Repeal of "Net neutrality"?

^ Interesting, but in a world where almost all viewers are already paying Netflix and HBO, convincing them to pay $30/movie is an uphill battle.

I think much of the recent talk about how TV-series are eating feature-film's lunch is related to how easy and cheap it is to watch them online. Lots-of-users-at-cheap-prices seems to be beating just-a-few-but-expensive. As it does almost always.
 
Samuel H said:
^ Interesting, but in a world where almost all viewers are already paying Netflix and HBO, convincing them to pay $30/movie is an uphill battle...
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The movie goers are already paying it for the right to see a new release on its opening night/week/month. A family of four going to a "Beauty and the Beast" is $50-$70 in the hole once it purchases the tickets and the popcorn. The alternative is to stay home and watch the same movie on their home entertainment system without having to dress up, fight traffic, look for a parking spot, suffer from some obnoxious patrons other than themselves, etc. The Bel Air Circuit is an identical idea, albeit highly limited to those on the inside or in the know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Air_Circuit
 
Samuel H said:
Lots-of-users-at-cheap-prices seems to be beating just-a-few-but-expensive. As it does almost always.
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Mercedes, BMW, Lear, and other companies that cater to few-but-expensive are still doing just fine.

What I found over my many years in the video business is that having lots of customers at cheap prices was a living hell. Nobody is worse to deal with than the cheap customer. I raised my prices, and started doing fewer projects at higher budgets, and everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- was happier. I was happier, my crew and cast were paid higher and worked on higher-quality productions, the clients were happier.

So I'll agree with you that lots of customers at cheap prices is a viable business model for some things. But to say that it always or almost always beats the "few customers at high prices" model, no, I don't agree with that by any stretch.
 
When Bill Block was a major honcho at ICM in the early 90's, he used to have this saying, "Dress the masses, sleep with the classes. Dress the classes, sleep with the masses".

His family was in the schmatta business in New York and when it comes to Hollywood, it's also mostly low brow entertainment, compared to, let's say, books or theater.

And, insofar as streaming the first run movies goes, it almost seems like a sliding scale is what the studios are looking at. If so, it may go something like this - $75 for the opening weekend; $50 for the second week, $40 for the third, $30 for the third, then $20 for the next six-nine months or however long it takes for the film to end up on HBO or Netflix.
 
Barry_Green said:
Mercedes, BMW, Lear, and other companies that cater to few-but-expensive are still doing just fine.

What I found over my many years in the video business is that having lots of customers at cheap prices was a living hell. Nobody is worse to deal with than the cheap customer. I raised my prices, and started doing fewer projects at higher budgets, and everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- was happier. I was happier, my crew and cast were paid higher and worked on higher-quality productions, the clients were happier.

So I'll agree with you that lots of customers at cheap prices is a viable business model for some things. But to say that it always or almost always beats the "few customers at high prices" model, no, I don't agree with that by any stretch.
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Truer words have never been spoken! As someone who's family has been in retail for 60+ years, I can attest. And the WORST person I've ever had to deal with video wise was a friend, who's wedding I shot for FREE, because I had known him for a long time, coached with him and went to school with his wife. Two Betacams and I talked a friend(award winning editor I knew) into cutting it for a case of beer. And all he did was ***** until he got it.
 
DLD said:
The movie goers are already paying it for the right to see a new release on its opening night/week/month. A family of four going to a "Beauty and the Beast" is $50-$70 in the hole once it purchases the tickets and the popcorn. The alternative is to stay home and watch the same movie on their home entertainment system without having to dress up, fight traffic, look for a parking spot, suffer from some obnoxious patrons other than themselves, etc. The Bel Air Circuit is an identical idea, albeit highly limited to those on the inside or in the know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Air_Circuit
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IF you have nice set-up at home and they can guarantee a good download/stream, there could be a good market. I HATE people. My GF doesn't understand why I want to go to the movies when I do. We live close to a nice theater: lots of screens, all 4K Sony projection, but when I go, I go during the middle of the week and for the LAST showing of the particular movie that night, because there is usually NO ONE else there. I drug my feet to see the Revenant and went the last night it played and the last show of the evening. Literally had the theater to myself. And when I saw(maybe) Batman vs. Superman, there was ONE other person in the theater. Heaven...
 
Run&Gun said:
We live close to a nice theater: lots of screens, all 4K Sony projection, but when I go, I go during the middle of the week and for the LAST showing of the particular movie that night, because there is usually NO ONE else there. I drug my feet to see the Revenant and went the last night it played and the last show of the evening. Literally had the theater to myself. And when I saw(maybe) Batman vs. Superman, there was ONE other person in the theater. Heaven...
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Only way it gets better is if they offer a mega-discount on the first showing of the day, like my local theater does. Go at 11:00 a.m., get in for five bucks, and there's nobody else there. It's ideal.
 
Barry_Green said:
Only way it gets better is if they offer a mega-discount on the first showing of the day, like my local theater does. Go at 11:00 a.m., get in for five bucks, and there's nobody else there. It's ideal.
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That's what I used to do too but, to quote Bob Russell, I don't get around much anymore.

BTW, an additional element in the streaming portion of films might be the lessened need to advertise new features. Hypothetically speaking, all big seven studios could create a streaming giant where every movie in their stables is instantly available. Sony sort of does it with Crackle but they rotate their free offerings. If all major studios unite like this - and the DOJ may have problems with that - it'd become a huge bargaining chip against not only the theater chains but Netflix and Amazon too.
 
Barry_Green said:
Mercedes, BMW, Lear, and other companies that cater to few-but-expensive are still doing just fine.

What I found over my many years in the video business is that having lots of customers at cheap prices was a living hell. Nobody is worse to deal with than the cheap customer. I raised my prices, and started doing fewer projects at higher budgets, and everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- was happier. I was happier, my crew and cast were paid higher and worked on higher-quality productions, the clients were happier.

So I'll agree with you that lots of customers at cheap prices is a viable business model for some things. But to say that it always or almost always beats the "few customers at high prices" model, no, I don't agree with that by any stretch.
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Well, of course. I know how much of a pain cheap customers can be, particularly when you're selling a made-to-order customized product, as you are. But I was talking in terms of industries and mass-produced products. Yes, Mercedes does have a good business, but Toyota makes five times more money. Ferrari was bought by Fiat, and Porsche and Rolls Royce were bought by Volkswagen.
 
combatentropy said:
Dig-once bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
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Due to "large scale urban re-development" in the 1940's and 50's and largely state owned telecoms companies this happened !/2 a century ago in Europe. It is also why most of the electric supply (apart from the main grid on pylons) is also underground. Now the UK has 99% "fibre to the cabinet" which is fibre to within a few 100 yards of most houses. Thus 40MB/10MB VDSL over the last few 100 yards of copper is possible. Cabinet to the house is where the cables are buried in gardens, under tarmac paths and drives etc. They will put in fibre to the house but there is a charge for that.
 
A dig once policy seems obvious and sensible. 15 years is not long enough in the world of infrastucture. The telcos routinely plan for at least 20 years on any project. It has been a policy for years in subdivisions; making sure there is plenty of everything in the ground during construction.

But this statement from the article is a bit over the top. "But if the Republican-led Congress decides to implement dig once legislation, it can point to public support from some ISPs and broadband industry lobbyists. CTIA, which represents the nation's largest mobile carriers including AT&T and Verizon Wireless, supported dig once in a letter yesterday, pointing to government data that suggests the policy "can cut broadband costs by up to 90 percent." " A policy to put conduit in when doing street construction saves some work. But in actuality, in urban areas, on major projects, where digging up roads is very complex due to all of the utilities and other infrastucture already under ground, this is already done. In remote areas, they don't use conduit. More importantly, it doesn't get fiber to the house because no one is going to dig up residential streets to put conduit in ad-hoc. And no one is going to dig to the house to put in fiber.

Then there is the title, which is behind the times. Fiber to the house is a dead technology. For those of you that are still waiting to get off ADSL or are unsatisfied with VDSL, 5G is your friend. As you have already read in this thread, by 2020, we can expect a major investment to rebuild the wireless network to be nearly completed to include bandwidth capacity to bring 1G or more to every house, including those in less densely populated areas. Wherever there is wireless phone service, we should expect wireless internet and television service. If you are in an area that does not have wireless phone service, well, that's unfortunate because there just isn't enough traffic to make it worth while. For those of you concerned about available spectrum, the UHF band has been consolidated and auctioned off and will soon be available for use (goodby wireless mics).
 
I'd have to look at the map of the construction projects. It seems like a lot of the infrastructure improvements are along the major thoroughfares and bridges that carry the most automotive traffic but not necessarily the internet traffic. The internet consumption centers around the heavily populated areas, where the infrastructure is controlled by the local, not federal, authorities. That might still leave the "last ten miles" under the same control as currently and the internet in the same place that it has been before.

The next question is the ownership of those projects. If the federal government pays for it, they will more likely want to own it. Or they could sell all or portions of it, so Verizon might own two strands and Comcast five others. Once again, chances are that the local/municipal authorities will create local monopolies, which the US already has with the cable industries and all the complications that this implies. Finally, companies could make pre-construction bids but, as above, the local cable and telephone monopolies will dominate the market.

There's also a possibility that a typical household can have a limited interest in broadening the broadband, especially with the next generation of UHD/HD OTA broadcasting coming around in the next decade. I don't know how many posters remember SelecTV from the 1980's. It was a paid OTA channel, that showed early-run films (and the late night adult fare) for a monthly fee. A subscriber would then have to get a descrambler/decoder. If/when H265 or even a more advanced codec is approved for the OTA broadcast, a slew of new HD PPV options should become readily available and that might be enough for a lot of people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelecTV_(US_TV_channel)
 
Paul F said:
...Fiber to the house is a dead technology...
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Well, maybe in the US, where rollout costs are insanely high. Here in Spain, with an average required investment so far of just around $50 per household with FTTH, it's the best option available, and it will remain so for years to come. A third of Spanish households are already using FTTH (symmetric 300Mbps connections can cost as low as $50/month), with the remaining two thirds being mostly ADSL (same price as fiber, but slower and with more lag, for those without FTTH available in their homes).

5G may be fast and great, but really: I have ethernet all over my house because wifi is slow and has lag and microcuts. I don't see 5G being a lot better in any of these respects.
 
Fiber to the house is a dead technology.
[...]
5G is your friend

LOL... Fiber has unlimited capacity for expansion and throughput with zero interference. Wireless is nice and all, but as with mics, wired is always, always, ALWAYS superior on purely technical grounds, robustness, throughput, latency, persistance and so on. The only thing wirelss has is mobility, which is great, but otherwise I'll take fiber every day all day and twice on Sunday. The demand for data throughput will only grow - it's like with the old "64K should be enough for anyone", today's needs are going to be exceeded tomorrow, 4K, 8K video has barely taken off, but you'll see massive escalation of needs as remote control operations explode the need for massive data throughput - good luck trying to meet that ever expanding need with wireless. Fiber is the only way and the technology to expand throughput is evolving fast. Those countries that expand physical connections through fiber, especially underground, will ultimately be winners in having reliable always on internet that's robust enough to meet future needs.
 
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