andrewducker | Bill Gates on HDVD/Blu-Ray

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There's currently a major power struggle going on over the successor to DVD. Bill Gates has this to say, which I agree with:

Understand that this is the last physical format there will ever be. Everything's going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk. So, in this way, it's even unclear how much this one counts.

I can see the next generation being useful - broadband isn't wide-spread enough for everyone at this point. But it's definitely taking over as a delivery medium - the only software I've installed from CD recently has been Windows itself. Everything else has been downloaded, and the same goes for most video and music.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

johnbobshaun.livejournal.com

I was being serious :->

I wasn't with the "hand for beer" comment. I was refering to that.

Tapes sound bad, and you can't instantly go to the track you want to listen to. That's why I switched from tape to CD.

Yeah, I kinda guessed you'd respond with things relating to function.

I don't think I ever bought a CD for its box, except for Dark Side of the Moon, anniversary edition.

Again with the missing of the point! I don't either! I never suggested people did buy albums to have "a picture to look at"! Lets try again. People like having a physical representation of there purchase. I'd say it was human nature to want to have something physical to "own" as a result of that.

People like fancy digipaks and gatefold albums because of this, I'm not saying it means a person will or will not buy an album, I do think it adds value.

From:

andrewducker

People like having a physical representation of there purchase.

Leaving aside your appalling grammar, there are two points:
1) I'm not entirely sure people do. I think they _think_ they do, but when it comes down to it, they don't care very much, if at all.

2) We're moving to a non-purchase model. When I watch an episode of The Simpsons on VoD I haven't bought anything, no more than when I stream stuff on Napster, listen to the radio or go to the cinema.

Now, there's bound to be an initial feeling of uncertainty and fear. Of "what if I want to watch this same Simpsons episode once a week for the rest of my life - I should buy it, so I can do that!" or "What if next week they decide to stop showing The Simpsons. Then I'd never be able to watch it again!".

But given time, and a realisation that (a) you watch very little stuff repeatedly and (b) they aren't going to take TV away, because they want you to pay for it, I expect that fear to fade.

Of course, it will still be worth you buying (or paying for a perpetual license) for things you watch every week. But how many things are in this category?

From:

johnbobshaun.livejournal.com

Leaving aside your appalling grammar, there are two points:

Well; your write their! Apologys, Please bere with me. Im a bit simple. I thunk we shud leve that arguemunt hear: as I cant begun to understand you're point off view. To many big wurds!

From:

andrewducker

Well, bearing in mind the synergies implicit in the complexities of the current phase-change of the dynamical systems currently under discussion, it's hardly surprising that only those of us who are daily bombarded with the finest in buzzwords and the greatest of paradigm shifting overviews are capable of comprehensionalising the externalititititititites of the wossname.

From:

johnbobshaun.livejournal.com

:-)

Anyway...

I'm not entirely sure people do. I think they _think_ they do, but when it comes down to it, they don't care very much, if at all.

However, as much as you think people think they do when they don't, I think that you think you don't when you actually do.

Y'know, if we're gonna make sweeping statements. :-)

From:

andrewducker

Leaving aside your gross misrepresentation of me...

The reason that I think people don't care as much as they say they do, is that they're very happy to listen to music on the radio, download it off of AllOfMp3.Com, watch TV as its broadcast (and borrow it from friends), etc.

People will buy it, but I suspect that they do so largely because that's the easiest way to get to watch it, and that once they are able to watch/listen to it without having to own it, they won't bother (With exceptions for exceptional things that people are _really_ attached to).

This is, of course, supposition, and I may well be proved entirely wrong in a couple of years time, when people completely ignore VoD and live in houses made of DVDs they've bought.

From:

octopoid-horror.livejournal.com

allofmp3.com takes advantage of a legal loophole in Russia and you damn well know it. It is an entirely different case to the others. It is a clever setup, but it is not in the same class as something like, say, iTunes.

Sin City on DVD is the example of what I feel is going to happen. Initial release cheaply with no features (read - the future for-download style release) Maybe more adverts tacked on, or even during.

I presume that TV shows on iPods or whatever will sooner or later have adverts in. Because advertising money is what matters, especially to the US.

A later or more expensive release with extra features. (for purchase in shops)

And since DVDs are currently partly marketed on the extras (and films are often made with the full intention of being different on DVD, and scenes are deleted just to be put on the DVD), I think there will be a clear line between films for download and for purchase. Similar to the differences that you often get between rental/bought DVDs. I think, if film downloads become popular, that the extra features of non-downloaded products will be touted more and more. These extra products are ones, of course, that we didn't even miss until DVDs came along and made us want them.

Essentially, the media wants to make a profit.

Look at the sales of TV shows on DVD. People -want- to own them. Or are made to. They want to own things they've already seen, and even things that are often repeated. Those "Friends" box sets sell a lot, even when it was still being repeated. Box sets of The Simpsons sell quite well, even when that is constantly repeated.

From:

andrewducker

allofmp3.com takes advantage of a legal loophole in Russia and you damn well know it. It is an entirely different case to the others. It is a clever setup, but it is not in the same class as something like, say, iTunes.

In both cases people are happy to listen to music without the aid of a shiny box. We weren't talking about legality - we were talking about whether people wanted the physical object to go with their music.

The BBC are curently making a large chunk of their previous week's broadcasting available on VoD, for free. I look forward to seeing how other companies compete with this.