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Glimpses of the future are visible through the clouds of speculation and announcements. Yet more evidence of a digital future on the horizon from some of the industry’s biggest players. There are a few factors at play here. They are, to whit:

1) “We called ourselves Netflix, not Mailflix.” Netflix has had their eyes on movie downloads since their inception, Hastings commenting on numerous occasions that he views the coming of a video on demand staple as a long time coming. To back this up, there have been rumors of a Netflix/TiVo partnership for months now, and both companies have hinted at as much through leaks and corporate communications. TiVo said as much in an update to their privacy policy which allows for material to be beamed to TiVo boxes on demand, and Netflix’s famous “player” leak, which temporarily showed a movie download option on their website, proves that Netflix is moving in that direction. They later announced that they had plans in the works to release a service in the near future.

2) “The tipping point has not only started, it is gaining momentum.” Although Hastings admits that DVD will be the mainstay for quite some time, he recently predicted that brick and morter video rental locations would soon get deep-sixed. This is building off a similar quote from Blockbuster CEO John Antioco last month, saying that thousands of rental locations would be closing in the coming years. On the one hand, this evidences a switch to the online mail distribution system coined by Netflix. However, it also shows evidence of the overall paradigm shift being affected on the rental industry and the film industry as a whole. Meanwhile, Netflix has upped their projections to include 6 million subscribers by the end of ‘06 and vastly improved profitability.

3) “Digital distribution of content is a natural progression for our business.” That last quote was NOT from Hastings or anyone at Netflix, but rather from Steve Middleton, European Director of New Media for Blockbuster Digital Entertainment. According to a Blockbuster press release, the company plans to piggy back on a set-top box to give digital downloads on demand. The technology will be debuted in Amsterdam later this year and their are plans to make it commercially available (in Europe at least) in 2006. Netflix plans on releasing their download service in late 2005.

At this point it seems that there is no denying it, the future is digital. In 10-20 years all those nice shiny DVDs are going to be as obsolete as… Video. Let’s just hope that we won’t have to buy our movie collections again to replace them. Transferring DVDs to a digital format and saving them on a hard drive should be easy enough, I mean, people do it every day.

Mark my words, the change is coming sooner than we think. Television will soon follow, a shift to viewing TV shows later via DVR and Netflix has already shown itself. It’s like a massive chain reaction that will inevitably change the face of media: advertising, premium movie subscriptions, pay-per-view, and more will all be drastically changed forever once the shift is complete. Should be fun.

Hi everybody. Sorry for the slowdown in posts as of late (no, I didn’t go camping again, there just wasn’t really much in the world of video that I deemed newsworthy). This story I found at Techworldnews.com, while not earth-shattering, is certainly worth mentioning, however.

Of course you all remember the format war going on between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Sony leads the Blu-Ray pack and Toshiba is pushing HD-DVD. Well, another manufacturer, Samsung, is the first to tout the much sought-after hermaphrodite player. That’s right, Samsung has announced a player that will be compatible with both dueling formats.

“It helps future-proof, to some extent, the consumer’s purchase,” Martin said. “If a unified format is developed, it will probably be supported by the player, or if one is a de facto market winner, the consumer hasn’t lost out.”

On the one hand, it seems like a win/win. On the other hand, a player that supports both formats is going to be mucho expensive. On the mystical third hand (the “center hand” that the Indians call kobhatibaravabati), the consumers that would benefit from an HD format DVD have already spent a lot of money on HD TVs, and may be more apt to shell out cash for a sure bet like the Samsung GLBT player.

One other consideration in the format war is companies like Netflix/Blockbuster Online. These online rental services will likely only buy DVDs in one of the two hi def formats. If they want to have copies for regular consumers, HD-DVD consumers and Blu Ray consumers, they’ll need to buy TRIPPLE the number of DVDs. The next-gen DVDs will likely be more expensive as well (particularly Blu Ray). So Hi-Def consumers may want a player that will account for both formats, in case only one is instituted by Netflix et al.

Still, whoever wins the format wars, only a small percentage of consumers will actually purchase a player, especially since most are completely satisfied with DVDs. By the time next gen DVDs become viable to everybody, who knows where we’ll be looking to get our kicks from?

I don’t normally do this, but I liked Jen Chaney’s post on the demise of VHS so much I decided just to post the entire thing here.

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Posted on Thu, Sep. 01, 2005

REQUIEM FOR VHS

The clunky video cassette fades off into the sunset

BY JEN CHANEY

Washington Post Service

the beloved videotape format that bravely won the war against Betamax and charmed millions of Americans by allowing them to enjoy mindless Hollywood entertainment without leaving their homes — has died at the age of 29. It passed away peacefully after a long illness caused by chronic technological insignificance and a lack of director’s commentary tracks.

No one knows exactly when this once-valued objet de home entertainment began its journey toward that previously viewed-video bin in the sky. Some say it was March 1997, when the slimmer, sexier DVD was introduced to American consumers. Others pin the time of death to the week of June 15, 2003, when DVD rentals first topped those of VHS. And there are some — technophobic, time-warped souls — who argue that VHS isn’t deceased at all. It’s just, well, resting its eyes.

In fairness, the remains of VHS haven’t been interred yet. After all, 94.7 million American households still own VCRs. And more than $3 billion was spent on video rentals and purchases in the United States last year, according to Home Media Research. But if VHS isn’t quite dead, it’s at least on life support, comatose, all industry signs indicating it will not be resuscitated.

Many of the major studios, including Buena Vista Home Entertainment (which issues Disney titles), Fox and Warner Bros., are phasing out VHS releases. Circuit City and Best Buy stopped selling them online earlier this year, having removed the bulky cartridges from their store shelves in 2002 and 2003, respectively. (Wal-Mart and Amazon.com, on the other hand, have not announced plans to stop carrying the tapes.)

”I would think 2006 is the last year that there are major releases on VHS, and there won’t be many of those,” confirms Bo Andersen, president of the Video Software Dealers Association, a trade group for home video retailers.

The following might be the ultimate proof of VHS’s demise: When Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith comes to home video on Nov. 1, it will be available only on DVD, marking the first time an installment in the Skywalker saga is not on VHS. As Yoda himself might say, the life of VHS clearly close to ending is.

And while the prevailing attitude toward this turn of events for most might be, ”Gee, that’s too bad. So, what has TiVo recorded for me tonight?” it’s important that we pause to mourn the loss of this clunky cassette and celebrate the many good times we shared. Wait and we might get charged a late fee.

The VCR in our minds slowly rewinds to the early 1980s, when the video rental business first exploded. You may have frequented a rental store where the shelves were filled with movies. On one side of the store: all Beta. The other: all VHS.

VHS captivated us because its personality contained so many facets. It was mysterious: How much tape was actually in there? What would happen if you lifted up that plastic flap across the top? If you left a VHS tape on top of the VCR, would it, as your father always insisted, get demagnetized?

VHS was instructive. It taught us how to feel the burn with Jane Fonda, dance like the zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller and, later, do Tae Bo with Billy Blanks.

VHS was maddening. No matter how many times we tried to fast-forward to a certain scene — the moment when Leonardo DiCaprio sinks underwater in Titanic, or the fava beans line in The Silence of the Lambs — it never stopped exactly where we wanted. Inevitably, by the time we hit ”play,” Leo was already dead and Anthony Hopkins was already saying a breathy “Chianti.”

Still, even with its perversions, its personality quirks, you have to feel some love for the VHS tape. Had it never been born, there might not be DVD, or TiVo, or pay-per-view or microwave popcorn. Without it, 29 years’ worth of rainy weekends would have dragged on ceaselessly, movielessly.

As we prepare to bury VHS, we can take solace in the knowledge that its memory will live on. In the current clash between the developing high-definition DVD formats Blu-ray and HD-DVD, we will still hear the echoes of VHS vs. Beta. At every yard sale where a neighbor tries to sell us an aging copy of When Harry Met Sally for $1, we will still see VHS’s black, plastic face. And on the streets of Manhattan, wherever bootleg videos are being illegally hawked, the wind will whisper the name: VHS, VHS.

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So that was it. Deep. Meaningful. Rectangular. We (me) at Kiosk.net wish to join Ms. Chaney in her heartfelt salute and fond remembrance of VHS cassettes. Dead, but not forgotten. And now, a moment of silence.

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