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The Death of Physical Media is Far From Imminent

Posted on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 3:37 PM

From time to time, an article is published that predicts the demise of movies being available on physical discs (DVD and Blu-ray). The sentiments expressed in such articles usually fall along the lines of predictions that "digital is where it's at" and "movies on disc are like music on vinyl." It's almost as if watching a movie on a disc makes you a luddite not willing to wake up and smell the digital coffee.

These sentiments tend to be repeated by people that read them without thinking about the issue with a critical and/or open mind.

I don't think packaged media is anywhere as close to death as the mainstream media and some people would like us to believe. When it comes to movies, streaming media and downloads have quite a few technical challenges in addition to the social challenges.

The infrastructure isn't in place in the U.S. to support a fully digital delivery process across the board that matches the level of satisfaction of having that movie on a disc in your collection (I want to watch a particular movie, what is the chance I'll be able to play it successfully?), and the lack of next-generation formats like Dolby Atmos demonstrates that wholesale digital delivery not yet ready for the spotlight.

Aside from the technical obstacles, another significant issue is the value that people perceive in having something physical vs. something in digital form. When you have a physical disc in your collection, you can show it off. You can display the extras that came with it (sculptures, special cases, etc.). You can take it off the shelf and look at the artwork and booklet/materials. You can lend it to a friend to share your love for that movie. It's something that can be touched and moved and arranged. An electronic copy of that movie is just that -- electronic, cold, and non-tactile. A copy of the movie that you have to select from a screen, in a list of other movies, where the only thing to differentiate it from everything else is the difference in the thumbnail image of some artwork that is the very same size as that for every other movie.

Losing access to a downloaded movie is as simple as a hard drive crash, and when that happens, your entire collection disappears in the same instant. You'd have to have a house fire to have the same disaster happen to a physical movie collection. Losing access to a streamed movie (rental or purchased) is as simple as not having good network connectivity, or a policy change on the part of the service you use that the movie you want to see is no longer available.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Limited Edition Collector's Gift Set

The connection between the consumer and the product is greatly diminished with electronic versions. As a result, the value assigned to the product is also reduced. Will someone that is willing to pay $80-100 for the The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug™ Limited Edition Collector's Gift Set be just as happy with his/her purchase of the movie-only copy from Vudu, et al. for $23?

Vudu Movie Selection Page ScreenshotScreenshot of Movie Selection Page on Vudu

The music industry has moved away from this physical connection (people collecting albums and looking through the materials while spinning the records, etc.), but in there are so many differences between enjoying music and enjoying movies that a comparison is almost foolish to make. A two-minute song can be enjoyed as a standalone entity, and many albums only have 2-3 "good" tracks on them and are not created as a total product, but more just a sum of their parts. An entire segment of the industry developed around offering compilations of the "best of" songs of a particular genre or from a particular artist.

In contrast, movies are not enjoyed a scene at a time, and there is no way to pay 99 cents for that great scene from Godzilla or Gone with the Wind. While individual scenes can be enjoyed on their own in some cases, they usually require the greater context of the entire story. That means you either have to include the rest of the movie, or at least be very familiar with it, for that scene to have the same impact.

The music industry has suffered as a result of the commoditization of their product. People feel so little of a connection to the product that they're willing to listen to poor YouTube compilations of music because doing so is free. Listening to music has gone from having a deep physical connection between the artist and the consumer to a case where music services offer up tracks willy-nilly for $5 per month with no actual ownership allowed.

Advances like Atmos demonstrate where innovation can happen: on physical media. Atmos was announced for the home in June, and there are already four titles announced on Blu-ray to support it. If digital delivery was so amazing, Atmos would already be available on the streaming and download services, but it is not. Do you want the high quality of lossless 7.1 audio and high bitrate video? You'll find neither on digitally delivered media.

For these and other reasons, I don't see physical media going away any time soon, and it will be a sad day, should that day ever come while I still care about such things.

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