Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
An industry executive speaks
In a series of Q&As, frontline practitioners in all facets of the packaged media and digital delivery industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It's the turn of FABIEN REMBLIER, Director of BeeFree Production in Paris.
Where do you see your company's comparative advantage/uniqueness in this crowded market?
I don't think any production company has a uniqueness, but only advantages. Mine is to be specialized in 3D content and we have several films that got awards at festivals around the world for the quality of the stereoscopy.
Amongst the range of services you offer, which one did grow in importance over the past 2 years and which one diminished?
Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) is a growing market. My company grows with this market. We provide S3D expertise on corporate movies, live captures of concerts, shows and events. S3D corporate movies become an important part of our work.
Diversification is supposed to be the best way of staying afloat in the face of market uncertainty. How do you see your company's range of services evolving over the next 2 to 5 years?
Even though we specialise in S3D, we are still working on 2D projects. Last year, 2D films accounted for half of our activities. I think this sector will decline over the next years.
One keeps hearing alarmist opinion about the rapid demise of packaged media in the face of online delivery. What is your view as to how long discs will be around? And what could become its main target market?
I don't like online delivery. I love to have a disc and its leaflet in my hand! I am not a good customer for online delivery because I think it is too much computer dependant. I think cloud is not a good way to store films and music. How do you access them when your mobile or your computer can't connect to the Internet? What if some kind of censors decide that this or that content is not good anymore and can destroy it on your cloud account? That's why I still buy Blu-ray discs, DVDs and CDs.
The ever lower margins on Blu-ray discs makes the economics of BD authoring and replication very challenging. What needs to happen, what features need to be added, to make it a viable business for independents?
Once again, the new support was a justification to hike prices. You want the Blu-ray market to grow? Sell them cheaper!
Do you see the arrival of 3D as the shot of adrenaline the Blu-ray disc format badly needed to progress in the market, or do you think consumers will eventually make a success of Blu-ray irrespective of whether 3D develops?
Blu-ray 3D could be this shot of adrenaline. But consumers have to know that 3D content exists. Distributors have to promote this support. I think Avatar's Blu-ray 3D in October will be a big success and will help to promote 3D and Blu-ray 3D.
Given the apparently slower than expected take-up of 3D, do you thing 3D is here to stay or consumer interest in stereoscopy is temporary?
Slower than expected? 3DTV sales are better than HDTV or 16/9 TVs used to be. What we need now is more broadcasters, more Blu-ray 3D discs, more contents, more money to produce contents. 3D is not just a gadget, it is a new way of watching content and I really think it is here to stay.
Do you think the consumer take-up of 3D depends on the arrival of glasses-free autostereoscopic solutions? If yes, how many years do you believe consumers will have to wait for a high-quality glasses-free system to rival the existing active shutter glasses 3D systems?
I don't think that glasses-free 3DTVs will be there soon. Two reasons for that. First is that to have a good quality, autostereoscopic 3D needs 4K or 8K TVs. And even with 8K TVs you still see lenticular artifacts. Second, autostereoscopy requires 8 vieweing angles, but broadcasters do not have the bandwidth to do that. The take-up of 3D needs only a few things: more broadcasters and more exclusive content. Also 3D content is made to be seen in 3D and should not be broadcast in 2D.
How to you see Hollywood squaring the circle between the inexorable fall of high-revenue producing packaged media and the unstoppable rise of low-revenue generating online digital delivery?
Choices have to be made. Is it still possible to continue to sell content with high prices and thus open the door to piracy or should the price come down drastically and attracts more buyers on both supports?
4,000-line Super HDTV is pointing on the horizon. Do you anticipate this to be the next TV format? If so, could it lead to the arrival of a next-generation larger-capacity Blu-ray disc to deliver this content, given that broadband could be inadequate?
I may be wrong, but I don't believe in this format.
Contact: www.beefree.fr.
(30.09.2012)
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On predicting the future
Predicting the future, let alone the future of packaged media, is a perilous exercise, and possibly counter-productive, as the exercise closes doors rather than keep them open, argues JEAN-LUC RENAUD, DVD Intelligence publisher. Consider that: Apple was left nearly for dead 15 years ago. Today, it became the world's most valuable technology company, topping Microsoft.
Le cinéma est une invention sans avenir (the cinema is an invention without any future) famously claimed the Lumière Brothers some 120 years ago. Well. The cinématographe grew into a big business, even bigger in times of economic crisis when people have little money to spend on any other business.
The advent of radio, then television, was to kill the cinema. With a plethora of digital TV channels, a huge DVD market, a wealth of online delivery options, a massive counterfeit underworld and illegal downloading on a large scale, cinema box office last year broke records!
The telephone was said to have no future when it came about. Today, 5 billion handsets are in use worldwide. People prioritize mobile phones over drinking water in many Third World countries.
No-one predicted the arrival of the iPod only one year before it broke loose in an unsuspecting market. Even fewer predicted it was going to revolutionise the economics of music distribution. Likewise, no-one saw the iPhone coming and even fewer forecast the birth of the developers' industry it ignited. And it changed the concept of mobile phone.
Make no mistake, the iPad will have a profound impact on the publishing world. It will bring new players, and smaller, perhaps more creative content creators.
And who predicted the revival of vinyl?
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