The end of movie theaters?

I'm sure the media pirates are eagerly awaiting the arrival of this platform.

I'm not sure how much they would need to sell to break even but I can't see that many people paying $50 for new releases unless this becomes a new reason for people to get together at someone's house and hang out. I'd quite happily watch new releases in the comfort of my own home. :geek:

Well, the majority of American families with kids already spends way more than that for a movie/parking/drinks/popcorns experience(and babysitter if they leave the kids at home), so if this service really manages to cost as little as promised I think it'll have a huge adoption!
As said Primacinema was for the rich people, but this...

So it's a choice between paying $50 a view + an initial investment of $150 to see new movies in my home, or no money to torrent them. That's a difficult choice to be sure, but I don't see this uprooting the film industry any time soon. People go to the theater for the theater experience they can't get at home, so I expect this will be about as successful as when Napster tried to go legit.

The only way I see this being at all compelling is for movies that the person might want to see at midnight opening day like Star Wars, but unless all of the theaters are already booked, those are the sort of movies people want to see on the big screen.

If they release crappy compressed 1080p maybe yes, you'll be better torrenting a 40GB blu-ray rip (but always a few months after theatrical release anyway), however having 4K DCI cinema server quality stuff, I bet
whoever has a decent home theater will prefer to watch
every release at home with this, heck in the next months maybe the
experience will be decent even on a GearVR with a 4k Note 6!
Plus no people texting/talking/ruining your experience!

There may be some interest from people that really need 4K for their home theater, but that market is going to be quite small. You can sustain a business with very few customers if you're selling the box for $35k and $750 a view, but at these new "budget" prices, I just don't see there being a large enough market to sustain the business for very long. Finding a good quality 1080p torrent a few days after a major film hits theaters is not uncommon these days (I'm told by other people that do things like that) so this is depending upon people that need a super high quality picture immediately and hate going to the theater. I'm sure there are those people out there, but even if a large chunk of them decide to make the investment, I still don't see the market being big enough to make this a massive success.

I can definitely see VR overtaking theaters in the coming years, but I still don't see that being in the form of paying $50 to see a movie once.

"purifier82" wrote:
So, a few years back (4 maybe, don't remember anymore) PrimaCinema launched a home theater movie rental service for day one theatrical releases, unfortunately only targeting the wealthy with a cost of $35,000 for the media server and $750 a view for title. Now ex Napster founder apparently wants to bring a new alternative bringing the price to $150 for the top box thingy and only $50 per view, essentially the same scale of revolution (IMO) that brought Stanford University to shelf old $60k HMDs in favor of $350 DK2s and is bringing VR to the main population after 30 years!

So, do you think the movie industry will let him start this business or we'll read in newspapers about his murder by a major studios' secretly hired hitman?

It looks like Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams 'back' Napster founder's Screening Room. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/ma ... ean-parker

Parker’s venture would offer movies for $50 (£35) in the US, with as much as $20 going to compensate theatrical distributors for their potential losses. Subscribers would also be offered two free tickets to see their purchased movie a second time on the big screen, with the aim of boosting cinemas’ concessions trade.

So you spend $50 and you get $30+ in free movie tickets? At that point what's stopping me from selling my tickets to a couple of my friends and ultimately paying not much more than the cost of a single movie ticket? I was a bit skeptical at first, but this does pile on the value.

That's the point, no one is stopping you, cause the theaters already get their cut by contract.

"Twitchmonkey" wrote:

Parker’s venture would offer movies for $50 (£35) in the US, with as much as $20 going to compensate theatrical distributors for their potential losses. Subscribers would also be offered two free tickets to see their purchased movie a second time on the big screen, with the aim of boosting cinemas’ concessions trade.

That's not a bad deal at all!

Ouch:
http://variety.com/2016/film/news/james ... 201731696/