Dustin Hoffman says the cinema is at it's worst.

It's different than their parents, and that's cool.

 

$6.50 per seat at my movie theater for a matinee.

 

No, it really doesn't sound like a lot, in fact it's on the paltry side. Most people I know have at least a 300GB cap or unlimited plans. Citing data from the broadband networking company Sandvine, the top 15% of streaming video users (cord cutters who stream video), use an average of 212GB a month.

 

It's the best I can get right now. I live in a rural area so I'm stuck with HughesNet. Bummer.

 

How about the bottom 15% and the middle 15%? The top 15% of anything are often enough some pretty heavy-duty freaks.

 

Just found this thread.

I think the the depth of quality movies is higher now than ever before. However, the quality of today's best movies is nowhere near where things were during say 1966-1981.

 

A tread is a trend.

 

Things are obviously very different here, although the number of product has declined. But an obvious answer is: the internet.

 

As with CD's...there are plenty of DVDs that have already been put out...and entire history of movies as a matter of fact. So much so....why spend time worrying about what comes out new tomorrow ?

 

Sure, you can buy the stuff on Amazon if you seek it out. But the days of being able to walk in to a brick-and-mortar store and actually go through a large stock of new CDs and DVDs is over.

There used to be the biggest newsstand on the West coast here in Hollywood, a terrific place called World Book & News on Cahuenga Blvd. (which most locals called "The Cahuenga Newsstand"). They carried hundreds of daily newspapers from all over the world, along with thousands of magazines, down an entire city block, with a medium-sized store stocked with paperback books. Been there for more than 50-60 years.

I drove by the newsstand the other day, and it now looks like it's about 15 feet long, barely enough to carry a couple of dozen papers and maybe 50 magazines. Everything else is boarded up and shut down. And nobody was there except the guy at the cashier.

This is basically where the physical media business is at these days. Average people have moved on and get their information other ways. I don't like it, and I'm sad to see it go, but I accept that this is the way the world is now.

 

Get a different plan with higher data caps.

 

Those days are dwindling.
But either way, the seeming notion is that CDs and DVDs themselves are allegedly "over" - not the way they're sold. But they aren't. I've still got way too many new releases that are strangling my wallet.

It's not a matter of personal desire blocking any acceptance of reality. I have accepted that Tower Records/Video is long gone now, and that the stock of physical media has largely moved on from stores to The Internet. But there are still new discs being made, and sold.

 

I don't think anyone has said that this isn't still the case. Why keep bringing it up?

 

Because of posts like this, crying "The Sky Is Falling":

 

But the sky is falling, it just hasn't completed the process yet. Furthermore, my quote in no way says that "there are no new discs being made, and sold" today. Which brings me back to the question I asked in my previous post.

 

The funny thing is the Marvel films were the first thing I thought of as support for what Hoffman is saying!

 

Here's the music sales figures just from the 1990s through 2009:



They've gone down much more since then. DVD sales are so bad, most of the studios have laid off 2/3 of their home video staffs. Basically, the home video departments are now responsible for downloads, streaming, and DVD/Blu-ray, but the truth is DVD/Blu-ray is a vanishingly small part of their business.



These figures are already 2 years out of date. Continue those lines and you'll see where things are headed.

I have no vested in this either way. But when I walk into Best Buy, Walmart, Costco, and Target and I see at most maybe 20 feet of shelf space given to new CD/DVD/Blu-ray releases, I realize there's no market there anymore.

 

Also don't forget to follow the money. It's much cheaper (therefore more profitable) for the media companies to ditch all the associated costs sunk into producing and distributing physical media and instead have the end-user pick up the costs of distribution (streaming/downloading) through their internet connection costs. It's a no brainer.

 

Making/remastering content is the same expense whether it's streaming/download/Blu. The actual Blu-ray or DVD is closer a $1 maybe $2.

If people want home copies they will continue steal movies online. If fans resent a lack of physical product it will LOSE money for studios. The minute viewers have to subscribe a half dozen video streaming services and the selection isn't what they hoped then they will start to rebel.

I love reading Vidiots SH forum contributions, but there's been 2-3 subjects where I've vehemently disagreed. This is one of them. Have you seen some of the B/C/Z list titles from past decades(not even desired kitsch stuff) on the forthcoming blu-rays release schedule?

 

No chart was necessary here, because I fully realize and accept that sales are declining. But as we can also see, even with the falls, revenue for the physical media is still in the billions. And like I said earlier, I have been hearing this prediction of media going "dead" (as in "no longer existing at all") for a long time already -- something like a decade now. And yet, my wallet still cannot keep up with the new DVD/Blu releases on my "want list" -- even though I now order them online instead of walking into Best Buy.

You keep insisting that just because stores are making a deliberate in vogue decision not to stock discs physically inside their stores, that means they're not selling (now via The Internet). But as even your own chart shows, physical media still is in the billion$ . A lot of people falsely get the impression that "nobody buys physical media anymore", just because they're no longer offered on store shelves in front of the naked eye like they used to be.

I also have no vested interest in this either way, because I already own 99.9% of every OLDER movie I will ever require (much like with music, I am not a big fan of newer movies). If they stopped making DVDs and Blu-rays today, I am good to go for the next 30 or so years I have left. All I need to do is stock a couple of spare new Blu-ray players and HDTV's in storage and I'm all set until I drop, while others stream to their heart's content. Right now my purchases of movies and TV shows consist pretty much of simply upgrading from DVDs to HD Blu-rays. As someone hinted at above: most pre-2016 movies are already released on DVD and/or Blu-ray -- so it's no wonder that there aren't many more "new releases" that remain to come out. The only thing which may cease are DVD/BD releases of brand new movies -- and speaking for myself, I rarely care about those anyhow. (But still, if I ever choose to infrequently purchase a physical disc for something new like JURASSIC WORLD, for instance, I can still get those, too).

So yeah, there is a trend out there at the moment for people streaming and downloading. But there is also an undercurrent of even young rebels who love buying things like new and used Vinyl Records amidst all of that. So let us know when the day arrives that we no longer can get our fix. Trust my credit card bill when I tell ya -- it ain't nearly there yet.

 

I'm not playing semantics, though ("well, now -- who here actually said there are 'no' discs being made anymore, hmmm?"). Because that, obviously, is the implication -- that 'the end is very near' ... except that I've heard it's been on "death watch" for 10 0r 15 years, as meanwhile I keep running out of room to store all the new releases I keep acquiring. (Check out my more extensive reply to Vidiot just above this).

Tell that to the media companies. They must not have gotten the memo, as there are still way too many discs being released for me to keep up with.

 

Except that they will not resent it, except for the increasingly irrelevant older demographic. The streaming model has already been embraced by the under 25s or so and it's not like succeeding generations are suddenly going to flock to discs. Most people from that demographic probably wonder what a music CD is for.

So you do want to play semantic games. I see. Anyway, it's no skin off my nose, but as an interested observer, the future of physical media is clear.

 

Hold on a moment.
OK -- check...

...Sorry for that, but I had to make sure your quote here was a new one from September 3rd 2015, and not from the year 2005. Please let us check back in a few years and see what has happened with physical media. Fair enough?

Meanwhile, I predicted the end of vinyl records around 1986, and guess what? While they took a hiatus from the mainstream stores for a while (they're back today), the interest for them is back and growing amongst new generations here in 2015, nearly 30 years later. Of course records will never be anything other than a "niche", but the whole point is that they have never truly "died", and now current artists are still making their latest work available on Vinyl. A number of today's youth are even thumbing their noses at impersonal downloads, and instead are actually going to physical media -- and that is what's actually brought vinyl records up again, not down. They own a turntable, are buying records, and having a blast. And stores now stock some records. Who would have ever bet on that unlikelihood in the 1990's? I know I wouldn't have.

 

Sure, we can compare the nosediving sales curves in a few years.

 

I've been having laughs doing that already for the past 10, all the while still acquiring more physical media releases than I ever have. What is the point of continually saying "Physical Media Is On Death Watch", and yet the supposed imminent "death" never occurs? So I'm saying, please let me know when physical media is "dead". At this rate I predict I'll expire before it ever does.

PS - no reaction to the fact about some young people now gravitating toward physical media today, where they weren't 10 years ago?