Post #210275 by Tiki-bot on Wed, Jan 25, 2006 1:45 PM

On 2006-01-25 13:32, hanford_lemoore wrote:
Say goodbye to future Disney movies being able to be watched on anything other than a Mac.

(Cheap shot, I know.)

But probably true....seriously!

To elaborate: I firmly believe that Jobs is looking far to the future with this move. A future that's nothing like the current model of making a movie, distributing it, then cleaning up with DVD profits. I think he sees a return to an old-fashioned studio system, but one that is updated through technology and therefore potentially sidesteps the anti-trust laws that dissolved the old studio systems.

In the old system, studios barons "owned" the actors, made the movies and owned the theaters they showed in. An iPod or iPod-like device that wirelessly downloads music, movies and tv shows is an inevitability. If Jobs can get all his ducks in a row, he (and Disney) will be uniquely poised to create content, establish a distribution system (iTunes Store-like in nature) based on unit sales or subscriptions, and can build the hardware himself (with all of Apple's DRM evilness built-in!).

Just as old TVs with dial tuners that received 5 channels seem unbelievably quaint today, cable TV will seem just as quaint 5 to 10 years from now when we will buy movies and "TV" shows through a download service. You'll have it on some sort of set-top or portable device that you can pop into a base station for watching on your plasma screen or laptop or whatever. Mark my words! No, seriously, MARK THEM!

[ Edited by: tiki-bot 2006-01-25 15:43 ]