Two thoughts on the future of video
This morning’s paper had two interesting articles about home video.
Warners will be releasing Superman Returns on DVD in China today, two months ahead of the rest of the world, priced almost as low as the ubiquitous counterfeit versions.
How do you make money selling a DVD for 14 yuan ($1.75)? Well, the counterfeiters do. From Warner’s perspective, they’ve already sunk hundreds of millions into the film. As long as they can sell a DVD for a penny more than it cost to manufacture, it’s probably worth it. I’ve long thought that the only way to beat bootlegging in markets like China and Russia is to take away the price difference. I’ll be curious to see if the experiment pays off.
The second article looks at a possible deal between Wal-Mart and Apple. Not to sell iPods or Macintoshes, but movies. Which is weird, because neither Apple nor Wal-Mart makes movies.
Apparently, several studios were on board to sell downloadable movies through iTunes, but backed off because of pressure from Wal-Mart, which is by far the biggest distributor of DVDs in North America. Disney held its ground and went with iTunes, but there was the possibility that Wal-Mart would cut its orders of Disney’s movies as punishment.
Now Apple is in talks with Wal-Mart to give the giant retailer a cut of the action on downloads, in exchange for letting the other studios sell movies through iTunes.
Fuck Wal-Mart, seriously.
Their near-monopolist control of physical products is bad enough. I don’t think we should be giving them control over bits and bytes.
I think I’m going to download High School Musical just to spite them.
Articles
September 29th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Ugh. Save your ten bucks. Downloadable movies have yet to win me over, especially since the average price of them (so far) is only about a two or three-dollar difference from just buying the physical DVD. Some, like Disney’s “The Wild” and “Casanova,” are priced as high as $14.99! If you really want a copy of these movies at a decent price, just wait until they show up in a used DVD store or in Blockbuster’s “Previously Viewed” pile.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Are they really considering giving Wal-Mart a cut of their sales? Oh there are so many things wrong with this picture.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:25 am
I assume Wal-Mart will be using the extra revenue to provide a living wage and health insurance to its employees. Of course, that may just be me hallucinating because I’m all hopped up on cold medicine.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Believe me, I haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid on iTunes movies. They’re an imperfect alternative to DVDs, but I like that they are an alternative.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:28 am
To gain any mass market appeal, movie downloads have to be priced significantly lower than their physical counterparts. I believe there is a significant psychological barrier for people to shell out nearly the same amount of money for a download verses the physical product. While selling songs worked for Apple, this is mainly because of the ability to download single tracks, verses the entire CD. I’m not convinced that the majority of people have the equipment to display video from their computer on their TV (which is why it is absolutely critical for Apple to aggressively market the iTV appliance). Also a computer screen does not have the same appeal as a nice TV and surround sound system. With these problems, they will still have to compete with piracy, which in many cases is offering a superior product.
Oh, does anyone know the resolution of the videos that iTunes is selling? Does it have surround sound?
September 29th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Wal-Mart is the Devil…no, really!
September 29th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Fuck Wal-Mart indeed!
September 29th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
There’s a certain fun-factor involved in going to your favorite store, rummaging through ailes of dvds, buying a bunch and bringing them home, as well as having them on a shelf to look at, which personally I find quite inspiring. All that goes away in a CLICK, literally.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I think it’s the absolute next step in the evolution of home entertainment, and I didn’t even steal that from the brochure or anything.
In particular, I think this will incite another indie film explosion, because the bottleneck thus far has been distribution, and now with Itunes that’s no longer a factor. As long as net neutrality holds, indie filmmakers have an opportunity to go toe-to-toe with the big corporations on equal ground: content.
Buy all the TV ads you want, Warner Bros. Tell me how many website hits you get and then we’ll talk.
September 29th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Why be mad at just Wal-mart? Why not be upset at apple for giving into them and the studios for allowing themselves to be blackmailed. I mean does anyone seriously think that Wal-mart will stop selling DVD’s from the major studios? If they do, most people will just buy them from someplace else and Wal-mart will loose even more business. Besides, Wal-mart has proven that their threat can’t be taken seriously. They’re still buying Disney DVDs.
As far as Wal-mart paying a decent wage, graduate from high school and go to college. No one is forcing anyone to work there.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
I’m with Earl. Think about all of the people running Windows XP Media Center. Movies that are downloaded can still be played on television sets, not just computer screens.
What you have for a computer today is not what you have for a computer in a year or two. While movie downloading is not necessarily the best option for many right now, it just may be in the future.
September 29th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Not just that – think of iTv.
I know a lot of people say, “It’s expensive!”
It is expensive.
So is the iPod. And at the time of the iPod, there was a pressing need no one knew existed: music was available in digital form, but how do you USE that form natively, comfortably, to its full advantage? The days of burning mix CDs were getting tedious.
Now we have the same thing again. Video content. Tons of it. YouTube. But the only way to play it right now is to burn it to DVD, or hook your computer up in a blanket of woven cables to your TV.
iTv fills a need.
September 29th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Grant: The resolution of TV shows and movies you buy through the iTunes store is 640×480 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itunes#Video ) and the sound is 128 kbit/s AAC
September 29th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Fuck Walmart, indeed. No other company has done so much to hurt this country…well, with possible exception of Haliburton.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Why doesn’t Disney just form a strategic alliance with Target to exclusively sell ALL merchandise in a sort-of mini-store? The boost to family-oriented products at a competitor would significantly hurt Wal-Mart by way of opportunity costs.
September 29th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Joseph’s absolutely right — “Fuck Wal-Mart” is really a frustrated shout at Apple, along with Sony, Warners and the other major studios afraid of upsetting the DVD applecart. Which, frankly, is going to be tipping over anyway, either through legal downloads or illegal ones.
But seriously, Wal-Mart is the devil. A friend works for a major toy manufacturer, who says they’re forced to show the upcoming toys to Wal-Mart months in advance, and if they can’t get the price low enough, Wal-Mart will basically just rip them off and sell them as their own brand.
One of the things I’ve admired about Apple is that they haven’t been willing to capitulate on price for the iPods just to meet Bentonville’s demands. Steve Jobs is really smart, so maybe he’s figured out a good strategy, who knows.
And I fully acknowledge that Apple has become the de facto Wal-Mart of digital music. They didn’t do it through predatory pricing; their true rival, piracy, is free. But they’ll have to tread carefully.
September 30th, 2006 at 5:28 am
This whole digital revolution seems to be a race to the bottom. Let’s ruin the theatrical experience with awful digital projectors, which in the long run won’t matter because they want to kill of theatrical distribution all together.
Let’s ruin films by shooting them on video. Why? Like all answers these days, becuase its cheaper. Cheaper is not an answer! Look at Superman, why did it fail? I know people will say something to the effect of, “Modern audiences are too jadded for a black and white character like superman who is so clearly good”. Maybe it because the look of that film is so awful that people, unconsciously, decided not to see it.
Now they want to push DVD’s out for downloads. Even though everyone knows that a movie version of napster is waiting right around the corner. So when movies are being made on video for people to steal and give to each other what will you be left with?
In ten years its going to be really easy to be a screenwriter, no one is going to want to make movies anymore.
September 30th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
They didn’t do it through predatory pricing;
What the hell is predatory pricing? Are they jumping me while I walk alone in the woods and forcing me to buy items I want at less than I would pay elsewhere?
If you’re refering to some mythical practice of Walmart’s whereby they keep their prices so low that everyone else goes out of bussiness and then jack them up, well you still can’t call it predatory until they jack them up.
Let’s ruin films by shooting them on video. Why? Like all answers these days, becuase its cheaper. Cheaper is not an answer! Look at Superman, why did it fail? I know people will say something to the effect of, “Modern audiences are too jadded for a black and white character like superman who is so clearly good�. Maybe it because the look of that film is so awful that people, unconsciously, decided not to see it.
Actually I don’t know anyone who didn’t find the film visually amazing and plenty of people who hated the characters. Nor have I read anywhere that anyone has said they didn’t like the look of the film at all, much less because it was shot on video.
And the choice to do it on video didn’t really save them any money, when you’ve invested 240 million dollars in a film another 100k for film processing is nothing. Video was chosen because of what Bryan Singer could do with it.
And what does this have to do with Apple and Walmart?
September 30th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Hate to go off-topic: but did Superman really look bad? I’ll grant, some of the CGI wasn’t the best, but a lot of it was very nice.
I know this is all opinion-based, I’m not trying to make a blanket statement that “‘Superman’ was gorgeous!”. I just didn’t really see a problem in the cinematography. Some of those opening Smallville shots were beautiful. So I ask again, did ‘Superman’ really look bad?
October 1st, 2006 at 4:07 am
The look of a movie (judged by the trailer) can be one of the deciding factors for people figuring out whether they will go see it or not, but seeing as trailers are often viewed on TV, I wouldn’t buy the idea that Superman flopped because of bit-depth issues.
It might just have flopped because Superman is the boringest super hero of all time: a nice guy whose alter ego is an even nicer guy. What’s there to watch?
October 1st, 2006 at 5:15 am
Well….Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck Wal Mart.
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Speaking of the devil… have you heard about Walmartopia? ;)
myspace.com/walmartopia
October 9th, 2006 at 7:02 am
John, perhaps your friend works for the same toy company as my cousin. She says that if Wal-Mart doesn’t pick up the toy line then it won’t be manufactured because it won’t turn a profit. Back to the drawing board until Wally World is appeased.
October 9th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
John – if you haven’t seen it already, my own comments on Walmart’s play, as well as Target’s similar response is posted at:
http://www.hdforindies.com/2006/10/latest-itunes-shenanigans-target.html
My biggest beef, outside of Walmart continuing to be evil:
Walmart and Target are complaining that a competitor is selling an inferior product, that has zero shipping and packaging costs, that takes up zero shelf space, should be shold wholesale for the same price as the alternative that looks better, has more content, comes in a physical box that has to be built, shipped, and placed on shelves.
Galling, to say the least.
Yeah. Fuggem.
-mike
October 9th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Here, in Russia (i live in western siberia), Universal and Fox already sell simple DVD editions for 3,5$ (100 rubles) and some pirates dvds cost more (100-200 rubles). Legal «Miami Vice» (with only russian DTS track) available since september. It’s the only solution if they want to outsell pirates.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Video is one path for screenwriters, but what about Television? Many people download tv shows via torrents, but many also watch them legally on the internet (abc.com and so forth). Pirating is much less of a deal for Television shows. Also, buying a season of a Television Drama for 50$ on dvd, containing nearly 966 minutes of the show plus tonnes of bonus features, is a much more attractive purchase than a 15-20$ purchase of a feature length film on dvd. Not only that, but the Television industry has been doing amazingly well and most acclaimed works are those found on television. Sopranos, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Arrested Development, etc.
Should one write a screenplay for a television show, then? I’m in that pickle myself. Well, I’m concerning myself with what future I’d have as a television screenwriter. On top of that, the alternative of writing novels doesn’t seem to fit with someone like me who doesnt read.