With todays launch of Hulu open to the public and recent additions to Apples iTunes store carrying movie rentals, how far are we away from primarily receiving our TV shows and movies via the internet? According to some of the top Hollywood studio executives, we are not close at all.
At a recent Content Delivery and Storage Association conference, a few people spoke out about this. The vice president of content development for Fox, Sven Davidson, stated "Demand for downloading is very small and the satisfaction is smaller." Benn Carr, the vice president of new technology for Disney, said "I don’t think we have to be worried about the replacement of physical media for some time, [...] Downloading sales are not going to ‘hockey-stick’ soon. Every time I access a site and download, it’s not necessarily seamless". They also say that hi-def movies can take several hours to download.
At a recent Content Delivery and Storage Association conference, a few people spoke out about this. The vice president of content development for Fox, Sven Davidson, stated "Demand for downloading is very small and the satisfaction is smaller." Benn Carr, the vice president of new technology for Disney, said "I don’t think we have to be worried about the replacement of physical media for some time, [...] Downloading sales are not going to ‘hockey-stick’ soon. Every time I access a site and download, it’s not necessarily seamless". They also say that hi-def movies can take several hours to download.
What are your opinions? Do you prefer a physical disk or purchasing to download? On one hand, you have HD content that cannot be backed up (according to the DMCA), so if you lose or scratch it, it is gone. On the other, most downloadable content has DRM protection. While you can back it up, if the company supplying the rights management goes under or the company licensing the content changes their DRM, you chance having your whole collection as wasted space.
I can't download or stream decent quality movies on my wonderful 1Mb/s internet.
Psh the industry would rather you rent them for set periods of time and then store them in DRM formats so you have to buy new ones every time a new format player comes out... Having a physical format means you are taking money from them they could of potentially had
In this fashion I would not have to worry about dvds becoming scratched or lost, and I could be at a friend's house and simply log in and view the film.
Of course, because there will always be a way to get around DRM I have a difficult time imagining a studio going this route, but also imagine that they would not have to deal with manufacture and distrubution of the discs and they would be able to place their entire catalog at a minimal cost.
There is also another benefit to the studio and the consumers. They will be able to notice the types of programs/films that we view and market to us the programs we actually want to view. Spam is only spam when it is items we do not want.
Food for thought.
Peace,
James Rose
New York City
That's what SHE said...
"Demand for downloading is very small", but they blame the internet and users downloading movies on poor ticket and dvd sales ?????
Anyway, here in France, many ISP offer VOD and most recently offer many online video services directly streamed to the TV, as youtube and so on...
With an almost "standard" 24Mb connection and new 100Mb Fiber connections coming, digital HD through internet is right on the corner at least here, in France.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.