Star Trek Into Darkness (Post-release)

[Bryancd]

Because financial advisors are always right.

I am in this case. And I have real money behind that assertion.

And to get back to your previous CBS/TNG DVD release comment. CBS has no choice put to put a lot of effort into making this release meaningful for consumers as this is what, the fourth or fifth time they are releasing TNG on a disc? Of course they are willing to spend extra to try and make it attractive to fans who likely already have all 7 seasons sitting on their shelves. And so the talentless hack who is working on that dink project wants to go and criticize a real talent like Mr. Peg...enough said.

 

[nickytea]

For anyone that was wanting the original switching aspect ratios, don't bother with the itunes version either.

Just plopped down the money for the download, and the original AR is restricted to an "Enhanced Commentary" experience where the commentators pause, rewind, and composite footage on top of the movie. Full film is still cropped.

I am dissapoint.

 

[Bryancd]

Sure there is. My buddies and I will continue to buy disc-based media like we always have. It's been working fine so far.

Quaint. Let me paint a picture for you and your A/V Club buddies. You may want to sit down.

We are currently in the Golden Age of home entertainment systems. Economics have driven down the cost of 52" Plasma TV's to a mere fraction of what they were not more then 5 years ago. DVD is slowly giving way to Blu-Ray, although it likely will never eclipse DVD as both forms of physical media are at their apex. This is what's happening in the Western developed nations as well as Japan and Pacific Rim (countries not movie). Now let's look at the BIG PICTURE. Emerging market economies such as India and China, home to almost 1/3 of the world population. People there are becoming upwardly mobile, with mobile being the operative word. Their connection to technology and media content as all via inexpensive devices like tablets and smart phones. That's how they consume the product. They will never even bother with the home theater model of consumerism. So the immediate and near future lies in portable technology. The drawback of that is screen size and storage capacity. So if you are a movie studio selling your content into this global market do you want to focus on high priced Blu-Ray disc releases loaded with extra's or streamlined versions that can be consumed on what are the dominant media players in the world today. I can assure you, your A/V Club dollars are meaningless to them.

 

[Mola Rob]

Quaint. Let me paint a picture for you and your A/V Club buddies. You may want to sit down.

We are currently in the Golden Age of home entertainment systems. Economics have driven down the cost of 52" Plasma TV's to a mere fraction of what they were not more then 5 years ago. DVD is slowly giving way to Blu-Ray, although it likely will never eclipse DVD as both forms of physical media are at their apex. This is what's happening in the Western developed nations as well as Japan and Pacific Rim (countries not movie). Now let's look at the BIG PICTURE. Emerging market economies such as India and China, home to almost 1/3 of the world population. People there are becoming upwardly mobile, with mobile being the operative word. Their connection to technology and media content as all via inexpensive devices like tablets and smart phones. That's how they consume the product. They will never even bother with the home theater model of consumerism. So the immediate and near future lies in portable technology. The drawback of that is screen size and storage capacity. So if you are a movie studio selling your content into this global market do you want to focus on high priced Blu-Ray disc releases loaded with extra's or streamlined versions that can be consumed on what are the dominant media players in the world today. I can assure you, your A/V Club dollars are meaningless to them.

And none of that makes his preference for disc based media any less valid or quaint as you put it. It's not wrong to prefer one format over the other even if the format will go away in the future. The entertainment world may be shifting in terms of media delivery systems but for the moment they are still making money on physical media and there is nothing wrong with continuing to support a format you enjoy. I myself support both hard copy formats and downloadable or streaming media.

I personally have little desire to watch a movie on my phone unless I'm on a trip and even then I would prefer to read. Movies weren't meant to be watched on a trading card sized screen.

 

[Riceball]

It's all about economies of scale. E-books are still not having the same kind of market penetration yet .

I don't know about that, there a lot of Kindles, Nooks, & IPads out there along with reading apps for e-books. Even there isn't the situation is no different than with digital downloads of movies, the cost to the publishers is far less than printing and shipping physical books just like it's cheaper for the studios to have digital downloads as opposed to printing & shipping DVDs & blu-rays. The only difference seems to be that book publishers still want you to pay the same price for an e-book that you would for a physical book despite the fact that it costs them far less to produce. Book 5 of A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, is currently something like $14 for the e-book which isn't all that much less than the hardcover and far more than what the paperback will end up retailing for. If they wanted market penetration for e-books all they have to do is drop the price to something like $5 - $6 and they'll get market penetration.

 

[Jeyl]

No, my informed, investment professional opinion.

Does your informed, investment professional opinion still think 845 million is more than a billion? That's not the type of error I'd want coming from someone who's specialized in finances.

 

[jlee562]

Our personal preferences not withstanding (I like physically having discs as well), what Bryan has said here isn't really all thay controversial if you've read any tech site for the past five years. Heck, some people didn't even think blu-ray would ever take off in a serious way.

 

[Bryancd]

And none of that makes his preference for disc based media any less valid or quaint as you put it. It's not wrong to prefer one format over the other even if the format will go away in the future. The entertainment world may be shifting in terms of media delivery systems but for the moment they are still making money on physical media and there is nothing wrong with continuing to support a format you enjoy. I myself support both hard copy formats and downloadable or streaming media.

I personally have little desire to watch a movie on my phone unless I'm on a trip and even then I would prefer to read. Movies weren't meant to be watched on a trading card sized screen.

Yeah, I agree on all counts, especially watching movies on a phone. Yet my 23 year old brother and all is friends do just that all the time. I'm not suggesting anyone, myself included, need to accept this new world order, I am simply projecting forward the most likely direction future media content will take and how it relates to Paramounts decision on this particular release. I think they are very early in trying to adopt this, but we shall see. I just don't allow my personal bias to influence my analysis.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know about that, there a lot of Kindles, Nooks, & IPads out there along with reading apps for e-books. Even there isn't the situation is no different than with digital downloads of movies, the cost to the publishers is far less than printing and shipping physical books just like it's cheaper for the studios to have digital downloads as opposed to printing & shipping DVDs & blu-rays. The only difference seems to be that book publishers still want you to pay the same price for an e-book that you would for a physical book despite the fact that it costs them far less to produce. Book 5 of A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, is currently something like $14 for the e-book which isn't all that much less than the hardcover and far more than what the paperback will end up retailing for. If they wanted market penetration for e-books all they have to do is drop the price to something like $5 - $6 and they'll get market penetration.

All true and considering Apple is currently facing fines for price fixing on e-books, it would seem the free market economy has yet to really capture e-books in the same manner iTunes did for music. I think it will happen, the newspaper industry is the canary in the coal mine.

 

[greatwazoo42]

Yeah, I can see DVD's, Blu-Rays and the two or three generations of tech to follow that becoming more part of the "Commemorative Collectable" item more than the primary delivery of content in a decade or two.

 

[Bryancd]

Does your informed, investment professional opinion still think 845 million is more than a billion? That's not the type of error I'd want coming from someone who's specialized in finances.

I spend more time reading Bloomburg then Box Office Mojo. It's far more profitable.

 

[Robinson]

i watch movies on my phone all the time.

as a matter of fact I watched stid on my phone the first time i saw it.

 

[Shadow345]

How did vinyl endure the introduction of CD, the success and takeover of digital music and then still be popular enough to still exist as a purchasable item for new releases?

 

[Robinson]

Dee jays and the nostalgia factor.

 

[Shadow345]

I've seen VHS collectors pop up around horror boards.

 

[Solo4114]

If by "survive" you mean "is still available for niche audiences," then yeah, you MAY see this stuff survive, but it'll be at a premium, rather than the $5-for-a-DVD level we've seen. Again, it's a question of economies of scale. If you're gonna tool up to make vinyl, you need a physical plant, the relevant technology to run it, and the material to press into records. If you don't have mass consumption of that product, you're gonna have to charge more per item to deliver it.

Now, personally, I have no problem with that. I'd love to see more niche-market-oriented products out there, to be honest. It's one of the encouraging things about Kickstarter, in a sense: people who are willing to pay more to get what they want are given the option to do so. There's never really been a "Ferrari" option in entertainment media (there has been in home electronics, but not in terms of the media that you play ON the electronics). The closest we got was, what, SACD? Maybe Laserdisc in its heyday?

Maybe the good news about "luddites" like Jeyl is that there's enough of 'em to warrant the creation of an actual niche economy for new material (rather than collectors trying to keep older "vintage" stuff alive). I hope so, actually. I like having the option, even if it comes at a premium. I'd hope the studios and production houses recognize this.

 

[Apollo]

Audiophiles as well.

Nothing like vinyl

Dee jays and the nostalgia factor.

 

[Bryancd]

And to reiterate what I said above, I also am a Luddite. I'm not an audio/videophile, I don't understand or place value Obama lot if technical aspects of image and sound and have marginal interest in special features. They are fine but rarely receive multiple viewings from me.

 

[Solo4114]

And to reiterate what I said above, I also am a Luddite. I'm not an audio/videophile, I don't understand or place value Obama lot if technical aspects of image and sound and have marginal interest in special features. They are fine but rarely receive multiple viewings from me.

Apparently, you place value on autocorrect, though.

Personally, I love my home theater, and geek out over the technical stuff with that, to a certain degree. But I also recognize that

Because it is. It's convenient, it's easy, it offers choice, it removes the ownership conundrum from the equation, and it places control back in the hands of the rights-holders. The image quality may not be as good as a disc...for now. But it'll get there. Same with audio. It's already scaleable, anyway. When I watch a Netflix thing online, if my network slows, my video gets more pixelated. On a smaller device, it'd simply scale the same way, requiring less bandwidth to transmit. As long as the "master" stream is at the highest standard that can be delivered (or even higher), you can scale it and deliver it to multiple different devices.

Get a generation that's raised on streaming -- streaming internet radio, streaming video, etc. -- and phase out the disc-based "owned" media, and you might even start seeing people think of this stuff not as "my movie," but as "the movie I watched." When you eliminate the ownership mentality, you'll be able to bring the legal truth of the matter more in line with the actual practice and, ideally, curb the DESIRE for piracy. It'll still exist, but there'll be less of an issue of "Screw you. It's MY movie."

 

[Jeyl]

Maybe the good news about "luddites" like Jeyl

Hehe. He called me a luddite.

"We believe when you build a machine to do the work for a man, you take something away from the man."
- Someone you're supposed to like and care about in "Star Trek: Insurrection"​

I don't work in the entertainment industry that focuses on the tangible medium market, nor have I purposefully destroyed streaming servers or tried swaying people away from using streaming like services. I'm just a fan who supports it by buying it. How does that fit the description of 19th century workers who protested the use of machines that were taking over their jobs? This whole argument came from the fact that Paramount is doing a really crappy job at trying to keep one of their iconic franchises relevant. Cripes, I actually feel bad for the fans who liked this movie who were hoping to get as much in-depth material just like the last release, which even despite the movie was an excellent set. And when I say that Paramount should do a better job on a movie that I don't even like, you turn the discussion into a "tangible mediums are dying! Studios know what's best for all!" which doesn't even address the real issue.

Also, we're not here to make money off of Star Trek, stocks or anything else. This discussion is about and the higher paid jerks over at Paramount who won't give us the best product they can possibly produce even though they have done so in the past.

 

[Bryancd]

Hehe. He called me a luddite.

"We believe when you build a machine to do the work for a man, you take something away from the man."
- Someone you're supposed to like and care about in "Star Trek: Insurrection"​

I don't work in the entertainment industry that focuses on the tangible medium market, nor have I purposefully destroyed streaming servers or tried swaying people away from using streaming like services. I'm just a fan who supports it by buying it. How does that fit the description of 19th century workers who protested the use of machines that were taking over their jobs? This whole argument came from the fact that Paramount is doing a really crappy job at trying to keep one of their iconic franchises relevant. Cripes, I actually feel bad for the fans who liked this movie who were hoping to get as much in-depth material just like the last release, which even despite the movie was an excellent set. And when I say that Paramount should do a better job on a movie that I don't even like, you turn the discussion into a "tangible mediums are dying! Studios know what's best for all!" which doesn't even address the real issue.

Also, we're not here to make money off of Star Trek, stocks or anything else. This discussion is about and the higher paid jerks over at Paramount who won't give us the best product they can possibly produce even though they have done so in the past.

Wrong. We have directly addressed the fundamental reality of movie content release as it pertains to this particular case in point. Paramount is not engaging in some intellectually dishonest money grab nor is it abandoning support of Star Trek as a franchise or it's fan base. That's an incredibly myopic view. They are exploring new methods and models of distribution and likely recognize that the vast majority of dollars they receive from releasing their films for personal consumption come from consumers who just want to see the movie and the return on investment for all the bells and whistles is becoming less compelling.

Although I do find your frustration amusing and oddly satisfying.