There are plenty of people out there that couldn't care less if
HD programming continued to flow over component connections. To some, it is just seen as an outdated technology that deserves to die. So it's no surprise that some big names like
DirecTV and
AT&T recently told the
FCC that they couldn't care less either, but this is mostly because they are more interested in offering some Hollywood movies a few weeks early, than ensuring their customers can use their connection of choice. Funny though, not everyone agrees, we particularly liked the stance of the National Association of Theater Owners which believe that if new movies were offered earlier, it is sure to kill the theater business -- boy, we never heard that one before. The only entity out there who did seem to be on the same page as us was the Consumer Electronics Association, who called
SOC a "blunt instrument" to which they see many opportunities for abuse.
TiVo seemed to have the most level headed approach though, which was, let 'em try it, and if it's abused (aka used for something other then new movies) then repeal it -- just so long as the content works on TiVo devices, of course.
posted Jul 24th 2008 1:58PM
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"the National Association of Theater Owners which believe that if new movies were offered earlier, it is sure to kill the theater business -- boy, we never heard that one before" Exactly. We heard the same complaint when BetaMax and VHS were coming out. Then we heard it again when LaserDisc came out because it was digital. Then again when DVDs came out. I'm sure some complained about HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Now this. Crap... Why don't you find better ways to make money than to ripoff your customers with cheap and overpriced popcorn, candies, and sodas. How about offering your customers something they can't get elsewhere. If the fast food chains can afford to give out silly little toys, why can't the theaters. That's right, you don't want to be inventive and come up with the ways to draw viewers to the theaters. Let the studios carry all the promotional responsibility.
Worth pointing out that when TV was introduced and started to become popular in the 1950s, Theaters did start feeling the pinch. There was a massive decline from then on until the mid 1970s, despite enormous amounts of innovation in the industry coupled with reductions in price. By the early seventies, most theaters that were still open were eking out a living showing cheap, often imported, movies of the kind that would never get onto TV to niche audiences.
What saved the cinemas was Jaws and Star Wars. "High concept" films aimed at general audiences, coupled with Lucas's decision to force cinemas to upgrade their sound systems, got the audiences back.
But that's strictly limited as an approach to keeping theaters open. If those same movies that have been keeping cinemas open for the last three decades are suddenly available outside of the cinema without delay, and if the high quality sound and picture are available in people's homes, then yeah, people are going to forget about the cinemas.
It's easy to complain about high popcorn prices, but there are two issues there. First of all, cinemas aren't making that much money right now. They make very little from the ticket prices - prices for the tickets for the first week or two of admissions actually, for the most part, go to the movie makers. Pretty much all the serious revenue - the revenue used to pay the rent, to pay for the upkeep, to pay the projectionists, et al, comes from the concession stands. Sure, the theaters could reduce the concession prices, but they'd have to make up for it somewhere else, like higher ticket prices. Given you can easily opt out of buying pop-corn, it's questionable whether anyone would be better off under this regime.
The second is that it doesn't matter. If you can get just as good a movie watching experience without leaving your home, why would you bother going to the theater, even if tickets for you and your friends end up costing the same as the PPV charge you'd pay your satellite, cable, or Internet-download, operator? What can the theaters offer you that your (lower cost, same experience) equipment doesn't?
Right now, the only advantage the theaters have is the fact they can show you the movie six months ahead of everyone else. Whether this is good or bad for consumers is open to question - it's probably good, ultimately, because those that can afford it end up paying more (by going to see the movies first) than those who can't, who get to pay less by waiting until it comes out on a cheaper medium.
I'm surprised, for that reason, Hollywood really wants to do this. I think the current model maximizes both their revenues and their audiences fairly well.
But yeah, cinema quality video coupled with cinema quality audio in people's own homes is likely to kill cinema if the exact same content comes out at the exact same time. The only thing that sells cinema in any serious way is that they get the content first. Their audiences will shrink to a tiny fraction of what they are today if they don't have that advantage.
Actually, LaserDisc was an analog device, using FM modulation, not digital code, to store information. I still have about 100 of them, all slowly rotting away, with a snowy picture due to problems with delamination of the disc layers. The worst thing about closing the analog hole is the ton's of video projectors, plasma tv's and other stuff that don't work with hdmi. Just toss them in the trash stream and run out and buy a new one. Standard analog TV lasted for years, including my original trinitron, which is 30 years old. My HD projector, with component inputs only, still puts out a fine image. Why should I have to ditch it?
squiggleslash: You're completely off-base. There was little to no technological innovation between the 1950s and the early 1970s in American cinema. Check out Film History by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell. That coupled with directors of that era reusing the same old Hollywood model to produce a film's plot using conventions from the 1930s led to the American cinematic decline. Star Wars and Jaws helped but they certainly weren't the only, or even primary, reasons people returned to their cinemas.
Big John - Well, I'd consider widescreen and surround sound to be major innovations. I'd also consider 3D, Panavision, et al, to be innovative even if they didn't take off.
I would suggest that if Thompson and Bordwell managed to miss that, they've written nothing worth the paper it's written on. You should probably return the book and demand your money back.
Widescreen in particular was specifically introduced to counter TV. Ultimately it wasn't innovation that fixed the process, but quality, and that's what didn't happen until Lucas and Spielberg introduced High Concept in the 1970s, as I pointed out above.
if u took out the og this website wouldnt be considered tech anymore
What?
I believe he is referring to the og in analog... haha
Transplanted native thirty plus years not a snowbird here. Yes, it was a choice in moving to the sunny south... I do understand the police and fire dept. need the analog for emergencies but "HURRICANE SEASON" is six months out of the year, without thinking of the global warming effects in the future. The FCC did not even think about when there is no electricity, the majority Floridians that own battery operative TV's!!! It is a essential part of the survival supplies for local television news updates on the storm, areas that might still be evaculate while we are still being boarded up in our homes, a school, or shelters with shutters/plywood, water food etc. There still are battery radios, but they stay mainly to their normal format and do not broadcast complete informative details.
there are plenty of hdmi to component converters. let them close it
No thanks. First of course, there's the number of SD TVs in use. Assume this still exceeds the number of HDTVs? All of those are hooked up via S-Video, composite or (gasp) RF. Then there's the component input HDTVs that seemed like the way to go until a few years ago. Those won't be dead and gone for another 10 or more years.
By then maybe all of the HDMI glitches will have been cleaned up. If they want to talk about it then, we're all ears. Lets put a note on the calendar for 2020...