The Streaming Generation:

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

I am crossing paths more and more with folk who have cut the cable, ditching MSO or Satellite svc for aerial broadcast and streaming. This trend is noted in tWSJ as seriously undermining MSO and Satellite provider's balance sheets, which is probably why there are murmurings of them offering UV services via their set top boxes.

UV is somewhat criticized for stifling innovation in the content delivery market since it is an industry developed platform and traditionally new consumer electronic innovation occurs from outside. If you look at the history of Vudu, it was one such innovator.

The phrase goes, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention" and the movie industry needed to provide a digitized content delivery platform with DRM functionality. Whether this was right or wrong for them to do and if it is stifling future innovation in content delivery or not is a small point in my opinion. Both the studios and the consumers are best served from a unified delivery format.

It is without question that consumers have adopted streaming as a sufficient means of content delivery. Small nuances about quality or DRM vs physical ownership seem to be non issues as the consumers continue to adopt streaming in the name of lower price and more convenience.

Are other forum members seeing the same trend with their friends and acquaintances? I know the 9 techy guys I eat lunch with are comprised of only two who still have traditional MSO / Satellite services. The rest are all streaming. Also, it seems like any time I bring the subject of cable cutting up, anyone I speak to either has already made the same decision I have or is thinking about making the cut.

[BlakkMajik3000]

Re: The Streaming Generation:

There's two topics here, so I want to respond to each one.

Cord Cutting
I convinced a co-worker to cut the cord about a year ago.

Working in IT, as yourself, I was rather shocked to find that most people I cross paths with still have traditional cable. When I ask why, the two main reasons they give are because they have small children (easier to just subscribe to a package that includes all the kid-friendly content) or they can't give up live sports.

My argument is always the same. Is the cost worth it? Most of the time they tell me "No, but it's easier than trying to source everything I want". So we have an argument here of time value. For them, the cost in the time it would take to get "up and running" simply isn't worth it. And I can talk until I'm blue in the face, and it just doesn't seem to register. Ah well. For me and my wife, it was simply a no-brainer. $100+/mo. is way too much for us to spend to watch (literally) five channels.

Cable companies know the solution to subscriber loss. Either they choose to remain clueless and increase fees to cover up subscriber losses, or the networks refuse to negotiate on the contracts. A la carte is the way to go, but I have a feeling that both sides of this (providers and networks) are more worried about short term gain than long term customer retention.

UV, the stifler
The movie industry did what they had to do. Too much fragmentation, resulting in people complaining that they have to be tied to closed systems that do not operate with each other (i.e. Why can't I watch my movies from iTunes on my new Android tablet?!?!!? or vice versa).

With the advent of DRM-free MP3/AAC, video is the last bastion for companies looking to lock people into their hardware/platform. That's why I personally feel that no one with hardware to sell is going to willingly come up with a system that promotes interoperability.

As such, the major players had to step in or risk losing thousands (if not millions) of customers and potential customers to piracy. The problem, they finally figured out, is not that people didn't want to pay. They just didn't want to keep paying every time they moved to a new platform.

UV accomplishes two things: 1. Giving the customer what they want (access to their movies on demand from any device) and 2. Control over the content and distribution. Unless the EST providers sat down and came up with a similar system (and I have not read anything to suggest this), but it was rejected by the studios, I fail to see how UV is stifling innovation.

[echopulse]

Re: The Streaming Generation:

I've never heard anyone claim that UV was stifling innovation, in fact the opposite. There are incentives for UV partners to innovate with digital delivery. Some examples are offering extras, disc to digital, supertickets, early releases, Common File Format, and I'm sure there's more to come. There are things that can't be done with Discs, such as sorting, playlists, and parental controls, and UV sharing. Most of these can't be done with closed systems like iTunes. It all adds value.

As for the other part of the question, people I associate with aren't really into watching movies. My parents watch a lot of documentaries on The History Channel, Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel, and the News. They very rarely watch a movie they have seen before, and they have seen almost every movie they want to see from the last few decades. New movies are watched in a theater, and they go every week. It's very hard to pick a movie to watch with them.

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: The Streaming Generation:

I've never heard anyone claim that UV was stifling innovation, in fact the opposite. There are incentives for UV partners to innovate with digital delivery. Some examples are offering extras, disc to digital, supertickets, early releases, Common File Format, and I'm sure there's more to come. There are things that can't be done with Discs, such as sorting, playlists, and parental controls, and UV sharing. Most of these can't be done with closed systems like iTunes. It all adds value.

As for the other part of the question, people I associate with aren't really into watching movies. My parents watch a lot of documentaries on The History Channel, Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel, and the News. They very rarely watch a movie they have seen before, and they have seen almost every movie they want to see from the last few decades. New movies are watched in a theater, and they go every week. It's very hard to pick a movie to watch with them.

You won't see me writing that UV stifles innovation. I agree with you. It is something brought up by others who criticize it as a platform. Their reasons seem to be based on very shaky principles. Also, the two account setup is another thing used to criticize it. The feeling I get is these criticisms are from people who are looking for reason to attack instead of withholding their contempt before investigation.

Concerning your parents, I know some people like this. In my mind, a major motion picture costing millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars to bring to an audience to enjoy is worth watching more then one time. Even many TV shows fall into this category for me and if you look at the budget for a TV show, it is a small percent of a motion picture. MASH was a TV series I loved rewatching while growing up.

Some people are not like that though. For them, rental of movies for one time watching is better then purchasing. In the streaming generation, this is known as iVoD.