Stuff Pix - How Can This Possibly Work?

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ockel

1948 posts

Uber Geek

#1982799 25-Mar-2018 11:47

UHD:

It is extortionate because it is a digital stream which is more expensive than renting a new release Blu-ray. A digital file is able to be rented to tens of thousands of people simultaneously where a physical video store has to buy dozens of copies of the Blu-ray to rent to dozens of people simultaneously.

The business has massively reduced overheads (even considering the need to pay for commercial CDN and IT infrastructure) but instead of making their product offering more attractive to consumers as a result they continue to try and milk every cent through PPV. It is extortion.

I think your criticism of StuffPix is unfair in this regard. You need to level your criticism at the studios that PPV players sign the distribution agreements with. It would be commercial suicide for StuffPix to offer a flat rate for viewing and have to pay a fee per viewing to the supplying studios. It would only take 3 new release movies for StuffPix to be eating a loss on something like $10/month for unlimited PPV. You want new releases on a flat rate? Isnt that something Neon offers? And hows that model working out?

Someone like Netflix with deep pockets (sic) could offer new releases on a flat-fee basis but then they'd have to disclose to the studios how many times a movie was watched (unlikely) and could probably drive a better deal on 100 million potential viewers. But the studios would equally say - if you dont pay the fees we want then you dont get our product. There are plenty of other PPV operators that have sucked up the terms on offer so why would a studio change its profit maximising formula?

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rugrat

2942 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1982859 25-Mar-2018 13:43

@UHD Prices for Pay per View are pretty much controlled by the studios not final seller.

Here is web link of Apple battling Studios for UHD to be same price as HD, the Studios wanted it to be $5-$10 more expensive then HD.

Hollywood Studios want higher price UHD

Somehow Apple got the Studios to agree to it's terms, but a smaller company would have no show.

ockel

1948 posts

Uber Geek

#1982862 25-Mar-2018 13:49

rugrat:

@UHD Prices for Pay per View are pretty much controlled by the studios not final seller.

Here is web link of Apple battling Studios for UHD to be same price as HD, the Studios wanted it to be $5-$10 more expensive then HD.

Hollywood Studios want higher price UHD

Somehow Apple got the Studios to agree to it's terms, but a smaller company would have no show.

Do you know if Apple got the Studios to agree to have UHD at the same price as HD? Or is Apple just swallowing the cost difference as a differentiator (and loss-leader) and force the other less-capitalised providers to follow or lose market share?

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

rugrat

2942 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1982863 25-Mar-2018 14:01

I don't know if Apple reduced their profit margin or the Studio's.

If Apple was wearing the loss in margin, the Studio's still seem to care about the final cost to the consumer.

UHD

655 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1983098 25-Mar-2018 23:59

Ultimately, the film studios are only able to charge what retailers and in turn consumers are willing to pay. If I am able to attend a cinema screening of a brand new film for $10 in central Wellington with the attendant costs of running a cinema and paying staff then I struggle to see how $6.95 for a digital download is justified. It is lower resolution video and lower quality audio for films which are no longer screening in theatres.

I, personally, won't be subscribing as the films are all released after the Blu-ray has been released overseas and I can't imagine the service doing very well in the long term.

davidcole

5807 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1983112 26-Mar-2018 06:48

Yeah but equally go read the go thread on the chap with the 1000s if blue rays and wants to play them round his house (look at ripping etc). Some people can’t be bothered.

Pricing here is similar to a video store, and similar idea, a rental for short time. There’s no digits storage ( ie ripped movies collection), or physical storage (Blu-ray/dvd).

And only those that are really particular on their video and sound quality and have invested a lot of money in a collection will care about the quality aspect.

I hope they do well. I’ll keep and eye out for specials etc. Hope they get digital vault like vudu do, as I don’t think nz has one of those services here. And later on add purchasing. But personally I don’t trust any digital purchase medium since they can just revoke keys. But rentals Im more than happy with.

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mobiusnz

385 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1985363 29-Mar-2018 12:16

UHD:

Ultimately, the film studios are only able to charge what retailers and in turn consumers are willing to pay. If I am able to attend a cinema screening of a brand new film for $10 in central Wellington with the attendant costs of running a cinema and paying staff then I struggle to see how $6.95 for a digital download is justified. It is lower resolution video and lower quality audio for films which are no longer screening in theatres.

I, personally, won't be subscribing as the films are all released after the Blu-ray has been released overseas and I can't imagine the service doing very well in the long term.

You are forgetting - If I want to take my whole family to the cinema that's $40 where we can all sit and watch the Streamed rental for $6.95 so I'm saving $33 there.

I do think if someone with a good playback system supporting all common devices came out with $5 for new release I'd be watching new releases that didn't quite make the cut for a trip to the cinema regularly with the Fam.

I watched a preview on Stuffpix though full screen on my work 19" screen and the quality was pretty sub-par - I'd hope the actual movie is better quality than that if I'm going to watch it on my 65" Plasma at home.

(And nobody knock the plasma - Only OLED is competing with quality in my books and I'm not about to run out and buy a 65" OLED TV quite yet. The blacks blow LCD out of the water. Just getting that out of the way now as every time I mention it people say something about Plasma being old tech without knowing what the hell they are talking about)

Matt Beechey

Mobius Network Solutions

unsignedint

69 posts

Master Geek

#1988716 5-Apr-2018 11:58

So has anyone actually tried this...? What I want to know, is how good is the quality? (say, compared to iTunes). Would anyone from Stuff be able to comment on bit rate, compression etc? Is the network good.. any buffering?

ockel

1948 posts

Uber Geek

#2002007 25-Apr-2018 01:51

Horizon Research (?) estimates that there are more than 1 million Kiwis that would use a movie streaming service (more than the number that want sports streaming).

So it makes sense that the number of offerers are proliferating but it begs the question, if there are so many movie aficionados willing to pay $6/movie how many Movies does one need to watch per month to justify a movie streaming service?

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

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