Sony Warns It Will Take $1 Billion Writedown, Blames Slowing DVD Sales (reuters.com) 157
Sony has warned investors that it will take roughly $978m writedown on its film business, blaming a goodwill impairment charge that dates back to an acquisition of a Hollywood studio almost three decades ago. From a report on Reuters: The impairment charge came as Sony cut its outlook for profits from DVD, blu-ray discs and other home entertainment operations in line with a broader market decline, the company said in statement on Monday. Sony has been working to revive its movie business. In November, the Japanese conglomerate's chief financial officer, Kenichiro Yoshida, said a turnaround was "progressing, but it takes time for the benefit to be realized."
QUICK (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's ban the internet and lobby congress for more DRM. Thats IT MORE DRM! It has to be piracy. Let's work to make hardware not work with Linux and I am sure everyone will be happy to cancel their netflix accountants and open their wallets.
That's the ticket
We dodged that bullet (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's ban the internet and lobby congress for more DRM.
And that would have worked under Hillary with her cozy Hollywood relationships.
Under Trump, Hollywood can go pound sand.
One fun thing Trump could do to get back at the screeching entertainment industry going after him; halve the current copyright expiration period.
Copyright term rollback? Plead the Fifth (Score:5, Insightful)
One fun thing Trump could do to get back at the screeching entertainment industry going after him; halve the current copyright expiration period.
Switching from life of grandchildren back to the 56-year term of the 1909 Act would require leaving not only the WTO but also several bilateral treaties already in force. Good luck getting that passed without angering constituents in districts with a strong export manufacturing sector. And watch entertainment industry lawyers argue in court that shortening the term of subsisting copyrights qualifies as a "taking" that requires "just compensation" pursuant to the Fifth Amendment.
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He can push for that, and I would like to see it, but that's Congress, not the Presidency.
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whups, responded to wrong post. Sorry.
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Switching from life of grandchildren back to the 56-year term of the 1909 Act would require leaving not only the WTO but also several bilateral treaties already in force.
And? Get ready to see a lot of sacred cows fall.
Good luck getting that passed without angering constituents in districts with a strong export manufacturing sector.
Not sure why China would care exactly or have any influence here?
And watch entertainment industry lawyers argue in court that shortening the term of subsisting copyrights qualif
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Good luck getting [US exit from WTO] passed without angering constituents in districts with a strong export manufacturing sector.
Not sure why China would care exactly or have any influence here?
I didn't mention China. I was more referring to exporting to the European market and the post-Brexit British market, which would more than likely impose "yuge" import duties on products made in the United States if the United States were to leave the WTO.
Taking is what the government does best.
The framers of the US Constitution recognized this, which is why compensation for takings got written into the Fifth Amendment in the first place.
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I didn't mention China
Says the man who said:
without angering constituents in districts with a strong export manufacturing sector.
Get it? No? Sigh.
which is why compensation for takings got written into the Fifth Amendment in the first place.
My joke was just OK, yours is hilarious.
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> I was more referring to exporting to the European market and the post-Brexit British market,
Ya, um. Considering both sides of the Atlantic have been ping-ponging the extensions back and forth every 20 or so years to keep Steam Boat Willie in chains. I really don't think that's as big a problem as it sounds assuming we're careful to abide by the letter of the treaties *except* where they are copyright foo-barred.
As to the fifth amendment. We just need to legally establish that copyrighted content is
Bono Act compensated for improvement in medicine (Score:3)
Considering both sides of the Atlantic have been ping-ponging the extensions back and forth every 20 or so years to keep Steam Boat Willie in chains.
A copyright term that approximates the life of the author's grandchildren [copyrightalliance.org] has been standard in Europe for well over a century. The 1990s term extensions didn't change this rationale; they merely amended its implementation to account for health care improvements during the twentieth century. Barring some drastic change to this rationale or a dramatic improvement to human life span within the next seven years, Gershwin and Disney won't be able to use this excuse again before Rhapsody in Blue, The House at Poo
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Define an "exclusive right" over something as the tradable right to exclude others from its use, and "property" as the subject of an exclusive right. (If you object to this definition, let me know, and we can refine it. I just like to get definitions out of the way to separate debate over terms from debate over substance.)
Under the legal theory that a term rollback is a taking, each year of the term of a subsisting exclusive right that the Congress has granted is a thing of value. Then by cutting back the "
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Under the legal theory that a term rollback is a taking, each year of the term of a subsisting exclusive right that the Congress has granted is a thing of value. Then by cutting back the "limited Times" for which the Congress has granted an exclusive right in a particular work or invention, the Congress takes "private property for public use". This would obligate the Congress to provide "just compensation", which courts have interpreted as the fair market value of the property, for each year of the remaining term.
Just give back what the MAFIAA gave to the public in exchange for the privilege of having their copyrights extended to infinity minus a day.
If they gave the public nothing of value for that privilege, then if copyrights get miraculously rolled back to something sane, they can have a huge heaping helping of nothing back in return, the exact thing they gave the public.
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In return for a copyright term extension, the entertainment industry gave the right to have the TV not muted in a small establishment open to the public without infringing copyright in music that the TV station might play.
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Then rollback that little right. Sounds like a fair trade. :D
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What did the public at large gain from what Congress gave in the first place by extending the term? Did Congress create value out of thin air by extending it? If so, then that is the creation effectively of the People.
What government giveth, the government taketh away.
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What did the public at large gain from what Congress gave in the first place by extending the term?
What I explained to Scarletdown [slashdot.org], as well as the services that the government can afford to continue to provide only if entertainment companies don't move production to other countries with longer copyright terms and take income tax revenue with them.
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And watch entertainment industry lawyers argue in court that shortening the term of subsisting copyrights qualifies as a "taking" that requires "just compensation" pursuant to the Fifth Amendment.
The counter-argument would be that the government isn't "taking" anything by eliminating anything beyond the copyright protections in place at the time of ratification.
LK
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BWHAAHAHAHAHAAH!
What are you SMOKING?
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Oh please!]
Trump is a racist and only cares about the redneck voters who put him in place. It's not going away
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One fun thing Trump could do to get back at the screeching entertainment industry going after him; halve the current copyright expiration period.
well that would be interesting. I wonder what other "fun" stuff will come about in this new administration? i.e. for every one new movie, two old movies have to be eliminated? (quick! save those VHS and DVDs!)
Re:We dodged that bullet (Score:5, Insightful)
"One fun thing Trump could do to get back at the screeching entertainment industry going after him; halve the current copyright expiration period."
If he were to cut back on IP legal weirdness (ludicrous copyright terms, the anti-circumvention clause, geoblocking) and eliminate special IP rights that pharma enjoys over the IP rights of electronics manufacturers, he could glass down the whole Middle East and still be assured of a second term.
Subject line smells (Score:4, Interesting)
Subject line should read: "Sony Warns It Will Take $1 Billion Writedown as their Vision of the Future Sucked"
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DVD sales are "ok", because the media and platform doesn't suck like Blu-ray
What're you talking about? My six-year-old puts in the Cars 2 Blu-Ray, presses play and starts eating Cheerios and watching his movie.
Nothing 'sucks.'
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I tried playing a blu-ray and it fucking paused to download an ad from the internet before serving me the movie I bought. That is defective. Never buying one again.
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I won't let a bd player on my network. I own 1 bd disc and I bought it before I knew how bad bd was. package never even got unwrapped.
downloading is the only way to go. no ads, no bs and it plays everywhere.
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On the PS3, at least, Sony only gives you an Allow/Prompt setting. Since I don't want it, I have to select NO every time I start a BluRay. It's a minor thing, but it's such a petty, arrogant thing to do to customers, it just really annoys me. If it was a standalone player, I'd just disconnect it from my network.
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Didn't know that. When it asked to connect to my router, I just said no and that was that. I'll do wired to do upgrades and than disconnect but not wireless. Optical drives are so last millennium, either download or USB stick (that format is dropping in price really fast).
Buying new content, been at it a while, not much I an interested in buying any more. Once you have enough content to last a whole year watching every waking hour, your are pretty much done. My home TV station is full and commercial free.
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What kind of idiot leaves their bluray player connected to the internet?
My Sony Blu-Ray is plugged into my home network - It's also a DLNA client feeding my TV and sound system. Now and again it updates its firmware, but it's never not played a movie so it could show me an ad.
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Is there a way to tell it that I will never want it to download stuff from the intertubes?
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Is there a way to tell it that I will never want it to download stuff from the intertubes?
Can you ask your question clearly? For example what does "it" and "stuff" refer to? I'll be happy to answer your question if I can understand what your question actually is.
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Every time I watch a DVD or Bluray something on my PS4, it asks if I want to use the internet to download whatever. I never have, never will, and I want it to stop asking permanently. Do you know if that is feasible?
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Every time I watch a DVD or Bluray something on my PS4, it asks if I want to use the internet to download whatever. I never have, never will, and I want it to stop asking permanently. Do you know if that is feasible?
Here let me quote my original post for you so you can read it again:
The only caveat is at the beginning it asks you "Do you want to fetch ads? Yes/No" and you have one extra step of saying no.
I'd like it to do what you're asking but having one extra click isn't a big deal. It'd also be nice if the DVD/blu-ray gods would not allow disabling buttons on the remote to allow you to skip past other content you don't want to see.
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Re:Subject line smells (Score:4, Insightful)
DVD sales are "ok", because the media and platform doesn't suck like Blu-ray. Sony needs to pay big time for the death sentence they gave Blu-ray. Very very bad business decision. The paid their way in, and then locked it down to make it unusable.
Don't know what you're talking about. I can rip DVDs and Blu-Rays both on my computer with the same level of ease.
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Don't know what you're talking about. I can rip DVDs and Blu-Rays both on my computer with the same level of ease.
What are you using to rip Blu-Rays? Hardware and software, if you don't mind.
Re:Subject line smells (Score:5, Informative)
MakeMKV + HandBrake (HandBrake can do almost all DVDs and some BluRays without MakeMKV, but MakeMKV is needed for some encrypted discs). MakeMKV is shareware (free beta period but reasonable to pay for if you don't want the hassle); HandBrake is open source. Both run on Linux, OS X and Windows.
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Another +1 for makemkv. It was well worth the price. I use it under Fedora Linux, along with an a href="https://www.cnet.com/products/lg-gbw-h20l-super-multi-bd-re-drive-serial-ata/specs/">LG GWB-H20L blu-ray writer which is starting to show its age (as are my dvds, so I get many a rip failure now).
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Ugh, bad tags. That link should be: LG GWB-H20L blu-ray writer [cnet.com]
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MakeMKV does direct rips (full original quality). It's shareware, but in what seems to be a perpetual beta period. There's a serial code given on the forums by the developer that you can use, and you just have to re-do it occasionally with the a new code (I think it's once a month).
Hardware is just a normal home-built Win 8.1 Pro PC with a BD-RW drive. I don't think the brand matters. I picked the Pioneer I did [newegg.com] because it has no branding and all the logos on the front are embossed but not painted, so the dr
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Blu ray is fine. To the end user it's just a DVD with better picture quality. You stick a disc in and movie plays.
Sony is losing money because their studio turns out 98% pure shit. Seriously just go look at their own page.
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/
They're behind most of the true cinematic garbage being published today. Look at their back catalog and you'll think "What the fuck? That steaming pile was Sony? And that one? That too?"
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Sony is losing money because their studio turns out 98% pure shit. Seriously just go look at their own page.
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/
Not exactly. It probably is a component but the real competitor that's eating into the market is streaming services. When you can watch a lot of good shows/movies with on demand services like Netflix and HBO Now for a much smaller monthly cost (~$30/month) than full blown cable with movie channels, a lot of people are going to opt just to watch movies over the internet. You also watch movies on things like Sling TV and Playstation Vue further compounding the problem. We have a lot of choice now. That p
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" You stick a disc in and movie plays."
Uhh. No. They do not work that way.
Have you actually used a DVD or Blu-Ray disc? You stick the disc in, watch several minutes of ads and warnings, and eventually get to a menu that allows the movie to play. It is annoying and it is one of the reasons I quit buying them.
Editorial (Score:1, Troll)
<div class="pedantic">"DVD Sales" is plural. The proper conjugation for the verb is "Decline."</div>
Households took a $100 Billion write down (Score:4, Insightful)
broader market decline? (Score:1)
That's funny [slashdot.org]! Somebody should tell Disney
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That's an apples to oranges comparison. Disney has record box office revenue. Sony takes a $1b loss allegedly due to disc sales. Box office sales are still relevant. Disc sales get cannibalized by streaming services, digital sales, and rental markets.
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Disc sales get cannibalized by streaming services, digital sales, and rental markets.
Well, I hope Sony knows what to do then. But if they want to make physical discs relevant again, they might want to remove some or all of the licensing restrictions that plague them.
Who wants DVDs? (Score:2)
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We want to stream movies, all the movies, all the time, to all devices.
And run up a big cellular data overage bill?
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Why stream it when you can just store it locally?
Just think of all the resources you're wasting with that. It's like you hate the planet or something.
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Why stream it when you can just store it locally?
Because a motion picture's copyright owner prohibits long-term local storage other than through purchase of DVD or BD.
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Both Netflix and Bittorrent allow you to download the movie on an unmetered network for later viewing. Netflix because they graciously allow you to do so, bittorrent because that's just how it works when you have a drm free file.
Metering of home Internet (Score:3)
Both Netflix and Bittorrent allow you to download the movie on an unmetered network
What unmetered network? In many areas, even home Internet is metered. This includes home satellite Internet, home terrestrial microwave Internet (which uses cell towers), and reportedly even home DSL in parts of Iowa [slashdot.org]. I imagine many find it easier to order DVDs from a web shop than to drive into town to make a multi-gigabyte download over restaurant Wi-Fi.
Netflix because they graciously allow you to do so
I was told this was available only on select devices and only for select titles in its dwindling selection of third-party feature films and TV series.
bittorrent because that's just how it works when you have a drm free file.
Whic
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There is always your favorite neighborhood RedBox for popular movies and free ripping tools.
Physical discs still have a place (Score:2)
Or Blu-Ray disks? The formats are obsolete - they do not hold so much data
Data speeds are faster today to be sure (well actually not wholly true, but lets pretend they are) - but 50GB is still a lot of data even today.
Mostly I don't keep physical media around anymore for movies I just kind of like, streaming is close enough. But there are a number of movies I enjoy watching from time to time, and using a physical disc ensures I can do so any time, regardless of interest connection - or I can easily loan th
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Slashdot says they Hollywood releases too many sequels and adaptations, and that somehow this rationalizes piracy, but everybody on Slashdot is like this guy
No, everyone on Slashdot is not like this guy. Or like me, or like you either. Don't fall the "slashdot hive-mind" thing that people like to say, there are a lot of people who post to Slashdot with totally different opinions.
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> Bluerays are still quality superior to streaming,
What are you talking about? The guy at Best Buy who wanted to sell me a 4k TV, since that's all they had anymore, said "internet streaming" was a good source of 4k video. (I get the feeling they didn't have many "ultra" blue-rays yet...)
I almost laughed at the thought of who could be that selfish with their bandwidth... Then got a little scared inside.
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What? Netflix only requires 25Mbps for 4k.
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Greater lossy compression than you find for the video on Blu-Ray, and lossy compression on the audio (Blu-Rays generally have lossless audio).
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Or Blu-Ray disks? The formats are obsolete - they do not hold so much data, they are fragile, they become unreadable in a few years. Forget that junk.
Only if you use the disks as coasters or let toddlers play with them. I have DVD's that are 20 years old that still work just fine. Hell, I have CD's that are just as old and still work. My PS1 and Saturn still work like new.
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We want to stream movies, all the movies, all the time, to all devices.
I'd love to, but I'm not willing to pay for it. I wouldn't be willing to pay for it even if I didn't live in the boonies. I'm willing to pay to stream some of the movies some of the time to some of my devices, but that's about it.
If you, Sony, wants to see a dime, get on board; otherwise, people will carry on using unofficial BitTorrents, and you won't get a single penny. The choice is yours.
I am not against paying for things. I do not imagine that I can just download everything I want to watch via torrent and never get in trouble for it. I do not, however, want to give money to Sony. They are assholes.
Re:Who wants DVDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who wants DVDs? [...] Or Blu-Ray disks?
I do. Discs are the only means I'm aware of by which I can legally obtain content to watch on any device, at the highest quality, online or offline, at home or away, without previews, without affecting my data cap, and without having to worry about it going away after a licensing deal expires. Nothing else available today can provide all of that with certainty.
Going into specifics:
1) There's media worth owning. I sometimes want to support companies with my wallet. Other times, I want to ensure that I'll have perpetual access to a show or film. Netflix et al. can't guarantee that, so for media I want to be able to re-watch in perpetuity, it's oftentimes worth it to me to purchase a copy.
2) Media that's worth owning is typically worth owning in high quality. While Netflix is great, I can still get a higher quality image and sound from a blu-ray (e.g. lossless surround audio) than I can via streaming. For media worth owning, it's nice to know that it's in the highest quality, that way it'll still look and sound good in the future.
3) I can bring discs with me anywhere. Unlike streaming services, which are a mixed bag when it comes to the content that's available for offline viewing, physical copies can be watched offline in cars, on airplanes, or away from civilization.
4) It isn't an either/or between discs and streaming. I rip all of my discs, encode them using Don Melton's transcoding scripts [github.com], and load them onto my Plex [www.plex.tv] server. Plex lets me do everything I could with a disc, plus provide the benefits of streaming.
5) I don't run afoul of the legal and moral concerns. While companies need to be doing a much better job of making their content more accessible (e.g. less locked down, no forced ads, etc.), it's nonsensical, immature (il)logic to suggest that we're magically entitled to free copies of their content if they don't give it to us on our terms. Especially so since it's possible to watch it on our terms legally already.
Piracy's only additional benefits are that it's free and that it's oftentimes available before an official release is available, but neither of those are benefits I'm entitled to, so, as per #5, they don't factor into my thinking. Moreover, DVDs are apparently still relevant today, despite hitting peak sales about a decade back. Given that blu-ray sales only hit their peak about 2-3 years back, I expect they'll remain relevant for at least a decade or more.
Which is to say, the reports of disc-based media's death have been greatly exaggerated.
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While the Librarian of Congress hasn't granted an exemption to the DMCA for ripping copy-protected videos for personal use, the courts seem to be divided over whether or not it actually matters, with some of them ruling that the activity is permissible. From what I've gathered, the MPAA isn't exactly pursuing anyone over it, which actually makes sense, given that the current situation of uncertainty is in their favor.
If the courts established a clear precedent saying that format-shifting copy-protected vide
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Pressed media far outlasts cheap write-once or rewritable discs. Early CD-Rs had a serious longevity problem. That's mostly solved. You can easily get 20 years out of a burned disc with moderately careful storage.
A pressed disc in a good storage environment will easily last 50+ years.
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There are CDs almost old enough to prove that (already at 35 years out of 50 on that tech). Plus, accelerated aging gives a good approximation.
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I disagree a bit. While I agree that streaming will replace disks - Bluray still offers higher quality picture. Apple Streaming is very good - but I have several "Ultraviolet" Blurays (buy the disk and get a coupon to stream same movie from Apple or Amazon) - and the picture quality is different. I'm sure the reason is compression and streaming quality choices vs network throughput. But I have several movies that I watch because of the picture quality. Plus streaming seems to have problems with Pann
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I predict this will make much more money than the current system could
If true, then people will go back to the now cheaper physical media.
What is not blamed. (Score:2)
I blame my financial situation on... (Score:2)
A few stinker movies bombing too.. (Score:2)
Tax and Accounting Fuckwittery detected (Score:2)
Whenever I read statements like "blaming a goodwill impairment", I figure some company is trying to manufacture a paper loss. They'll write an asset down to zero (taking the income hit on their tax return) and transfer it to a new jurisdiction (like Ireland) where it will magically start making money again.
DVDs are still more popular then BluRay (Score:2)
Most of the posters here look at this article from a first world perspective. Think about other countries where CRT TV's are commonly still in use. Why get a BluRay player?
Back in the first world: Which would you have your darling little child destroy: a $30 DVD player with a $10 DVD or a $90+ BluRay player and ROKU device with a $35 disc? Plus with upscaling technologies DVD's don't look bad on modern TV's, Assuming you're looking for entertainment and not hi res.
Sony has been going the 'internationali
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Most of the posters here look at this article from a first world perspective. Think about other countries where CRT TV's are commonly still in use. Why get a BluRay player?
More to the point, they're not buying legal discs to play on CRTs. DVDs dominate the illegal disc landscape...
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Finally Sony has been putting out a lot of just stinkers lately:
The two worst movies I saw in 2016 were Sony releases. The latest Fantastic 4, and Looper, which has Bruce Willis in the title credits playing a bit part who's barely ever on screen. It was a 2012 release I saw on a plane, a time travel movie. Hollywood in general and Sony in particular need to just stop with the time travel movies. They all have a permanent case of Terminator 2 envy, but none of them have access to James Cameron, or another writer/director of his caliber.
Fantastic Four has a metacritic
I'd buy more DVDs if only... (Score:3)
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Here here!! "Coming in the summer of 2003 - " oh how I hate those ads.
I popped in the 75th anniversary edition of Wizard of Oz ... and it just started playing the movie!! OMG! No ads, No menus, no "press play to watch." The lion roared and there was Dorothy and Toto skipping down the road. That is the way all Movies should start !!!! When the movie was over - only then did the Extras and what-not menus come up.
Gosh - it's like vinyl and CD music. They just play when you put them.
CartelTears (Score:2)
I'm sure music cartels would LOVE a model you can only listen to ONCE and never share with anyone, similar to the direction digital books were going - with only a pittance going back to the content creators.
I think people are wising up and actually want to own something and do with it what WE as consumers choose.
boycott (Score:2)
Media? (Score:2)
We never hardly the DVDs we own, and we got a blue ray player two years ago that we never used but 2 times. We gave the blue ray player to grandma to replace her player that got fried in a power hit.
Everything thing we watch is streaming. If we need to watch a DVD, we play it on the PC through the TV.
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No idea. I've only heard about DVDA, and very few performers can do it...
Sneakernet is cheaper than cellular data (Score:2)
DVD Video is how people lawfully watch a Hollywood movie without having to pay the ISP $5 to $10 per GB* every time they watch it.
* Source: satellite and cellular ISPs' rate plans
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(Over and over and over and over again...)
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DVD Video is how people lawfully watch a Hollywood movie without having to pay the ISP $5 to $10 per GB* every time they watch it.
* Source: satellite and cellular ISPs' rate plans
Zero rating anyone? Ducks ;^)
Re:DVD (Score:5, Insightful)
DVD? What the fuck is that?
It is a physical audio-visual media storage format that you can purchase in a store or online. Once you purchase a movie or other content on a DVD, you can watch it as many times as you want without any expiration or revealing to anyone how many times you have watched the content. This is in contrast to an online streaming model where the provider of the content can at any time decide that you can no longer watch the content and with which the content provider knows what you watch, when you watch it, and can sell or use that information without restriction.
While it can be argued that it is possible to copy the contents of a DVD or an online stream for unrestricted and offline use, doing so is likely against the law. Physical media purchases are a way to legally watch the content you want in an unrestricted way.
Re:DVD (Score:5, Funny)
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How do they delete the movie from my offline hard drive?
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Odd. I never encountered a signal cable that didn't want to transport my content. You only got to tell it what it wants to hear and presto, it does what it is supposed to do. ;)
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DVD? is that?
from some info I found (I forgot who the originator is) and kept in my diatribes folder:
All of the following have been proposed as the words behind the letters DVD:
- Delayed, Very Delayed (referring to the many late releases of DVD formats)
- Diversified, Very Diversified (referring to the proliferation of recordable formats and other spinoffs)
- Digital Venereal Disease (referring to piracy and copying of DVDs)
- Dead, Very Dead (from naysayers who predicted DVD would never take off)
- Digital Vi
Re:Uuuh what is.. (Score:5, Informative)
DVD Video is 704x480* (24 or 30 frames per second) or 704x576 (25 frames per second) for 1.33:1 or 1.78:1 display aspect ratio. (Many players support only one of those resolutions, such as the PlayStation 2 that was popular during the early DVD market.) Video at "scope" aspect ratio is encoded with hard letterboxing, producing a lower resolution: 704x360 or 704x432 respectively. Chroma is encoded at half resolution (4:2:0). DVD also supports interlaced video, trading off vertical detail for high motion (50 or 60 fields per second).
* Stored as 720, including eight pixels of "nominal analog blanking" pillarboxing on each side for recentering the signal.
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Wow, I never thought I would know about the mystery of 720 vs 704 resolution. Thanks.
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DVDs weren't actually locked to a particular resolution. In NTSC markets (e.g. North America), 720x480 interlaced (i.e. 480i) was probably the most common, whereas in PAL markets (e.g. Europe), 720x576 interlaced (i.e. 576i) was more common. That said, DVDs were kinda weird, since they supported legacy formats and some various extensions to the standards. They could go down to 240p on the low-end, but they also supported anamorphic widescreen (i.e. using the same resolutions as above, but telling the player
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All of which is to say, DVDs weren't in HD. Or, at least, the use of DVDs to support HD was never adopted in the mainstream, though there were some efforts to do so.
DVDs are substantially higher resolution than VHS, particularly after several watchings.
Blu-rays are sometimes not worth the hassle (though it's easy to pirate HD content without the hassle)
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Most likely your player is bad. I've been using DVDs and Blu-Rays for nearly as long as both have existed and have never had a disk spontaneously fail. I certainly have had players fail though.
Indeed, the abysmal "Ghostbusters" remake... (Score:2)