1976 - Year VHS launched
1996 - DVD is launched in Japan, followed by USA release in 1997 and Europe release in 1998.
2006 - Blu-ray Disc launched
Home-entertainment Wars
Two major conflicts have arisen throughout the past 40 years over home entertainment between alternate formats and ways to watch film:
-Videotape format war (1970s-80s): Battle between Sony's Beta and JCV's VHS video cassette systems for who had dominat use over the market. Although higher quality, standard Betamax tapes recording span lasted 60 minutes— not long enough to record a movie. Conversely, the 3-hour VHS tapes were perfect for recording television programmes and movies. Sony adopted changes too late and thus lost the war. The issue of recording time is often cited as the most defining factor in the war.
Both Betamax and VHS were later rendered useless with digital technology such as DVD; VHS ceased to be a format for major film releases in 2006.
-HD DVD vs. Blu-ray (2006-8): Battle for HD home entertainment between HD DVD and Blu Ray (both launched in 2006). In 2008, major content manufacturers and key retailers began withdrawing their support for the format after the manufacture and devlopement of Blu Ray disks became cheaper and more efficent.
On-Demand Streaming and the Digital Revolution:
With the emergence of fast internet connection on a wide-access scale in the early to mid-2000s, video streaming websites like Youtube became popular for accessing and watching video clips.
Youtube was launched on February 14, 2005 and in October 2006, the website was purchased by media-giant Google for $1.65 billion. Despite asking users not to upload copyright material, Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube for the upload of such material. Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times".
However, some companies, particually the music industry, have used this website to its advantage. Vevo offers music videos from three of the 'big four' major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI and is part of the Youtube video website. There are more than 45,000 videos available on Vevo for viewing in most countries.
However, the film industry is yet to launch a similar format on Youtube for taking advantage of the Youtube audience, only really making money through uploading adverts on offical film trailer accounts.
Netflix is an example of an emerging film-streaming website. According to its offical website, Netflix more than 20 million streaming members at the end of September 2011.
What the website offers is a membership fee of £5.99 a month in exchange for unlimited film and TV show viewing. Initially, the feature offered subscribers one hour of media for approximately every dollar they spent on their subscription but this was lifted in January 2008.
In September 2006 iTunes progressed to selling full-length films, an alternate form of pay-for-viewing films from an online source. iTunes also gives the option of renting movies, which began in January 2008. Once a rental is downloaded the viewer has thirty days to watch the movie before it expires and once the viewer begins to watch the movie he/she has twenty-four hours to finish the movie before the file expires the useage period.
Alternatively, film-rental sites that send copies of the film physically via post or download, such as LoveFilm, are becoming popular. At the end of 2011, LoveFilm claimed to have over 1,500,000 members, over 70,000 titles, and over 4 million rentals per month across five countries. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, LoveFilm has, in a few years, become the leading online DVD rental outlet in the UK and across Europe.
Film rental has changed considerably over the past decade; Blockbuster (founded in 1985) has undergone significant revenue losses due to LoveFilm's popularity. On September 23, 2010, Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to challenging losses, $900 million in debt, and strong competition from Netflix, Redbox, and video on-demand services.
Other physical suppliers of film have been facing difficulty for a number of reasons, including competition from online sources.
On Christmas Eve, 24 December 2008, the "Zavvi UK" group went into administration owing to the loss of its supplier, as the company was unable to source stock in its usual way. The visual media department primarily consisted of DVDs. By March 2008, with the demise of the HD DVD format, Zavvi stores only stocked the Blu-ray High-definition video format. The company has since reopened exclusively as a website at www.zavvi.com.
HMV, an entertainment retailer that supplies films on DVD and Blu Ray format. currently faces a £180m debt. HMV and Zavvi are two examples of a trend that has effected the entertainment-supplying market along with the highstreet as a whole; a recession-hit public has stopped buying as much lesuire products such as films to save money. As a result of this causing less profit, a rise in production prices and inflation, prices rise and thus fewer and fewer products are bought.
Such issues have claimed the lives of retailers Zavvi and Woolworths that both supplied films to the public.
Facts:
-In 2010, 80% of American Internet users had watched video online.
-142 paying VOD services were operational in Europe at the end of 2006 increasing to 650 by 2009.
-Movie piracy alone has cost the United States economy $20.5 billion per year in loss of business, jobs, wages and taxes, according to a recent market study.
-In the UK, Piracy generates £200m a year for criminals
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