Posted on 11/23/2008 5:40:07 AM PST by abb
MATTHEW BOWERS, of Chicago, has been paying to have HBO piped into his home every month for nearly two decades. He tunes in for the occasional episode of “Entourage” and every couple of months orders a movie on demand. Recently, the whole family watched “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
But when his company laid him off in September, he started to think about the value he was getting out of the premium cable channel. “It’s ridiculous to pay for this service I rarely use when I can get the same stuff online and save a lot of money,” he said. The result? HBO is losing a customer.
Does an economy in tatters slow down or speed up the shift to watching TV shows and movies on the Web and mobile devices? The entertainment industry doesn’t like the answer that is rapidly becoming clear: A global economic crisis almost certainly means a sharp acceleration in the move to new ways of consuming content, setting the stage for a new clash between consumers and studios.
Historically, the movie factories haven’t been terribly afraid of tough economic times. In fact, they have almost welcomed them. During the Great Depression, people continued to turn to the movies for escape. VHS rentals boomed during the recession of the early 1980s, while DVDs got a boost from the downturn earlier this decade.
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But the current gloom has the Hollywood establishment rattled. DVDs are now where the industry makes its money, and Nielsen VideoScan reported a 9 percent drop in DVD sales in the third quarter over the quarter a year earlier — before the economy ran into a buzz saw. In television, crucial car advertising is drying up.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Actually, if you hook the output of your video card to your t.v. you basically have HDTV. (almost)
“That way I could keep my wife from watching QVC and HSN.”
Unless those are two of the channels she wants to keep in the a la carte lineup. ;)
Let Hollywood starve, they are responsible for the cultural decay in the USA.
We significantly chopped our DirectTV bill by doing completely away with the “Premium” Channels earlier this year. With Netflix I can have any movie I want within two days, and my most favorite movies are in the DVD cabinet.
We are planning a significant upgrade in our entertainment equipment early next year when the after-Christmas fire-sales hit. We’ll also be looking to expand our cheap DVD collection as well.
Why pay $40 for “Ironman” before Christmas when you can probably count on getting a $10 or less copy at Wally World after the Holidays??
In addition, we’ll probably buy that equipment in Oregon and save the Washington State and Local Sales Tax as well; since we have big problems here over what that Sales Tax money gets spent on...
I think the most disturbing part of this is that he says the “whole family watched Sweeney Todd.” How old were these family members? That movie is not exactly a kid - or young teen - movie.
As soon as OBamBam gets in office, I’m sure he will fix this problem for his Hollweird buddies — perhaps he will issue an executive order requiring every adult in the US to buy x number of DVD’s per year.
Same here. I'm thinking about getting Netflix and getting rid of cable, probably in January.
Another great feature of Netflix is that they now have a great many recent movies and old TV shows that you can watch instantly on your computer, or for $100, you can purchase a converter box to watch movies on your TV. I didn’t spring for the extra $100 bucks, but my laptop monitor has excellent resolution and looks like HDTV.
I tried Netflix, but after receiving so many severely scratched dvd’s I cancelled.
We have a subscription to blockbuster, though. No problem with un-viewable dvd’s.
Blockbuster has/had a program, that you have to pay to participate in now, but that allows you to trade in your mailed dvd at the store for a free rental.
I am very happy with Netflix and am on their two movies at a time plan. I don't buy DVD's because I rarely watch a movie over and over again. But if I want to I can order it through Netflix.
I hear you about the cable. I have extended cable (about 80 channels, no premiums) bundled with my internet and landline. In a good month I actually look at maybe ten of those channels and almost never use the landline. I wish there was an option to choose a dozen cable channels so I can keep cable news, Discovery, National Geographic, etc. along with my internet connection and ditch my landline. My cable company would actually charge me more per month if I drop the telephone service. The cable companies seem to be in the business of forcing products on their customers that they don't want.
I’m buying more DVDs than ever. I got 2 decent movies on one DVD for $10 at the grocery, and then got 20 on 4 DVDs for $5 for the set from WalMart. Blank DVDs for stealing them wouldn’t have been much cheaper.
Have you tried out the Roku box with Netflix yet? I got it this last week and have been very impressed so far.
For those who don’t know, it’s a box that uses your internet connection to stream your Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ list to your TV. The quality of the video is dependent on your internet connection, so it isn’t a replacement for a DVD.
The selection seems to be more weighted to older content, but that isn’t necessarily a problem for me.
Also, HD content isn’t available currently (unlike the Xbox360), but is supposed to show up around the first of the year.
Are you sure they were scratched?? I've had about two discs that were unplayable, but most of the others worked after cleaning. I think grubby kids fingerprints probably have more to do with it.
... setting the stage for a new clash between consumers and studios. ... the movie factories ...Movie factories ought to rethink their notion of customer service.
“Sunday morning good news.”
Poetic justice. The purveyors of cultural poison are up against a business model that they’re going to have a hard time profiting under. Cry me a river.
As for cable versus DVD, why not consider a third choice: unplug the TV and read a book or some online content? We’ve gotten to the point where we watch a DVD maybe once every month or two. Having cable would be dumb as we’d never get around to watching it.
Download makes more sense than "on-demand". And I'd pay extra NOT to see the damned commercials. I think the next model will be "Netflix by download". You pick the programs you want to view on one day, they get downloaded to a hard drive on your system connected to the I-net overnight, and you watch them the next day. I suspect there is already enough bandwidth available to make this work.
Why buy it in the first place . You can rent it at the Red Box at grocery stores for $1.00 or get it FREE at most libraries.
Go to HULU.COM
They have tons of free online content.
a lot of awesome old TV shows as well.
Video quality is great.
There are plenty of other sites out there too.
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