Changing formats in times of economic squeeze

Unaccustomed as he is to putting pen to paper, MARK SAXE was nonetheless flattered and accepted the Publisher’s invitation to write a “personal and honest” piece. "I could write about the onslaught of Blu-ray 3D, which to me seems much less an onslaught and more like a slow and painful dragging-up," he says. "Or, how about the future of recordable media? Maybe IPTV? Or perhaps even autostereoscopic 3D in gaming?"

Quite clearly all of these are inextricably linked as the writing would appear to be on the wall for the future of optical disc. Having said that, we’ve been living with the threat of the demise of packaged discs hanging over us for years. Perhaps it’s just propaganda ...

Exactly what is it that made us all junk our vinyl in favour of CD, then bin our VHS cassettes in favour of DVD, then yet again upgrade our equipment to Blu-ray (albeit in an slow and limited way, of that, latter)? Are these transitions technology-driven? Manufacturer-driven? Ego-driven? Quality-driven? Portability-driven? Shelf space-driven? A combination of all these perhaps?

There has been more than sufficient research carried out in pursuit of the answer, but whatever it is thought to be, could it be that the horse has finally grown tired of being lead to water and would prefer now to keep its ‘folding’ stashed in its saddle bag?

We all know that in times of recession budgetary constraints are most likely to govern consumer spending trends. Whilst we all feel a greater need for relaxation via entertainment in a more stressful environment, we are less likely to give up the things we deem essential to our existence in favour of a slightly improved television picture and yet another speaker in our living room.

If you smoke ten cigarettes a day and drink a bottle of wine every evening it will add up to about £3,000 per year. This is roughly equivalent to buying an LCD 3D television, decent Blu-ray 3D player and two sets of 3D glasses. Dig deep, kick the habits and splash out, and you could be fighting with the kids over the 3D glasses in order to watch an extremely limited range of movies, whilst drinking a glass of water and dying for a smoke! Attractive thought isn’t it?

Alternatively, you could stick to your existing vices, be less grumpy, not have to do cold turkey – at least the health implications of smoking and drinking are well documented – not fight with the kids and continue to enjoy a vast array of 2D home entertainment at reasonable prices. It’s never been a better time to buy or rent DVDs because they’re a hell of a lot cheaper than Blu-ray Discs, let alone Blu-ray 3D. Moreover, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my flat wide-screen digital television and my DVD player. Ludite? Moi?

Yes, DVD was pretty much an overnight success, but what a crying shame it was too short-lived. Meanwhile the increase in Blu-ray sales in the USA last year - and bear in mind that they are always approximately two years ahead of Europe - fell substantially short of compensating for the significant decrease in DVD sales – not good news.

From where I’m standing, the industry isn’t in the best shape at the moment. In Greater London, the compression and authoring scene has contracted quite dramatically in the last couple of years, either due to closures or mergers, but perhaps most notable of all is the apparent necessity for facilities to diversify. All too often these days I hear that disc authoring is no longer a core business as there is “no money in it anymore.” So, if it turns out that European disc sales trend mirror those of the USA, we’re all going to have to buckle-up for at least another few years, notwithstanding the streaming revolution that’s fast gaining pace.

Mark Saxe is a television, video and DVD professional with 30 years’ industry experience. He enjoyed an illustrious 25-year BBC career during which his roles spanned television, music and light entertainment production and post-production, directing, marketing and promotions, promotional video shooting, event organising, video production, and finally culminating in him becoming Production Director, BBC DVD where he was responsible for the end-to-end production, manufacturing and packaging of all BBC retail and promotional DVD product. Following this he spent two years setting up and running a UK children’s’ DVD label as Production and Operations Director, and latterly he has held various business development and consultancy roles within the UK/USA compression and authoring and testing sectors. Contact: marksaxe@hotmail.co.uk...

Article Comments

comments powered by Disqus