seem to find this an issue. It eventually comes, so they don't mind waiting a few extra days. I think this complaint is over-blown.

It's a very real complaint for people who primarily watch new releases and box office hits. They generally don't stay with Netflix for very long. People who don't have an issue with this, like I said, are the ones who have very long queue lists.


With downloads (i.e. unlimitted digital copies available), this will become much less of a problem. Granted, bandwidth on new release nights might be stressed, but that can be addressed technologically. Downloads, regardless of quality, should continue to eat away at physical disk rentals for the simple fact that people who really want to see the latest, will place a preference for the disk in the queue, and barring that will settle for the download.

Downloads are practically a non-entity right now, and even with very small revenue levels to start with, downloading still can't keep up with the growth rate for Blu-ray. The tech-obsessed crowd gushing about video downloads just can't comprehend that most consumers don't want to hook up a PC to their TV or buy an extra set-top box that requires an internet connection. Bandwidth is not the issue, the separation between the TV and the internet connection that exists in the majority of households is a huge issue. This is not a big deal for either of us, but remember that the VHS format rode off into the sunset with the majority of households still not knowing how to set the clock on a VCR. Home networking is a little bit more complicated than that.


I wasn't necessarily speaking in terms of revenue, but more in terms of movies downloaded. Hulu is growing extremely fast and the ads, at least for now, are not very intrusive. Yes, the lion's share of its downloads are TV, but once people get used to it, they'll start expecting movies the same way, and eventually new releases. It's just too easy and it's free. I think they are the biggest threat to Netflix as well as Tivo.

People content with watching TV shows on their computer remains a very limited audience. Hulu is beside themselves because they get a few thousand page views, yet even the lowest rated network programs have audiences in the millions for every episode. This is no different than the wishful thinking that accompanies the small numbers associated with video downloading. If anything, Hulu's merely NBC Universal's way of further fragmenting an already balkanized landscape of downloading, on demand, and PPV options -- all of which require different devices, run different platforms, and have different DRM and payment policies.

Broadcasting and optical media are easy for consumers to understand, with unified standards, interoperability between devices, and content ubiquity (i.e., you don't need separate tuners for ABC and NBC, and you don't need different disc players for Warner and Disney movies). The downloading and on-demand market are nowhere near this state right now, and if anything, the landscape has gotten progressively messier as studios like NBC Universal dump iTunes in favor of starting up their own streaming service.

[Groundbeef]

[i]...you may now resume trolling with Pix

And you may continue to make statements about a service you have never used, seen, or heard of before this discusson began. I'd say you are more like Pix.

As I've used all the services in question (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, DVD, DVD Ripping, NetFlix Streaming, XBOX Live MarketPlace D/l [SD and HD], Streaming off my computer onto my TV), I'd say I'm pretty comfortable making opinions about all above.

But hey, opinons are like a**holes. Where apparently you are pulling yours from. Have a nice day.

[Kevio]

Without going to the trouble of doing the comparisons myself, I'm just trying to figure out whether it is possible to get the same quality from a download (labeled HD or otherwise) as you get from a standard definition DVD. I think it is a question sort of relevant to this thread. I haven't made any conclusions, just asked questions, did some math. Chill out.

[Groundbeef]

Without going to the trouble of doing the comparisons myself, I'm just trying to figure out whether it is possible to get the same quality from a download (labeled HD or otherwise) as you get from a standard definition DVD. I think it is a question sort of relevant to this thread. I haven't made any conclusions, just asked questions, did some math. Chill out.

On a pixel-pixel "comparison" the quality will never be equal per-se. However, on the visual side, depending upon the source, compression etc, it can be from "crappy" to quite good.

Netflix d/l "streams" look like crap on my TV. On a 15" monitor, it is acceptable. On a
50" plasma it is sh*t.

The HD or SD d/l from Microsoft, although not of the same size as a DVD, are excellent. The audio options are limited, but picture quality is excellent.

As I have said several times. For a HD purist, it is not "equal". For evaluation purposes (ie, do I really want to own this movies) it is an excellent way to evaluate a movie. I have not seen any ghosting/pixelation/or other digital noise relating to compression issues.

Math isn't all of it. On paper, you may not think it will be a good picture. You would need to actually view playback to make an accurate opinion on the quality.

As far as chilling out, I am. Suggesting someone is trolling like Pix doesn't help your case.

[Auricauricle]

It's nice being blinder than a bat with astygmatism. I just get a pait of glasses that is slightly off my recommended strength. The image is just off enough to trick me into thinking the image is "perfect". :D

[pixelthis]

You ARE a fvcking dumbass, you dumbass. The way you present your opinions, and that's all they are idiot, the way you think you're rubbing people's noses in your mind chilling predictions with your childish *I told you so* attitude when in actuality nobody really gives a rats ass what you think, is why you get the responses you do. DUMBASS.

Yeah, we know you're only joking. So am I dumbass. :rolleyes:

THE difference is I am joking.
YOU, on the other hand, are a joke.
And too "dumb" to know it.
PROMOTING a company that takes decent ideas and turns them into mediocre
CRAP SQUARED.
OH, and you spelled "farting" wrong(thats a "joke", BTW):1:

[Rich-n-Texas]

In a matter of two sentences you contradicted yourself.

There's a book called "How to Win Friends and influence People" by Dale Carnegie. You should read it sometime. Maybe it'll open your eyes and then you'll realize why I call you... DUMBASS.

[pixelthis]

In a matter of two sentences you contradicted yourself.

There's a book called "How to Win Friends and influence People" by Dale Carnegie. You should read it sometime. Maybe it'll open your eyes and then you'll realize why I call you... DUMBASS.

You certainly havent read it.
Thats one of the first new age type books, BTW.
meanwhile you need to read anything by Ayn Rand, harry brown, Milton Freeman,
etc.
Then you might understand why I quit trying to "win" friends long ago.
A friend such as yourself would be no prize.:1:

[nightflier]

Wooch, I wasn't talking about the backroom at the video store. I was referring to the fact that BB was not carrying movies that every other rental place was. It presented an image that they were censoring, whether that was real or just something the bean counters decided they could do, it doesn't change the possibility that this did hurt their bottom line. I remember reading quite a few magazine articles about it, so it seems to have been a general sentiment in many circles. Perhaps a few overly-protective parents may have found comfort in this, but I think that more renters did not. However you look at it, BB is seriously struggling now, so any move that could have hurt their bottom line should have been avoided.

I also think the growth of downloads and streaming content shouldn't be downplayed either. As I've made the case before, it's about creating a culture of people who are familiar and comfortable with it. Right now, that means offering free content, mostly TV shows and older movies, but once the interface and convenience is entrenched enough, this will grow to the major box-office releases. Face-it, this is really the fastest and most efficient way to get new movies to people - no physical disk distributing can be as fast. If the technology improves enough to support DVD sound and audio quality, that will be the watershed. It's just a prediction, but I'm willing to stand by it.

And I'm certainly not talking about putting a computer in the living room, even though that's also becoming more of a regular thing. I mentioned Hulu because of it's phenomenal growth (a lot more than a few thousand hits, BTW). Yes, it's primarily a computer interface, but once it becomes a feature on a manufacturer's set-top box, it should grow very fast. For example, one of the most popular hacks on the internet is to configure an AppleTV box to run Hulu. I imagine that the xBox and PS2/3 hacks are just as easy. The way I see it, there is either going to be a company that is going to integrate a Hulu-type service in the firmware of its box/player, or you'll soon be able to use it on any box/player that can run a web browser.

In either case, it's a market segment that is growing very fast, maybe not in revenue, but certainly in popularity. The fact is, Hulu is the type of service that offers free content, and an increasingly large library of content. If this content bridges the gap from the computer to the TV, it will be very hard for other for-fee services like Tivo and NetFlix to compete. As far as new movies, it's only a matter of time. Maybe it will be a two-tier service where the new content will be subscription-based, but the free service is a lot more attractive, easy to use, and fast than what any of the competitors are offering right now for free.

And if Hulu isn't the one to do it, there will be someone else to take its place. If there's one thing that Hulu's growth does demonstrate is that there's a demand for this type of service.

[Woochifer]

Wooch, I wasn't talking about the backroom at the video store. I was referring to the fact that BB was not carrying movies that every other rental place was. It presented an image that they were censoring, whether that was real or just something the bean counters decided they could do, it doesn't change the possibility that this did hurt their bottom line. I remember reading quite a few magazine articles about it, so it seems to have been a general sentiment in many circles. Perhaps a few overly-protective parents may have found comfort in this, but I think that more renters did not. However you look at it, BB is seriously struggling now, so any move that could have hurt their bottom line should have been avoided.

There is no such thing as a movie "that every other rental place" carries. Name a title that EVERY other video store carries that Blockbuster purposely excludes. You're using a strawman argument to accuse Blockbuster of censorship, which is not what they do.

Some people accuse them of censorship because they don't carry the "unrated" versions of movies. But, how is this censorship if the R-rated version that Blockbuster does carry is the actual theatrical cut?

The only actual example of censorship that I can cite is the video stores that carry so-called safe play DVDs -- DVDs that are specially encoded with skip stops that work on certain DVD players to edit out certain types of content.

Like I said, EVERY video store exercises editorial discretion in picking which titles they carry and which ones they don't. Aside from wide studio releases, there's no such thing as a title that every video store carries.


I also think the growth of downloads and streaming content shouldn't be downplayed either. As I've made the case before, it's about creating a culture of people who are familiar and comfortable with it. Right now, that means offering free content, mostly TV shows and older movies, but once the interface and convenience is entrenched enough, this will grow to the major box-office releases. Face-it, this is really the fastest and most efficient way to get new movies to people - no physical disk distributing can be as fast. If the technology improves enough to support DVD sound and audio quality, that will be the watershed. It's just a prediction, but I'm willing to stand by it.

Of course downloads can be downplayed given that their current revenue growth continues to lag the supposedly outmoded physical format of Blu-ray, and Blu-ray's revenue surpassed downloads and all PPV combined a long time ago.

Free content is just that, free. Major box office releases going out over the internet for free? Right.


And I'm certainly not talking about putting a computer in the living room, even though that's also becoming more of a regular thing. I mentioned Hulu because of it's phenomenal growth (a lot more than a few thousand hits, BTW). Yes, it's primarily a computer interface, but once it becomes a feature on a manufacturer's set-top box, it should grow very fast. For example, one of the most popular hacks on the internet is to configure an AppleTV box to run Hulu. I imagine that the xBox and PS2/3 hacks are just as easy. The way I see it, there is either going to be a company that is going to integrate a Hulu-type service in the firmware of its box/player, or you'll soon be able to use it on any box/player that can run a web browser.

And how many Apple TV owners hack their boxes to run Hulu? Your hypotheticals are ridiculous because the majority of people who buy set top boxes just want those things to work. They're not interested in hacking or programming or even knowing any of the technical details under the hood. If most households couldn't figure out how to program a VCR clock, then how do you expect them to start hacking the firmware on set top boxes?

The audience for streaming services is ridiculously minute compared to the size of the audience for broadcast services. So long as you have a landscape where the set top boxes have balkanized standards and access to programming, it will remain a niche for those thousands (as opposed to the millions who watch broadcast and optical media) willing to put up with all the hoops one needs to jump through. If all of this hodgepodge of different formats, pricing structures, and studio entanglements can be sorted out so that all of these devices can play or one device can play them, then I can see things shifting in a more profound way. But, that hasn't happened, and probably won't anytime soon.


In either case, it's a market segment that is growing very fast, maybe not in revenue, but certainly in popularity. The fact is, Hulu is the type of service that offers free content, and an increasingly large library of content. If this content bridges the gap from the computer to the TV, it will be very hard for other for-fee services like Tivo and NetFlix to compete. As far as new movies, it's only a matter of time. Maybe it will be a two-tier service where the new content will be subscription-based, but the free service is a lot more attractive, easy to use, and fast than what any of the competitors are offering right now for free.

Hulu is primarily a rebroadcasting venue for NBC Universal. Those programs are already bought and paid for by advertisers.

New movies? Are you claiming that the studios will put movies out onto the internet for free, before it goes into theaters, before it goes on sale on DVD/BD, before it gets sold for PPV services, before it gets broadcast on premium cable services? You mean, NBC Universal is going to produce a $100 million movie out and release it in such a that they cut out all of their most lucrative revenue sources in the process?

[nightflier]

Wooch, I'm saying that movies will have commercials. It's going to take some special arrangement to get this going for new releases, but Hulu is already showing older movies this way.

As far as the AppleTV setup, it's actually just a software install. But I think what's much more likely to make all happen is when set-top boxes, players, DVRs, and cable boxes can run a web browser without restrictions. That's just around the corner and is going to change this whole discussion.

I'm also not calling BR an outmoded physical technology. BR is very succesful right now, and that's just fine, it is what it is. What I am saying is that downloads and online streaming are much more popular than sales figures would suggest. With online content, it's much more about quantity than value, and that's an equation that lends itself much better to an advertising-driven business model, even if that's not to my liking (which it isn't), but it is what it is.

[Mr Peabody]

My first thought is the internet has always been about getting stuff for free, downloads. But when the music industry crushed Napster, there did evolve a host of service providers for paying customers. Not to say there still isn't plenty of illegal downloads of music and movies. I'm just saying put things in a nice tidy package and you never know what might happen.

Our BB carried unrated movies, they must have quietly changed the policy. I remember right after Snowdogs we wandered into BB and without knowing what it was about we picked up Showboat, which also starred Cubie Gooding Jr., my wife said she didn't see a rating, well we all sat around the TV and the kiddies had the popcorn, popped in the movie and bare naked breasts were showing right in the menu, so needless to say that got ejected quickly.

I personally wouldn't think streaming would be that big but that's based on how I do things. I guess people like the Netflix version well enough. But I didn't think mailing the movies would catch on either, so my crystal ball has static :)

[Worf101]

There is no such thing as a movie "that every other rental place" carries. Name a title that EVERY other video store carries that Blockbuster purposely excludes.

Unh Wooch, to be fair I ran into this a few years ago with a title in BlockBuster. I wanted to rent Sir Ben Kingsley's "Suspect Zero". It had been out for quite some time however my local BB decided that it was inappropriate and didn't get it for months later. Why I don't know. They also got "downrated" neutered versions of "Team America" and "Dirty Rotten Shame" because of explicit puppet sex and other things. So BB did/does put it's morals on my mind when there, not so with netflix.

Da Worfster

[Groundbeef]

Why I don't know. They also got "downrated" neutered versions of "Team America" and "Dirty Rotten Shame" because of explicit puppet sex and other things. So BB did/does put it's morals on my mind when there, not so with netflix.

Da Worfster

:yikes: You are into some freaky stuff.

[Woochifer]

Wooch, I'm saying that movies will have commercials. It's going to take some special arrangement to get this going for new releases, but Hulu is already showing older movies this way.

Remember that those older movies have already gone through their revenue windows for the theatrical run, DVD release, broadcast release, and PPV release. The studios have already pocketed the major revenue streams. There no advertising deal out there big enough to make up for those revenues on a new release. It's wishful thinking to presume that a studio will just upload a $100 million movie production onto the internet, and get more revenue through advertisements than a theatrical and home video release.

If anything, the future of video streaming very well might be tied to cable/satellite subscriptions. There are talks right now of integrating sites such as Hulu into a "TV Everywhere" initiative where the major broadcast channels will stream all of their content
online, but only provide full access to those who subscribe to those cable/satellite service. The article below indicates that the major networks are looking at how online services for music and newspaper content have fared financially, and don't like what they see. Last thing they want to do is undermine their current financial base.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2009/03/tv_everywhereas_long_as_pay_fo.php


As far as the AppleTV setup, it's actually just a software install. But I think what's much more likely to make all happen is when set-top boxes, players, DVRs, and cable boxes can run a web browser without restrictions. That's just around the corner and is going to change this whole discussion.

Have you ever tried to use a web browser from within a set-top box? I've done that with a PS3, and it's convoluted and cumbersome trying to do anything using either a game controller or remote. An average consumer wants something that will work with a simple remote, not something that's optimized for a keyboard and mouse.


I'm also not calling BR an outmoded physical technology. BR is very succesful right now, and that's just fine, it is what it is. What I am saying is that downloads and online streaming are much more popular than sales figures would suggest. With online content, it's much more about quantity than value, and that's an equation that lends itself much better to an advertising-driven business model, even if that's not to my liking (which it isn't), but it is what it is.

And I'm saying that until downloads and streaming services can demonstrate a clear path to financial viability, it will only continue to work on the fringes and serve a niche audience, while the audience and revenue continue to come from broadcast and media sales. If anything, Hulu is basically a 24/7 infomercial for NBC Universal's programming, because shows that NBC put on Hulu have managed to increase their broadcast audience.

[Woochifer]

Unh Wooch, to be fair I ran into this a few years ago with a title in BlockBuster. I wanted to rent Sir Ben Kingsley's "Suspect Zero". It had been out for quite some time however my local BB decided that it was inappropriate and didn't get it for months later. Why I don't know. They also got "downrated" neutered versions of "Team America" and "Dirty Rotten Shame" because of explicit puppet sex and other things. So BB did/does put it's morals on my mind when there, not so with netflix.

Da Worfster

The question is whether that purchasing decision was implemented across the entire chain, or if it was a store or regional manager that made the call.

I recall that Team America was an R-rated movie, and the DVD was also available in an "unrated" version. The R-rated version is the actual theatrical cut, and Blockbuster's policy is that they do not order the "unrated" versions. It's not really a "downrated" version they ordered, given that the R-rated version is what played in theaters. It's more the case that the unrated version is "uprated."

[nightflier]

Wooch, someone told me today that there is actually a TV available with Hulu built-in. The person didn't know which brand, but that ought to change things.

Regarding the PS3 running a browser, I wonder if all that difficulty isn't tied to Sony's obsession with protecting their other sources of revenue. They certainly aren't beyond hobling product to protect other product lines, after all. Maybe they see unfetered web access as a threat?

I also disagree with the whole argument that a revenue stream makes a product viable. That's the same line of thinking that the record companies tried to hang onto when they did everything they could to kill music downloads. And they are still at it, suing old grannies and young teen-agers as well as less insidious reactions like trying to kill Apple's efforts to lower prices and increase DRM-free selection. The fact is that no protectionist business model can compete against technological progress. Technology always wins.

I know it's discomforting to think that the business model we've become so accustomed to is being challenged and could very well go away alltogether. But that's the effect of technology. Napster, for all it's evil, changed the music industry permanently, and the record companies still don't know how to make the same amount of money that they did with physical media. Maybe they won't make those kinds of proficts anymore. In a retracting economy, this is entirely possible. I'm going to guess that the movie industry is in for the same change.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Wooch, someone told me today that there is actually a TV available with Hulu built-in. The person didn't know which brand, but that ought to change things.
Only if it's really true. A Google search returns nothing indicating there's a TV with built-in Hulu. Nothing in Wikipedia either. Sounds kinda far-fetched to me anyway...

[nightflier]

I'll find out what the real story is. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on their part.

[Feanor]

... over what is a matter of taste or habit. :frown2:

I won't miss BB at all. Selection too limited, prices too high for either rentals or purchase. Virtually eveytime I've walked in ...

If I have a particular film in mind, they either don't carry it or it's out
If I hope to browse and spot something, I can't find anything worth the rental cost or time to watch. (OK, my indecisiveness is a problem here.)I'm not an instant gratification guy, so neither BB or pay-for-download are appealing versus the slow but steady Netflix/Zip.ca approach. Zip.ca solves three problems for me; (1) they have a huge selection; (2) I don't have to decide to watch movie A vs. movie B tonight, I just put both on my Zip List; (c) their rental price is right.

[pixelthis]

Only if it's really true. A Google search returns nothing indicating there's a TV with built-in Hulu. Nothing in Wikipedia either. Sounds kinda far-fetched to me anyway...

All you have to do is plug your computer into your TV.
I watch HULU on my 42" all the time, with my outboard sound card sending the sound to my system.
No big thang really.:1:

[pixelthis]

There was a news report (forget where) where a guy canceled his cable, now he watches all of his shows off of the web.
Said that he didnt really see paying for cable when all of his shows could be gotten off of the web for free.
Wave of the future, wave of the future:1:

[nightflier]

Well it turns out that the Hulu TV wasn't a commercial product after all, it was a hack using the Samsung A750, I believe. But I did run across this web page with some interesting info:

http://www.inquisitr.com/14621/the-future-of-television-has-arrived-ces-internet-tv-roundup/

I think that the real issue isn't technology but some lisencing nonsense. In that case, I'm betting on the technology winning out. Let's hope so. All people want is a TV that can browse the web with a simple remote-controllable interface (not a keyboard). All the pieces are there, it's just a matter of enough hacking to occur so that the manufacturers have no choice but to give the people what they want.

[pixelthis]

Well it turns out that the Hulu TV wasn't a commercial product after all, it was a hack using the Samsung A750, I believe. But I did run across this web page with some interesting info:

http://www.inquisitr.com/14621/the-future-of-television-has-arrived-ces-internet-tv-roundup/

I think that the real issue isn't technology but some lisencing nonsense. In that case, I'm betting on the technology winning out. Let's hope so. All people want is a TV that can browse the web with a simple remote-controllable interface (not a keyboard). All the pieces are there, it's just a matter of enough hacking to occur so that the manufacturers have no choice but to give the people what they want.

You're going to need a keyboard.
INTERNET has to happen in order for the dream of interactive tv to become a reality.
Its basically VOD, interactive TV, and online shopping all in one.
This is a major sea change, one that is probably going to be accelerated by the current unpleasantness.
NETWORK TV IS dead(dying as we speak)
CABLE COMPANY, the new internet service provider
OTA (over the air) how your computer talks to the web, how your ambulance company
talks to its ambulances, what old codgers sigh and fondly recall as "free TV".:1:

[Woochifer]

Wooch, someone told me today that there is actually a TV available with Hulu built-in. The person didn't know which brand, but that ought to change things.

For now, it's primarily set-top boxes that are trying to integrate online services such as Hulu into their products. But, the cautionary tale is that the content providers hold all the cards. I was just reading about how some set-top box manufacturer had been touting its integration with Hulu, but talks with NBCU about licensing fees broke down and Hulu access got cut off to that company's set-top boxes.

Hulu is a proprietary service, with NBCU holding all the keys. They let people embed content and play movies/TV shows over set-top boxes because they ALLOW it. Hulu's MO over the past year has been to grab as many eyeballs as possible, and spread content as far across the web (and set-top devices) as possible. They've got one of the bigger audiences on the web, and you can bet that they're now looking to cash in. If you start seeing Hulu access on TVs, it will be because the manufacturer is paying for it.

And if that TV Week article I posted is true, you can bet that they're also looking to milk the cable/satellite companies as well. If that "TV Everywhere" initiative is successful, then you'll start seeing more of the content behind a subscription wall.


Regarding the PS3 running a browser, I wonder if all that difficulty isn't tied to Sony's obsession with protecting their other sources of revenue. They certainly aren't beyond hobling product to protect other product lines, after all. Maybe they see unfetered web access as a threat?

Why is it always some conspiracy with you for a company to want to make a profit from what they develop and manufacture?

The PS3 web browser is a PITA for one simple reason -- a game controller (or Bluetooth remote) is a poor substitute for a keyboard and mouse. Web browsers are built around keyboards and mice, and most web content is optimized around browsers. That's the same reason why every effort to integrate web browsing with TVs has failed. Simple as that.


I also disagree with the whole argument that a revenue stream makes a product viable. That's the same line of thinking that the record companies tried to hang onto when they did everything they could to kill music downloads. And they are still at it, suing old grannies and young teen-agers as well as less insidious reactions like trying to kill Apple's efforts to lower prices and increase DRM-free selection. The fact is that no protectionist business model can compete against technological progress. Technology always wins.

There's been plenty of technologies that have failed precisely because they had no revenue stream. If Hulu does not have a means of making money (whether directly or indirectly), then why exist at all? Hulu is less about technology than about marketing media content. And producing that content costs money.

Right now, Hulu is loaded with "free" content because NBCU is trying to build up the audience numbers. Plus, it's promotion for network viewing, which IS supposed by ad dollars. Hulu would not even exist if not for the fact that NBCU owns both the content AND the distribution.

Once they get people hooked and build up the audience, then you bet they will try to make money off of it by walling off portions of it exclusively for subscribers and/or cable/satellite users. This is no different than when websites like Match.com were free for a while, until they built up huge numbers of users and converted the site into a subscription service.


I know it's discomforting to think that the business model we've become so accustomed to is being challenged and could very well go away alltogether. But that's the effect of technology. Napster, for all it's evil, changed the music industry permanently, and the record companies still don't know how to make the same amount of money that they did with physical media. Maybe they won't make those kinds of proficts anymore. In a retracting economy, this is entirely possible. I'm going to guess that the movie industry is in for the same change.

The part that you're overlooking is that producing TV programs and movies costs money, and lots of it. This isn't like the music industry where recordings can be independently produced and distributed on relatively low budgets.

Even low budget indie movies made with digital HD camcorders will cost more than an average year's salary just to produce (unless you believe that everybody should work for free). No matter how the distribution technology advances, the bottomline remains that a revenue stream from somewhere has to recoup the investment made in the production costs. If you cut out the most lucrative revenue sources in favor of a far less lucrative source, then how do you pay for productions in the pipeline?

Ad-supported sites like Hulu only work because NBCU is willing to subsidize the startup costs, and use the site as an infomercial for their broadcast programs (where the bigger money is made). At some point down the road, they will most definitely explore ways of making money off of the site, since they control the content.

[Mr Peabody]

Look at it like this, why would NBC create something to put themselves out of business or transition to another business? it wouldn't make sense. What they are doing if anything is giving those who want it an alternative to cables "On Demand". On Demand let's you watch a show after it has premiered. It's good if your out and missed your show and don't have DVR/TiVo. The whole Net TV has came and gone, I don't think there's anything that will revive it into anything more than a nitch product. With that being said it seems a lot of things are splintering off into nitches. Do you all notice standards going by the wayside? I think this is a bad thing, the loss of standardization I mean. If the internet is to be the pipeline it's going to have to win the bandwidth race, in my opinion. But some seem to think quality don't matter.

What I think would be cool and probably bigger than trying to offer second showings of current programs would be to offer people an archieve of old series. Like one thread was talking about the Monkeys and Partridge Family, this makes you nastalgic, you go and watch a couple episodes from your "on demand" what ever makes it available. Tune in Gilligan, Get Smart, WKRP in Cincinnati etc. Hell, who'd watch current TV any more? Well, I'd still have to DVR my 24 and Sarah Connor. I'm sure my wife couldn't live without Dr. House.

[Rich-n-Texas]

The former CEO (I think) of Hollywood Vidieo now owns a 6% stake in Blockbuster, and he commented that he doesn't think they'll be filing for bankruptcy any time soon.

Minus one pix.

[nightflier]

Why is it always some conspiracy with you for a company to want to make a profit from what they develop and manufacture?
...

Right now, Hulu is loaded with "free" content because NBCU is trying to build up the audience numbers.... Once they get people hooked and build up the audience, then you bet they will try to make money off of it by walling off portions of it exclusively for subscribers and/or cable/satellite users....At some point down the road, they will most definitely explore ways of making money off of the site, since they control the content.

Sounds to me like you're just as much of a conspiracy hound. Now I'm not suggesting that Hulu isn't going to do this, but let's dispense with the double standard.


Ad-supported sites like Hulu only work because NBCU is willing to subsidize the startup costs, and use the site as an infomercial for their broadcast programs (where the bigger money is made).

I think you're missing the whole point. Many of the most popular free & open source projects started out because a company footed the startup costs. NBCU is just following the same model.

And as far as the production expenses, that's still manageable if you consider how large of an audience Hulu could generate. The way I see it, Hulu does several things very well:

- it hurts the competition for paid TV services like Tivo and VOD.
- it generates tremendous momentum because it is free
- it creates a willing participant base comfortable enough to transition from the keyboard to the remote

It's a numbers game, and with enough viewers, the ad dollars will pay off. Imagine for a minute that one of the big music distributors had offered free 32Kb, or even 64Kb MP3 downloads of all their music with the pitch that to get CD quality, people had to buy the album. If that would have happened, there would never have been a Napster or iTunes. Hulu is doing the same - it's lower quality, but it's enough to get people hooked. Once they are, they can pitch BR disks or higher-quality content.

And I'm only talking about new releases. I say this because I think any TV show that has already aired and any movie that's already been on DVD for a few months is worth a fraction of it's new/fresh price. In digital form it's worth even less. Maybe what Hulu is doing is reminding us that we've been paying way to much for old content and that it's time for the consumers to expect, demand, and receive fair prices. Why should we pay such high prices for digital versions of music, TV, and movies we have already seen and most likely already own in another format? Times are changing, and Hulu may very well be the first one of the big media companies to comprehend the true meaning of the writing on the wall (because it's been there for a while).

What most Americans just can't get their head around is that there are ways to do things without having to generate profit. Not everything has to grow financially, make investors rich, and become the next wall-street success story. There are many worthwhile endeavors that will do just fine if they just break even, or even run at a loss. As long as it provides a great-enough benefit to enough people, then it's been worth the effort.

Now I don't know if Hulu will do that - frankly I'm not even sure if they know where this is going - but that still doesn't mean the concept is dead. I've had countless debates with others here about this very same idea and every time the conversation turns into a pointless cackle littered with insults. But take a look around. The economic profit-generating system we have all come to accept as the standard is burning up all around us and what is rising out of the ashes is a lot more about keeping people working, fairly compensating every employee (not just the CEOs), and reversing privatization in favor of government ownership.

This is because those values are seen as stabilizing and sustainable. So maybe Hulu is onto something. Maybe it learned a few things from Linux, Apache, and Ubuntu. Maybe these can coexist with private businesses and help each other out along the way. I just read another article that suggested that the music industry has all but lost its battle against piracy - who's to say the same will not come true for video? And as far as movies requiring Waterworld-like budgets to survive, I the risks of flopping are too great for such a business model to sustain itself. That movies need to cost so much sounds as hollow as the cries of yacht builders against the luxury tax. Prices are coming down in every industry and those companies that resit the price-drops will be put out of business by those that resist a little less. That is what happens in a retracting economy.

[Woochifer]

Sounds to me like you're just as much of a conspiracy hound. Now I'm not suggesting that Hulu isn't going to do this, but let's dispense with the double standard.

Unlike you, I'm not being a conspiracy hound because I cited an article that indicates NBCU has had discussions with the cable/satellite companies to see what kind of a fee they can get in return for exclusive access to certain features and programming. I'm working within the realm of reality. Cable/satellite companies are looking for ways to retain their subscribers. Cable/satellite companies are betting that expanding programming access to include online content is one way of keeping subscribers.

Look at it this way, both sides have much to gain through this kind of arrangement. Cable/satellite companies get to offer their subscribers web access to channels they get at home, along with exclusive access to content. NBCU already gets revenue from cable/satellite companies for Bravo, USA, Sci Fi, MSNBC, CNBC, A&E, History, Weather Channel, Oxygen, and others. This would expand on that. All the while, NBCU can continue to develop Hulu and sell access to hardware manufacturers and other parties. Having exclusive access to certain portions of the Hulu sites adds value to a cable/satellite subscription, and that's what they need to retain their subscriber base.

ESPN360 is built around the same model in that they allow access to their free content (which includes live sporting events) only if your ISP has paid to license the site. I can access the site because I use AT&T, whereas my neighbor who's on Comcast cannot access the site. I know somebody who wants to cancel his internet cable account and switch to AT&T because he wants to watch Nebraska football at home (since ABC's west coast markets rarely show the Big 12 games locally). Doesn't matter to him that his download speed with AT&T will be only half of what he gets with Comcast. Content is king.


I think you're missing the whole point. Many of the most popular free & open source projects started out because a company footed the startup costs. NBCU is just following the same model.

Hulu is not an open source project, and there is no GPL on the content. They're building up the site because it directs viewers to the main network, where the ad revenue is. Once they have the viewership, then they got many different options, including selling access to the site to the highest bidders.


It's a numbers game, and with enough viewers, the ad dollars will pay off. Imagine for a minute that one of the big music distributors had offered free 32Kb, or even 64Kb MP3 downloads of all their music with the pitch that to get CD quality, people had to buy the album. If that would have happened, there would never have been a Napster or iTunes. Hulu is doing the same - it's lower quality, but it's enough to get people hooked. Once they are, they can pitch BR disks or higher-quality content.

And the numbers on Hulu pale compared to what the network generates, in terms of both audience and revenue.

If the music companies offered their content totally unrestricted for free, their revenue model would have collapsed 10 years ago. You mistakenly assume that most people will pay to obtain a higher quality version of something they otherwise get for free.

Hulu is not the same thing because a TV series is not the same thing as a music album. TV series can be aired online, because the network has new episodes coming out every week. Streaming the episodes online serves as promotion for upcoming episodes, and that's what has bourne out in the ratings books.


And I'm only talking about new releases. I say this because I think any TV show that has already aired and any movie that's already been on DVD for a few months is worth a fraction of it's new/fresh price. In digital form it's worth even less. Maybe what Hulu is doing is reminding us that we've been paying way to much for old content and that it's time for the consumers to expect, demand, and receive fair prices. Why should we pay such high prices for digital versions of music, TV, and movies we have already seen and most likely already own in another format? Times are changing, and Hulu may very well be the first one of the big media companies to comprehend the true meaning of the writing on the wall (because it's been there for a while).

And by putting the content onto the web before any other medium means cutting out the revenue legs from under the industry. You're right in that a first run is when the content is worth the most. But, the web is nowhere near the most lucrative revenue source, and has only a fraction of the audience of broadcasting, movie theaters, and home video purchases.

On a movie release, there's no ad revenue stream big enough to make up for what studios can get from box office and home video sales. That's why commercial broadcast of movies is so far down on the pecking order. Unless people will actually pay to view a movie through Hulu or some other streaming site, it can generate nowhere near what other sources have proven they can generate. The writing on the wall as you refer to it is that the web is a powerful promotional mechanism, and broadcasters are using it to aggregate an audience that has otherwise become more and more fractured.


What most Americans just can't get their head around is that there are ways to do things without having to generate profit. Not everything has to grow financially, make investors rich, and become the next wall-street success story. There are many worthwhile endeavors that will do just fine if they just break even, or even run at a loss. As long as it provides a great-enough benefit to enough people, then it's been worth the effort.

A noble notion, until you look at who ultimately owns Hulu -- GE. Think they're more about "worthwhile endeavors" than generating profits for the next quarterly report? Isn't Jack Welch the CEO who claims that he discovered the gravy train of outsourcing to India?


Now I don't know if Hulu will do that - frankly I'm not even sure if they know where this is going - but that still doesn't mean the concept is dead. I've had countless debates with others here about this very same idea and every time the conversation turns into a pointless cackle littered with insults. But take a look around. The economic profit-generating system we have all come to accept as the standard is burning up all around us and what is rising out of the ashes is a lot more about keeping people working, fairly compensating every employee (not just the CEOs), and reversing privatization in favor of government ownership.

Like I said, to NBCU, Hulu is nothing more than just another commodity where they will build up the value, and ultimately decide how best to exploit it. Whether that's spinning it off, using it as a promotional mechanism for NBC shows, or trying to turn it into a revenue cash cow, Hulu is controlled by a company that embodies the standard (after all, they're one of the companies that make up the Dow Jones index). You can argue all the altruistic possibilities you want, but so long as Hulu is part of the GE corporate family, that's all just a bunch of happy talk.


This is because those values are seen as stabilizing and sustainable. So maybe Hulu is onto something. Maybe it learned a few things from Linux, Apache, and Ubuntu. Maybe these can coexist with private businesses and help each other out along the way. I just read another article that suggested that the music industry has all but lost its battle against piracy - who's to say the same will not come true for video? And as far as movies requiring Waterworld-like budgets to survive, I the risks of flopping are too great for such a business model to sustain itself. That movies need to cost so much sounds as hollow as the cries of yacht builders against the luxury tax. Prices are coming down in every industry and those companies that resit the price-drops will be put out of business by those that resist a little less. That is what happens in a retracting economy.

Check your numbers. The box office numbers are way up this year. This is because during recessionary times, consumers tend to forego vacations and more expensive entertainment options in favor of staying close to home and going to the movies. This is in line with historical trends where the moviegoing audience increases during recessions. Also, if you combine Blu-ray and DVD sales, home video sales have been on the rise.

And as far as big budget movies go, look at the revenues. Which movies are the ones that generate the highest box office returns? Generally, it's the big budget $100+ million movies. A megahit like The Dark Knight can by itself deliver the entire annual target profit returns for a studio. Think that putting that movie on the web could've generated $1 billion in ad revenue? I don't think so.

[pixelthis]

The former CEO (I think) of Hollywood Vidieo now owns a 6% stake in Blockbuster, and he commented that he doesn't think they'll be filing for bankruptcy any time soon.

Minus one pix.

I never said they would.
At least not yet
The video store was created out of nessesity, and is grossly inefficent.
The markets hate that.
Oil to make the disc, the package, to put the whole thing together, transport it to the store,
oil to drive to the store, drive home, and back, coal or something else to power the store,
oil for employees to drive to the store, etc.
When all you really have to do is push a button on your cable or sat box to get the program.
Because THAT is what you are buying, information.
OIL IS CHEAP NOW BUT NOT FOR LONG, and in todays tight economy video stores will be the first to go.
They are going now if you will pay attention.:1:

[nightflier]

OK, fine, then Hulu is following the shareware model, like PkZip and those types. The problem with that model is that very few of these succeeded once they implemented the bait & switch. If Hulu does go down that road, it will likely loose a lot of viewers. The reason people on the web love it is because it is free.

In contrast, many applications that went from shareware/commercial to open source thrived, and are gaining momentum in this economy. Maybe Hulu's only raison-d'être is to kill off the competition (Tivo, VDO, Vudu, etc.) and once it accomplishes that, it may also just go away. If the corporate heads are indeed the capitalist profit-uber-ales types, well then I really don't think they know how to make Hulu a cash cow either. I can only hope they spin it off into an open-source project or that someone in the open source community develops something similar when they pull the plug.


during recessionary times, consumers tend to forego vacations and more expensive entertainment options in favor of staying close to home and going to the movies.

Well then does it also not follow that during recessionary times people opt for the less expensive home entertainment options too? Hence, they'll choose Hulu over Tivo, rentals over owning, DVD over BR, and the less expensive HT gear over the more expensive gear. This would go a long way to explaining which businesses are thriving now. It would also suggest that downloads will increase and physical media will decrease. So following that same logic, Hulu will continue to chip away at DVD and BR.

To bring this back around to the original topic, consumers will also skip the B&M stores like Blockbuster and go with the more hip and all-online option of Netflix, which is precisely what we're seeing. Yes BB had the online sign-up for their mail-order service, but Netflix was way better and offers downloads now, too.


And as far as big budget movies go, look at the revenues. Which movies are the ones that generate the highest box office returns? Generally, it's the big budget $100+ million movies. A megahit like The Dark Knight can by itself deliver the entire annual target profit returns for a studio. Think that putting that movie on the web could've generated $1 billion in ad revenue? I don't think so.

But what if it flops? That's a considerable risk. I'm going to guess that those kinds of numbers will become the exception rather than the rule and could eventually go away all together. At some point the insurance company that's left holding that bag for the next Terminator movie, is going to say, you know, Mr. Cameron, not this time. Those kinds of expenses are entirely out of tune with the world we now find ourselves in. Don't believe me? Look at how much attendance at sports venues has dropped - sports is supposed to be recession proof, right? Maybe movies aren't there yet, but they will get there too.

Then there's the moral issue. I hate to do this to such a popular movie, but there's a moral cost here. What if The Dark Night had never happened and that $100M had been put to use for a good cause, like orphanages, stem cell research, saving 10K jobs at GM, or whatever. Is that worth more than $100M in the long run? Probably. Yes, I know I'll probably get shafted for saying this, but I for one would have gladly traded the film for one of these. OK, too much of an offense? Then how many people would have traded the last Indiana Jones movie, instead? Still too offensive? OK, how about King Kong? My point is that sooner or later the ridiculously obnoxious price-tags of many of these movies will hit home. We'll probably still have some successes, but we'll also have more Waterworlds.

[Mr Peabody]

Video stores weren't created out of necessity, they were like any other service, there to make money. Actually, all the first places I rented from had movie rental as a side item to create more traffic and possibly bring in more money off the service.

[pixelthis]

Video stores weren't created out of necessity, they were like any other service, there to make money. Actually, all the first places I rented from had movie rental as a side item to create more traffic and possibly bring in more money off the service.

Before video rental there was no way except for laser (expensive) to get movies
into the home.
The early phase you talk about didnt last long, in my college town a dozen video stores popped up overnight, some charging fifty dollar membership fees, some more.
But there are more choices now, cable, VOD, the net, etc.:1:

[Mr Peabody]

We got movies in the house for free, it was called network TV.

[Woochifer]

OK, fine, then Hulu is following the shareware model, like PkZip and those types. The problem with that model is that very few of these succeeded once they implemented the bait & switch. If Hulu does go down that road, it will likely loose a lot of viewers. The reason people on the web love it is because it is free.

It's free only because it leads to somewhere else that does have a revenue stream, and in the meantime, all the traffic to the site builds up the equity value of the site. It leaves NBCU with multiple options, all of which they can make money off of.


In contrast, many applications that went from shareware/commercial to open source thrived, and are gaining momentum in this economy. Maybe Hulu's only raison-d'être is to kill off the competition (Tivo, VDO, Vudu, etc.) and once it accomplishes that, it may also just go away. If the corporate heads are indeed the capitalist profit-uber-ales types, well then I really don't think they know how to make Hulu a cash cow either. I can only hope they spin it off into an open-source project or that someone in the open source community develops something similar when they pull the plug.

Again, you're trying to jam this open source analogy into a market that's inherently protective of its intellectual property. How can something like Hulu spin off into an open source project if the programming is all held under lock and key by the rights holders? It's nothing more than another YouTube clone without programming.

NBCU is looking for cash flow, because the potential is there. Like I said before, NBCU is shopping Hulu around to the cable/satellite companies because there's a buck to be made there, and mutual interest on both sides. Cable/satellite companies need to keep their paid customers from canceling service, and NBCU has a media property that can give the cable/satellite companies that incentive and increase the revenues over what they receive from those service providers.




Nope. You're ignoring the market information that I posted, which indicates that in recessionary times, people will spend more on entertainment options that are close to home. They will spend more on movies, and spend more on their satellite/cable TV, while spending less on other things. Notice how computer sales have plummeted?

People who choose Hulu are those few that actually want to watch TV programs through their computer. Why do I say few? Well, an academic study that just came out last week indicated that when tracking people's actual viewing habits, the study found that more than 98% of TV program viewing is still done while watching TVs (rather than computers or portable devices), and more than 75% of TV program viewing is done while watching LIVE TV rather than recordings. The conclusion of that report is that viewing preference surveys that do not track TV program viewing in real time, have grossly overestimated the actual demand for on-demand TV, PPV, downloading, and online streaming. And this finding is very consistent with the market data that shows things like Blu-ray sales growth and revenues far outpacing downloads and PPV options.

[QUOTE=nightflier]But what if it flops? That's a considerable risk. I'm going to guess that those kinds of numbers will become the exception rather than the rule and could eventually go away all together. At some point the insurance company that's left holding that bag for the next Terminator movie, is going to say, you know, Mr. Cameron, not this time. Those kinds of expenses are entirely out of tune with the world we now find ourselves in. Don't believe me? Look at how much attendance at sports venues has dropped - sports is supposed to be recession proof, right? Maybe movies aren't there yet, but they will get there too.

How are movie budgets out of line with "the world we now find ourselves in" if movie attendance has gone way up as the economy has gone south? (again, try reading my posts) It costs a lot more to go to a sporting event than a movie, and it's the higher priced entertainment options that have gotten hit the hardest. You can hypothesize that movies "will get there too," but that's nothing more than an uneducated guess that goes against the actual revenue data and the historical trends where movie attendance tends to spike during recessions.


Then there's the moral issue. I hate to do this to such a popular movie, but there's a moral cost here. What if The Dark Night had never happened and that $100M had been put to use for a good cause, like orphanages, stem cell research, saving 10K jobs at GM, or whatever. Is that worth more than $100M in the long run? Probably. Yes, I know I'll probably get shafted for saying this, but I for one would have gladly traded the film for one of these. OK, too much of an offense? Then how many people would have traded the last Indiana Jones movie, instead? Still too offensive? OK, how about King Kong? My point is that sooner or later the ridiculously obnoxious price-tags of many of these movies will hit home. We'll probably still have some successes, but we'll also have more Waterworlds.

And what if that money had been dumped into wars or funding narco terrorists (and isn't that what recreational drug use essentially does)? There's multiple sides to every presumption over where resources are supposed to go, and what represents a "good cause." Fact of the matter is that the movie industry in itself is an employment center that generates jobs and supports people who can in turn use their income on whatever they consider "good causes."

And your rant here once again ignores the point that I was making, which is if you cut out the most lucrative revenue sources from a movie or TV production, then what pays for the programs? And if you choose to put a movie into a freeware/open source market, then how do you replace the $1 billion in ticket sales on a hit movie like The Dark Knight? Movies are not made for free y'know.

What you consider "ridiculously obnoxious" price tags, the studios consider an investment. All you have to do is look at which movies make the most money, and generate the highest return on investment. The movie industry ain't a charity, and the buying public ain't saints. Whatever they don't spend on movies would go towards other diversions, worthy or artistic or otherwise.

[Mr Peabody]

We don't watch TV any more in favor of making shadow characters on the wall using a desk lamp as projector. I'm sure some of those recreational drugs would enhance the experience but for now it's just imagination or insanity.

[pixelthis]

We don't watch TV any more in favor of making shadow characters on the wall using a desk lamp as projector. I'm sure some of those recreational drugs would enhance the experience but for now it's just imagination or insanity.

Sounds better than some of the network fare out there.
You know, the nets are getting slammed just like everybody else, which means more and more cheap reality BS and cutting the budget on remaining shows.
Its fun watching the budget effects on current shows.
Knight rider, a guilty pleasure, used to have a huge base with a bunch of geeks,
a security chief, etc. Looked great in HD.
Then an older version called KARR came in and killed half the cast and burned out the HQ.
Now its a couple of geeks with a few laptops, and the background is mostly dark.
Meanwhile, Deal or no Deal has just disapeared.
Howie Mandel is working out his contract on "Howie does it", a mediocre candid camera rip off.
This keeps up, pretty soon you're gonna turn on the tube and see nothing but hand
puppets(which would be an improvement sometimes):1:

[Mr Peabody]

FOX has some good stuff still. 24 came back with a very good season. I started getting into Terminator the Sara Connor Chronicles. Now that I have a friend of mine told me they are slated to be cancelled. A couple of their other shows look interesting but I only have so much time. My wife is into House. I watched a couple with her and it wasn't bad but after a few shows you see the formula.

Any way Pix where have you been lately? You haven't invaded another forum have you? :)

[pixelthis]

FOX has some good stuff still. 24 came back with a very good season. I started getting into Terminator the Sara Connor Chronicles. Now that I have a friend of mine told me they are slated to be cancelled. A couple of their other shows look interesting but I only have so much time. My wife is into House. I watched a couple with her and it wasn't bad but after a few shows you see the formula.

Any way Pix where have you been lately? You haven't invaded another forum have you? :)

Nope, just dont have anything new to contribute, so I just respond to others posts.
And of course they are canceling the terminator, its one of the best on TV.
The two parter concerning the USS JIMMY CARTER was inspired.
Butu the world is in a mess, I CANT AFFORD ANY NEW TOYS,
the govt morphed into a collectivised state overnight, with almost daily broadcasts
from maximum leader, real life is all of a sudden a lot more interesting than any movie.
One thing that is paticulary distressing is that I HAVE LOST MY MUSIC.
In my teens I hardly watched movies and TV, too busy, and times have come where I couldnt focus long enough to get into any kind of film.
But I have always loved music, and its gotten me thru some hard times.
And I STILL LIKE IT, tune into palladia, etc, but just sitting and listening to music
has fallen by the wayside for some reason.
I have a lot of new music that I have only listened to a few times, great stuff,
but my mind wanders.
Music is what gets me thru hard times, times have to be very hard to distract me from something I have loved for fourty years.
Dont know if its an age thing or what.
With stores closing right and left, friends getting the axe, it just seems kinda trivial somehow.:1:

[nightflier]

It's free only because it leads to somewhere else that does have a revenue stream, and in the meantime, all the traffic to the site builds up the equity value of the site. It leaves NBCU with multiple options, all of which they can make money off of.

That's still only speculation. They have as yet not made any changes to the formula and are still only generating revenue through ads. Nothing has changed yet and I haven't seen any evidence of the bait-n-switch you're talking about.


Again, you're trying to jam this open source analogy into a market that's inherently protective of its intellectual property.

Maybe it's time people actually paid attention to Open Source. It has gained considerable momentum in the last year. Just because the audio-video market is so protective of IP, doesn't mean it's going to be able to keep it up. I'm seeing quite a bit of evidence that suggests that the profit model they've relied on only works in isolated markets. Moreover, the effort to protect these markets isn't succeeding: P2P is still growing, DRM-free initiatives are also growing, there's considerable interest in projects like CAFE, the Open Audio/Music License, and the Open Video Project. Likewise, piracy, for all it's evils is still the most popular source of music and video. For example, something like 99% of all music in China is pirated and they represent not only 1/4 the world's population, but also the largest number of internet users of any country. I'd say that the defense of IP is very much threatened.


How can something like Hulu spin off into an open source project if the programming is all held under lock and key by the rights holders? It's nothing more than another YouTube clone without programming.

I'm talking about the interface. As popular as it is, it will either be spun off, open-sourced or copied. As far as programming, Hulu could still allow other companies and products, even open source ones, access to its servers where the programming resides. Since the programming includes the ads, they would still be getting paid.


NBCU is looking for cash flow, because the potential is there. Like I said before, NBCU is shopping Hulu around to the cable/satellite companies because there's a buck to be made there, and mutual interest on both sides. Cable/satellite companies need to keep their paid customers from canceling service, and NBCU has a media property that can give the cable/satellite companies that incentive and increase the revenues over what they receive from those service providers.

Even if a cable/sat provider did sign-on, I doubt that they would be able to charge extra for it, since it's offered for free on the web. Again, the only revenue stream there is ads, as I've said before.


Nope. You're ignoring the market information that I posted, which indicates that in recessionary times, people will spend more on entertainment options that are close to home. They will spend more on movies, and spend more on their satellite/cable TV, while spending less on other things. Notice how computer sales have plummeted?

You're only pulling from the data that which supports your argument. It's also true that in recessionary times people opt for the less expensive movies, less expensive equipment, and less expensive rental options. The "rise" that you're referring to is actually at the expense of the next more expensive option, and not necessarily an independent rise in a particualr segment of the market in isolation. Additionally, if one of these less expensive options is downloads, then that's what people will choose.


People who choose Hulu are those few that actually want to watch TV programs through their computer. Why do I say few? Well, an academic study that just came out last week indicated that when tracking people's actual viewing habits, the study found that more than 98% of TV program viewing is still done while watching TVs (rather than computers or portable devices), and more than 75% of TV program viewing is done while watching LIVE TV rather than recordings. The conclusion of that report is that viewing preference surveys that do not track TV program viewing in real time, have grossly overestimated the actual demand for on-demand TV, PPV, downloading, and online streaming. And this finding is very consistent with the market data that shows things like Blu-ray sales growth and revenues far outpacing downloads and PPV options.

What study is that? I'm curious because I have a hard time believing such high numbers. I'm going to guess that the survey pool was highly selective. Also, what was the criteria for measuring on-demand TV, PPV, downloading, and streaming? Sales? If so, then I would seriously question the information. I'm not saying what you're stating isn't true, but let's see what study you're referring to before we proceed.


How are movie budgets out of line with "the world we now find ourselves in" if movie attendance has gone way up as the economy has gone south?

What do you mean by "way up"? Put a figure behind that, because one thing that's also gone way up is the price of admission, parking, & snacks. $11.50 for a matinee here in SoCal, $4 for a bottle of Aquafina inside, and that's all my wallet had the stomach for last time I went.


It costs a lot more to go to a sporting event than a movie, and it's the higher priced entertainment options that have gotten hit the hardest.

In the last few economic downturns, sports event attendance went up, this time it didn't. That's all I'm saying. And I also don't agree that sports is a higher-priced form of entertainment since attendance at college and high-school events is also way down. There's something else going on here, and I don't know what that is, but it's not just because sports is a higher-priced form of entertainment.


You can hypothesize that movies "will get there too," but that's nothing more than an uneducated guess that goes against the actual revenue data and the historical trends where movie attendance tends to spike during recessions.

Sports attendance used to go up too. So why should movies not get hit with the same drops? Attendance at concerts, plays, and musicals is also down. You say that movie attendance is up, but I have a hard time believing it and I certainly don't see any evidence of that at my local theaters. Maybe the first couple of weeks the movies are well attended, but the wife & I were the only ones watching a matinee of Watchmen this past week. Granted it was on a weekday, but we had the whole theater to ourselves - maybe it was the high price of the ticket?


Fact of the matter is that the movie industry in itself is an employment center that generates jobs and supports people who can in turn use their income on whatever they consider "good causes."

Nice libertarian viewpoint. But I'm still of the opinion that just because a movie like The Dark Knight broke even or even makes a big profit, that doesn't change the morality of such an obscene outlay of cash. You're only looking at one side of this equation. If the movie had never been made, something like $200-300M would have been saved in producing it, but more importantly, another $300-400M in sales revenue would also have been saved if the movie indeed was profitable. Add to that another $200M for royalties down the line, and pretty soon you're up to $1B of cash outlay. Yes, all those talented people who worked on it would probably have to work on other projects, but the sum total of their salaries is hardly comparable. So what could we as a society do with an extra $1B? Well, I guess for our American rich tastes, maybe not much, but that's not exactly small change either.


And your rant here once again ignores the point that I was making, which is if you cut out the most lucrative revenue sources from a movie or TV production, then what pays for the programs? And if you choose to put a movie into a freeware/open source market, then how do you replace the $1 billion in ticket sales on a hit movie like The Dark Knight? Movies are not made for free y'know.

$1B in ticket sales. Hmmmm, I'll have to revise the previous paragraph, then.

Movies aren't made for free, no. But they can be made for less. For starters we could cut out executive bonuses and salary raises for the CEOs in charge of this racket. Then we could pay lead actors more equitably with secondary actors. As far as the technology and special effects, maybe those industries shouldn't be so vertical and reliant on proprietary products and services. That's right, they could use a good dose of competition, remember that old Republican concept? If Slumdog Millionaire can do it for a fraction of the budget of The Dark Night and still get more academy awards, maybe it is possible to create good movies without the high cost. Maybe the reason that costs have risen so high is because it's part of a formula of expectations based more box-office sales than any real figure for expenses? Maybe the "cost" of such a movie is entirely artificial. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?


What you consider "ridiculously obnoxious" price tags, the studios consider an investment. All you have to do is look at which movies make the most money, and generate the highest return on investment. The movie industry ain't a charity, and the buying public ain't saints.

An investment? In what? 2 hours of entertainment? Yeah, that's one heck of a productive use of billions of dollars. Way to invest for the future. As I've said elsewhere, sometimes it isn't so much about huge profits as it is about basic subsistence. For many people in this country, unmitigated profit is their only reality and they just can't fathom anything else. Unless it is carefully deflated, this bubble too will burst. No one can predict when, but we can all agree that it will. The expectant growth and the consequent lifestyle associated with it simply are not sustainable.

So will you take the blue pill or the red one?

[Woochifer]

That's still only speculation. They have as yet not made any changes to the formula and are still only generating revenue through ads. Nothing has changed yet and I haven't seen any evidence of the bait-n-switch you're talking about.

Did you even bother to read the article that I linked? It's not speculation because talks are ongoing, and this has been reported on. NBCU has already been in talks with the major cable and satellite companies. And I just read an article indicating that NBCU is negotiating with ABC/Disney about taking an equity stake in Hulu. Think that this is some open source initiative, and not a business venture that's puts a hard and cold focus on the bottomline? Think again.


Maybe it's time people actually paid attention to Open Source. It has gained considerable momentum in the last year. Just because the audio-video market is so protective of IP, doesn't mean it's going to be able to keep it up. I'm seeing quite a bit of evidence that suggests that the profit model they've relied on only works in isolated markets. Moreover, the effort to protect these markets isn't succeeding: P2P is still growing, DRM-free initiatives are also growing, there's considerable interest in projects like CAFE, the Open Audio/Music License, and the Open Video Project. Likewise, piracy, for all it's evils is still the most popular source of music and video. For example, something like 99% of all music in China is pirated and they represent not only 1/4 the world's population, but also the largest number of internet users of any country. I'd say that the defense of IP is very much threatened.

Again, coulda woulda shoulda. Wishful thinking and ideologically driven opining about how people SHOULD behave isn't going to change how they ACTUALLY behave.


Even if a cable/sat provider did sign-on, I doubt that they would be able to charge extra for it, since it's offered for free on the web. Again, the only revenue stream there is ads, as I've said before.

Yep, looks like you ignored the article as well as 3/4 of what I've been writing on this topic. The cable/satellite companies are negotiating with NBCU to have certain sections of their web content made exclusively available to their subscribers. The revenue stream here would be an increase in the access fees that cable and satellite operators ALREADY PAY to NBCU and its affiliates.

For cable/broadcast networks, it's not just the ads that generate revenue. Cable companies pay access fees to carry the most popular networks and local network affiliates charge carriage fees for rebroadcasting OTA signals as well. Those are added into the monthly charges. For example, every month, Disney collects about $4 from each basic cable and satellite subscriber for access to ESPN (USA, Sci-Fi, and some of NBCU's other networks I recall account for $1 or less per subscriber every month). If Hulu begins to wall off their content for cable/satellite subscribers, then the revenues would come from that revenue stream. No different than how cable channels operate right now.


You're only pulling from the data that which supports your argument.

No, I'm pulling the data that reflects actual shifts in consumer behavior, and how that behavior is reflected in dollars and cents.


The "rise" that you're referring to is actually at the expense of the next more expensive option, and not necessarily an independent rise in a particualr segment of the market in isolation. Additionally, if one of these less expensive options is downloads, then that's what people will choose.

That's a presumption that has no basis on actual market behavior. The recessionary shifts have always gone towards options closer to home. Downloading is a niche activity.


What study is that? I'm curious because I have a hard time believing such high numbers. I'm going to guess that the survey pool was highly selective. Also, what was the criteria for measuring on-demand TV, PPV, downloading, and streaming? Sales? If so, then I would seriously question the information. I'm not saying what you're stating isn't true, but let's see what study you're referring to before we proceed.

Your computer-centric biases are blinding you to how the rest of the world actually watches TV -- through TVs. The study came out of Ball State, and I read portions of it out of TV Week magazine. Like I said, it's findings are consistent with the other market data that's out there. All of the other studies I've seen about people's viewing preferences are flawed in that they do not track actual viewing behavior in real time. This new study is based on real-time viewing.

If you want an illustration of this, just look at your favorite example. Hulu is claiming that this season, they've served up over 100 million TV episodes. Sounds impressive until you realize that this viewership doesn't even equal the season-long viewing audience for ONE lowly rated network TV series.

Consider that 24 has an average weekly viewing audience of 11 million. Over the course of the entire season, that adds up to an aggregate audience of more than 260 million viewers. 24 ALONE more than doubles the ENTIRE audience that Hulu has attracted this season. And the audience from just five episodes of Dancing With The Stars or three episodes of American Idol is already larger than the cumulative season audience for Hulu.

Aggregate this even further to demonstrate just how big an audience the broadcast networks still have, compared to Hulu. NBC, ABC, and CBS each have 22 weekly hours of prime time programming. Fox and CW each have 15 hours. That's five major broadcast networks with a total of 96 hours of prime time programming every week.

Now, you figure that an average prime time show has an audience of about 8 million weekly viewers. Multiply that out over 96 hours per week, and multiply that out from September through March, and you have a cumulative total of 18.4 billion hourly episodes "served." Hulu's ~100 million or so episode views equals about 0.5% of the total broadcast audience. And this doesn't even account for the number of people who only caught a portion of an episode, or who looked at the many news clips and other short features that Hulu also hosts. This is why I say that TV viewing study is consistent with the actual market data, because it is.


What do you mean by "way up"? Put a figure behind that, because one thing that's also gone way up is the price of admission, parking, & snacks. $11.50 for a matinee here in SoCal, $4 for a bottle of Aquafina inside, and that's all my wallet had the stomach for last time I went.

In February, I recall that the weekly box office figures were consistently coming in more than 20% ahead of last year. And the more impressive aspect of the box office performance is that it's not just one or two high profile releases driving the numbers. Even after accounting for ticket price increases, the number of tickets sold are running well ahead of last year.


In the last few economic downturns, sports event attendance went up, this time it didn't. That's all I'm saying. And I also don't agree that sports is a higher-priced form of entertainment since attendance at college and high-school events is also way down. There's something else going on here, and I don't know what that is, but it's not just because sports is a higher-priced form of entertainment.

Sports attendance has been tracking with the economy since the 80s when the ticket price escalation began. Right now, the average ticket price for a baseball game is more than $20, more than $50 for an NBA game, and more than $70 for an NFL game. And that's before you get to the parking and concessions. The ticket price escalation for sporting events has run far ahead of the movies. For one thing, the live attendance for sporting events is a lot lower than movies.


Sports attendance used to go up too. So why should movies not get hit with the same drops? Attendance at concerts, plays, and musicals is also down. You say that movie attendance is up, but I have a hard time believing it and I certainly don't see any evidence of that at my local theaters.

Because movies remain a bargain compared to those other entertainment options you listed. When was the last time you actually went to a major concert or theater production? Concert tickets now typically hover around $50 to $100, ticket prices for major theater productions are in that same price range. Even the most expensive movie tickets remain less than $15. It's concerts, live theater, and sporting events that are getting hammered the hardest because of this.


Maybe the first couple of weeks the movies are well attended, but the wife & I were the only ones watching a matinee of Watchmen this past week. Granted it was on a weekday, but we had the whole theater to ourselves - maybe it was the high price of the ticket?

No, it's just the typical frontloaded attendance trends for movies. Check a site like Box Office Mojo, and you'll see that most movies will grab between 25% to 50% of their TOTAL ticket sales during the first weekend of release. A movie will typically lose at least 40% of its audience between the first and second week. Watchmen lost more than 65% of its audience between the opening week and the second week.


Nice libertarian viewpoint. But I'm still of the opinion that just because a movie like The Dark Knight broke even or even makes a big profit, that doesn't change the morality of such an obscene outlay of cash. You're only looking at one side of this equation. If the movie had never been made, something like $200-300M would have been saved in producing it, but more importantly, another $300-400M in sales revenue would also have been saved if the movie indeed was profitable. Add to that another $200M for royalties down the line, and pretty soon you're up to $1B of cash outlay. Yes, all those talented people who worked on it would probably have to work on other projects, but the sum total of their salaries is hardly comparable. So what could we as a society do with an extra $1B? Well, I guess for our American rich tastes, maybe not much, but that's not exactly small change either.

So, I take it then that you did not see The Dark Knight and will boycott it via every channel that it's shown in for morality's sake? If you're going to get all sanctimonious about the morality of all the revenues that a hit movie like TDK generates, then the only way to slay the beast is to not feed it. If any of your hard earned money got pitched in Warner's direction or you caught any showings on TV or rented the movie, then you're just a part of the problem that you described.


Movies aren't made for free, no. But they can be made for less. For starters we could cut out executive bonuses and salary raises for the CEOs in charge of this racket. Then we could pay lead actors more equitably with secondary actors.

Right. So, Warner should have just recast The Dark Knight with a new actor, new director, and new screenwriter just to lower costs, despite the fact that the Batman Begins team was largely responsible for that movie's success? Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale were paid relatively low salaries for Batman Begins, but once that movie became a success and created a buzz for The Dark Knight, then their salaries went up. And I say, what's wrong with that? The studios pay higher salaries for lead actors, directors, etc. when they perform at the box office, and in Hollywood, you're only as good as your last hit. The minute an actor or director begins to flop at the box office, then their salary nosedives, or they don't work at all.


As far as the technology and special effects, maybe those industries shouldn't be so vertical and reliant on proprietary products and services. That's right, they could use a good dose of competition, remember that old Republican concept?

As usual, you have try and squeeze your ideological pegs into the odd-shaped holes. For the effects, the expense has little to do with whether they use proprietary or open source software, it's the thousands of man-hours required to do the digital compositing, rendering, etc. The salary for a digital animator is a helluva lot more than the cost of his/her workstation. And there's already plenty of competition among the effects houses, who will do work at different levels. Just look at the credits for any movie that uses a lot of effects shots, you might notice that the work is typically spread across multiple effects studios.


If Slumdog Millionaire can do it for a fraction of the budget of The Dark Night and still get more academy awards, maybe it is possible to create good movies without the high cost.

Yuh, and how many other low budget movies didn't win any academy awards? Just because something is low budget doesn't mean it's any good either.


Maybe the reason that costs have risen so high is because it's part of a formula of expectations based more box-office sales than any real figure for expenses? Maybe the "cost" of such a movie is entirely artificial. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?

Costs have risen so high because audiences are expecting a higher level of production value than before. Even if you account for escalations of salaries for the directors, actors, and producers, the rest of the costs for making movies have also gone up. Assuming that you support organized labor, you know that the film industry is one of the most unionized economic sectors out there, don't you? Are you going to blame the actor, screenwriter, film editor, cinematographer, director and/or laborer unions for successfully negotiating generous contracts with the studios?


An investment? In what? 2 hours of entertainment? Yeah, that's one heck of a productive use of billions of dollars. Way to invest for the future. As I've said elsewhere, sometimes it isn't so much about huge profits as it is about basic subsistence. For many people in this country, unmitigated profit is their only reality and they just can't fathom anything else. Unless it is carefully deflated, this bubble too will burst. No one can predict when, but we can all agree that it will. The expectant growth and the consequent lifestyle associated with it simply are not sustainable.

Warner's INVESTMENT was not $1 billion, that billion was the RETURN. Of course, film making is an investment, since it's not a charitable activity, the parties that front the money to make the movies are expecting to at least get their money back.

So what are you saying then, that all of us should collectively eschew all notions of entertainment and diversionary activities in full-time service of the greater good? I mean, if you're all about trying to preach the morality of more worthy pursuits in lieu of going to the movies, then why are you still supporting this industry with your hard earned money? If you're so concerned about "basic subsistence" then why are you spending money on home theater equipment, and not donating all of it to a more worthy cause?

[Kevio]

Am I the only one who does not read long tit-for-tat-posts? Seriously, carry on. I hope you guys are enjoying yourself, whatever you're talking about.

[nightflier]

Kevio, I'm gona try:

Wooch, yes I read your posts. The bait-n-switch I was talking about is if they start charging for the stuff that's currently being offered for free on their website. If they do, Hulu's viewership will fall considerably and people will find other sources, even semi-legal ones. The reason it's popular is because it's free. If they get onto set-top boxes, then I'm not convinced people will pay a premium for the service. And if they do charge more, then it can't be excessive because alternatives like Tivo (who have been at it a lot longer) should keep prices low.

I saw Batman begins specifically because it had Christian Bale & Liam Neeson in it, and frankly I thought it was OK, but nothing to rant about either. Same old batman story - it's getting kind of tired, but I guess for the rest of the public that kind of rote repetition with lost of explosions is worthy of another $10-15 a ticket. Fine, but not for me.

I do donate a considerable amount to several charities that I've been supporting for years, more than most people, I'm going to guess. Granted, I've had to scale that back this year, but I'm making up for that in volunteering more. Anyhow, that's none of your business so get off my back about it. I do live by my principles as best I can, even if I did see a few Batman movies - nobody's perfect.

I also would like to read that study from Ball State. I don't think it's as black & white as you make it. How exactly did they do the real-time data collecting? Who where the subjects? How large was the pool? One thing I do know is that when people have a box inside their home that tracks their viewing, they change their viewing patterns because of it - that's just basic psychology. I have lots of other questions, but I don't want to loose Kevio.

You argument about the pay scales in movies only goes so far. Yes, I'm quite aware that it is one of the most unionized industries, and that is a good thing for the people in it. That said, there is still a tremendous disparity between the CEOs and the people at the bottom of the credit listings who often work themselves to the bone just to make ends meet.

No idelogical pegs from my end. I would argue you are the one stuck in static ideologies. I specifically said "products AND services." Yes, there is competition there, but it's very limited. Studios will typically stay with the same service providers over time, or keep to a small group they have a relationship with. This industry could definitely have more input from a larger pool of service providers. And as far as equipment, you know as well as I do that the studios use extremely proprietary audio and video gear that has little to no competition. Much of this problem is also marred in cross-national tariffs and protectionist policies.

You are also not reading my posts very carefully, either. I didn't say that TDK and other uber-expensive movies should go away, I'm saying that this economy will whittle the number of them down, especially when less expensive movies can generate good box-office revenues (and awards), too. That's just economics.

Major sporting events and concerts may cost a bit more, but your argument still doesn't explain why minor ones have also seen attendance go way down. I can go to a jazz club down the freeway and see a great show for about $15. In addition I can clearly see when I'm there that attendance is way down from a last year. I have a friend who owns a pub and he also says that attendance during sports nights and happy hour is way down. These are average American pass-times that cost much less, but people are not going as much. My guess is that the argument about cost is only a part of the reason.

Long story short, if Hulu pulls the bait-n-switch, then people will find alternatives. And getting back to the original topic, Blockbuster going away is not something I consider a good thing because that reduces competition and consolidates control over access to movies. This type of consolidation has never been a benefit to the consumer in the long term.

[Mr Peabody]

Myself, I never paid to watch a movie on PPV. However, I have watched stuff via On Demand that was free. When I had cable they were to stupid to know whether the movie was in 5.1 and now HD, so I went for the sure thing on DVD. IF, I knew the quality was there, AND, IF, they ever had a movie I was interested in watching I possibly might have used the service.

Whether a movie cost $1 million or $100 million the ticket price is the same. It has been well publicized though that box office movie ticket sales have been top levels.

Just random thoughts

[pixelthis]

Myself, I never paid to watch a movie on PPV. However, I have watched stuff via On Demand that was free. When I had cable they were to stupid to know whether the movie was in 5.1 and now HD, so I went for the sure thing on DVD. IF, I knew the quality was there, AND, IF, they ever had a movie I was interested in watching I possibly might have used the service.

Whether a movie cost $1 million or $100 million the ticket price is the same. It has been well publicized though that box office movie ticket sales have been top levels.

Just random thoughts

My "on demand" has a section for HD, and a section for free HD movies.
The HD fare is usually in 5.1.
A while back the Bond movies were all in HD, and free.
Looked and sounded fantastic.
Couldnt beat the price, anyway.
So who is going to go to the trouble of going to Blockbuster to rent a 007 movie
in SD when you can get the HD version on cable for free?
Maybe teh same people who pay for Radio.:1:

[Mr Peabody]

AT&T Uverse is invading the city slowly but surely so some day maybe we will have modern cable.

[Woochifer]

Wooch, yes I read your posts. The bait-n-switch I was talking about is if they start charging for the stuff that's currently being offered for free on their website. If they do, Hulu's viewership will fall considerably and people will find other sources, even semi-legal ones. The reason it's popular is because it's free. If they get onto set-top boxes, then I'm not convinced people will pay a premium for the service. And if they do charge more, then it can't be excessive because alternatives like Tivo (who have been at it a lot longer) should keep prices low.

Where do I indicate that they will charge for the site? Try reading what I say, rather than jump to conclusions. The deals in discussion have nothing to do with charging for access to the site, they will simply make certain sections of the site available only to people who subscribe to cable and/or satellite services. (Not much different than ESPN360, which cannot be accessed for any price if you don't have the right ISP) If anything, I would guess that this has to do with accessing certain features, and allowing for full-time access to live network feeds -- something that Hulu does not currently have.

And no, the reason why the site is popular is because of the CONTENT that it carries for free. There are plenty of sites that serve up free video, but most of it is crap that's not worth the time or effort to most people.


I do donate a considerable amount to several charities that I've been supporting for years, more than most people, I'm going to guess. Granted, I've had to scale that back this year, but I'm making up for that in volunteering more. Anyhow, that's none of your business so get off my back about it. I do live by my principles as best I can, even if I did see a few Batman movies - nobody's perfect.

None of my business? Well, you're the one that's getting all self-righteous and sanctimonious about how people and companies should be directing their time and money. If you bemoan how much money flows to the movie studios, then the simplest solution is to lead by example. That's all I'm saying.


I also would like to read that study from Ball State. I don't think it's as black & white as you make it. How exactly did they do the real-time data collecting? Who where the subjects? How large was the pool? One thing I do know is that when people have a box inside their home that tracks their viewing, they change their viewing patterns because of it - that's just basic psychology. I have lots of other questions, but I don't want to loose Kevio.

Nope, the study was done the old-fashioned way -- with a diary marked off in 30-second increments. You can question the validity of the study all you want, but my numerical exercise on how Hulu's TOTAL viewership is eclipsed by just ONE low-rated network program indicates that the study's conclusions are consistent with all of the market data. None of the other articles I've seen on viewing preferences track actual behavior.

You can claim some bias that people change their viewing patterns if they know they're being tracked. But, the results are still more accurately reflective of actual behavior than a one-off survey asking people if they plan to watch TV using their computer. And that's the kind of agenda-driven nonsense that I see pushed by the tech press time after time. They've been blathering on about the imminent arrival of the digital convergence for the better part of 20 years. Yet, nothing happening on the market indicates that this repeatedly deferred vision will finally happen anytime soon. (I mean, for all the hype that music downloading gets, the lowly CD continues to generate more than 70% of the actual revenue for the music industry)


You argument about the pay scales in movies only goes so far. Yes, I'm quite aware that it is one of the most unionized industries, and that is a good thing for the people in it. That said, there is still a tremendous disparity between the CEOs and the people at the bottom of the credit listings who often work themselves to the bone just to make ends meet.

Sure, there's a tremendous disparity, but even the highest paid stars and studio heads don't make up the majority of the budget or budgetary increases on a movie. The people who work behind the scenes in the industry get paid very well on an hourly basis because they're out of work whenever a movie or TV production wraps up. Acting is one of the lowest paying positions on an annualized basis because most actors in the guild are out of work at any given time. But, when they work, they get paid very well.


No idelogical pegs from my end. I would argue you are the one stuck in static ideologies. I specifically said "products AND services." Yes, there is competition there, but it's very limited. Studios will typically stay with the same service providers over time, or keep to a small group they have a relationship with. This industry could definitely have more input from a larger pool of service providers. And as far as equipment, you know as well as I do that the studios use extremely proprietary audio and video gear that has little to no competition. Much of this problem is also marred in cross-national tariffs and protectionist policies.

It's not a static ideology in that I base my opinions on what the actual market data is saying about the direction of an industry. I prefer objectivity over ideology when looking at market trends. An ideologically driven opinion is one that ignores the actual behavior and substitutes wishful thinking about how what other people SHOULD be doing, as opposed to what they actually do.

As far as the service providers go, there are literally thousands of them all over Hollywood, Vancouver, Hong Kong, NYC, and any of the other major production centers. Some of the production equipment is highly specialized, like the cameras and audio equipment. But, the people who operate it and serve the back end of film production are employed in any number of different companies. You want more competition with the equipment, but how big a market is actually there for the hardware itself? Consider that Hollywood puts out about 300-400 movies a year -- you think that there should be hundreds of camera manufacturers vying for those contracts? I mean, still photographers mostly work as freelancers, yet there's only a handful of camera manufacturers that serve the professional market. And even in the much larger consumer market, there's only a handful of manufacturers that actually make cameras.

With the effects and editing houses, they're all using relatively generic computer equipment nowadays. In the old days, you needed a dedicated SGI or Avid workstation with specialized hardware just to perform the function. Desktop PCs were not powerful enough. Now they are, and a lot of them are running open source operating systems. But, as I said, the production cost is not in the hardware or the software, but in the man-hours that it takes to do the actual work. You can speculate all you want about imaginary cost savings that would come about if only people would work on nonproprietary systems. But, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of man-hours needed to make a movie.


You are also not reading my posts very carefully, either. I didn't say that TDK and other uber-expensive movies should go away, I'm saying that this economy will whittle the number of them down, especially when less expensive movies can generate good box-office revenues (and awards), too. That's just economics.

I know you didn't say they should go away, because that's not what I wrote. You were basically saying that they could be made on the cheap, and I simply outlined reasons why that's a short-sighted view in a market that's driven by audience expectations regarding the production value, directors, and lead actors. Cheap out on all that stuff, and the audience will stay away in droves.

Less expensive movies can indeed generate good box office revenues, but they can and will also flop. Time and time again, the movies that top the box office returns are the big tent pole projects. If anything, studios that string together a series of box office flops will cut out their lower budget projects first, because large-scale blockbusters are often lower risk ventures, given their built-in audience, how they attract additional investors, overseas markets, and ancillary income from broadcast and merchandising rights. The returns from a big hit like The Dark Knight keeps those smaller scale projects in the pipeline.


Major sporting events and concerts may cost a bit more, but your argument still doesn't explain why minor ones have also seen attendance go way down. I can go to a jazz club down the freeway and see a great show for about $15. In addition I can clearly see when I'm there that attendance is way down from a last year. I have a friend who owns a pub and he also says that attendance during sports nights and happy hour is way down. These are average American pass-times that cost much less, but people are not going as much. My guess is that the argument about cost is only a part of the reason.

Major sporting events and concerts cost WAY more than movies. Even during good times, people go to movies more often than they do concerts or sporting events, because it's more ubiquitous and it's less expensive. And in bad times, consumers cut back on the "occasion" outings and focus more on recurring outings that are close to home. People still eat out, except that in bad times they go out for fast food rather than sit down dining. History bears this out, as movie attendance goes up during recessions.

Moviegoing is something that the average person does on a regular basis. I forget the exact figure, but the average American goes to the movies more than once per month. Jazz club outings are a regular outing only for a select few hardcore fans -- it's a special occasion to just about everybody else. Otherwise, you'd see just as many jazz clubs as movie theater screens.


Long story short, if Hulu pulls the bait-n-switch, then people will find alternatives.

And like I keep telling you, the viability of those alternatives depends on CONTENT, which is something that Hulu has, and other video streaming options don't. Hulu's market grip would tighten even further if ABC/Disney comes on board. That would give Hulu control over the online streaming for 3 out of the 5 major broadcast networks, as well as the cable network content from NBCU, Fox, and ABC/Disney.


And getting back to the original topic, Blockbuster going away is not something I consider a good thing because that reduces competition and consolidates control over access to movies. This type of consolidation has never been a benefit to the consumer in the long term.

And I don't think Blockbuster is going away, and if they do, there will be likely be other options to take its place. 5,000+ stores and more than $5 billion in revenues is nothing to sneeze at (consider that combined ticket sales for movie theaters last year was $9.6 billion). They need to downsize, but their revenue totals show that there's still a sizable amount of demand for what they offer.

Tech blogger Don Reisinger, whom I normally regard as an idiot (he basically claims that Blu-ray is dead because he can't tell the difference between an upconverted DVD and a Blu-ray), wrote that the new Blu-ray pricing structure on Netflix actually makes renting from Blockbuster a better deal. I'm not a Netflix subscriber, so I don't know the particulars. But, I have been reading some grumblings about Netflix's changes to their Blu-ray pricing.

Meanwhile, Blockbuster is now heavily promoting Blu-ray, and seems to have found a new way of getting preferential treatment from the studios. My understanding is that they've secured some favorable deals with the studios by carrying special "movie only" Blu-ray versions that are not sold at retail stores. I would guess that the studios love this because stripped of the special features, it gives further incentive for consumers to buy the Blu-ray if they find that they like the movie. If this Blu-ray arrangement is anything like the old revenue sharing deals they got during the VHS era, then it potentially provides a huge boost to Blockbuster's bottom line. And even if it's just offering Blockbuster these movie-only BDs at a reduced cost, it still helps their bottomline AND gives them incentive to further expand their Blu-ray offerings.

[Mr Peabody]

From what I understand Netflix is like that as well, you have to be a member to access On Demand. So not just anyone with a Samsung 2500 can start watching.

How does this work, if I had a large database of movies can thousands of people watch one at the same time or would there have to be thousands of copies, one for each viewer? Can several computers read one file at the same time?

What brings this to mind is a possible advantage to download if it ever got the quality, speed and bandwidth up to snuff. I think everyone has gone to the video store with renting that new release only to find all the copies gone already. But what if we could have access to the hottest new release and never have to worry about it being gone before we get there. I usually buy movies I like anyway but prefer to view them first.

I actually got to participate in a Neilson survey once. They paid us a dollar. It was in the early 80's and we had a gizmo that hooked to the TV. I can't remember what my thoughts were on viewing but I don't think I changed my habits. That would be stupid. It stands to reason that if some one was watching what I watch, I would watch my normal shows in order to get them ratings so they can stay on TV. Hey, if you guys are reading this I'm watching my Sarah Connors episodes over and over, even the commercials. What about one more season?

[nightflier]

The deals in discussion have nothing to do with charging for access to the site, they will simply make certain sections of the site available only to people who subscribe to cable and/or satellite services. (Not much different than ESPN360, which cannot be accessed for any price if you don't have the right ISP) If anything, I would guess that this has to do with accessing certain features, and allowing for full-time access to live network feeds -- something that Hulu does not currently have.

Semantics Wooch. Right now Hulu doesn't have any special sections to their site. If they pull an ESPN360-style bait-n-switch, people won't buy into that. It's that simple. There is a tradition with the internet community that expects free content, especially from companies that offered it before. If they change their policy and switch from freeware to shareware (for lack of better terms), people will avoid them and find alternatives. Yes, a few people will subscribe, but most won't, that's how it's always been. And for those cable/box subscribers who will suddenly have Hulu on their computers, you said yourself, cable/box remote-users are not computer users - different market, right?


And no, the reason why the site is popular is because of the CONTENT that it carries for free. There are plenty of sites that serve up free video, but most of it is crap that's not worth the time or effort to most people.

And that content is free. Again, semantics.


None of my business? Well, you're the one that's getting all self-righteous and sanctimonious about how people and companies should be directing their time and money. If you bemoan how much money flows to the movie studios, then the simplest solution is to lead by example. That's all I'm saying.

And I'm telling you that I am trying to live by example. And it's still none of your business.


Nope, the study was done the old-fashioned way -- with a diary marked off in 30-second increments. You can question the validity of the study all you want, but my numerical exercise on how Hulu's TOTAL viewership is eclipsed by just ONE low-rated network program indicates that the study's conclusions are consistent with all of the market data. None of the other articles I've seen on viewing preferences track actual behavior.

Maybe they should.


You can claim some bias that people change their viewing patterns if they know they're being tracked.

They do. It's simple psychology. At least for most people, sorry Mr.P. For example, if Joe Six Pack regularly watches 15 hours of porn during a typical week. Do you really think he'll be doing that if there's a little red light that blinks from a little recorder on top of his TV? I seriously doubt that. And while that's just an example, I'm pretty sure this goes for milder forms of socially less popular viewing too. Maybe Jerry Springer / UFC / America's Next Top Model won't figure as high on his list that week because he doesn't want big brother to think he's that much of a simpleton. Even Joe Sixpack has a conscience.


But, the results are still more accurately reflective of actual behavior than a one-off survey asking people if they plan to watch TV using their computer. And that's the kind of agenda-driven nonsense that I see pushed by the tech press time after time. They've been blathering on about the imminent arrival of the digital convergence for the better part of 20 years.

I'm not the tech press.


Yet, nothing happening on the market indicates that this repeatedly deferred vision will finally happen anytime soon. (I mean, for all the hype that music downloading gets, the lowly CD continues to generate more than 70% of the actual revenue for the music industry)

That's because all these figures only record revenue. That seems to be the mantra here: if it doesn't pay, then it's not worthy of measurement. That's the kind of myopic conclusion that keeps the movie and music studios so blind to what's happening on the internet and why they can't seem to stem the tide of people leaving their cash-cow lock-ins.


Sure, there's a tremendous disparity, but even the highest paid stars and studio heads don't make up the majority of the budget or budgetary increases on a movie. The people who work behind the scenes in the industry get paid very well on an hourly basis because they're out of work whenever a movie or TV production wraps up.

Fine, but that still gives the impression of fat cat CEOs living it up while the masses starve. It's a lot like Wall Street, and frankly if there's one thing that rankles the mid-level actors and all the service people who work in this industry, it's the few CEOs who are making so much. It probably does more to hurt this industry than any other scandal.


It's not a static ideology in that I base my opinions on what the actual market data is saying about the direction of an industry.

Yes, the cold hard cash. But aren't we talking about free content (Hulu)? That's kind of like comparing apples to softballs.


An ideologically driven opinion is one that ignores the actual behavior and substitutes wishful thinking about how what other people SHOULD be doing, as opposed to what they actually do.

Well, far be it for me to point this out, but there's traditionally been a huge disparity between "actual behavior" and "revenue." Most of what people do on the internet doesn't cost a dime. Commerce over the internet hardly compares to the rest of the traffic. The idea that it should is also up for debate.


As far as the service providers go, there are literally thousands of them all over Hollywood, Vancouver, Hong Kong, NYC, and any of the other major production centers. Some of the production equipment is highly specialized, like the cameras and audio equipment. But, the people who operate it and serve the back end of film production are employed in any number of different companies. You want more competition with the equipment, but how big a market is actually there for the hardware itself? Consider that Hollywood puts out about 300-400 movies a year -- you think that there should be hundreds of camera manufacturers vying for those contracts?

Not hundreds, but a few more wouldn't hurt. What we've seen in the last 15-20 years is unprecedented consolidation, and what I consider a consistent departure from competition, innovation, and creativity. This leads to a stagnant product, such as (and I know I'm going to hear it about this one), The Dark Knight. A few years from now, TDK will be sold in the $5 bin at Best Buy, along with such other memorable blockbusters as Rocky, X-Men, Die Hard, and of course, Batman I, II, III, IV (what # are we up to now?), and all the other movies that were, in their hay-day, such "Box Office Hits."

Face it, for all it's special effects, stunts, and gratuitous (and completely unrealistic) violence, TDK is just a rehash of every other Batman movie and Hollywood action plot. That people keep lemming-it up at the box office every few years, is only a testament to our limited capacity for realizing this. We Americans seem incapable of getting off the merry-go-round of being sold the same entertainment in a new shinny package every few years. I consider this a product of our appallingly low collective IQs and schooling, rather than a testament to good movie-making. The Dark Knight is nothing more than escapist familiarity that we desperately try to cling onto for fear of realizing that the real world isn't so idealized. The day we see this (and that day may never come) is going to be revoltingly unwelcome to us all.


I mean, still photographers mostly work as freelancers, yet there's only a handful of camera manufacturers that serve the professional market. And even in the much larger consumer market, there's only a handful of manufacturers that actually make cameras.

Actually I know a bit about this history. The fact is that the camera industry was healthier, more progressive, and more innovative when there were more manufacturers out there. We may not laud film-photography as much anymore, but in those days there were more photography magazines & more art magazines, there was more respect for the art and the artists, and the equipment manufacturers did very well financially. Now, with only a few companies still making mostly digital cameras, this industry has become perhaps the most depressed in the art world. Ask any photographer and they'll concur that what we have today is far less exciting, glamorous, and profitable. It's no wonder we have no new Annie Leibovitzes or Ansel Adamses anymore.


With the effects and editing houses, they're all using relatively generic computer equipment nowadays. In the old days, you needed a dedicated SGI or Avid workstation with specialized hardware just to perform the function. Desktop PCs were not powerful enough. Now they are, and a lot of them are running open source operating systems.

As with photography, the commoditization of the technology has not lead to significant improvements in quality. Yes, we now have more wow-factor movies and perhaps greater revenues in action films, but quality is found elsewhere.


But, as I said, the production cost is not in the hardware or the software, but in the man-hours that it takes to do the actual work. You can speculate all you want about imaginary cost savings that would come about if only people would work on nonproprietary systems. But, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of man-hours needed to make a movie.

Fine, I don't disagree with that. But that still doesn't address the difference in budget between TDK and Slumdog Millionaire. Perhaps a few special effects less in TDK would have been possible? How about removing a few more CGI-generated scenes? Well, maybe not, because if you take too many wiz-bang shots out then what do you really have left? An original story? Maaaaayby not. Isn't that a revelation?


You were basically saying that they could be made on the cheap, and I simply outlined reasons why that's a short-sighted view in a market that's driven by audience expectations regarding the production value, directors, and lead actors. Cheap out on all that stuff, and the audience will stay away in droves.

Slumdog Millionaire "cheaped out" on all that stuff, and the audience didn't really "stay away in droves." If you consider that this movie provided the same 2 hours of entertainment for so much less, it makes you wonder how much of an investment TDK really is. And what if TDK would have flopped? Or, I'll be generous, what if it had just barely broken even? That would have been far less of a good investment, no? Now if Slumdog Millionaire had flopped or just broken even, the outlay of cash would have been less, right? So the risk in doing movies like that is far less, so my guess, and this is just a guess, is that movie studios who are thinking about this economy, and the insurance companies that must stand behind them, are going to recommend more movies that are in the Slumdog Millionaire budget. That's just economics.

In every recession there's a few numbskulls who continue to live it up and party like everything's plentiful. That's your typical AIG/GM CEO, TDK studio exec, and perhaps even a few people you & I know personally. The sad part is that when they finally see that they're the only ones still on the dance floor, they look that much more pathetic for it. Yes, there are industries that are still doing OK, but even they are only "OK" because of major cutbacks, layoffs, and perhaps a little more wisdom and foresight at the helm. But the more people that are laid off in this country, the more people will also stop going to the movies. I will make this prediction: the next Batman movie will cost less and generate less, yes, far less. And if I'm wrong about this, then you can come back here and chastise me about it all you want.


Less expensive movies can indeed generate good box office revenues, but they can and will also flop. Time and time again, the movies that top the box office returns are the big tent pole projects. If anything, studios that string together a series of box office flops will cut out their lower budget projects first, because large-scale blockbusters are often lower risk ventures, given their built-in audience, how they attract additional investors, overseas markets, and ancillary income from broadcast and merchandising rights. The returns from a big hit like The Dark Knight keeps those smaller scale projects in the pipeline.

You know. we've heard that every few generations: The common people need the Roman Catholic Church, the nobility, the king/emperor/tzar, the landlord, the factory owner, the Fuhrer, the Junta, Liberal Economics, GWB, the corporation, etc... It is usually followed by: they need us more than they realize, more than they need us, or some such nonsense. Sure it takes a little while for reality to set in, but it always does. I remember how T2 was such a box office hit and that everyone just needed to see it. Well I doubt that movie studio now considers this film one of their crowning achievements. It made them millions, sure, but let's be frank, for all its' super-expensive special effects, action sequences, and box-office drawing actors, it wasn't exactly in the same league as The Color Purple, The English Patient, The Shawshank Redemption, and Crash. The latter are movies that the studios hang their reputations on, even if they cost a fraction of TDK to produce. No, I would say rather that T2, Rambo, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, and yes, even Waterworld, are possible because the low-budget movies give the studios the longevity and resilience to survive. And they do so at much lower risk.


Major sporting events and concerts cost WAY more than movies. Even during good times, people go to movies more often than they do concerts or sporting events, because it's more ubiquitous and it's less expensive. And in bad times, consumers cut back on the "occasion" outings and focus more on recurring outings that are close to home. People still eat out, except that in bad times they go out for fast food rather than sit down dining. History bears this out, as movie attendance goes up during recessions. Moviegoing is something that the average person does on a regular basis. I forget the exact figure, but the average American goes to the movies more than once per month. Jazz club outings are a regular outing only for a select few hardcore fans -- it's a special occasion to just about everybody else. Otherwise, you'd see just as many jazz clubs as movie theater screens.

That still does not explain why people aren't going to $12 college baseball games, $5 high-school football games, and $1 volleyball matches. There's something else going on that has nothing to do with the price of movies and avoiding the topic doesn't make it go away. By the way, I go to concerts regularly, although I'll confess that I've been sitting higher up in the stands this year.


And like I keep telling you, the viability of those alternatives depends on CONTENT, which is something that Hulu has, and other video streaming options don't.

They do, actually. Except that the ones you're thinking of are all commercial ones. The Internet has several other free options other than Hulu that will benefit greatly if Hulu pulls it's content and keeps it only for subscribers.


Hulu's market grip would tighten even further if ABC/Disney comes on board. That would give Hulu control over the online streaming for 3 out of the 5 major broadcast networks, as well as the cable network content from NBCU, Fox, and ABC/Disney.

Let me correct that statement: It would give Hulu control over 3/5 of the major commercial providers.


And I don't think Blockbuster is going away, and if they do, there will be likely be other options to take its place.

Who? Not to rehash Niemoller's sentiment, but there's no one left.


Tech blogger Don Reisinger, whom I normally regard as an idiot (he basically claims that Blu-ray is dead because he can't tell the difference between an upconverted DVD and a Blu-ray), wrote that the new Blu-ray pricing structure on Netflix actually makes renting from Blockbuster a better deal.

Ah, so that's your bogey-man. I knew there was a reason why you were getting so upset. Look, I'm not Reisinger; 'don't even know him. But I will say that BR is just a temporary medium until downloading ramps up. No it won't go away entirely and, like bad pollution, it will probably linger around indefinitely, but it won't be the dominant medium. The price, for all it's vaulted superiority in quality (that only a few people with fancy setups will really care that much about) is still too high. This is especially true for older movies that are being re-released. Yes, there are actually a lot of people who are pissed at having had to buy the VHS, the Laserdisk, the DVD, and now the BR of the same movie. Maybe you won't hear that here, but it's a very real complaint elsewhere.

I will also add that if BR rental pricing goes up compared to DVD, then people will become more selective about the movies they rent in that format. Every single household in this country is scaling back, especially on "subscription" services, that's been said enough. My guess is that for many households, saving a few dollars every month on renting fewer or even no more BR disks, is highly likely.

I'm glad that Blockbuster is trying to hold on, and perhaps price parity for BR disks compared to DVDs, if they can provide it, is a step in the right direction. But the one thing Blockbuster still isn't doing as well as Netflix is downloads/VOD. I, along with many other people see that as the future of movie rentals. Again, probably not a popular suggestion here on this forum, but it's going to happen nonetheless. That's my opinion, and I'm going to stand by it. I've seen the superiority of BR, and I'm still not buying. I simply don't have that much disposable income right now, and I don't think I'm the only one saying this.

Anyhow, I don't really have that much time to see too many movies, I'm too busy working and trying to hold onto my job, something I should have been doing instead of posting here, but that's another matter.

[Rich-n-Texas]

AT&T Uverse is invading the city slowly but surely so some day maybe we will have modern cable.
Actually, you'll have Fiber To The Home (FTTH) which is vastly superior to cable. More bandwidth which means less compression.:1:

[OzzieAudiophile]

Hello our BB's in Western Australia are way too small to have any decent selection.

There's about 3 isles of DVDs, half a section of BluRays and they have like 300 ex rentals
for sale, which are also a joke price wise. Not really competitive enough to sell even ex
rentals as you can get brand new for cheaper or the same price.

We have some vid shops which have 10 times the selection, and have at least 10 extra
different nightly and weekly offers. Choice is good lol.

Yes after 4 years I finally walk into a BB, and oh yeah they have some Blu Rays, but
geez I'm impressed with my own collection haha. They seem to have stuff that is 10 years
or less year old stuff, and nothing much older than that.

It's in the area for convenience, but they should make a better effort, of course it's not
cheap to run a vid store.

[StevenSurprenant]

its going to happen, like when Rich gets laid off and goes insane when his Viagra runs out.

pixelthis,

You and Rich still going at it? LOL!


The way you two are entertaining each other, it's possible that you two can become good friends someday. My fingers are crossed...Hmmm

BTW... Your quote above was hilarious!

[Mr Peabody]

Well, NF, since you put it that way :) Probably why the Spice channel doesn't rank high in the ratings. As if I'd know.

[pixelthis]

pixelthis,

You and Rich still going at it? LOL!


The way you two are entertaining each other, it's possible that you two can become good friends someday. My fingers are crossed...Hmmm

BTW... Your quote above was hilarious!


I wouldnt exactly call it "entertaining" to be called a "dumbass" by a carpetbagger.
Rich needs to lighten up, and understand that he may not like what I say, but that theres plenty that he says that I dont care for either.
He would be okay of he could get that rather large stick outta his (BLEEP):1:

[pixelthis]

Actually, you'll have Fiber To The Home (FTTH) which is vastly superior to cable. More bandwidth which means less compression.:1:


OR more home shopping channels.:1:

[StevenSurprenant]

I wouldnt exactly call it "entertaining" to be called a "dumbass" by a carpetbagger.
Rich needs to lighten up, and understand that he may not like what I say, but that theres plenty that he says that I dont care for either.
He would be okay of he could get that rather large stick outta his (BLEEP):1:

Okay, I'm staying out of this little fray.
...he walks away with a confused look on his face...

It's just sad to see two good people caught up in this emotional turmoil, It kind of reminds me of a argument that I had many years ago. My wife, at the time, got mad at me cause she thought I was mad at her, which I wasn't, and then I got mad at her cause she was mad at me. An argument ensued. The strange thing is that, up to that point, there was nothing wrong and in the end neither one of us knew what we were arguing about. Strange, huh?

[pixelthis]

Okay, I'm staying out of this little fray.
...he walks away with a confused look on his face...

It's just sad to see two good people caught up in this emotional turmoil, It kind of reminds me of a argument that I had many years ago. My wife, at the time, got mad at me cause she thought I was mad at her, which I wasn't, and then I got mad at her cause she was mad at me. An argument ensued. The strange thing is that, up to that point, there was nothing wrong and in the end neither one of us knew what we were arguing about. Strange, huh?

Its a little more complex with rich and I.
He is a relative "newbie" to this stuff, while I HAVE BEEN IN AUDIO OF SOME KIND FOR 40 ODD YEARS.
I guess he thinks I am some kind of smartass because I call him on crap.
He finally figured out that I was right about seperate amps, and about how his B&W
speakers would really shine with more than the cheap receiver he was running them on.
Of course my input had nothing to do with this revelation.
I have a cousin just like him, you cant tell him anything either.
If you do he will come back later like a lightbulb went off and he "figured" out this great new idea, never mind that its the same one you suggested a week ago.
This same cousin was trying to tell me how to download a file one day, he had just learned how and was trying to tell me.
He didnt know so nobody else knew, and he couldnt understand why I got mad at his condescending attitude.
Even after I explained that I had built my last three computers, had been on the net for years, and had forgotten more than he ever would know, he still went on about downloading files, he knew one way of doing it, I was using a DIFFERENT one.
But he just had to feel superior to me in some way.
Its this same attitude that comes from a lot of yankees like Rich, they dont understand that just because you were born south of the Mason Dixon line doesnt mean you are a "dumbass" as he puts it.
He constantly posts sterotypes about people in my part of the country.
To which I will just quote a famous comedian from my part of the world,
when insulted by a new yorker, he replied...
"I get 200 channels", you get 5, and you call me a hick".:1:

[Mr Peabody]

What? Huh? I guess one had to be there.

[Mr Peabody]

As now I am down to $2.00 on my gift card and you charge $4.99 for Blu-ray or DVD rentals, you don't have all possible Blu-ray new releases available on the shelf, and I can get DVD rentals from Red Box for $1.00, tell me why i would continue to rent from you. Except for the rare occasion you may have a Blu-ray on the shelf I might be willing to watch. Even if not Red Box I'd have to shop around to some of the super markets to see what they charge.

Are they pricing themselves out of the market? Seriously, what do they have to offer to warrant such a price of rental. it doesn't make sense to me.

[Woochifer]

Semantics Wooch. Right now Hulu doesn't have any special sections to their site. If they pull an ESPN360-style bait-n-switch, people won't buy into that. It's that simple. There is a tradition with the internet community that expects free content, especially from companies that offered it before. If they change their policy and switch from freeware to shareware (for lack of better terms), people will avoid them and find alternatives. Yes, a few people will subscribe, but most won't, that's how it's always been. And for those cable/box subscribers who will suddenly have Hulu on their computers, you said yourself, cable/box remote-users are not computer users - different market, right?

Neither Hulu nor ESPN360 is a "bait-n-switch". In Hulu's case, the discussions have nothing to do with cutting users off from what they already get for free, but rather making new/extended features (such as live feeds and unlimited archival access) available only to cable/satellite subscribers. In case you didn't notice, Hulu already makes certain episodes and clips only available for a limited time before they get pulled. Making live network feeds available to cable/satellite subscribers would serve the same function as a Slingbox, by making their computer and web browser an extension of their cable box at home.

With ESPN360, that channel has always limited access to people who subscribe to certain ISPs, so I don't know where you get this idea that they're some kind of bait-n-switch. Their business model has been clear from the beginning -- you can't get access to their site? Change your ISP or demand that they get on board. I already know people who are switching their ISP in order to get access to ESPN360, and that's exactly what these lock-in deals are intended to do.


And I'm telling you that I am trying to live by example. And it's still none of your business.

If you're going to make self-righteous proclamations about how everybody else should conduct themselves, then maybe you should do more than "try to live by example." That's all I'm saying.


They do. It's simple psychology. At least for most people, sorry Mr.P. For example, if Joe Six Pack regularly watches 15 hours of porn during a typical week. Do you really think he'll be doing that if there's a little red light that blinks from a little recorder on top of his TV? I seriously doubt that. And while that's just an example, I'm pretty sure this goes for milder forms of socially less popular viewing too. Maybe Jerry Springer / UFC / America's Next Top Model won't figure as high on his list that week because he doesn't want big brother to think he's that much of a simpleton. Even Joe Sixpack has a conscience.

A nonsequitur example, since it has nothing to do with how people watch TV. Given that consumer attitudinal surveys (i.e., the ones that do not track actual behavior, but rather preferences) indicate measurable interest by consumers in internet TV, your psychology example would actually bias the results in the opposite direction. If people knew they were being tracked, then presumably they would watch more TV online than they otherwise would.

As I indicated in my previous response, Hulu's ENTIRE viewership this season has been 100+ million episodes served. This, of course, pales by comparison to the 18+ BILLION episodes of prime time programming that the five major broadcast networks alone "serve". And that doesn't even include daytime TV, local content, cable networks, or premium networks. The Ball State findings are consistent with this.


That's because all these figures only record revenue. That seems to be the mantra here: if it doesn't pay, then it's not worthy of measurement. That's the kind of myopic conclusion that keeps the movie and music studios so blind to what's happening on the internet and why they can't seem to stem the tide of people leaving their cash-cow lock-ins.

And your myopic conclusion is that everything should be offered up for free, regardless of whether more lucrative revenue streams are available to content producers.


Fine, but that still gives the impression of fat cat CEOs living it up while the masses starve. It's a lot like Wall Street, and frankly if there's one thing that rankles the mid-level actors and all the service people who work in this industry, it's the few CEOs who are making so much. It probably does more to hurt this industry than any other scandal.

Oh please, you do not know "all the service people who work in this industry" so don't presume to know what rankles them.


Yes, the cold hard cash. But aren't we talking about free content (Hulu)? That's kind of like comparing apples to softballs.

Free content that has direct ties to broadcast networks that have revenue streams, and audience buildup that increases the equity value of the website. And that equity value is what ABC/Disney is prepared to pay into, at a much higher price of entry than NBCU and Fox's investment a couple of years ago.



Well, far be it for me to point this out, but there's traditionally been a huge disparity between "actual behavior" and "revenue." Most of what people do on the internet doesn't cost a dime. Commerce over the internet hardly compares to the rest of the traffic. The idea that it should is also up for debate.

And most of the content that people see on the internet doesn't cost much to produce, and most of the content does not have the kind of audience or production expense that network TV and studio movie productions have.


Not hundreds, but a few more wouldn't hurt. What we've seen in the last 15-20 years is unprecedented consolidation, and what I consider a consistent departure from competition, innovation, and creativity. This leads to a stagnant product, such as (and I know I'm going to hear it about this one), The Dark Knight. A few years from now, TDK will be sold in the $5 bin at Best Buy, along with such other memorable blockbusters as Rocky, X-Men, Die Hard, and of course, Batman I, II, III, IV (what # are we up to now?), and all the other movies that were, in their hay-day, such "Box Office Hits."

In case you didn't know, EVERY movie eventually winds up in the $5 bins. That's just the normal lifecycle of home video releases. It's no different than movie releases garnering the largest audience at the beginning of a theatrical run.



Face it, for all it's special effects, stunts, and gratuitous (and completely unrealistic) violence, TDK is just a rehash of every other Batman movie and Hollywood action plot. That people keep lemming-it up at the box office every few years, is only a testament to our limited capacity for realizing this. We Americans seem incapable of getting off the merry-go-round of being sold the same entertainment in a new shinny package every few years. I consider this a product of our appallingly low collective IQs and schooling, rather than a testament to good movie-making. The Dark Knight is nothing more than escapist familiarity that we desperately try to cling onto for fear of realizing that the real world isn't so idealized. The day we see this (and that day may never come) is going to be revoltingly unwelcome to us all.

And all the while, you continue to buy movie tickets for films that play into this rehashing just like the rest of us.


Fine, I don't disagree with that. But that still doesn't address the difference in budget between TDK and Slumdog Millionaire. Perhaps a few special effects less in TDK would have been possible? How about removing a few more CGI-generated scenes? Well, maybe not, because if you take too many wiz-bang shots out then what do you really have left? An original story? Maaaaayby not. Isn't that a revelation?

So, you really think that TDK could have been made on a Slumdog budget, and garnered just a large an audience as it did? Two completely different stories, and two completely different sets of audience expectations.

And just so you know, Nolan bumped up the budget for TDK because he minimized the use of CGI in favor of more practical effects and live stuntwork. If he wanted to cut corners, he would have actually done more of the action sequences using CGI. And rather than economize by using digital camcorders like a lot of other filmmakers have gone to, Nolan opted to use IMAX 70/15 cameras.


Slumdog Millionaire "cheaped out" on all that stuff, and the audience didn't really "stay away in droves." If you consider that this movie provided the same 2 hours of entertainment for so much less, it makes you wonder how much of an investment TDK really is. And what if TDK would have flopped? Or, I'll be generous, what if it had just barely broken even? That would have been far less of a good investment, no? Now if Slumdog Millionaire had flopped or just broken even, the outlay of cash would have been less, right? So the risk in doing movies like that is far less, so my guess, and this is just a guess, is that movie studios who are thinking about this economy, and the insurance companies that must stand behind them, are going to recommend more movies that are in the Slumdog Millionaire budget. That's just economics.

Low budget movies like Slumdog that make $100 million at the box office are a rarity. Low to moderate budget movies that fail to recoup their production costs at the box office are a dime a dozen. Slumdog generated a nice return on investment, but the return on TDK was more than 5X greater.

You obviously don't realize this (despite my having written this before), but the big budget blockbusters are actually lower risk ventures because those are the types of movies that attract outside investors, can get presold (i.e, theater bids, broadcast rights, etc.) much easier, and have other potential revenue streams. Lower budget movies usually do not have outside investors trying to get on board, nor do they command a high enough profile for the studios to contractually take a larger cut of the box office receipts.


In every recession there's a few numbskulls who continue to live it up and party like everything's plentiful. That's your typical AIG/GM CEO, TDK studio exec, and perhaps even a few people you & I know personally. The sad part is that when they finally see that they're the only ones still on the dance floor, they look that much more pathetic for it. Yes, there are industries that are still doing OK, but even they are only "OK" because of major cutbacks, layoffs, and perhaps a little more wisdom and foresight at the helm. But the more people that are laid off in this country, the more people will also stop going to the movies. I will make this prediction: the next Batman movie will cost less and generate less, yes, far less. And if I'm wrong about this, then you can come back here and chastise me about it all you want.

And like I've been trying to tell you, recessions have historically increased movie theater attendance because moviegoing is the entertainment that people revert back to during hard times. Travel is down, concert attendance is down, all other forms of high end entertainment are down.

The movies?

Well, last weekend set a new April record at the box office -- with movie attendance up more than 60% over last year. I don't think pent up demand for Vin Diesel's return to the Fast and Furious series alone accounts for all of this. January and February also had multiple record breaking weekends, so it's not like this is a flash in the pan, it's a trend that has repeated itself throughout the year so far.

As far as the next Batman movie goes, do you really think that Nolan, Bale, and everybody else that worked on the last two Batman movies are going to suddenly take a paycut, when the most recent installment ranked as the #2 movie of all time? You can make a prediction, but that doesn't mean that it has any basis in fact or logic.




You know. we've heard that every few generations: The common people need the Roman Catholic Church, the nobility, the king/emperor/tzar, the landlord, the factory owner, the Fuhrer, the Junta, Liberal Economics, GWB, the corporation, etc... It is usually followed by: they need us more than they realize, more than they need us, or some such nonsense. Sure it takes a little while for reality to set in, but it always does. I remember how T2 was such a box office hit and that everyone just needed to see it. Well I doubt that movie studio now considers this film one of their crowning achievements. It made them millions, sure, but let's be frank, for all its' super-expensive special effects, action sequences, and box-office drawing actors, it wasn't exactly in the same league as The Color Purple, The English Patient, The Shawshank Redemption, and Crash. The latter are movies that the studios hang their reputations on, even if they cost a fraction of TDK to produce. No, I would say rather that T2, Rambo, The Dark Knight, Star Wars, and yes, even Waterworld, are possible because the low-budget movies give the studios the longevity and resilience to survive. And they do so at much lower risk.

Uh no, in actuality it's the returns from the big blockbusters that subsidize the studios' prestige and vanity projects, most of which lose money. Even those movies on your list like The English Patient and The Color Purple were not cheap to make. I recall that The English Patient cost nearly $100 million, which was an astronomical sum at that time, and IIRC The Color Purple was Stephen Spielberg's most expensive movie to date at the time it was made.

Like I said, check the box office charts and look at which movies top those charts. Studios are simply following the audience. This has nothing to do with whether that's right or wrong, good or bad -- just how it is.

As far as T2 goes, get a concept about which studio actually made the movie before you go on yet another baseless speculative adventure over what they would consider a "crowning achievement."


That still does not explain why people aren't going to $12 college baseball games, $5 high-school football games, and $1 volleyball matches. There's something else going on that has nothing to do with the price of movies and avoiding the topic doesn't make it go away. By the way, I go to concerts regularly, although I'll confess that I've been sitting higher up in the stands this year.

Anecdotal observations don't say much, and if those events don't report attendance figures, you're just guessing about what the actual attendance is. The movie attendance data is a 100% sample that's tracked weekly, so trends can be derived from that.


Ah, so that's your bogey-man. I knew there was a reason why you were getting so upset. Look, I'm not Reisinger; 'don't even know him.

Reisinger is just one of many idiots in the tech press. They're technology fanboys with a computer-centric view of the world, and no clue as to actual consumer behavior.


But I will say that BR is just a temporary medium until downloading ramps up.

So how many years defines "temporary"?


No it won't go away entirely and, like bad pollution, it will probably linger around indefinitely, but it won't be the dominant medium.

The DVD is the most rapidly adopted consumer media format in history, yet it still took 7 years to displace VHS. And yet, Blu-ray's adoption rate is reportedly still running ahead of the DVD. Blu-ray's not even 3 years old.


The price, for all it's vaulted superiority in quality (that only a few people with fancy setups will really care that much about) is still too high.

And the prices are already $3-$5 below where they were a year ago for new releases. Prices will decline as the market matures. Recall that DVDs cost $30+ when they first came out.

Also, the improvement in PQ doesn't take a "fancy setup" to appreciate. Just an HDTV, and nowadays, anybody in the market for a TV is going to wind up with HD capability.


This is especially true for older movies that are being re-released. Yes, there are actually a lot of people who are pissed at having had to buy the VHS, the Laserdisk, the DVD, and now the BR of the same movie. Maybe you won't hear that here, but it's a very real complaint elsewhere.

Who the hell "has to" buy the same movie in all those different formats? If the prices are too high, then don't buy. Just wait for the prices to go down. Already, you're seeing Warner's library releases going as low as $13.

If you don't care for high def, and think that SD is good enough, then buy the DVD. I don't see any reason why anyone would get pissed, given that BD wasn't even an option when most of those movies were originally released on home video. I know that I'm only going to repurchase a small number of essential titles on Blu-ray. Everything else will be new releases or titles that I don't yet have on DVD.


I will also add that if BR rental pricing goes up compared to DVD, then people will become more selective about the movies they rent in that format. Every single household in this country is scaling back, especially on "subscription" services, that's been said enough. My guess is that for many households, saving a few dollars every month on renting fewer or even no more BR disks, is highly likely.

Sounds like you're speaking more for yourself than someone who actually owns a BD player or has home entertainment subscriptions. Speaking for myself (i.e., a BD player owner and a Directv subscriber), I can tell you that I'm cutting back on DVD purchases because I'm now buying Blu-rays. I've already made the upgrade, and there's no way I'll go back to renting DVDs. And I doubt that too many other BD player owners will stop renting BDs and go completely back to DVDs, if BD rentals cost more than DVDs.

And your speculation on "subscription" services is just that. Directv has already indicated that they're seeing an upsurge in package upgrades -- i.e., consumers adding DVR, HD, and/or premium packages. Much like the movies, consumers are retrenching in a recession by shifting more of their spending towards home entertainment. A $10/month service upgrade is a bargain compared to a $50 NBA game or a plane ticket or hotel stay or $70 admission for Disneyland.


I'm glad that Blockbuster is trying to hold on, and perhaps price parity for BR disks compared to DVDs, if they can provide it, is a step in the right direction. But the one thing Blockbuster still isn't doing as well as Netflix is downloads/VOD. I, along with many other people see that as the future of movie rentals. Again, probably not a popular suggestion here on this forum, but it's going to happen nonetheless. That's my opinion, and I'm going to stand by it. I've seen the superiority of BR, and I'm still not buying. I simply don't have that much disposable income right now, and I don't think I'm the only one saying this.

And again, how far out do you project this future? The revenue from Blockbuster alone remains more than 20X the revenue for ALL PPV and downloading options combined. The tech press and the bloggers that hang on their every word seem to obsess far more about downloading than the average consumer does. They reflexively push the downloading angle, regardless of what the market data and actual consumer behavior say.

With BD releases on newer titles now accounting for 15% to 20% of unit sales, you have a proven growth trajectory that the BD format has taken. Downloading/VOD's growth rate hasn't even kept pace with the BD, so how can its future be anywhere close to the near term, when it's not even competing in the present tense?

[nightflier]

Wooch, I am trying very hard to keep my comments general, but every one of your sentences is directed specifically at me, so I'm going to stop the discussion. That said, I'm standing by what I said:

- the movie industry is changing, not just because of the economy,
- many movie studios are spending unsustainable amounts on movies and that cannot continue,
- the changes in viewership have far more factors influencing them than the few that you have pointed out,
- it's not possible to gauge online video streaming, VOD, and downloads just on sales figures because much of it is free,
- your vitriol against the internet/computer users is clouding your understanding of what is really happening out there,
- a very similar myopia is probably shared by the studio execs,
- ticket sales at smaller sports venues are way down (I've involved in the maintenance of several ticketing systems and with the people who manage them - that was not just an "Anecdotal observation" on my part),
- BR is still going to give way to downloads & streaming at some point in the near future,
- and you still don't have any business commenting about my efforts to do things in a socially responsible manner.

By the way, I was in Hollywood supporting the actors and studio workers during the last strike. I have several friends who work in LA, and I was more than willing to support them in their struggle for fair pay and compensation. And if you think they didn't have some serious anger towards the studio execs, then I suggest it's you who doesn't understand this industry. I can't help but see a disturbing parallel arrogance shared by the financial-backers of projects such as TDK and the CEOs on Wall Street. This money-trumps-all mentality is becoming increasingly abhorrent by those of us who don't ride in personal jets, share in those lucrative stock-options and retire with such lofty golden parachutes. Sooner or later, those chickens will also come home to roost.

[Woochifer]

Wooch, I am trying very hard to keep my comments general, but every one of your sentences is directed specifically at me, so I'm going to stop the discussion.

And I'm simply rebutting the many instances where your rhetoric doesn't square with facts.


- the movie industry is changing, not just because of the economy,
- many movie studios are spending unsustainable amounts on movies and that cannot continue,

Yup, the movie industry is changing in that they are getting rid of their quasi-indie divisions, and consolidating operations. The summer tent pole projects are unaffected by this, but the output for "prestige" and vanity projects (which are riskier than big budget blockbusters) will go down considerably.


- the changes in viewership have far more factors influencing them than the few that you have pointed out,

And what I've been pointing out that viewership trends are a lot simpler than all of the unsubstantiated presumptions that you keep inserting into the discussion whenever the market data I bring up doesn't square with your worldview. The Ball State study is a clear instance where a behavioral study is consistent with the market data.


- it's not possible to gauge online video streaming, VOD, and downloads just on sales figures because much of it is free,

My information comparing Hulu's number of episode views versus network viewership had nothing to do with revenues. But, it does illustrate how fractionally small the online audience is compared to the broadcast audience. Stock valuations are often based on hype and expectations of future growth, and Hulu is getting pumped up the same way, with NBCU as the main beneficiary. Would not surprise me to see it spin off and prepare for an IPO in the next year or two.


- your vitriol against the internet/computer users is clouding your understanding of what is really happening out there,

Nope, I'm just seeing the trends for what they actually are, rather than how the tech press wishes they are.


- a very similar myopia is probably shared by the studio execs,

Actually, I see the myopia with the internet/computer users who feel entitled to having all of their movies, music, and TV programs for free. The studio execs have an actual business to run, and giving content away for free without any replacement revenue stream elsewhere is the surest way of running that business into the ground.


- ticket sales at smaller sports venues are way down (I've involved in the maintenance of several ticketing systems and with the people who manage them - that was not just an "Anecdotal observation" on my part),

So, that just means even more entertainment outings are getting shifted to movie theaters.


- BR is still going to give way to downloads & streaming at some point in the near future,

Again, what do you define as "near future"? If the rate of growth for movie downloading isn't even keeping up with BR growth, then how's it even mathematically possible for BD to "give way"? Once again, you're mistakenly equating bias and wishful thinking with actual market behavior.


- and you still don't have any business commenting about my efforts to do things in a socially responsible manner.

Self-righteous pontificating is always going to invite comments. If it's nobody else's business, then don't make it anyone's business.


By the way, I was in Hollywood supporting the actors and studio workers during the last strike. I have several friends who work in LA, and I was more than willing to support them in their struggle for fair pay and compensation. And if you think they didn't have some serious anger towards the studio execs, then I suggest it's you who doesn't understand this industry.

Where do I indicate that the rank and file don't have issues towards management? I've never said that. I'm merely pointing out that movie budgets aren't likely to go down anytime soon, and executive pay is only one part of the escalation in movie production costs. Unlike in other industries and the economy as a whole where wages have remained stagnant over the past decade, the union jobs in Hollywood have seen healthy wage increases. I have no problem with that, but if you think these hard fought union contracts don't also increase production costs and it's all the CEO's fault, then you're not seeing the big picture where all costs and revenues are taken into account.

[nightflier]

Self-righteous pontificating is always going to invite comments. If it's nobody else's business, then don't make it anyone's business.

I could go on debating each point and the obvious biases, but on the above topic, you were actually the one who made it an issue. Just go back a few posts and check what you wrote.

Anyhow, this discussion is over.

[pixelthis]

[QUOTE=nightflier]I could go on debating each point and the obvious biases, but on the above topic, you were actually the one who made it an issue. Just go back a few posts and check what you wrote.

Anyhow, this discussion is over.:1:

[Rich-n-Texas]

Its a little more complex with rich and I.
He is a relative "newbie" to this stuff, while I HAVE BEEN IN AUDIO OF SOME KIND FOR 40 ODD YEARS.
I guess he thinks I am some kind of smartass because I call him on crap.
He finally figured out that I was right about seperate amps, and about how his B&W
speakers would really shine with more than the cheap receiver he was running them on.
Of course my input had nothing to do with this revelation.
I have a cousin just like him, you cant tell him anything either.
If you do he will come back later like a lightbulb went off and he "figured" out this great new idea, never mind that its the same one you suggested a week ago.
This same cousin was trying to tell me how to download a file one day, he had just learned how and was trying to tell me.
He didnt know so nobody else knew, and he couldnt understand why I got mad at his condescending attitude.
Even after I explained that I had built my last three computers, had been on the net for years, and had forgotten more than he ever would know, he still went on about downloading files, he knew one way of doing it, I was using a DIFFERENT one.
But he just had to feel superior to me in some way.
Its this same attitude that comes from a lot of yankees like Rich, they dont understand that just because you were born south of the Mason Dixon line doesnt mean you are a "dumbass" as he puts it.
He constantly posts sterotypes about people in my part of the country.
To which I will just quote a famous comedian from my part of the world,
when insulted by a new yorker, he replied...
"I get 200 channels", you get 5, and you call me a hick".:1:
I about puked when I read this. You're a walking contradiction dumbass. I post stereotypes about people in your part of the country?

I wouldnt exactly call it "entertaining" to be called a "dumbass" by a carpetbagger.

How many times have I been referred to that way by you, ex-cop? That's just one example. If I need to I'll point out another 1,000 contradictions by you. The rest of this crap just isn't worth my time. :rolleyes:

[pixelthis]

I about puked when I read this. You're a walking contradiction dumbass. I post stereotypes about people in your part of the country?


How many times have I been referred to that way by you, ex-cop? That's just one example. If I need to I'll point out another 1,000 contradictions by you. The rest of this crap just isn't worth my time. :rolleyes:


USUALLY in response to being called a quote "dumbass" and worse by you.
DONT DISH IT OUT if you can't take it.
So Richie crawls out from under whatever rock he's been hiding under.
And it was almost getting civilized around here.
I guess between you "dream job" at TEXAS INSTRUMENTS and your current job at mickey D'S you couldn't afford an internet connection.:1:

[Rich-n-Texas]

USUALLY in response to being called a quote "dumbass" and worse by you.
You started it. :rolleyes:

B!tch please dumbass. So you're the newly appointed "big man on campus" around here now? This forum was a lot more "civilized" before you came along.

I guess between you "dream job" at TEXAS INSTRUMENTS and your current job at mickey D'S you couldn't afford an internet connection.
Yeah, and going from ex-cop to nightime security guard looking at granny's all night is real dreamy huh? Doesn't surprise me one bit that you don't know the first thing about ethics and working within a culture that stands on it's integrity, inclusion and innovation. That's the standard I live my working life by. How 'bout you son?

[pixelthis]

You started it. :rolleyes:

B!tch please dumbass. So you're the newly appointed "big man on campus" around here now? This forum was a lot more "civilized" before you came along.

Yeah, and going from ex-cop to nightime security guard looking at granny's all night is real dreamy huh? Doesn't surprise me one bit that you don't know the first thing about ethics and working within a culture that stands on it's integrity, inclusion and innovation. That's the standard I live my working life by. How 'bout you son?

Its called retirement, something you will never hold a job long enough to attain,
and maybe the first thing you think of when having a closed circuit camera system in front of you is "looking at grannys" but its not my cup of tea.:1:

[Rich-n-Texas]

What's called retirement dumbass? There you go again twisting the argument in an attempt to make yourself look like a victim here. If you're getting in your broken down pickup truck, driving to the Geriatrics ward, sitting in front of a camera monitor that's spying granny, and collecting a salary, how is that retirement?

I heard on the news a couple of weeks ago that Blockbuster has a plan in the works to start competing with... who is it, Red Box to setup kiosks in stores and make STB's available. Doesn't sound like Blockbuster wants to "call it quits" now does it?

[pixelthis]

What's called retirement dumbass? There you go again twisting the argument in an attempt to make yourself look like a victim here. If you're getting in your broken down pickup truck, driving to the Geriatrics ward, sitting in front of a camera monitor that's spying granny, and collecting a salary, how is that retirement?

I heard on the news a couple of weeks ago that Blockbuster has a plan in the works to start competing with... who is it, Red Box to setup kiosks in stores and make STB's available. Doesn't sound like Blockbuster wants to "call it quits" now does it?


It sounds like they are looking for a life perserver to bail on the failed form factor of renting
movies at the store.
But of course you wouldn't understand the actions of a company desperatly looking for a new cash cow as their old one lays dying.
A bit too subtle for you to discern I suppose.
AND I work at a regional medical center with over two hundred cameras, I work in the control room and have twenty guards under my direct control.
Beats your job of sweeping the floor at TEXAS INSTRUMENTS.:1:

[Rich-n-Texas]

What a ****in loser you are. Blockbuster's trying to stay competitive just like any other business these days dumbass. Didn't you say earlier in this thread they were dead? Are you now back tracking by saying they're "looking for a life preserver"? Twist it around dumbass... classic.

[Mr Peabody]

Hey, if Captain Jack can come back to life, so can Blockbuster.