Look at what's finally happening in the film world...

Indeed. Welcome to the club film people! Took you long enough

Copy protection techniques work fairly well on video. You can't copy protect audio.

Movies have been pirated more than music for decades. Video CDs in the 90s were widely copied and almost every DVD and Blu-ray gets ripped quickly. There are thousands of audio CDs that never get ripped. Nothing super popular but cult music was not nearly as pirated as cult movies are after the tape trading days.

I've got a lot of friends in the film business (almost all of them in sound). So I see both sides of this. A lot of people in sound--both production and post-production--are really, really hurting right now. I have a couple of actor friends (not big names) and it's the same for them. While I see a certain inevitability in the needle moving more toward streaming, the pandemic hit so hard and so fast that nobody's had a chance to prepare. This is taking a toll that a lot of people won't recover from.

Pandemic aside (it's a little hard to do that), I have some sympathy with the people making the films. A DP works so hard to make a beautiful image that will only be imperfectly-rendered on most televisions. A re-recording mixer makes a gorgeous Atmos mix that few people will ever hear as intended (this is even more important on those small shows than WonderStarWarsTenet or whatever the blockbuster de jour might be). And I do feel for the theater owner who finally shelled out for a nice immersive room that might never re-open. So please, let's not feel like film is getting its just desserts.

Having said that, directors shouldn't get too upset that a lot more content was always going to be targeted at streaming. As far as storytelling and acting, episodic television has had the edge for a few years now. And smaller movies (think "Hell or High Water" or "Ex Machina") can be a whole lot better than yet another superhero w/loud, FX-heavy mess. Way, way back in 2019 (last time I was on any of the lots in LA) Amazon, Apple and Netflix were all building big new facilities.  That wasn't for theatrical release.

A nice, big 4K TV and immersive sound system (even something like the Sennheiser soundbar) can be a pretty close approximation of most theaters. You don't have to pay for parking and the popcorn is cheap.

Yeah it sucks, sucks that WB found a way to generate some revenue from projects in the can! I’ll bet his biggest problem is that his deal is loaded on the backend!
Most film and video guys I know are thankful that streaming exists because it has generated work! Companies like Amazon, Apple and Netflix are paying big bucks for original exclusive content. The biggest complaint I have heard about streaming deals for new content is their really isn’t a secondary market like syndication or home video.

BR 549?

Dammit, you’ve got me looking down at my nose now, Chris.

In the past, thousands were making music and millions were buying it.

Today, millions are making music and hundreds are "buying". Those "hundreds" buying are the streaming services. The masses spend a few bucks every now and then. These few bucks need to be shared between the hundreds of streaming services and the millions of musicians. Add the "The internet is free!" meme to it.

Most people I know don't own vinyl or CD's anymore. Except for a few weirdos who collect the stuff and have a house full of it.

The upside is: many more people make music.

The only problem the big rights holders had, was they couldn't go global as they didn't always own worldwide rights. Well, that and the fact that it's a crooked business. Same song with five different titles, owned by three different companies, fi.

Saw this on Ars Technica:

"The past year and a half has seen numerous new streaming networks launch, including Peacock (NBC Universal), Disney+, and HBO Max, among others.
The onslaught has disappointed those who expected a service like Netflix or Hulu to offer virtually all content for a flat $10-per-month fee, but that was never going to be economically viable, especially as production costs for TV series have risen in recent years as viewers have responded to more lavishly produced shows—something the industry refers to as 'prestige TV.'"

It just makes me even more frustrated that the music industry fell prey to a ridiculous economic model that is not compensating (most) creators fairly. I mean, Ars Technica saying, "yeah, people's fever-dream that they would be able to watch virtually all content they want to watch for $10/month was just never going to be economically viable." Yeah, exactly! And it's not economically viable in our industry, either! Unless Spotify makes enough from ads to cover all the free subscriptions, it's never going to be economically viable!

Arrgghhh. So many thoughts about all this...

I'd agree that self manufactured CD's are the best way for a small artist to make any money. But there is money in streaming for legacy geezers. That's why investors are buying up artist's share of publishing. The hits will be there forever and like those old pumpjacks in an oil field, keep pumping at whatever flow rate. 

There's just too much video today to possibly consume. There's likely great stuff out there you'll never know about, just like music. I doubt if piracy will be a big deal in the future. I can't imagine anyone "pirating" music from streaming services. Why bother? Same with video. I got the Criterion Channel one year subscription as a Christmas gift. It's a great getaway from current reality. 

One of the guys at work was listening to streaming songs.  Some kind of random playlist.  I asked him what the song was that he was listening to and he fumbled around for a few seconds and said "How can I even tell?".  He meant that he wasn't even aware of how to see what song was playing.  He didn't know where to look on the app or whatever he was using.  I'm not sure he realized what app he was even using at the time.

That tells us everything we need to know about how music and movies have lost their importance because they have lost our attention due to the sheer number of movies and songs that we have the option of consuming.  There's so much to choose from that nothing is important enough to catch our interest anymore.

you have the old timers who don't "get" new music and don't consume it and you have a whole generation of kids who have too much to choose from to find any single thing important so you have two generations that won't pay for something they don't value.

I've seen people doing that too.  "Oh it's just some channel on my phone that I like," things like that.  "No idea."

Good point about the "two generations."  The old people are saying, "Where's the good music?" Like they don't even know how to turn on some music, because they're used to having it fed to them from radio, television, magazines, record stores.  People that don't know how to use computers and phones.  Used to being told what's good by big label industry, being spoon fed more or less.

The younger one, I sometimes sense a disturbing amount of apathy and disdain for anything "serious."  The attention span has gone micro, social media is rotting people's brains.  More focus on fashion, trends, "being cool" and so on, I guess how pop always has been.  I know there are still some serious young people though, I know some of them, too.  There is hope, LOL.  I almost feel like you have to be a musician to be a music fan now.  But props to the big time serious music listeners out there who don't play much, a rare breed I think.

I was afraid I was missing something, as usual.  No I need to dig into some "weird stuff" I guess, like you said.  Do you have any recommendations?

I have a GH4 here that I love, although I wish it had stabilization.  Is there seriously a "Netfilx approved" gear list, like cameras?  That's interesting.

I'm a novice in the camera world so I'm still on the steep part of the learning curve.

EDIT: there was that Quote from mark earlier in the thread, "production costs for TV series have risen in recent years as viewers have responded to more lavishly produced shows—something the industry refers to as 'prestige TV."

consumers are demanding these "fancy" shows and movies, it sounds like.  I don't think music is necessarily that way, although maybe it is for some people.  I don't even know if there's any expensive music being made in 2021, other than your Alison Krause, Robert Plant type of old school holdovers.  I think it's widely said that music budgets have gone way, way down.