Movies of the Future will be paid for by the Inch

[Torand]

Movies of the future will be paid for 'by the inch,' according to DreamWorks Animation boss

 

 

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of DreamWorks Animation, has this week presented an interesting new idea for the future of the movie business: paying for films according to the size of the screen you watch them on. "A movie screen will be $15. A 75-inch TV will be $4. A smartphone will be $1.99," according to Katzenberg's vision. His comments have come as part of a broader analysis of where the movie industry is heading over the next decade, though he's convinced that this per-inch pricing model will eventually take root. The studio chief believes "movies are not a growth business" and what's necessary is to "reinvent the enterprise of movies." Such a major revision to what the viewer will be paying for would require a quite extensive technical setup for locking down content — given the diversity of video streaming options available today, it's hard to imagine a security system that would reliably recognize the exact size of the screen it's being displayed on.

 

 

 

Finger Lickin' Sauce: http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/30/5667552/movies-of-the-future-will-be-paid-for-by-the-inch

 

 

 

My Take

 

Personally, I like the price drop, but with out evil™ DRM™™ regulating the play back device to check its screen size, how is the purchasing going to work properly the way he proposes? 

 

As if they didn't put evil™ DRM™™ on it, you could abuse it, e.g.

 

"Oh, this film is £7.99 on x store, let me just go on my phone, pay £1.99 for it, then copy it to my PC. Saved myself £6."

 

OR

 

Troll Science version:

 

- Go to buy film, leave mouse over buy button

- Remove monitor from PC giving effective screen size of 0"

- Film then becomes free as the screen is 0", purchase it

- Plug monitor back in

- ???

- Profit

- Problem Film Companies? -trollface.png-

 

 

 

Here's my example to help elaborate:

 

Current film purchasing system:

 - Buy 1080p film on your Phone

 - Sync your Phone with your PC

 - 1080p film can now me played on your PC and your Phone in HD

 - Paying for an increase in picture quality is understandable and acceptable, as you are getting a tangible benefit to parting more money. I.e. SD to HD.

 

Proposed film purchasing System:

 - Buy 1080p film on your Phone for £1.99

 - DRM blocks you from watching on anything but a (say your phone has a 5" display) a 5" phone/device

 - You then have to purchase the exact same 1080p film but on your PC, you now you've bought the same thing twice, but also...

 - Oh, you bought a new monitor? What's that, its a 23" and your old one was 22"? Too bad, buy it again / upgrade to 23" version for the exact same 1080p film

 - Hopefully you get my point, yada, yada...

 

 

I suppose its following the same train of thought/mentality that many, many people seem to have, that: screen size = better quality. The amount of people I've had to tell that their TV is not better than say, my pc monitor because its bigger, E.g. their 720p 32" plasma is not better than my 24" 1200p IPS monitor because its 'bigger'. 

 

Or

 

When people are buying graphics cards and deciding whether to buy it or not on its capability to drive a 32", 45", x" display when, in fact, most of us are trying to explain to them why its not the screen size that indeed matters but the resolution. Then subsequently trying to explain what resolution is, then after that doesn't work getting the model number for the TV to check ourselves, then when given the answer "oh I don't know, Panasonic 32" in black" ... you catch my drift. (and yes, I was narrating that question with you guys in mind, as I'm sure we've all been there. Ha, fun.)

 

 

 

In its proposed state, in my opinion, its not going to work. Personally, the way that it is currently measured (on resolution, SD, HD, Full HD, Beyond HD, 4K, etc...) is a sensible structure, but does need a price drop. And cinemas, get out of 'ere charging £15/ticket, that certainly needs to change. nutters.

 

 

I'd love to hear @LinusTech 's opinion on this on the WAN show. =)

[Hazorazor]

And this makes sense how? I guess if they are trying to say people with larger screen are richer and can afford more then fine. Still a weird idea.

[SirRoderick]

Basically paying for resolution then? Because else nothing is stopping me from running the phone file on my 50 inch tv screen.

 

For Streaming this makes sense, premium subs getting 4k for example.

[Mitrailleuse]

thats stupid,

i could buy it for the smartphone and stream it to my TV...

[SirRoderick]

thats stupid,

i could buy it for the smartphone and stream it to my TV...

Yes but when you're a 60 year old executive that isn't so obvious apparently.

 

As for the movie screens, well I assume that this is still ina a theatre, in which case you pay for the overall service and experience, not just screen size. That's entirely justifiable

[techswede]

Just put your movies on netflix and get your cut of the revenue.. ya old fart.

 

That's all i have to say about that

[Torand]

<updated post with my opinion - just wanted to get it posted before someone else did>

 

[Misanthrope]

This sort of stupidity fits nicely with the anti-net neutrality FCC proposal and Netflix bending over to ISPs: Sure you can have streaming....at SD resolution....full HD? that's extra. Because of reasons.

[Torand]

This sort of stupidity fits nicely with the anti-net neutrality FCC proposal and Netflix bending over to ISPs: Sure you can have streaming....at SD resolution....full HD? that's extra. Because of reasons.

 

Netflix's latest contradictions are getting annoying, their latest Verizon deal after what they said about protecting net neutrality, then bending over and taking it up the - anyway, gah, why give in?

 

- Anyway, besides the point, back on track -

 

You see the extra price for HD over SD, the current pricing system, makes more sense. As technically it puts more load on their servers for streaming a higher bitrate / larger file to you and the source is of a higher quality, so you are actually seeing an improvement for paying more to view the content. (I know Netflix don't charge for SD / HD, this is more an example generally or if you are buying a film digitally/physically-(obviously remove server load argument if that is the case)).

 

Although, what this new system proposes, take Netflix as an example; netflix would charge you more to watch the same HD content on your 30" TV than on your 5" smart phone, even though they are both identical content. So you are getting nothing more, but paying more money for the same thing. Which is plain stupid.

[Nineshadow]

Lol.Even if it is the same resolution?

Trolololololololol.

[Mainfold]

So.. in a sense, it gets cheaper and cheaper to pirate movies then?

[Torand]

So.. in a sense, it gets cheaper and cheaper to pirate movies then?

 

Troll Science version:

 

- Go to buy film, leave mouse over buy button

- Remove monitor from PC giving effective screen size of 0"

- Film then becomes free as the screen is 0"

- ???

- Profit

- Problem Film Companies? -trollface.png-

[MetEishYa]

This is okay if:

 

1) All content is 4k on any screen size.

2) Price per inch is linear, in other words a 10m (393 ich) cinema movie here is $6 a movie therefor by this logic my 55" Tv would be $0.84 and my 5" smartphone $0.08

 

But since this will never happen i hope the idea goes and dies in the same place as the xbone one did.

[Murdoch]

You'd expect a CEO of a large Film Studio to have a better basic grasp of technology.

 

You can already screen cast from a phone / tablet to a large TV

You can output via HDMI from a phone / tablet to a large TV

You would need excessive levels of DRM to have this type of sales structure in place

 

The only way this could ever work, is if the films were available at the same time they came out at the cinema, available across all devices and across all geographic locations. Only then would people embrace such a restrictive DRM system.

[Nineshadow]

#BitNeutrality

[Mr crabcake]

Well this is the kind of BS DRM madness that leads to more piracy.

[qwertywarrior]

lol haha this guy is a moron

[Sidiox]

And how would that work on multimonitor set ups? Wait let me drag my movie player to my other monitor that is smaller so I have to pay less? Or when you plug your Ubuntu Edge like phone in a bigger monitor? It would make more sense to charger for resolutions, then a 1080p phone would cost as much as a normal 1080p monitor.

[TheRetiredSlave]

Paying by resolution I understand, but paying by physical size?

I don't see how this is either good for consumers or feasible to enforce (without brutal drm)..

Thank you sir, but no, I'll pass. I haven't watched movies in a long time and I'd see no real reason to start watching them again if this actually is done..

[ericlee30]

ANNNNNNND piracy will continue lol. Stupid Hollywood

[Real_PhillBert]

I agree with the majority of people in this thread, that I understand paying for resolution, the same movie in 3840x2160 costing more than that movie in 1920x1080, but screen size? How would you possibly regulate that?

[deviant88]

The second they would launch this,movie piracy torrenting would double ding.

 

Gotta love how these CEO's/engineers/or whatever they are,whoever comes up with this idiotic ideas have their minds flying into fantasy almost,a place where money grows on trees,and there are unicorns as house pets.

 

They have no idea how to make more business out of movies since its not working,internet is and will be here for along time they still dont want any way of adapting movie industry to it.Maybe theres a rainy day,heavy snow,i have a bad cold for days,im handicapped i want to watch the new blockbuster right?i cant go to the inexistent cinemas in my town.Lets see Television is dead they dont show any movies anymore or anything interesting reason why i canceled my TV cable contract,i dont live in america i cant access netflix stuff or whatever,theres no dvd's on movies launch in my country,rather never, so what should i do hmm hard choice,lets see less than 24 hours after movies release there a torrent online already,such a hard choice.Well pirate it is,and those fake claims of profit losing due to piracy are idiotic,since most of the media is innaccesible in my country they cant lose any profits since they didnt invest making it avaible here ever.Also even if i had access to netflix and such they prolly wont have subbed version in my language and if i want to watch with my family what do i do?they dont know shit for english such a hard choice when the pirated version is avaible in all planets languages that have internet in less than a week.Idiot hollywood i hope what happened to music industry will happen to movie industry at any cost,i dont care they need to learn to stop being ignorant and adapt or die.

[Misanthrope]

Netflix's latest contradictions are getting annoying, their latest Verizon deal after what they said about protecting net neutrality, then bending over and taking it up the - anyway, gah, why give in?

 

- Anyway, besides the point, back on track -

 

You see the extra price for HD over SD, the current pricing system, makes more sense. As technically it puts more load on their servers for streaming a higher bitrate / larger file to you and the source is of a higher quality, so you are actually seeing an improvement for paying more to view the content. (I know Netflix don't charge for SD / HD, this is more an example generally or if you are buying a film digitally/physically-(obviously remove server load argument if that is the case)).

 

Although, what this new system proposes, take Netflix as an example; netflix would charge you more to watch the same HD content on your 30" TV than on your 5" smart phone, even though they are both identical content. So you are getting nothing more, but paying more money for the same thing. Which is plain stupid.

 

It would make more sense if that's how ISP's charged: based on the average transfer speeds per month. But it is not, they charge by how much data is transferred overall regardless of the speed. This is because there's (usually) no good way for users to know what transfer speeds they would be getting in advance. I agree that for the very specific case of streaming sites this would be preferable and sites like youtube go to great lengths to control how fast you get stuff. But for the vast majority of the web it wouldn't make sense: you would basically put a bigger computational load on servers that would have to process a hell of a lot of more requests at the same time since they would artificially limit how fast the transfer speed is instead of the current much better model of giving each user the best possible speed to transfer the data and immediately move on to another request.

 

Frankly while possible, most sites just aren't equipped to handle the extra computation load needed in the event of higher than expected traffic: instead of putting the effort on the network equipment (which is designed to quickly answering the request) you transfer it back to rather crappy virtual server instances running on often underpowered servers that couldn't handle all the simultaneous requests.

[Torand]

It would make more sense if that's how ISP's charged: based on the average transfer speeds per month. But it is not, they charge by how much data is transferred overall regardless of the speed. This is because there's (usually) no good way for users to know what transfer speeds they would be getting in advance. I agree that for the very specific case of streaming sites this would be preferable and sites like youtube go to great lengths to control how fast you get stuff. But for the vast majority of the web it wouldn't make sense: you would basically put a bigger computational load on servers that would have to process a hell of a lot of more requests at the same time since they would artificially limit how fast the transfer speed is instead of the current much better model of giving each user the best possible speed to transfer the data and immediately move on to another request.

 

Frankly while possible, most sites just aren't equipped to handle the extra computation load needed in the event of higher than expected traffic: instead of putting the effort on the network equipment (which is designed to quickly answering the request) you transfer it back to rather crappy virtual server instances running on often underpowered servers that couldn't handle all the simultaneous requests.

 

I can't quite gauge the tone of your post.

 

So, I'm going to take it as you giving a more precise explanation? If so, I know how it works.

 

I was just trying to make a comparison as to an increase in price for better quality material and how the proposed alternative is utterly stupid based off that.

[Kamina]

The has got to be the dumbest idea ever...