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I've been hearing for YEARS that DVD is on it's way out and VOD will take over! Is it true?
On the flip side the DVD distributors are telling me sales are great. Others are telling me that online porn and DVD are two different markets. What's your input on this?
Not there yet! But maybe soon. For example, I've read that you Australians are behind in customer broadband access (compared to other countries) because your government cannot figure out how to privatize Telstra.... In the US, our mid 1990's era telecom laws are inadequate for building broadband internet competitively to the masses.
Incidentilly, that is one reason I oppose the cunningly named network neutrality. [another cunning term: "family values"]
Network neutrality intends to restrict ways in which telecom companies can charge for services, all in the name of making it "fair." The end result of that is that they will not be able to build future broadband networks ten or twenty years from now that would vastly improve it to the point that we are in an IP high speed world for everything.
If companies can't risk some money on a venture, and receive an acceptable profit, they aren't going to wager.
But that's an aside :high: Hopefully more broadband will be built over the next ten years. But if price regulation aka Network Neutrality passes in a future Congress, then it will take a lot longer, and we'll still be forced to buy those dumb DVDs.
Steve
I respectfully disagree on the net neutrality issue. The "preferential treatment" scam is just an anticompetitive move on the part of the major transit suppliers so they can restrict competition and provide their own (overpriced) services and extort a cut from those who are already charging the recipients of services (i.e., membership website owners) but are not owned by the major transit provider.
There is still plenty of money to be made on providing transit. Customers on the receiving end (those viewing sites and reading email) pay for transit, and customers on the supply end (those with webservers, mail servers etc) *also* pay for transit. The transit providers pay each other (or barter) for peering arrangements. So the major transit providers are making money on both ends already. And as bandwidth needs increase, such as for video services, so do the revenues. Plenty of money to build out new services. It's worked for over 12 years since the Net became commercial in 1994 at a time when the "backbones" were mostly T-1 and T-3 lines and are now nearly 100% fiber. It will continue to work if net neutrality is imposed.
The loss of net neutrality will near-eliminate the level playing field that now exists where small providers, small webmasters, individual blog owners, can all know that their content can be viewed by anyone with a Net connection. You can bet that a "decrease in priority" of traffic from those who refuse to be extorted will eventually become an "elimination of service" to those same folks.
Now... about physical DVDs: Pretty much everyone I know says the physical product will eventually die out or become a tiny fraction of sales. Most people are saying 3-5 years, and the smart distributors are already starting to line up their ducks to be involved in the electronic download shift. Of course, widespread acceptance of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD may slow the demise of digital delivery for a while, until enormous bandwidth is available to the majority of homes, but I think it's a near certainty that physical sales will eventually slow to a trickle, just as physical CD sales have slowed drastically other than through chains like Wal-Mart.
Most of the distributors are reporting that small bricks-and-mortar adult stores are struggling badly. Many have gone out of business or been acquired by one of several mega-chains of 100+ stores. And I think that's just an early sign of what's to come. At the moment, online retailers of physical product are growing in the marketplace, but that, too, is probably a limited life business.
Of course there will always be some people that want to own something physical, which is why books and magazines still sell... but I do think that any company producing DVDs that isn't thinking ahead to the age of digital delivery will probably not be happy in a few years.
Here is what I want as a consumer:
I want to be able to select a movie to watch without leaving my house. I don't want to have to physically go to a store to find what I want. I also want to see some reviews and previews before I decide.
Then, I want to be able to view that movie within minutes of making my selection.
I also want to store that movie so that I can watch it again.
Also, I want to take that stored movie to my friend's house and watch it on HIS system with no loss in quality.
Basically, I want nearly instantaneous delivery to a Nano-like device that is portable and can store huge amounts of data.
Once I [the consumer] can do all of those things, I don't see the store-bought DVD or DVD-like solution being attractive enough to survive. The convenience of at-home selection with instant downloads would be too much for the DVD to survive. No more replication and packaging expense, no more shipping and inventory expenses, no more need for bricks and mortar buildings with rent and property taxes and employees and restrictive zoning and restrictive hours of operation and limited shelf space.
Once download times can be sped up, storage size minimized and the consumer educated to find the download sites, I think the pre-packaged video will die out. I give it 10 years.
A lot of great input so far guys thanks for your comments.
I agree that speed of download is an issue for DVD quality content. I also agree that when things can be downloaded quickly, and put on a portable device that can hold lots of data, that less people will buy DVD's. I also agree that people want to buy something tangeable that they can hold onto, like they still do books, magazines, etc.
I wonder if VOD will take the place of DVD distributors online. I've been told they are a different customer. Some customers like to have a DVD from the studio, in had, DVD cover and all... and pop it inot the DVD on the TV to jack off.
Do you think VOD customers are different then DVD customers? Do you think VOD will take the place of DVD in the short term or long term?
Until your average porn consumer can sit down at their couch to watch and not have to hunch over their itty bitty monitor and struggle with links, media players and god knows what else, dvds will still have a place.
Moreover, there's still a large population who would rather have a physical copy of their porn. Just like books, mags, and cds...They're all tangible and easy to use.
$0.02
i definitely think VOD customers are different customers than DVD buyers. while it is possible that being able to fully download and save entire DVD's including the extras would hurt DVD sales, a lot of people i know - whether porn or mainstream movie watchers - like having a physical thing in their hands. i doubt that is going to go away.
There's one other factor. Luddites.
A LOT of our customers are guys in their 50s to 80s who either don't have a clue how to access the Internet, don't have Internet service at their homes (library use only), or are afraid to make any sort of online purchase, either for fear of being tracked, or for fear of their credit card info being stolen / their being rebilled and not being able to cancel / etc. A lot of these guys only got a DVD player a year or two ago, and we still have a few who are annoyed we no longer offer VHS versions of our product.
Until those people either die or become computer literate and have access, there will continue to be at least some market for physical product. And of course, as others have said, there's also that segment that just wants a physical product.
good point, chip. i know a lot of people - and some are not older - who can't figure out how to do anything more complicated than check their email, which someone taught them to do in a very step by step fashion. i have friends in their early 30s who can't even send an attachment but they DO like to watch porn although they tend to watch DVDs since even filling out a form when online throws them - funny thing, they don't seem to have problems with forms when they're on paper. go figure!
There are so many good points in this thread.
Another factor to look at, is the direction that the mainstream market is going. Recently BlockBuster stopped charging late fees. Why did they do this? They had to change their business model in order to compete with the insurgence of VOD, PVR and movie downloading.
This is a very interesting post...I've also heard that DVD wholesale distribution is becoming a thing of the past and in a few years, it will be as slow as magazine distribution/sales
Here is my thought on the situation. Its true that DVDs wholesale sales have decreased over the years. Larger studios are not gaining the sales they have seen in the 80's and the 90's...since the onset of website memberships and online retail stores have increased and many more studios producing DVDs at a cheaper price has effect the market. Also so many individuals are staying home and watching "porn" on their computers or ordering the DVD direct online retail sites. Many people still enjoy ordering and receiving a DVD, you can watch it over and over again, its better quality, you can watch it on any TV you like as well as your computer. The problem with membership sites and VOD's, the quality is not the greatest and if you don't have a very good computer and a good internet service provider (DSL, Cable, T1) then you're getting slow service, you have to watch your favorite porn only at the computer on a small screen that may freeze, if you enlarge the picture, then the quality gets worse and the image is blurry and pixilated due to the compression of the video.
Overall, having the DVD is the best. Many men do not want to spend money and give their credit card information to a membership site. Some men are not the computer savvy and still rely on having the DVD, place it into their DVD player and watch it like they have for years. Many men are too cheap to purchase DVDs or purchase a membership so they like to go into the adult retail store and rent the DVDs. They can rent a DVD for $3.00- $4.00 per day and its cheaper then purchasing the video.
As for the retail stores, the stores are feeling the pinch in sales and foot traffic due to online sites that sell DVDs at a reasonable cost. Many guys surf the net and find thier favorite porn video selling at least $10-$15 cheaper then going to a retail store. Many stores mark-up the price so the DVDs are not affordable (which is not their fault, they need to charge more due to the rent they are paying for the space). Its very expensive to own or rent an adult video store. Most adult stores are not welcome in the communities they do business so the community changes zoning laws and the adult store needs to move there location or simply close down. If you do find an adult store, most of these stores are in the "seedy" part of town or to far to drive. In the larger cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, you can find an adult store nearby...however rural america and many parts of the outside a rural area...its very difficult to find an adult store so the consumer must get their porn online.
Too stay active and alive and in this business for many years and to be sucessful, a production studio just can't survive anymore with producing just a few DVDs per year or just survive with having one label. In my opinion, a production studio has to have at least 2 DVD labels and produce several DVD videos and release at least 2 videos per month, you need to be active with your distributor, have your own online retail site and sell your own DVDs and others DVDs from other producers, be active or partner up with webmasters and produce your own membership sites and look for ways to increase business and experiment with new technology.
We have been doing all this....as for the future I think that the stores and distribution will continue to decline, but it will take a very long time...more and more people are looking for "porn" via thier computer. There will be a new technology that people will be able to select there favorite porn DVD and be able to download the video onto there hard-drive and burn the movie onto a DVD right from there home computer...the consumer will no longer have to travel to there local adult video store, they will be able to download a great quality DVD! The downloads will be affordable! Everyone will have access to the DVDs! (Adult will have access)...no membership monthly payments, no pay-per-minuete!!!
Just my 2 cents........
I think there will always be people who want DVD product, myself included. I really don't think that some form of physical product can or will be replaced completely for some time to come. Maybe not so much in porn, but for a lot of people, the packaging is part of the whole experience.
I hope so
$60 for a DVD with photoshoped dicks on the cover is insane
Lol, I know EXACTLY who you are talking about. We've had this discussion before. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by jIgG
It's all about "delivery method" and how the consumer wants his porn delivered to him. Whatever method he wants is what we as producers need to supply. Right now, we're seeing strong DVD sales. In fact, I think we just shipped our 100,000th DVD this month, but we're moving to other delivery platforms as the demand moves, like VOD. I agree that DVD will fall off as VOD improves quality, and I agree with Chad that some day we'll have everything delivered right to our entertainment center via fiber cable or something.
What about HD-DVD? Isn't it the perfect platform for porn? Who wants "clarity and detail so crisp, so defined... you can literally see the pores in the actors' skin" unless they are watching porn?
I think regular DVD has a lot of life left in it, and once VOD reaches the level of clairty that surfers want, the home market will come up with something else. Besides, I don't think DVD will lose to VOD except in markets where adult DVD rental is scarce. I'm not a fan of paying $59.99 for a DVD, and neither are a lot of other people.
By the way, Welcome back to me after 5 weeks on shitty slow dial up. How horrible. I have a new respect for the word "pity" when it comes to dialup folks. AOL and Paypal were the worst.
Lastly, as a side note, I say forget Blu-Ray even though I plan on buying a Playstation 3 because it doesn't have the DVD name on it. People are already familiar with HDTV, so naturally HD-DVD would seem more familiar to consumers than hearing Blu-Ray for the first time. Sounds like laser surgery equipment.
One additional factor, specifically to us: Adult distribution will be different from mainstream. Quinten Tarantino gets to sell his movies via an enormous retail distribution system, including Target and Wal Mart, etc.
CitiBoyz and D&E Productions do not have that luxury. Real & Raw Las Vegas won't ever be sitting next to Real Genius at Best Buy. So adult movie producers will be much faster at finding new methods of delivery of their product.
And more and more of my friends really have stopped driving all the way downtown to Tapelenders like they used to to rent movies. They don't have to because more and more of what they want is online.
Has anyone else noticed the old fashioned gay bookstores, with the clothes, lube and rainbow candles up front and porn in the back, getting skinnier and skinnier? I went to Austin's Tapelenders the this Summer, I'd stopped going there in the past 24 months cause I have absolutely no reason to rent anything anymore.
What was once a huge vast area of movies for rent looked very small. They'd eliminated all their VHS. The selection was all DVD, and the selection was anything but varied. In fact it was predominantly bareback movies and twinks. Maybe I could have found a Colt or Kristen Bjorn movie if I'd gotten the flashlight out and looked into all the back nooks.
I was really surprised.... I felt a strong feeling of so you mean that's it???
Here's something: I read in the WSJ a month ago that some classical music producers are starting to ship just empty boxes to retailers. Inside is simply a piece of paper with your download url and key. They take up less shelf space and production/shipping costs are lower. I instantly thought that adult could potentially utilize this.
What if Falcon offered versions of the Velvet Mafia this way? If it's just a box showing models in underwear and a piece of paper inside, could you sell it in bible belt Colorado Springs, or a place that's not a zoned sexually oriented business?
Steve
Thanks for responding to this. I understand your point.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
I don't know. I just hear one of those "Red Alerts" piping up from the bridge of the Enterprise when I read about this. All I know is that when you start restricting what companies can charge for, they cut back what they do. And that's the wrong way.
I guess it boils down to people who think there are "imperfections" in how the market works, so we therefore need government to step in a fix those "imperfections." While over on the other side, people take the position that competiton and leaving state meddling out of the picture works best in the long run.
Yes, individual bloggers and start ups conceivably could be shut out of the Internet by a cartel of mean ISPs. But this issue is drivien by companies like Microsoft and Google, who do not want SBC or Earthlink one day to say, "hey if you want to be on our network, you need to pay us money."
Well, those companies enjoy hefty cash positions which I think could be worth asking - what's wrong with an ISP, whose pipes are full of Google/YouTube data, asking them for more money?
And I still do not understand why people blow off the consequence of a Bush operated FCC being handed more oversight rules on Internet operation.
If a big bank changes the rules to extract more money from adult web operators (like VISA) we don't go to the government and try to make that illegal. We just adapt and figure out new ways to do business.
The alternative is everything gets stuck in the mud.
Steve
it's NOT just Google and Micro$oft that are in favor of net neutrality. It is practically everyone involved in the networking and architecture side of the Net, including practically all of the original architects of the Net.
Remember that when the Net's predecessor was created in the 1970s, and Tim Berners-Lee wrote the specs for the World Wide Web, the groups involved specifically created language that ensured that the technoligies were public and open to all. Without that, it would never have become the large, vital business and entertainment communications channel that it is.
Now the big transit providers want to muck up something that's worked perfectly, and for no other reason than their own greed.
NO ONE benefits if the transit providers are allowed to control what traffic flows across their fiber based on the source or nature of the content... except the greedy companies that own the fiber. EVERYONE benefits if the fiber continues to be open to all sites that wish to be viewed and if all users can view whatever sites they want.
As for the notion of the transit providers being paid extra for YouTube or Google Video traffic, bullshit. Transit is transit. If bandwidth goes up because there's more video or voice traffic, then those who are already paying for transit (ISPs, end users, web hosts) pay more in proportion to the amount of bandwidth they are using... but not because of the nature of their content or where it's coming from. That is simply wrong. It's anticompetitive, monopolistic, and driven by nothing other than greed.
If there were a million major transit providers and they could compete with each other, some offering open transit and some offering restricted, or preferential transit, that would be one thing. But something like 80% of the US Internet transit is owned by about 4 companies: AT&T/Bellsouth, Sprint, Comcast, and Worldcom/MCI. And -- big surprise -- all of them are in favor (and most likely working together under cover) of being able to hose the consumer through selective prioritizing of traffic. There aren't enough smaller providers (or lit fiber owned by the smaller guys) to provide for the traffic needs. If/when it comes to pass, it will be a HUGE clusterfuck for the 'net in many ways we can't even imagine.
I'm no expert, but the articles I've read by people who are and who have spent their lives understanding the technology behind the net say it is nothing short of a disaster. But the loser Republicans have already been bought off on the issue and will most likely stifle any efforts to protect neutrality unless we can throw the corrupt pieces of shit out of office in a few weeks.
True, there's an impressive endorsement line there..... isn't Vinton Cerf supporting it?
I'm still skeptical. I would even suggest that Net Neutrality creates an environment where ISP's are limited from charging for things, so the end result will be a world with fewer ISPs. Which is certainly the wrong way to go.
(We lived with regulated phone monoplies for decades... now let's make it a point to turn the Internet into this?)
The US's banking system is far less regulated then in other countries. That is why if you live in France or Canada, sure customers will probably enjoy lower interest rates and transaction fees, but there are a much smaller number of banks, meaning it will be more difficult to get an account that fits your needs. (we hear about this on GWW often) Then the system propogates an environment where even more government protective bank oversight is needed, because there's such a small number of banks from which people can choose.
And you suggest that the Big 4 ISPs are colluding..... that's strange to me. Have you found a business area that does not have any backstabbing or undercutting??? I guess I could never see anything like that in this industry, so something like that in telecommunications is easy to envision. (wisecrack joke)
I still hear that red alert. I think Lt. Reily has taken over the Enterprise's engine room and he's singing I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen over the intercom. But maybe I'm just hearing things....
http://www.friskyfans.org/catphotos/bare/sulu1.jpg
Steve
So you are saying that it's OK for someone like AT&T who have one of the largest internet backbones in the US and provideo DSL for which consumers pay and for which ATT makes about $20 profit per customer. Then they also charge Network Operations Centers and Hosting facilities for the connectivity
AND
without net neutrality, the will charge AGAIN the high trafficked sites, which can be any site!
What if when ATT is done with their UVerse service, and creates their content portal, they tell you your site receives too many ATT DSL users and it's taking from the already paltry 25Mbps bandwith for UVERSE, so you have to pay AT&T for every ATT DSL users that comes to your site.
If you don't pay we'll just block you or make available 10kbps bandwith for it, dial up speeds.
Doesn't matter that your hosting facility has an ATT 10gigE pipe in the back yard and it's included in your price you have to pay again!?!
I would think that soon EVERYTHING (movies, music etc.) will soon be available without the need for discs.
Yes, he and a lot of the other major "fathers" of the Net.Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
I guess perhaps we just have a difference of perspective. I'm not in favor of a ton of regulation, but, for example, I would be willing to wager that the banking industry in Canada is a hell of a lot less corrupt than the one in the US.
It absolutely floors me what Chase has been able to get away with in fucking over their 10,000,000 cardholders. I read somewhere that up to 60% of their cardholders have gotten screwed over through constant "updates" to Chase's terms of service that basically have the effect of ensuring that very few cardholders actually get the rates or benefits they were promised. The sort of thing where making one late payment to any creditor who reports to your credit entitles Chase to increase your interest rate, sometimes by 3 times what the contracted rate was. (There's a class action against them for this, apparently.) And things like saying "Your payment has to arrive by 10am in order to be counted as having arrived that day" which are intentionally rigged to make people who pay at the last minute get screwed over.
Of course, people like me who obsess over their credit reports and watch everything like a hawk are generally not screwed, but that's a small percentage of the population, and it shouldn't be necessary to do that.
In an environment where big business is less and less ethical, I think that some level of governmental regulation to at least ensure a reasonably level playing field and encourage competition is a good thing. But of course, government in the US is *also* corrupt as hell, so the likelihood of getting anything much of any consequence isn't so great.
I seriously doubt we'd ever get a Fair Collection Practices Act or a Fair Credit Reporting Act, or any other legislation that meaningfully protects consumers passed in 2006, and I think that's pretty sad.
What if scenarios.Quote:
Originally Posted by jIgG
What if the handful of airlines who flew from the US Mid-West into San Diego colluded together, raising the price of their round trip tickets $100? It can't be that hard, right? Heck, if the "Big 4" ISPs, can collude, why aren't groups of 4 airlines colluding for big fat profilts to mid sized American cities?
The answer to all nightmare what if scenarios is that for prices to stay high, all the participating conpanies must stick with it. With airfares, they don't. If American Airlines raises its fares, they all have to follow, else the rate hike dissapears.
I don't understand why it is unthinkable for AT&T to want to gain market share with MCI or Verizon.
Once again, if you basiclly feel the market has "imperfections" which must be "corrected" by the government, you are probably comfortable with Net Neutrality. If you think the market eventually works out its flaws, and adding government meddling only makes thing worse, then you probably oppose it.
Steve