Physical Media Not Dead Says New HMV Owner.

08-02-2019 11:31am

Technocentral wrote: »

Tower in Dublin doing ok especally Dawson Street.

HMV is a big store brand though. Grafton street building brand.

If it comes back it's as a smaller shop and then it's up against Golden Discs and your Tower. Where is it going to go? 1 or 2 small stores in Dublin is not enough to spool up an Irish based arm of the company.

Technocentral · 08-02-2019 11:38am

Deleted User wrote: »

Technocentral wrote: »

Tower in Dublin doing ok especally Dawson Street.

HMV is a big store brand though. Grafton street building brand.

If it comes back it's as a smaller shop and then it's up against Golden Discs and your Tower. Where is it going to go? 1 or 2 small stores in Dublin is not enough to spool up an Irish based arm of the company.

I was responding to NO city big enough for A HMV I agree a chain of them no chance.

08-02-2019 11:46am

Technocentral wrote: »

I was responding to NO city big enough for A HMV I agree a chain of them no chance.

If we had a Manchester sized city you could easily fit a HMV, on it's own.

If we had 4 cities of Dublin size, we could handle a chain of medium stores.
As it stands we don't have the metropolis city to do a stand alone or the dispersed cities to do a chain.

Would be insane to try to reenter the Ireland market.

Now all this talk has me off to GD later to pick up some physical copies of films. That all4one voucher is not going to spend itself (wait, it will actually if I don't spend it soon!)

branie2 · 08-02-2019 11:54am

You can buy Blu-Rays at CeX as well

08-02-2019 11:54am

branie2 wrote: »

You can buy Blu-Rays at CeX as well

If I go into CEX I will walk out with a "new" processor

Technocentral · 08-02-2019 12:08pm

branie2 wrote: »

You can buy Blu-Rays at CeX as well

Poor range, vastly overpriced for used.

Tony EH · 08-02-2019 12:52pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Piracy is going to flourish again, to be honest. I know it never went away but there was a viable alternative which people bought into.

If this means a boost to physical media? Who knows but I am still happy to have my disc for my favourite films (and my most enjoyable spectacle films too).

Despite all the noise from movie and media companies, piracy has always been small scale and it was never really that much of a threat to revenue anyway. Most internet users wouldn't know what a torrent was from a hole in the wall and DDL sites are few and far between these days.

By far and away the biggest eater into cinema profits has been the likes of Netflix, which has become a real alternative to hauling your arse to the pictures to see a flick for many, many, people. "I'll wait for it on Netflix" has become a death knell for a lot of movie makers and it's easy to understand why. With the quality of the bulk of movie output being very poor (to be polite), people can just switch off or turn on another film. They've already paid the sub. Why bother risking the same price on a film at the cinema that turns out to be rubbish?

There might be a bit of a surge in piracy in the future, though, because I can't see too many people signing up to multiple expensive streaming channels just to watch a single show that piques their interest. But, even at that, the majority percentage of folk will just put up with what's on their streaming channel of choice.

Tony EH · 08-02-2019 1:31pm

pixelburp wrote: »

Nothing will crease and burn the soul of a film-lover more than being told said colleague watched a CamRip of Gravity on his laptop

And then say that "In his opinion, it doesn't look that good. Don't know what all the fuss is about."

Tony EH · 08-02-2019 1:47pm

pixelburp wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree: sure, those of a certain technical proficiency will probably claim that they'd pick 1080p from 4K, but like you said I doubt the average punter could tell, or indeed care.

Some my claim they can see a difference. But on an average 45" or 50" screen at normal viewing distances, I'd doubt it.

But, yeh, average Joe wouldn't know or give a crap. They've probably just moan about the grainy picture, while you restrain yourself from giving them a lecture about 35mm film.

pixelburp wrote: »

And therein perhaps lies the insurmountable plateau of technology companies have hit: if you the chart home TV experience over the last 30+ years, the technological leaps could be pretty huge: the jump from VHS to DVD alone was (for want of a better word) revolutionary and for a whole host of reasons was a sea-shift in the quality and quantity of presentation to the consumer. Not least of which the picture wasn't total crap anymore.

Without a doubt. I'm old enough to remember watching panned and scanned videos on my 15 inch portable TV in my bedroom and I thought that was great :cool: . I also remember that a 4 head video recorder set me back £400 too :eek: .

When DVD came out, I thought that was it. We'd never need another format AND you could spend even more hours just watching the extras that were loaded on the discs too. So, I started to redo my collection in DVD form.

It's funny. I kind of resisted Blu-Ray for a while (probably because I'd spent a lot of time building a massive DVD collection). But, when I did my own side-by-side tests eventually, I had to admit defeat and cave in. But, now, if I wait long enough, I can get a Blu for the price I used to pay for DVD's anyway, so my Blu collection is expanding.

pixelburp wrote: »

These days, DVD, BluRay => 4k just doesn't possess that same enticement and there's only so much fidelity you can bring to a picture before it's quibbling over degrees of detail. Indeed I believe it accounts for why we're seeing so many gimmicks in this space - from 3D TVs, to curved screens, to VR - because the selling points just don't cut it anymore.

Absolutely. Which is why 4K does nothing for me personally and I think that for most people, it's a form of tech autism :pac: . I don't give a damn about curved screens or 3D either.

I used to be obsessed with achiving the best sound that I could. Spent a fortune on speakers and amps and whatnot trying to reach an audio nirvana. Then I realised what I was doing took up all of my "music time" and I wasn't actually listening to the bloody tunes. Nowadays, I've MP3'd my music and I'm happy to pump it through a ten year old MP3 player.

The same goes for my viewing, in that I'll stick a Blu on my player, sit back and just enjoy the film through the tele.

I'm happier just listening to the music and actually watching the film, as opposed to being obsessed about what they're being played through.

However, I still get pissed off at a poor "remastered" transfer. I'm kind of sick of these endless remastered Blu's that often look worse than some of the DVD's I own. The release of 'The French Connection' from a few years ago is a prime example. All blown out whites and colour bleed. Ugh. It's been rectified since...with yet another release. :rolleyes:

Technocentral · 08-02-2019 2:19pm

Tony EH wrote: »

pixelburp wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree: sure, those of a certain technical proficiency will probably claim that they'd pick 1080p from 4K, but like you said I doubt the average punter could tell, or indeed care.

Some my claim they can see a difference. But on an average 45" or 50" screen at normal viewing distances, I'd doubt it.

But, yeh, average Joe wouldn't know or give a crap. They've probably just moan about the grainy picture, while you restrain yourself from giving them a lecture about 35mm film.

pixelburp wrote: »

And therein perhaps lies the insurmountable plateau of technology companies have hit: if you the chart home TV experience over the last 30+ years, the technological leaps could be pretty huge: the jump from VHS to DVD alone was (for want of a better word) revolutionary and for a whole host of reasons was a sea-shift in the quality and quantity of presentation to the consumer. Not least of which the picture wasn't total crap anymore.

Without a doubt. I'm old enough to remember watching panned and scanned videos on my 15 inch portable TV in my bedroom and I thought that was great :cool: . I also remember that a 4 head video recorder set me back £400 too :eek: .

When DVD came out, I thought that was it. We'd never need another format AND you could spend even more hours just watching the extras that were loaded on the discs too. So, I started to redo my collection in DVD form.

It's funny. I kind of resisted Blu-Ray for a while (probably because I'd spent a lot of time building a massive DVD collection). But, when I did my own side-by-side tests eventually, I had to admit defeat and cave in. But, now, if I wait long enough, I can get a Blu for the price I used to pay for DVD's anyway, so my Blu collection is expanding.

pixelburp wrote: »

These days, DVD, BluRay => 4k just doesn't possess that same enticement and there's only so much fidelity you can bring to a picture before it's quibbling over degrees of detail. Indeed I believe it accounts for why we're seeing so many gimmicks in this space - from 3D TVs, to curved screens, to VR - because the selling points just don't cut it anymore.

Absolutely. Which is why 4K does nothing for me personally and I think that for most people, it's a form of tech autism :pac: . I don't give a damn about curved screens or 3D either.

I used to be obsessed with achiving the best sound that I could. Spent a fortune on speakers and amps and whatnot trying to reach an audio nirvana. Then I realised what I was doing took up all of my "music time" and I wasn't actually listening to the bloody tunes. Nowadays, I've MP3'd my music and I'm happy to pump it through a ten year old MP3 player.

The same goes for my viewing, in that I'll stick a Blu on my player, sit back and just enjoy the film through the tele.

I'm happier just listening to the music and actually watching the film, as opposed to being obsessed about what they're being played through.

However, I still get pissed off at a poor "remastered" transfer. I'm kind of sick of these endless remastered Blu's that often look worse than some of the DVD's I own. The release of 'The French Connection' from a few years ago is a prime example. All blown out whites and colour bleed. Ugh. It's been rectified since...with yet another release. :rolleyes:

I always check reviews on bluray.com etc before buying to see if transfer is properly done, Id never buy a bluray of older titles without research

Tony EH · 08-02-2019 2:40pm

Technocentral wrote: »

I always check reviews on bluray.com etc before buying to see if transfer is properly done, Id never buy a bluray of older titles without research

Neither do I usually and I'd have a check of that site too. But, I took a punt on that one anyway. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At the very least it was a perfect example of just how nonsensical some "remasters" can be.

Technocentral · 08-02-2019 2:51pm

Tony EH wrote: »

Neither do I usually and I'd have a check of that site too. But, I took a punt on that one anyway. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At the very least it was a perfect example of just how nonsensical some "remasters" can be.

Less so in the last few years but definitely when Blu Ray was a new thing a lot of companies threw any old crap versions onto it.

dublinman1990 · 21-02-2019 4:13pm

When Sunrise Records ran their business in Canada including the HMV brand; it only had a website which was just a placeholder for buying their products in their brick & mortar shops. It had no web ordering facility for any of their customers to order any of their products online. It will become completely pointless for HMV to do that for their customers in the UK because it is a major place for doing online shopping due to a lack coming from in the high street. A lot of them would not bother going into the high street because a lot of them are littered with charity shops, coffee shops, clothes shops & nothing else in-between because these premises are becoming decimated with paying obscene high rents to their landlords.

When HMV ran their flagship store in Oxford St in London; it was paying £3.3 million in rent to landlords & £1.3 million in rates to their local council before HMV went into administration last year. Sure; there were customers coming in to the store but they weren't buying anything in it. They were mainly just browsing around the store.

The good thing about HMV when they ran their website in the UK was that it had ability to do price matching with themselves and Amazon.co.uk. Another advantage of HMV is when they fulfill their customers orders from online; they would deliver to customers in perfect condition while Amazon are doing the complete opposite in sending customer's parcels in their new bubble mailer envelopes. Amazon began doing this process for customers living in the U.S. not too long ago. That type of system has not turned out to be good so far when delivering Blu-ray orders to customers.

Soon after HMV went into administration in the UK; the heads of the music recording industry in the UK said they would support the backing of HMV going back into business because they loved the sense of brand reputation & profile it gave to their artists which was really important to allow them increase their album sales by doing album/record signings with fans & so on. There was some interesting facts being reported on when they were talking about people supporting the physical media market in the UK including some big statistics among young people supporting their business while living there. It was saying that 1 in 5 young people aged 16-24 actually purchase movies, TV shows & music in the UK with buying physical media.

I have been hugely dependent on buying CDs, DVDs & Blu-rays over the years because I did love the concept of physical ownership of purchases when I was a kid with my family not being to afford any access to decent broadband many years ago. My dependence on physical copies still has not changed largely because I had bought a truckload of Blu-rays over the past 5 years of my life. I just love buying stuff that interests me on it because some extended cuts of movies that I liked & wanted to see over & over again that I wanted to buy were not available on DVD at all. The biggest preferences of those are comic book movies because they are a godsend when extended cuts of them are available on Blu-ray. I know there is stuff available from Netflix, Amazon PV & iTunes most of the time but I don't want to bother with that because buying digital copies along with streaming give me a false sense of security in not having true ownership. With video games though; it can be the opposite as I have bought plenty of games including DLCs from Steam when I get them on a sale at any time throughout the year mainly you don't have any realistic choice for most titles available on PC.

Although when I buy books; I buy those with a physical copy of my favourites whenever possible. I have never entered the concept of buying an e-book in my lifetime because I don't like owning books on a kindle. It is practically rubbish to have a licence for something on a e-book reader particularly when tons of titles are available via physical copies in various bookshops all over the country & online.

Physical Media Not Dead Says New HMV Owner.

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