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December 29, 2007 - 10:30am
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Video magazines, initially high end and catering to videophiles, copying a formula that worked in audio, all failed and ultimately cheapened those mags to adapt to hometheaterphiles (and Home Theater magazine), the vast majority of people watching movies (bad) today on 14' screens (rule of thumb: the bigger the screen the worse the movies they watch), the video idiots.
Hometheaterphiles are not interested in good movies, they watch garbage and often rent their DVDs instead of buying them, collecting them like a videophile would do. The Perfect Vision stopped reviewing movies at length like they used to, and now instead has three lines of text below the picture of a new toaster or a digital camera or a home security system.
What do you make of the cultural differences between audio and video afficionados? Will there ever be a video magazine again catering to videophiles instead of the video idiots?
I'm going to have to respectfully dispute this point. In many places, it is exceedingly easy to rent a wide variety of DVDs, as well as very economical. Services like Netflix have made even obscure movies relatively accessible. I don't see the point of a huge movie collection, and I don't agree that someone who chooses to rent movies is any less concerned with picture quality necessarily. Now, I'm not saying that everyone with a home theater is a bona fide cinema buff, but people deserve more credit.
The favorite DVDs are still purchased and collected, but why own everything you watch? I buy all my music, but my purchasing habits would be different if I could rent the stuff that's interesting and buy what I know for certain I'll enjoy over the long term. If subscription services like Rhapsody had lossless streams, I would seriously consider them as a legitimate source of music.
Think of DVD rental as a "test drive". People rent what looks interesting - or what the kids want; Honestly, how many people would care to add The Rugrats Movie to their personal collections? - and buy what's worth having.
I suspect there are three types of people: home theater guys, videophiles, and cinema enthusiasts. That being said, I don't think those groups are mutually exclusive, and I don't think how one accesses content has a great deal of bearing on any of it.
I have one final point. Home theater, like it or not, is the future of the industry, or at least the part of the industry with any sales volume to speak of. If this trend can keep great companies afloat, I'm all for it.
Then why are all hometheater magazines failing and all audio magazines staying in business?? Who is helping who here? There is a difference between the Cinema Paradiso of old, people of all walk of life going to the movies and the majority of people watching movies today. Today they watch crap, like the music they listen to! This "trend" is not going to keep high end audio companies in business. Audio companies are already going out of business left and right. Lifestyle buyers of 14' screens with a 400 CDs collection and a few Spielberg movies won't save the audio industry.
I just sold all my DVD's. I'm going strictly high def.
Some of the best movies today come from asia (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong). Those and some great European movies won't make it in high def for years, if ever. Are you planning to watch the same movies over and over? Wait for Dinosaurs IV and Robocop VI releases?
Boy, I agree. I hate "they". I recall someone (maybe George Carlin) noting that "everyone who drives slower than me is an IDIOT! And everyone who drives faster than me is a MANIAC!
The player still plays regular DVDs. So I'm not going to miss the interesting stuff.
Like the documentary: "The American Ruling Class". That was a good one.
Look, nothing beats the British ruling class. In the movie "The Ruling Class" Peter O'Toole playing the Earl of Gurney accidently hung himself wearing a hat and ballet skirt. I'll watch it again tonight.
"Then why are all hometheater magazines failing and all audio magazines staying in business??"
You mean like Audio? High Fidelity? Stereo Review? Positive Feedback (now an on-line magazine)? The Audio Critic?
I read High Fidelity when I was a kid. My father was getting it, even when he was posted in Africa. I was fascinated. You can read a story of High Fidelity at www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/489/index3.html
It was a prehistorical kind of audio magazine of sort, by today's standards.
Video is going downmarket and the kind of people shopping at Best Buy don't read magazines. The few lifestyle buyers of 14' screens can't support all by themselves a home theater magazine. They don't read much either. Very often they don't buy and research their equipment. They use an installer. Look what happened to the Guide, Audio-Video Interiors. High end audio still has a large (but skrinking) base of readers to support their favorite magazines. They don't get all their information on the internet.
Anyone ever notice how 9 out of 10 bars who go to the trouble to get a big 40" or bigger LCD TV don't even bother to get a true digital or high-def feed? So thus you get stretched out sports or news that's just big and grainy!
And yet- anyone ever see anyone complain or ask why the picture looks so bad? My guess is almost no one even notices. Surely the bartender who sees it every night has no clue, or at least they'd set the correct ratio. Video is a lot like audio in that few people care much as long as it's loud or big.
Too bad- set it up right and video today can be incredible. Sometimes better than movie theater quality. I just got a HD DVD player and I'm definitely seeing things in some movies I've seen on the big screen that got blurred or grained out (especially if the stock was a little aged).
The Perfect Vision is gone!
There is absolutely zero to watch on TV, anyway. Pap for the masses, on the best of days.
I use HT systems for High def DVD, and..that's about it. I won't even face a television in a bar, and If I can hear it..I'll move. If I'm with other people, I'll do my best to ignore it. But I will not resist in telling them it's a total sack of shite.
I cancelled cable in 1997. I never turned back. I never watch tv again. Once in a blue moon I watch the Oscars and ch 11 off the air, and that's it. I get the news on a computer during the day. I watch movies on DVD and high definition. I collect DVDs and this is why I cared for the movie reviews (old and new) in TPV. When they started to review cell phones and toasters with three lines of text and a picture, roman-photo style, I was not interested.
Apocalypse now
.. where we are coming from, where we are going..
Hey Steph can we make it a sticky??
"Look, nothing beats the British ruling class. In the movie "The Ruling Class" Peter O'Toole playing the Earl of Gurney accidently hung himself wearing a hat and ballet skirt. I'll watch it again tonight."
It was actually the Colonel dude in uniform and tutu that accidentally hung himself. Peter O'Toole was fond of climbing up onto a large crucifix, a less dangerous undertaking, so to speak ...
More than anything, Geoff, I'm curious what search brought this old thread up. Oh I see. It's Grosse, entertaining himself.