DVD市場將萎縮 片商尋找新產品 - 影音

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DVD市場將萎縮 片商尋找新產品

By Brooks Barnes

LOS ANGELES –
Movie studios, desperate to return their home entertainment divisions to
growth, are scrambling to shape the post-DVD era.

急著讓家庭娛樂部門恢復成長的電影公司，正賣力塑造後DVD時期。

Until very recently, most Hollywood heavyweights were loath to speak too
openly about the promise of digital entertainment – the downloading and
streaming of movies and television shows on computers, Internet-enabled
televisions and mobile devices. Nobody wanted to anger retail partners like
Wal-Mart or do anything that might slow the DVD profits.

直到很最近，多數好萊塢重量級片商都不願意太公開談論數位娛樂的前景，
指的是在電腦、網路電視和行動裝置上面下載和串流電影及電視節目。沒有人想要
惹惱像沃爾瑪這樣的零售夥伴，或是去做任何可能減緩DVD獲利的事情。

But business currents have shifted. While DVD and Blu-ray will remain a huge
profit center for years to come, studio executives are finally confronting an
uncomfortable reality: little silver discs – for reasons of convenience,
price and consumer burnout – may never recover their sales power. To grow,
studios need to figure out digital distribution.

但是生意的潮流已經改變。雖然DVD和藍光影碟未來幾年仍將是獲利主力商品，
電影公司主管卻終於面對了令人不安的現實：小小的銀色光碟，基於便利、價格和
消費者的厭倦，可能無法重振銷售雄風。為了成長，電影公司得找出數位發行的方式。

Disney announced recently that it had developed a system to track digital
ownership, so people won’t have to buy the same movie or television show
multiple times for different devices. But that’s just the latest, most
likely not the last, approach.

迪士尼日前宣布已開發出一套追蹤數位商品所有權人身分的方式，如此一來，
消費者將不必為不同裝置重複購買相同的電影或電視節目。但這只是最新的方式，
而且八成不會是最終的方式。

“I expect these guys to try many different ways to figure out an endgame to
digital entertainment,” said Doug Creutz, a media analyst at Cowen and
Company, which offer investment banking service. “In the meantime, you will
find a lot of false starts.”

「我希望這些人能嘗試許多不同的方式，找出數位娛樂的最終方案，」
投資銀行Cowen & Company的媒體分析師道格‧克魯茲表示。「在此同時，你會發現
許多失敗的嘗試。」

Everyone is trying to solve one problem: consumers, the industry believes,
will be reluctant to open their wallets for digital movies and TV shows until
they get more portability and can watch the same content on several devices.
Studios want to make consumers collect digital entertainment the way they
would DVDs or books.

人人都在嘗試解決一個問題：業界相信在攜帶更方便且能在不同裝置收看相同內容
之前，消費者不會願意為數位電影和電視節目掏腰包。片商要消費者像收集DVD
或書籍般收集數位娛樂商品。

In the third quarter, studios’ home entertainment divisions generated about
$4 billion, down 3.2 percent from a year ago, according to the Digital
Entertainment Group, a trade consortium. But digital distribution contributed
just $420 million, an increase of 18 percent.

業界團體「數位娛樂集團」說，電影公司的家庭娛樂部門今年第三季營收約40億美元，
比一年前少3.2%。數位商品發行只占4.2億，比一年前增加18%。

Standing in the way are technology hurdles – how to let consumers play a
video on various devices without letting them share it with 10,000 close
friends on a pirate site – and the reluctance of studios to cooperate too
closely with rivals for reasons of antitrust scrutiny and sheer
competitiveness.

橫阻在前的一個是技術障礙，如何讓消費者在不同裝置播放影片，而且不會讓他們
在盜版網站上和一萬名好友分享；另一個是片商不願意和對手合作太密切，
原因包括怕被反托辣斯法盯上，以及純粹基於競爭考量。

The Walt Disney Company in the coming weeks will introduce its new system for
tracking digital ownership, which it calls Keychest. It would allow consumers
to buy permanent access to digital entertainment – a specific film, for
instance – that then could be watched on computers, cellphones and cable
on-demand services. Analysts speculate that Apple will be a partner.

迪士尼未來幾周將推出追蹤數位商品所有權人身分的新系統，叫做Keychest，
消費者將可購買收看數位影音商品的永久權利，例如某部特定的電影，可以在電腦、
手機和有線電視隨選即看裝置欣賞。分析家猜測蘋果將是合作夥伴。

A consortium of movie studios (basically everyone but Disney) have joined
with companies like Comcast and Intel to pursue a different strategy. Their
initiative, called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, or DECE,
involves coming up with a common set of standards and formats.

（基本上除了迪士尼以外都加入的）片商聯盟已和Comcast與英特爾等公司合作
採行不同的策略。他們的方案稱作「數位娛樂內容生態系統」（DECE），
包括建立一套共同的標準和格式。

Mr. Singer said it was unfair to position Keychest and DECE against each
other. “We are all going in the same direction,” said Mitch Singer, chief
technology office of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is leading the DECE
effort. “We’re trying to give consumers more choice and greater ease of use
when it comes to buying digital entertainment.”

主導DECE計畫的索尼影業技術長米奇‧辛格認為，把Keychest和DECE看成互扯後腿
並不公允：「大家的方向一致。談到購買數位娛樂商品，我們試圖讓消費者選擇更多，
用起來更簡便。」

Other ideas are floating out there, too. Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief
executive of Time Warner, is promoting something called TV Everywhere, to
offer consumers a vast array of television online and on devices – provided
they are paying cable-TV customers. Add in digital entertainment competition
from companies like Apple, Amazon and Netflix.

其他構想也浮上檯面。時代華納執行長傑弗瑞‧比克斯正在宣傳「隨處看電視」，
提供消費者，也就是有線電視付費收視戶，多種在線上和其他裝置上收看的電視內容。
蘋果、亞馬遜、Netflix等公司也加入數位娛樂的競爭行列。

As always, the pressure to be first is considerable. “The last thing studios
want is a third party coming up with a solution, because that party would
take a big chunk of the revenue with them,” said Mr. Creutz, the media
analyst.

拚當第一的壓力總是巨大的。媒體分析師克魯茲說：「片商最不希望的，
就是殺出個程咬金把問題給解決了，因為頗大一部分營收會被分掉。」

A variety of factors have influenced Hollywood’s new aggression on the
digital front. This year, Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers started
cutting the amount of shelf space they devote to DVDs. So movie studios now
worry less about angering them by pulling digital levers.

有好些因素影響了好萊塢在數位戰場的新攻勢。
今年，沃爾瑪和其他大型連鎖零售商店業者開始縮減專門陳列DVD的貨架數量。
因此片商現在換檔到數位商品，比較不擔心惹惱零售業者。

Studios are also paying attention to predictions about an increased adoption
of video-friendly electronics by consumers.

有預測說愈來愈多消費者將採用方便收看影像的電子產品，片商正在注意。

“With significant growth expected in the penetration of Internet-connected
TVs and consoles in the fourth quarter of this year, demand for digital movie
consumption suddenly looks very promising,” said Thomas Lesinski, president
of Paramount Digital Entertainment.

派拉蒙數位娛樂總裁湯瑪斯‧雷辛斯基說：「與網路連結的電視和遊戲機今年第四季
市場普及率預期將有顯著成長，數位電影的消費需求也因而突然顯得前途大好。」

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原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/business/media/26stream.html

2009-11-10/聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 張佑生
原文請見11月10日紐時周報七版右


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