TV Sales Dying?

[MattHooper]

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/...0-billion-for-the-first-time-ever-1203529990/

101 billion dollars and you're not getting paid like you used to be? Well, somebody is.

"and this is my excuse to take content without paying..."

Also, you don't recognize sarcasm. Or that image. It's from an anti-cassette tape campaign because, you know, cassette tapes were going to kill the music industry.

I recognized it. The casette thing comes up all the times in these discussions.

 

[beefkabob]

"and this is my excuse to take content without paying..."

Nah. My excuse is that paying is significantly more difficult and comes with far more restrictions than taking. When I pay for a book, I want a DRM free version I can use on my preferred ebook reader. So I install Calibre, download from Amazon, import into Calibre, then convert to Epub. Wait, why did I even bother to pay for the book? I could have just downloaded it straight. When I pay for music, it's easier to get a FLAC than rip it myself in EAC. And Tidal? Gods, I'll pay the fee, but i have to stream it every single time I loistenon the PC? Wut? When I pay for a TV streaming service or cable TV, I can get the show earlier (time zone DRM) and often in higher quality by downloading elsewhere. If I want to watch on my phone, I can just copy the file over and not have to rip it or deal with the obnoxiousness of DRM. Also no banging into bandwidth caps at home when I can download at work. Can't do that with the streaming services usually, and when you can, it's locked to a device.

Last night, I downloaded the Rick and Morty episode, let it sit for two hours, then finished watching it before it even aired on our paid satellite TV connection. That's insane!

And I spend plenty of money on various forms of media, so no guilt here. I bought over $800 in books last year, and that was a VERY slow year. Usually I spend more like $2k.
And the vast majority of what is downloaded just gets stored in a sort of packrat fetish. I sure as hell wasn't going to buy it if I had to.

And the motion picture business was, until recently, absolutely booming. More money than ever before. More content than ever before. So if the complaint is that you weren't getting paid, take it up with the studios, not the pirates.

 

[hmurchison]

Ouch Ian from the article. As an owner of two Hisense TV I guess I should be offended but the reality is I feel like @Blumlein 88 as a movie collector I'm not happy watching movies on a 65" TV even if it's an OLED. I personally would cheap out on the TV and spend on a Epson 5050UB or JVC NX7. For me Home Theater is a BIG screen. If I can put a 150" screen in my Bonus Room that's what I'm doing.

TV sales aren't dying because people don't watch content. If you look at the rise of Netflix and now Disney+ it's clear that consumption of content is happening and it's centered around convenience. Blu-Ray is dying and TV sales are flattening because of saturation. I chatted with people that had 8 TV in their homes and they weren't upgrading until the TV died.

4K isn't the driver anymore and 8K is a non-factor for most people

High End TV are going to have to start becoming more functional and integrating into homes without looking like TV. I'm specifically speaking about products like the Samsung Frame. TV need to start looking like something else.

 

[hellboundlex]

I don't want a "TV." I want a display. I have computers and stuff to hook to it.

I hate the whole industry. I don't want your bad computer, i want my nice one. I hate having to invest in crappy hardware to have surround sound, as well as other crappy streaming hardware to connect to it. And don't get me started on renting crappy hardware to play crappy cable television.

Above someone said, and forgive me for missing the brilliant person who wrote it, that we will eventually just have screens we hang like picture frames. The sooner the better, I say.

 

[beefkabob]

8k is a joke. How close do I need to sit to my 120" screen? Close enough for a horrid viewing angle. 8k is for monitors up close.

 

[hmurchison]

8k is a joke. How close do I need to sit to my 120" screen? Close enough for a horrid viewing angle. 8k is for monitors up close.

I have a theory about 8K and the push for it. 7 years ago my wife and I went to CES and it was the final swan song for 3D TV. What I did notice was the active glasses looked great with 4K TV. I felt that if the industry would have just waited for 4K tv and rolled out 3D with 4K that would have made more of an impact. Seeing 2K per eye really enhanced the effect.

Now, how does this concern 8K? I think 8K TV are being pushed not only because vendors need to sell high ASP TV but the vendors themselves want to reduce the costs of chipsets that can do 8K through economies of scale because the true reason why 8K is being pushed is to eventually get the cost down to do 8K Virtual Reality. When you get 4K per eye this will make VR look better than it ever has and arguably the impact of 8K VR exceeds that of 8K television IMO.

 

[beefkabob]

I have a theory about 8K and the push for it. 7 years ago my wife and I went to CES and it was the final swan song for 3D TV. What I did notice was the active glasses looked great with 4K TV. I felt that if the industry would have just waited for 4K tv and rolled out 3D with 4K that would have made more of an impact. Seeing 2K per eye really enhanced the effect.

Now, how does this concern 8K? I think 8K TV are being pushed not only because vendors need to sell high ASP TV but the vendors themselves want to reduce the costs of chipsets that can do 8K through economies of scale because the true reason why 8K is being pushed is to eventually get the cost down to do 8K Virtual Reality. When you get 4K per eye this will make VR look better than it ever has and arguably the impact of 8K VR exceeds that of 8K television IMO.

Interesting. I think the real reason for 8k is to sell TVs. Here's a reason to upgrade. It's not just 4k. It's 8k! This camera is 16mpixel, so it's better than that 12 mpixel! We swear it! With an 85" screen, I gotta be under 6 feet away to have a chance of noticing any improvement over 4k. Also do TVs and VR systems even use the same chipsets?

 

[Trouble Maker]

A relative of mine purchased a wide screen TV when they first appeared. He couldn't be told that 4:3 programs were not meant be watched in widescreen. He didn't seem to see that the actors became short/chubby.

I do that on purpose to make myself feel better about all of the delicious food I eat and beer I drink.

 

[Trouble Maker]

Listening to someone from the TV/Movie industry preach about how torrenting is taking all of their jobs while the reality is a lack of their industry embracing new technological and societal paradigms is the root cause is a riot. It's almost like there isn't another part of the entertainment industry that made this same mistake 20 years ago and have never recovered to look at as a good example of what not to do. I would venture to say that most people stealing TV and movies are doing so because of availability. Information wants to be free.

 

[hmurchison]

Listening to someone from the TV/Movie industry preach about how torrenting is taking all of their jobs while the reality is a lack of their industry embracing new technological and societal paradigms is the root cause is a riot. It's almost like there isn't another part of the entertainment industry that made this same mistake 20 years ago and have never recovered to look at as a good example of what not to do. I would venture to say that most people stealing TV and movies are doing so because of availability. Information wants to be free.

I have some thoughts on this as well. You're 100% correct. It's not the torrenting that's killing them it's their stubbornness. Consumer needs are relatively simple.

Time Shifting - Primetime no longer exists. People want to watch content when it fits their personal schedule hence the rise of Binge watching on Netflix.

Space Shifting - We want to seamlessly move from display on TV to mobile devices.

Streaming - While it assists in space shifting it's prone to broadband dropouts and poor networks. Neither Cox nor AT&T are particularly interested in me streaming to my hearts content over their network and they are more than happy to charge me extra. Those of us in households with children or just a large number of people who stream their content are quickly hitting bandwidth caps.

I have 460 iTunes movies and an Apple TV. You would think that I would be able to leverage my fast internal network to stream movies downloaded to one of my Macs to the TV over ethernet even. What I have is a home sharing app from Apple that looks like it hasn't been touched in 5 years.

Datacenters are among the top polluters. Every Content Distribution Network exists because of a Datacenter. Thus if you're a company that claims to be environmentally conscious yet employ a stream first approach your actions are antithetical to your eco friendly claim.

The Process:

When we stream a movie that we've purchased and we have told our providers that we have adequate storage we should receive a message "do you want to store this movie to your library for future playback?" A Yes would then stream that content from your local library until you delete or select otherwise. Most people running Plex do so for the freedom of playing back local content. Ripping discs to MKV and then h.26x is time consuming but they do it because the industry just wants to play the blame game.

The Future:

The fix is relatively simple to me. All distributors should get together and agree on an universal DRM scheme the is freely licensed so as to allow smaller distributors to pay a small certification fee and use appropriately.

To prevent wide scale piracy your typical home would have say up to 10 devices that can be authorized to play uDRM content. The user would be able to change authorizations at will, based on the MAC address of the playback devices.

The cool part would be the container would be more than just a DRM wrapper but it would allow extending files. Thus Marvel could sell you Son of Thor and offer alternate soundtracks (Bass heavy mix, future object based formats beyond Atmos, Directors Cuts, Alternate Endings or more. Once you move beyond the constraints of physical media it opens up a lot of potential. The industry must adapt to a a new model where movies can be inexpensive but still deliver extra financial opportunity through relevant add ons.

 

[hellboundlex]

I have some thoughts on this as well. You're 100% correct. It's not the torrenting that's killing them it's their stubbornness. Consumer needs are relatively simple.

Time Shifting - Primetime no longer exists. People want to watch content when it fits their personal schedule hence the rise of Binge watching on Netflix.

Space Shifting - We want to seamlessly move from display on TV to mobile devices.

Streaming - While it assists in space shifting it's prone to broadband dropouts and poor networks. Neither Cox nor AT&T are particularly interested in me streaming to my hearts content over their network and they are more than happy to charge me extra. Those of us in households with children or just a large number of people who stream their content are quickly hitting bandwidth caps.

I have 460 iTunes movies and an Apple TV. You would think that I would be able to leverage my fast internal network to stream movies downloaded to one of my Macs to the TV over ethernet even. What I have is a home sharing app from Apple that looks like it hasn't been touched in 5 years.

Datacenters are among the top polluters. Every Content Distribution Network exists because of a Datacenter. Thus if you're a company that claims to be environmentally conscious yet employ a stream first approach your actions are antithetical to your eco friendly claim.

The Process:

When we stream a movie that we've purchased and we have told our providers that we have adequate storage we should receive a message "do you want to store this movie to your library for future playback?" A Yes would then stream that content from your local library until you delete or select otherwise. Most people running Plex do so for the freedom of playing back local content. Ripping discs to MKV and then h.26x is time consuming but they do it because the industry just wants to play the blame game.

The Future:

The fix is relatively simple to me. All distributors should get together and agree on an universal DRM scheme the is freely licensed so as to allow smaller distributors to pay a small certification fee and use appropriately.

To prevent wide scale piracy your typical home would have say up to 10 devices that can be authorized to play uDRM content. The user would be able to change authorizations at will, based on the MAC address of the playback devices.

The cool part would be the container would be more than just a DRM wrapper but it would allow extending files. Thus Marvel could sell you Son of Thor and offer alternate soundtracks (Bass heavy mix, future object based formats beyond Atmos, Directors Cuts, Alternate Endings or more. Once you move beyond the constraints of physical media it opens up a lot of potential. The industry must adapt to a a new model where movies can be inexpensive but still deliver extra financial opportunity through relevant add ons.

I think developing new and better ways to control consumer use of media is the wrong direction to go in fighting the thieves. DRM is a barrier to innovation. The better approach is to prosecute and fine thieves, as well as work to discourage a culture of theft.

 

[maverickronin]

I think developing new and better ways to control consumer use of media is the wrong direction to go in fighting the thieves. DRM is a barrier to innovation. The better approach is to prosecute and fine thieves, as well as work to discourage a culture of theft.

It more a culture of civil disobedience...

 

[MattHooper]

Listening to someone from the TV/Movie industry preach about how torrenting is taking all of their jobs while the reality is a lack of their industry embracing new technological and societal paradigms is the root cause is a riot.

Well I'm so glad you are greatly amused. Your compassion is overwhelming.

It's almost like there isn't another part of the entertainment industry that made this same mistake 20 years ago and have never recovered to look at as a good example of what not to do.

What, like streaming? Like movies are doing now too?

Did that justify stealing content? Does it justify the still on-going stealing of content? You have people making copies of movies that haven't even hit the theaters yet, so people can download them free on line. Do you condone this?

I would venture to say that most people stealing TV and movies are doing so because of availability.

What does that mean? If it's available to take without paying...take it? Like noticing someone's wallet has dropped to the ground within your reach?

Or do you mean a lack of availability? Like "this movie isn't in the theater yet, I can't wait, so I'll watch a pirate copy for free!" Other than that: What movies, pray tell, are not available to pay for, which are available for torrenting?

I think there are plenty of outrageously priced or exclusive products. But this does not compel me to steal them.

Information wants to be free.

So does that mean anyone who works to create "information" has to give their work away because you can slap the label "information" on it?
Maybe you spend your working hours producing physical products. That's what we in the film business used to do. But now our work can be digitized. Does that mean, in your world, it has to be given away for free, despite all the work that went in to it?

If you commissioned someone to do a logo for your business and they send you the finished design, is it your ethos to say "Well, thanks! And since your work is sent in the form of digital information it wants to be free, I'm not going to pay for it. See ya!"

Just what ARE you saying, that isn't just another excuse of "I don't want to pay for that, so I'll take it for free?"

 

[Trouble Maker]

Well I'm so glad you are greatly amused. Your compassion is overwhelming.

What, like streaming? Like movies are doing now too?

Did that justify stealing content? Does it justify the still on-going stealing of content? You have people making copies of movies that haven't even hit the theaters yet, so people can download them free on line. Do you condone this?

What does that mean? If it's available to take without paying...take it? Like noticing someone's wallet has dropped to the ground within your reach?

Or do you mean a lack of availability? Like "this movie isn't in the theater yet, I can't wait, so I'll watch a pirate copy for free!" Other than that: What movies, pray tell, are not available to pay for, which are available for torrenting?

I think there are plenty of outrageously priced or exclusive products. But this does not compel me to steal them.

So does that mean anyone who works to create "information" has to give their work away because you can slap the label "information" on it?
Maybe you spend your working hours producing physical products. That's what we in the film business used to do. But now our work can be digitized. Does that mean, in your world, it has to be given away for free, despite all the work that went in to it?

If you commissioned someone to do a logo for your business and they send you the finished design, is it your ethos to say "Well, thanks! And since your work is sent in the form of digital information it wants to be free, I'm not going to pay for it. See ya!"

Just what ARE you saying, that isn't just another excuse of "I don't want to pay for that, so I'll take it for free?"

First off, I don't think anything justifies anyone stealing and let's get one thing straight, torrenting is stealing. Secondly, I do not torrent or otherwise steal content. The thing is, that actually makes it significantly harder for me to access what I want due to DRM, and most importantly significant fracturing of the streaming ecosystem. This is especially a hard pill to swallow now being overseas on an assignment for a year. So, I don't condone, but I fully understand those who do torrent because they just want to be able to watch something without jumping through 100 hoops.

I want to clarify what I, and I believe most people mean when they say 'Information wants to be free'. I think just like a comma or lack thereof can be divisive the definition of free is what I meant one way and you took another way. You took free to mean no cost, I mean free to mean accessible, not confined. I think if you read a few post of those people agreeing with me you will see this as a common thread.

 

[Blumlein 88]

First off, I don't think anything justifies anyone stealing and let's get one thing straight, torrenting is stealing. Secondly, I do not torrent or otherwise steal content. The thing is, that actually makes it significantly harder for me to access what I want due to DRM, and most importantly significant fracturing of the streaming ecosystem. This is especially a hard pill to swallow now being overseas on an assignment for a year. So, I don't condone, but I fully understand those who do torrent because they just want to be able to watch something without jumping through 100 hoops.

I want to clarify what I, and I believe most people mean when they say 'Information wants to be free'. I think just like a comma or lack thereof can be divisive the definition of free is what I meant one way and you took another way. You took free to mean no cost, I mean free to mean accessible, not confined. I think if you read a few post of those people agreeing with me you will see this as a common thread.

While I think saying data wants to be free is too anthropomorphic, I do get your point that by free you meant widely accessible disconnected from whether it involved payment for that accessibility or not. That was my point earlier, when content is made easily available and accessible even for a fee piracy tends to go down. When you have artificial barriers such as available in Europe, but not the US or the other way around you will likely get piracy.

 

[MattHooper]

First off, I don't think anything justifies anyone stealing and let's get one thing straight, torrenting is stealing. Secondly, I do not torrent or otherwise steal content. The thing is, that actually makes it significantly harder for me to access what I want due to DRM, and most importantly significant fracturing of the streaming ecosystem. This is especially a hard pill to swallow now being overseas on an assignment for a year. So, I don't condone, but I fully understand those who do torrent because they just want to be able to watch something without jumping through 100 hoops.

I want to clarify what I, and I believe most people mean when they say 'Information wants to be free'. I think just like a comma or lack thereof can be divisive the definition of free is what I meant one way and you took another way. You took free to mean no cost, I mean free to mean accessible, not confined. I think if you read a few post of those people agreeing with me you will see this as a common thread.

I may not agree with you all the way down the line, but I appreciate your clarification. Thanks.

I know the situation is more complicated than just "stealing" and there are gray areas, plus no one is a saint. (For instance, though I avoid downloading copyrighted material, music or movies or TV shows, I have surely seen stuff on youtube
that was likely violating some copyrights).

But I do have a bit of a sore spot regarding the ways many people justify torrenting movies.