Hi Scott
I wanted to get your opinion on the future of WWE home video releases. I'm amassed a fairly large collection of wrestling footage over the years and I was wondering what's going to happen to it with all the talk nowadays of streaming/digital video and such. How much longer will my DVDs be good for? How would I be able to convert my collection to streaming/digital if it comes to that? Will WWE offer a service to do that or am I SOL and have to find a way on my own? Will WWE continue to do home video releases if we move to digital? How would they be delivered to us?
I don't know if you have the answers to this question, but considering your contacts in WWE, it's worth a try, I figure.
Uh, I assure you that if WWE had any interest in no longer making money from DVD sales, they would have switched to digital delivery many many many many many many years ago. Collectors and obsessive wrestling nerds will ALWAYS want something for their shelves and unless the entire industry does a major shift that seems unlikely, there will always be DVD or Blu-Ray or some other physical media to buy.
Ignoring the fact that they're not doing it...why in the world would you have to replace everything you already have? Do you think switching to streaming/digital would make the DVDs/blu ray stop working?
ReplyDeleteThis was brought on by a conversation I had with someone in my local
ReplyDeleteApple store who told me that DVDs/Blue Rays are going to become obsolete
within the next 3-10 years and everything will go streaming/digital because it costs the movie companies money to make DVD cases, sleeves, and discs, and by eliminating the physical medium entirely, they could maximize their profits. Now, wrestling didn't enter at all into this conversation, but my thought was: 1) what if WWE follows suit and doesn't make DVDs anymore? and/or 2) What
if DVD/Blue Ray players are no longer produced? In both cases, my
collection would become unwatchable.
Of course, I suppose this depends on how much you believe people working at the local Apple store. For what it's worth, the people at Best Buy said exactly the opposite. LOL.
Fair enough. I think the Apple people are full of crap and just trying to push their own format. While streaming and digital downloads have become more prevalent, the entertainment companies are in no way going to want to move
ReplyDelete"What if DVD/Blue Ray players are no longer produced?"
ReplyDeleteconsidering the fact that it is easily possible to still buy vhs players (and afaik, even new ones) that's a pretty big "what if?". and even if they are not produced anymore, it's not like all existing players would vanish in an instant.
You know, converting DVDs into a digital format is as easy as converting a cd into an mp3. Not sure what your concerns are here. Just search google for a free converting program of you wish to do so.
ReplyDeleteOnce somebody gets the ease of access right, I could absolutely see WWE going to an all-streaming/digital format. The pipe dream of most media companies is an all VOD pay model: everything is basically a pay per view like on your cable's movie on demand channels. They have no overhead that way and they don't lose money if you want to watch it repeatedly or share it with your friends, and there's less risk of piracy. But it'll never happen that way because no one will be willing to pay for an individual use, unless it's like a penny or something insignificant.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Even though I think we are moving to an all streaming world and I have gone from buying 4 or 5 dvd's a month to 2 or 3 a year, it's not like everyone's dvd players and dvds will suddenly melt and become unusable.
ReplyDeleteWe're just a few months away from "WHITE OUT: The Sheamus Story" There is no way they stop making DVDs
ReplyDeleteI'd go with what the Best Buy guys said.
ReplyDeleteDVD players are not likely to go anywhere. I imagine even if streaming becomes the norm that you'll be able to buy a combo device that includes some sort of optical disc player that is backwards compatible with DVD, BluRay, and any future format that exists before disc based media becomes defunct (if and when that happens). Very few new standalone VCRs are manufactured these days (and none by major manufacturers) but lots of combo-units (DVD player/VCR and DVD recorder/VCR) are still being made.
ReplyDeletePlus there is still a high demand for DVD drives in computers among the techies, so you'll always have the option of ripping your discs to a computer and converting them into whatever format your streaming device plays if you want it all in one unit.
Also it should be noted that DVDs are already a digital video format (as opposed to VHS which is an analog format), so no conversion needs to occur in moving it from a disc to your hard drive -- you can simply rip a DVD and lose none of the quality in the process. You only need to convert it to an alternate format if whatever device you are putting the video on doesn't support MPEG2 DVD-Video playback or if you are trying to save space. This isn't really recommended since MPEG2 is already a lossy compressed format and any conversion will result in a decrease in quality, although at high enough bitrates the difference may be negligible.
I think a lot of this talk about "DVDs going away" if being fueled by the lower sales of BluRay discs than expected and also by Netflix revealing what was always their intention once the technology is in place -- to be a video streaming company and not a DVD by mail company. This has a lot of people freaking out, but I wouldn't be that surprised if another type of physical media comes along to surpass BR in sales down the line a bit.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons I think BR sales have lagged is because people don't see the increased value the way they did between VHS and DVD. Between VHS and DVD you had a huge increase in picture and sound quality, but you also had some other tangible benefits, like not having to rewind/fast forward tapes in real-time anymore. DVD to BR offers little additional benefits and the jump in picture quality is noticeable but not nearly as dramatic for most people, though that perception is different in the TV world where digital cable and satellite signals are compressed all to hell and HD channels look startling better in comparison since cable companies throw all their bitrate to those channels.
They can sell a blu-ray for $20-$30, I think they are making more on that then selling a stream for $5.
ReplyDeleteand if you think about the fact that larger harddiscs become cheaper each year I think it's obvious that many people will just copy whole dvd/bd images onto their hds.
ReplyDeletewhy do you think there's less risk of piracy? if is digital it can be copied. and if it can be copied it can be shared.
ReplyDeleteYeah, a DVD takes up somewhere between 4.7GB and 8.5GB of space, so even if all of your discs are dual-layer discs, you could fit something like 125 DVDs on one single 1TB drive without having to compromise the quality at all.
ReplyDeleteIt'll happen. I'm almost positive. Just look at the trends over the last decade. Within 10 years I think it is almost assured.
ReplyDeleteDo people generally pirate things off streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, or from PPV/On Demand? I didn't think they did, maybe that's going on.
ReplyDeleteThey're about to launch their series of one-disc DVDs for $10 featuring some of the better matches from each person's career that they feature, so obviously they're just adjusting their business model. I'm just guessing the 3 disc sets are going to slow down a little.
ReplyDeleteso far they really don't. but I guess that's because they can get the same content in far superior quality elsewhere (why wouldn't anyone try to record a stream if he could easily copy the dvd?).
ReplyDeleteYou can still buy vinyl records and turntables. Physical media will still always exist, but in a niche format because every industry has its nerds.
ReplyDeleteBut thats one person who buys a disc, rather than the 10-20 people who will stream it for 5.
ReplyDeleteDiscs are gonna go away sooner or later.
There will be some physical media for people who want tangible items to boast and brag but for the majority, once it becomes apparent of the space that will be saved with having everything on a harddrive or two rather than shelves and boxes of dvds, its over for dvds.
Netflix killed Blockbuster. Its next target is the DVD period.
Redbox is only around because everything is a dollar. And im sure while they are profitable, they arent booming in business.
On the tape trading boards a lot of people have gone straight to trading hard drives of 100's of discs at a time, which blows my mind.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for a DVD full of Ziggler jobbing
ReplyDeleteExactly. If physical media goes away and streams get up to part, then all of the attention will be turned towards the streams and getting the footage. People already invest a ton of time and money in it just to get copies of movies that are available on Netflix Instant Play but have never been released on DVD.
ReplyDeletefantastic post. You are completely correct about why BluRay hasn't caught on that fast. Most people don't care that much about picture quality increases and even less about audio. There have been several major jumps in technology over the years, and IMO, all had more to do with benefits other than sound quality or video. the 33 LP had more storage space over the 78 or the 45 and was less bulky. Cassettes were portable and you could FF and Rewind. Cds could let you go right to a track with no hassle, play on shuffle, and didn't have issues with the tape getting twisted in the cassette, breaking, getting stretched out, etc. DVDS were similar to Cds. No more rewind hassles, less bulky, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who managed a Blockbuster for years, the numbers long ago showed that DVDs by mail were merely a rest stop on the way to streaming. I would argue that one of Blockbuster's stupidest moves was trying to catch Netflix in the DVD by mail market when they had a huge headstart instead of just becoming cutting edge on delivering digital content.
There is a huge compromise in quality on music. Frankly as someone who sold fairly high end stereo equipment at one time and cares about quality, i cringe at the new generation listening to highly compressed files on nothing but earbuds and crappy computer speakers. Will they ever understand how awesome something like Darkside of the Moon can sound on "real" equipment?
I'm not technologically savvy enough anymore to know if video streaming has the same issues as music streaming, but I would guess so. And furthermore, don't underestimate the corporate content providers. The cloud is a nice name, but it's fairly ominous. What these content providers truly want is for folks to own nothing but the right to play content as long as they play by the rules of the content provider. That means you could "purchase" a movie on Amazon. However if you drop your account at some point, they would like it so that you also lose the movies you "purchased" It's the same reason you don't get physical copies of much computer software anymore. You have a license that is for one computer only and can be ended by the content provider. Trust me when I say that content providers of music and movies would like nothing more than to find a way to do the same thing. No messy physical packaging or disc and they have you by the balls.
With stuff like this, the recent DOMA in Congress (among other bills), and more, it is imperative that people become more understanding of how these technologies work and the motives and tactics of content providers, whether it's video games, music, movies, websites, etc.
"Will they ever understand how awesome something like Darkside of the Moon can sound on "real" equipment?"
ReplyDeleteno they won't.
for example, just a few days ago I walked by some teenagers who were listening to Reggae on their phone. that's right: playing music from the most bass-orientated genre on a device that hardly has any (low) bass.
so, again. no they won't. and they won't care.
Hey I needa get my hands on a vcr before they become extinct. I only have VHS tapes as far as a collection....so many hours taping PPV's and home video releases. And I sold all my original releases.
ReplyDeleteI think I got $80 for Great American Bash 91 turner release mint condition. Yeah don't ask me who would even wanna watch it
thats insane. but really effective if you have the money.
ReplyDeleteme personally would go the "capt. jack sparrow" route to acquire wrestling, (being that i modded one of the more popular sites for a couple of years) but i cant knock the hustle of tape traders.
Yeah some of those still go for high amounts -- especially the more rare ECW and WCW tapes.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteYeah it does seem that the industry wants to eliminate physical
ownership all together -- which is a much bigger threat to physical
media than disinterest in the current generation of it I imagine. I recently
purchased a book on Amazon.com and chose the 'cloud' option for download
-- so now I'm locked into reading the book on that site now -- I can't save
it to my hard drive or access it when I'm not online on my computer. That's a pretty
crappy deal in my eyes, but I guess for a kid who can't imagine not
having access to the internet 100% of the time that it is just as good
as owning a physical copy -- although as you mentioned, maybe they'll
feel kind of scammed should Amazon purge their account at some point.
That's another thing about the content cloud thing -- I have to visit 50
different websites now to use the media I've downloaded? So much for convenience.
I suppose I should self-disclose -- I'm probably the nerdiest of the
nerds there are when it comes to getting video content in my preferred
way, so I probably care more about certain elements than the average
consumer does. Netflix streaming is convenient and it does look pretty
good, so that may be good enough for most people. They are selling
widescreen, barely DVD bitrate video as "HD streaming" to Americans and
nobody seems to make a big fuss about that.
Still there will always be the eccentric whistleblowers like myself and an
even larger population of people who are just irked about getting ripped off and having to make tradeoffs when they are spending all this money. Then
there are guys like my brother who just want to be on the bleeding edge
of everything quality wise. So commercially speaking, there are still plenty of niches to fill -- as another poster mentioned, people are still buying VCRs and turntables. If the industry gets in the ear of the FCC or gets a bunch of stuff passed through congress, then everybody will
end up shoved into the same box.
Yeah I am still fairly active with that for old footage too. I have quite the ridiculous VHS to DVD setup at this point, just for copying over old stuff in its most nostalgic pleasing format -- despite the higher quality video of the WWE produced DVDs, I can't stand the blurring, music edits, and watermarks on everything.
ReplyDelete