Solid State to Digital
In the past year the overall success of digital streaming brought to you by Netflix has a lot of people talking about what’s next for digital media. There is no doubt that declining DVD sales and the slow up-start of Blu ray has Hollywood thinking of new ways to get you to pay for their movies. Most of the thoughts I have been hearing lately are talking about jumping on the digital media bandwagon, a thought I can understand, the days of running out to a store to find what you want to watch are over and why would you want to when you can just connect a few cables to your home computer or favorite gaming system and have access to anything you could ever want to watch, for a small monthly payment. This idea has also been great for independent movie studios like Magnolia who have started to premiere their films on demand the same day you can see them in the theater, allowing their audience to grow tremendously. So, what does this mean for you? Well for most of you this is a good thing; you can get your favorite movies cheap and fast, but for movie freaks like me, and I’m hoping most of our readers, the jump to a purely digital state can be worrying.
Though it sounds like an exciting step forward and in some ways I think it is, but what most people are not telling you is what you will be losing. For most people you won’t even notice but all of the portability that has all these critics on a soap box comes with a price. The price is quality, in order to get these films to you faster the audio and video is compressed giving you a lesser quality when it comes to video and sound. This compression is what made the idea of Blu ray so good because, for cinefiles you were finally given the chance to get true theater sound and picture in your home and in many cases sending your home theater’s quality to ranges far superior than your local multiplex. For most people this is not a problem and most critics are raving about getting rid of their old solid state media.
Again I know I’m not in the majority here but this is more a step backwards than a step forward. We are trading innovation for convenience. In this Idea of disc free future all your films would be held on a home hard drive or on a company’s external server and ready to play with the click of a button. Now this is where these disc hating critics have me scratching my head because the overall size of an HD film with no compression would create a large file and for collectors like me would replace my stacks of DVD cases with rows of hard drives. Not to mention that your missing out the special features some have come to love. Now I know most of you have grown tired of these space fillers and skip right over these bullet points reaching for your next DVD, but for me I love a deeper look into the film, the more commentary, the better. I want to know what the lead grip’s thoughts on the film were. That leaves me in a really small group of people, but along with this desire to hear everything Quentin Tarantino has to say about Inglourious Basterds. I also want the collector’s baseball bat case.
This is where I stand with an even smaller group as I’m also a collector so when I hear all this digital media hype I look at my collectors edition of The Big Lebowski and wonder what I would do with out the clever bowling ball housing. I know most people don’t care about these things and just want to watch the movie, but that’s the consumer-driven child of the 80’s in me. The over growing urge to have an army of GI Joe’s take on the Ninja Turtles in the Technodrome has always stayed with me. Maybe the 80’s is the problem that whole “there can be only one” mentality. Maybe we all just need to broaden our horizons and except that a multiple format is the future, until people stop buying the little discs and stay at home with their one click stop for entertainment. Then I’ll be stuck waiting for the next big craze in home entertainment hoping it progresses the format.
By Ryan Davis
lostinreviewsblog.wordpress.com 
Hi Ryan,I don't think anyone is suggesting to get rid of dvd and blueray options – it's about multiple distribution options. All of us have some movies that we cherish and want in high quality, hard copy, with the trimmings of covers, booklets, extras…. However, the vast majority of movies we watch fall into the other category – the single play type. Not only do many of us have no desire to waste money on the extra cost of purchasing a hard copy (when a single play digital version would suffice), 'hard copies' as a standard leads to huge negative impact on the environment. In a day when we are trying to recycle, purchase local, cut down on our carbon footprint, I shudder to think of all those plastic covers, wrapping, dvds, and transport fumes adding to the problem. What do people do when they get sick of a dvd, or it gets scratched beyond use? And what about the copies that don't sell? In the book industry, they pulp non-moving stock, I have no idea what they do when they get stuck with half a million unsold dvds, but I doubt it's any better.We all want the option to purchase a high quality hard copy of our favourites, but it's irresponsible to keep this the mainstay of mainstream home entertainment.*** By the way, the extras can also be delivered digitally, and in fact many indie filmmakers are getting ahead of the game by releasing this material online for free before the feature is finished.
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Thank you for the reply and I'm completely for a multiple format concept. The only problem there is when you look at how cost effective it would be. If like you said “the vast majority of movies we watch fall into the other category – the single play type.” it makes it harder for a studio to want to invest in a hard medium as the majority of their films are viewed digitally. In the end it's all about how they can make money.Though I do admit that the indie film industry is far ahead of the game, it is the smaller film that will never see a theater quality home release, it's just not cost effective to produce a solid state format for a film that only a few people will buy, Classic Wes Anderson films being an example.In the end it all comes down to what is cheaper and selling, and a digital format would be the most “Green” and the studios are all for that right now, but if the money was still in solid state then I'm sure they wouldn't mind adding to the global plastic count.
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I have yet to join on the digital band wagon. I love my extra features. Especially if I have seen the film in the theatre. I like to see why they picked this actress or this actor. I love to see the deleted scenes or the bloopers. I too am a collector. I like japanese horror, and foreign horror. At times not only are their films very different but the way they market their films are too. I like that Disney re releases the dvd's and adds things I've never seen before. Or just having in your possession a great work of art. I work on computers all day. They have their ups and downs and the last thing I want to do is rely on my movies being stored on anybody's hard drive. It goes back to somebody telling me last week that we should watch tv from our computers all the time. I started laughing. Its nothing wrong with that. But not everybody have a computer attached to their hip. Please. Before you know it anything that once exist will never be anymore. EVER!! It will just be a lost art/form. I love mother earth. Its our only one. Make things more affordable, take the plastic down a notch. And I'll still buy me a dvd or bluray Collectors Edition!!
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I have yet to join on the digital band wagon. I love my extra features. Especially if I have seen the film in the theatre. I like to see why they picked this actress or this actor. I love to see the deleted scenes or the bloopers. I too am a collector. I like japanese horror, and foreign horror. At times not only are their films very different but the way they market their films are too. I like that Disney re releases the dvd's and adds things I've never seen before. Or just having in your possession a great work of art. I work on computers all day. They have their ups and downs and the last thing I want to do is rely on my movies being stored on anybody's hard drive. It goes back to somebody telling me last week that we should watch tv from our computers all the time. I started laughing. Its nothing wrong with that. But not everybody have a computer attached to their hip. Please. Before you know it anything that once exist will never be anymore. EVER!! It will just be a lost art/form. I love mother earth. Its our only one. Make things more affordable, take the plastic down a notch. And I'll still buy me a dvd or bluray Collectors Edition!!
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