Posted by Derek Janssen on 01/22/08 01:46

Doug Jacobs wrote:
>
>>In fact, Amazon's had to RE-launch electronic books for, what, the third
>>time, and the public's *still* not buying them!
>
>>(Although books aren't subject to studios' el-dorado dream of taking
>>back "control" over their movies' screenings, and getting that sweet
>>percentage of EVERY customer viewing--
>>You'd think the curtain would finally have been ripped back on the Evil
>>Master Plot after the DiVX Wars.)
>
> Some companies, and the pointy-haired morons that run them, never learn.
> At least some companies learn from their own mistakes - but it seems to me
> they never learn from mistakes that other companies make. It's as if
> they're intent on making each mistak for themselves.

Well, that's just it--The studios don't want to give up their "WE own
the movies, not you" pipe dream, no matter what technology comes or goes
over the decades:

To keep the "El dorado" metaphor going, that's why there wasn't just
*one* conquistador in South America...They kept coming!
The gold HAD to be there! They just didn't LOOK hard enough! Sooner or
later, they'd find a tribe that would be happy enough to GIVE it to them!

>>...Um, because sometimes I rent the disc to watch the documentary?
>
> I know I said movie up there, but there's really no reason you couldn't
> bundle the entire contents on a DVD into a downloadable file that still
> maintained the same menu and chapter structure a physical DVD would have...

Again, that's where you run up against the big hard wall that's built
out of the cement found in studio execs' heads:
They think we just want to sit down and see the movie because we're,
quote, "too lazy to go to Blockbuster"--I mean, like, "Pirates 3" was a
big hit in theaters, 'n stuff!...Uh, wasn't it?

(Which mentality might've played during the days of VHS and cable PPV,
back when we did just "want to see the movie", and never even realized
there *were* other things to watch about our favorite movie than just
the darn movie--
But it's a different world now, and we've gotten too hooked on the idea
of "Owning" every single thing about the movie, in the sense of "Pwning"
it...)

>>>Anyways, as for why DVD sales are dropping? I can think of many reasons:
>
>>I can remember in the late-90's, when some independent anime companies
>>were leery of getting into the new waters of DVD, and still put some of
>>their new lesser-selling niche titles out on VHS-only, to "test customer
>>interest" in future disk release for the titles--And fans felt
>>"blackmailed" into buying VHS tapes they knew they'd have to throw away
>>in a couple of months anyway (as opposed to not buying it, and giving
>>the company the wrong idea)...
>>At that point in the 90's, nobody was buying *any* VHS under normal
>>circumstances, PERIOD, and we fans grit our teeth and grumbled, "Making
>>us buy the...Ohh, pally, you'd BETTER come through with that disk, for
>>what we have to go through to keep you happy... >_< "
>
>>...Now update those sentiments to hi-def owners and DVD.
>
> Yes, I remember those days.
>
> I really hope the anime DVD industry gets better, but from what I'm
> seeing, it's only getting stupider and greedier...

Er, I believe I was referring to the DVD audience-acceptance factor* at
which we as viewers had reached the point of "VHS?...Freakin' crap, why
don't you just CARVE THE MOVIE ON A PYRAMID??"
And anything that didn't recognize the saturation of the new format was
now a *liability* for the company that had to drag its audiences in
screaming and cursing, unless absolutely necessary as a force of sales
negotiation--
Sorta like the Matrix DVD, in REVERSE. -_-

Now, as to the question of why people aren't buying DVD's these last few
months, in the face of an increasingly resolved hi-def format that
they're only just now learning about...

Derek Janssen
ejanss1@verizon.net
----
[1 - And only using "anime" as a note back to how that particular
viewership had embraced subtitles, audio tracks, TV-episode chapter
selection, and indestructible media long before any other branch of the
mainstream audience...
Let p0rn claim what it wants, it was the anime fans who FIRST wanted DVD
to wipe those big bulky rewindy things off the face of existence.]

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