Full Story at: Deadline.Com
So what do you all think?
Will this be the death of movie theatres as the article above seems to think? Or will it be just another option for consumers?
I picked “*No, people will always want the “theatre” experience *”, but move theatres will be more of a nostalgia niche market thing. There will be alot fewer of them, but those that are left will have better seating and much nicer food.
As long as people with complete home theaters (giant screen TV and at least 5.1 surround) remain in the minority, there will be movie theaters.
It seems more like a test of how much consumer resistance there will be to the SOC technology. SOC sounds like a PIA technology that won’t thwart bootleggers for long.
The studios can’t expect consumers to buy movies on DVD or Bluray forever though, so it’s not surprising they’d experiment with this.
It might make them more competitive and actually get them to lower the bloody prices at the snack bar.
So… How is this different than Pay-Per-View? Huh?!? Why would they need permission to determine the release schedule of their own product? I didn’t think the FCC was involved in that aspect of things.
There are some movies where the theaters are necessary- big movies with big explosions are partly a social experience, where you’re being excited along with the audience around you. And things like the Rocky Horror Picture Show will never catch on in home theaters- the whole damn point is to do this in a big crowd of half-naked people you don’t know. Plus, where will teenagers go on dates to make out?
The article’s phrasing that the FCC is “allowing” movies to be played pre-DVD release is a bit … awkward. You’re right, the FCC doesn’t authorize this. What the FCC allowed is the restriction that SOC provides. The studios would likely not have gone ahead with this had they not been allowed to restrict their content in this way, and the FCC knew that. Here’s an article coming at the story from a different point of view.
I picked that people will always want the theater experience, but I have it at my house, so I’d rather watch it at home. I’ve got a 100" screen and 7.1 sound. The biggest difference between my theater and a movie theater is that I don’t have a raked floor filled with people that I wish weren’t there.
The one question I have with this is how much will these secure movies cost? I remember reading in Entertainment Weekly about three years ago about movie studios experimenting with releasing new movies directly to PPV. The cost was typically $25-$30! Considering how PPV in general has failed to eliminate DVD rentals or sales, I don’t see how this is going to work. Plus as Lute Skywatcher pointed out most people don’t have theater quality video or sound.
I really don’t think it’s any different from pay-per-view. It’s just going to be even more restrictive and thus less people will want to watch. I thought when you said “first run”, you meant actually releasing movies while they were in theaters, or instead. That might actually have an impact. This won’t.
The FCC’s role in this is basically just that of a traffic cop. The FCC would have no say in the content, just the delivery method and the way it’s applied. That’s why it needed OK.
As others have noted, this has already got the program crackers preparing to see who will be the first to crack the security arrangement.
The FCC is wrong to lift the ban on SOC. The technology doesn’t do what they claim it does, and is completely without merit.