Kids, Gaming and Hollywood Cries Poor - page 2
Hollywood, Broadcast Speaks With Forked Tongue
Dan Glickman, who has taken over as CEO of the MPAA from Jack Valenti (Valenti is still chairman), has got to get his organization's story straight.
At ShoWest he said theater admissions had risen over the past few years.
He and the studios announced that the sale of a bunch of the movie releases on DVD have hit record numbers.
Of course that's not going to stop Jack from working behind the scenes in Washington with his old cronies to protect consumers from themselves and get legislation to protect his kingdom. And his lawyers have access to the deep pockets to "enforce" the laws of the land.
The sales were so good (super profits) that broadcasters are dusting off their old series all the way back to "The Beverly Hillbillies" for gawd sake and they are racking up millions (if not billions) in unrealized, raw profit.
Recently we "found" Fox TV's series "24" even though it's in its third season. Ok, we're a "little" slow. The wife and I like it so much she bought me the first three series on disc for our birthday. We hadn't missed missing those shows but since we have them we watch two or three when there is nothing worth watching. We can only handle two or three because we're exhausted after watching the fast-paced action drama. It's great!
She also bought us the La Femme Nikita series last Christmas. We have both watched all of the discs. We wouldn't have recorded each of either of these shows because that would have taken planning (ok we also can't figure out how to use our system's time shifting capability but that's another issue).
But all of the series developers have suddenly realized that there is a ready market for those DVDs (some large markets, some small). So they've crept back into their dark, damp vaults to mine their treasures.
Do these people really care about protecting their content when HD viewing finally comes mainstream?
They might be able to convince Congress but the rest of us?
They're making all of their money in the "after-market" arena. You know; DVD sets, theme songs as cellphone ringtones, tie-in merchandising, soundtrack albums, etc. The theater release is like slot machines in Vegas. It covers the cost and the rest is money in the bank.
While we're at it, before you do run out and buy a new HighDef set (not to be confused with HD-ready) you might want to take see what you're getting into by taking a look at www.onhd.tv. These folks are brutal in their reviews of the HD experience. After reviewing their good/bad list -- http://www.onhd.tv/thelist.htm - we've decided it probably isn't worth the $500+ to upgrade our HD-ready to full HD.
There won't be enough HD recorders/burners out there to capture their breathtaking content until 2010 according to In-Stat and IDC and even then there will be less than two percent of the total DVD burners/recorders in the market.
If we were content developers certainly we'd lust for HD/BD solutions because it does look a little better than DVD in HiDef. But the price of the HD camcorders isn't going to get down to the point that the casual videographer will be ready to join the HD revolution for years…and years…and years. These babies are designed for serious videographers who "make all the big bucks and get all the gals/guys!"
We'll find out what the most recent projections are when we attend IDC's Directions 05 conference in a few weeks. But we'll still bet that there will be container loads of $79 DVD burners and $149 DVD recorders sold over the next five years compared to whatever wins in the "we're better" Blue contest.
No matter what they tell you, 50% of the total potential market doesn't have a DVD burner or recorder yet. And even though quality DVDR and DL media like Verbatim's is remarkably affordable, the volumes are only just now catching up with CDR.