[mythtv-users] FCC admits CableCARD a failure, vows to try something else

[Brian Wood]

On Saturday 05 December 2009 10:16:23 am Simon Hobson wrote:
> Francesco Peeters wrote:
> >  > The movie industry has more at stake, though, in a way.  It's not just
> >>
> >>  piracy they're trying to avoid -- it's cross-border sales, the same
> >>  thing DVD region encoding was trying to prevent.  Movies routinely go
> >>  on sale in the U.S. while they're still in theaters in Europe, and
> >>  vice versa.  They're afraid of cannibalizing their own sales if people
> >>
> >  > can freely play back stuff sold in other countries.
> >
> >Well, they *could* try releasing the movie at the same time in the
> >European theaters as well...  ;-)
> 
> And that brings us back to money again - why do you think there is so
> much pressure for cinemas to go digital ? Cinemas get the costs (a
> digital projector for that size of screen doesn't come cheap), and
> the film distributors get the savings - if cinemas go digital, then
> the distributors can print less copies and also save on the physical
> shipping costs.
> 
> The main reason they stagger cinema releases is that it allows them
> significant savings on film costs. Every cinema that shows a film in
> traditional "big roll of pictures on a strip" form has to have a
> print of the film - and it can't be shared with any other cinema
> wanting to show the film at the same time. By releasing in the US,
> and then in Europe a few months later, it allows them to ship the
> prints around the US, and then ship the same prints over to Europe -
> instead of printing twice as many copies.
> 

Good point. It also limits the number of prints that have to be secured.

But digital copies of films are far more subject to piracy than film prints. 
It's a LOT of trouble to digitize a 35 or 70mm print, requiring a high-cost 
telecine machine and a lot of time. Digital copies can be pirated in seconds 
for almost no cost.

The equipment to even show (project) a 35 or 70 mm file is extremely 
expensive, I'm surprised it isn't close to the cost of a digital projector.

Regionalizing DVDs was done for the benefit of the studios, not the 
consumer. Only New Zealand saw the problems and banned regionalized 
players (do they still do that?).