Posted by Rich on 01/13/06 01:33

So iPod casts of movies will replace DVDs, etc?
Nice to see the y-gens don't care much about overall quality.


Digital killed the video store

The livelihood of video stores and online rentals might be numbered,
now that the video-download movement is underway. The dawn of
convenient video downloads of movie and television shows follows in
the steps of audio music and music videos, and more companies are
jumping on the bandwagon, trying to tap into a chunk of this growing
industry.

A number of companies have already introduced video services or new
technologies that support video download.

Already, both MovieLink and CinemaNow rent videos online for Windows
applications only, allowing consumers to download movies for 24-hour
periods starting anywhere from $1.99 to $3.99. Both services also
allow some movies to be bought.

Via iTunes and Apple, consumers can download select TV shows from ABC,
NBC Universal, USA Network, Disney and the Sci-Fi Channel onto the new
video iPod for $1.99 per episode.

And Google just launched an online Google Video Store that would be an
open "marketplace" for all videos. Content sold would include classic
cartoons and CBS shows.

Not to be left out, both TiVo and DIRECT TV announced new to-go
services that would allow subscribers to transfer recorded shows to a
number of portable media players including iPods and P2P players with
TiVo To Go and DirecTV 2Go.

"With the advent of downloading videos ... there's no worry about
taking back DVDs to stores, no mail, it's instant," cable network
Starz' spokesman Tom Southwick told UPI. "It's a much more convenient
way to access movies than having to deal with the physical deeds."

Earlier this month Starz Entertainment Group LLC also launched its
version of a video download service called Vongo, where subscribers
can download or purchase videos and play them back on Windows-based
PCs, laptops, portable media devices and TVs.

Unlike the pay-per-view model, subscription is the basis for Starz,
which offers more than 1,000 movies as well as live streaming of the
Starz TV Channel for $9.99 a month as well as pay-per-view movies for
$3.99.

In a December 2005 study of 488 Starz subscribers, Starz reported that
70 percent of users admitted they no longer go to the video store
while 72 percent said they rent fewer DVDs and 60 percent said they
bought fewer DVDs.

With consumer attitudes like these, businesses like Blockbuster that
have suffered a number of setbacks within the last year alone are
likely to shift their business model from the conventional "video
store" concept.

On Tuesday Blockbuster Chief Executive John Antioco told investors the
company will try to refocus its clientele less toward retail stores
and more toward the online service in 2006.

The push toward online rental comes after the success of online-based
service Netflix, which dominated the online rental service gaining 4
million subscribers last year, compared to Blockbuster's only 1
million.

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey told UPI video-rental stores are in
trouble but said both the video-downloading market and technology is
still too young.

"Downloading is more a future vision than a practical reality," said
Swasey, acknowledging that the service will be popular in the next
five to 10 years. "And as a future vision, Netflix shares that vision.
We'll be coming out with downloadable content when the right time
comes."

Swasey says the problem with video-download services are their small
selection of video content and that most consumers still desire DVDs
-- and that the next big thing is high-definition DVDs.

"Downloading is really cool, but most Americans are happy with their
DVD player," he said. "People want to watch DVDs in family rooms, not
put them onto laptops or handheld devices."

In fact, the company forecasts it will continue its success,
estimating 5 million members in 2006 and at least 20 million by 2010
or 2012, Swasey said.

But Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future, sees
the trend taking place much sooner.

The center, part of the University of Southern California's Annenberg
School, released last year a study about the impact of the Internet on
daily life.

"I'm one of the few people who believe consumers will want to watch
longer-form content on smaller screens during downtime, as seen
already with people surfing the Web and listening to music," he said.

According to Cole, teens want media that move platform to platform,
and they are likely to carry on that habit for the rest of their
lives.

But he notes that on the other side of the spectrum, people will watch
shows on plasma, high-definition or flat-screen TVs as they become
more affordable.

"It's not a good time to be in the video-rental business, but not a
bad time to be in online rental, but it's a terrible time to be a
station owner," Cole said.

As Cole notes, television stations might be in trouble too, losing
audiences to video downloads of prime-time shows.

Despite a future of video downloads, a new wave of piracy might also
be underway, according to Matthew Tinkcom.

Tinkcom, a professor with Georgetown's Communication, Culture and
Technology program, says video downloads will re-enact many of the
same problems the music industry had to cope with when file-sharing
became possible.

"The virtues of digital cultural production are, for the manufacturer,
also its shortcomings," he said. "Ease of reproduction and fidelity of
the copy to the original mean that films can be quickly reproduced and
distributed with no necessary attention to questions of intellectual
property."

Moreover, Tinkcom sees the current trend as a "cinematic version of
Apple's iMusic service, with On Demand services and Pay-Per-View
brokering the deal between the viewer and the industry." However, he
says the film industry would be better served if it were to find a
more "effective interface with consumers such as Web-based forms of
publicity."

"The larger problem of global distribution, though, remains, to the
degree that these techniques don't address the problem of piracy
outside the U.S.," he said. "This will only become a bigger problem as
the studios come to rely on non-U.S. box office receipts for revenue,
and I think that they have their work cut out for them in that
regard."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International




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