2 ms·

I wish they would spend more money on finding old films and digitizing them. There have to be vaults of old Italian films that don't have significant licensing

I wish they would spend more money on finding old films and digitizing them. There have to be vaults of old Italian films that don't have significant licensing costs. Sure, I may represent a small segment of their paying customers, but I find myself using Amazon's video service more and more because of this. To me, a newly released old movie has similar value to a newly released new movie, and I bet the former can come cheaper and faster (I personally am mostly done w/ TV shows and often consider the format a protracted way to consume my time over a standalone movie).

smacktoward 9y ago
The problem is that there is also a vanishingly small audience of people who want to watch old Italian films (or old films from anywhere, really). The mass audience only cares about the new releases. This has been true since the dawn of home video; anyone who ever browsed the shelves of a Blockbuster store will remember how lopsided the selection was -- entire walls filled with copies of the latest releases, a few shelves with movies released over the last ten years, practically nothing farther beyond that. They didn't stock that way because they wanted to, they stocked that way because recent movies where what their customers wanted to rent. Even universally-acknowledged classics are hard to market to the mass audience -- there are tons of people who flat out refuse to watch anything in black and white, for instance.
- kodablah 9y ago
  I agree the audience is currently small, but I don't agree it is getting smaller. People rediscover eras and genres. The good part for Netflix vs Blockbuster is that this is a one-time cost and it will be digitized forever. You don't have to market it to a mass audience or attempt to determine the number of VHSs you'd have to create. I don't think they need to market it at all. Just do it. Surely it is only a fraction of the cost of having Will Smith in a Police-Alien movie and it'll boost your catalog.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >I agree the audience is currently small, but I don't agree it is getting smaller. People rediscover eras and genres. Slowly enough to not matter and always stay a niche endeavour.
forgot-my-pw 9y ago
I feel libraries should be doing this. Maybe the national library of each country should archive every out of license movie. Heck they can even just use Youtube if they don't have the infrastructure to do so.
- kodablah 9y ago
  In a perfect world, I'd agree. However, I think the technical challenge is in the digitization and I'm not the most confident that the state could tackle it. I think a company w/ a financial incentive could setup a high quality restoration and curation process. But in the current absence of haste, I'll take anything for now.

smacktoward 9y ago

The problem is that there is also a vanishingly small audience of people who want to watch old Italian films (or old films from anywhere, really). The mass audience only cares about the new releases. This has been true since the dawn of home video; anyone who ever browsed the shelves of a Blockbuster store will remember how lopsided the selection was -- entire walls filled with copies of the latest releases, a few shelves with movies released over the last ten years, practically nothing farther beyond that. They didn't stock that way because they wanted to, they stocked that way because recent movies where what their customers wanted to rent. Even universally-acknowledged classics are hard to market to the mass audience -- there are tons of people who flat out refuse to watch anything in black and white, for instance.

kodablah 9y ago
I agree the audience is currently small, but I don't agree it is getting smaller. People rediscover eras and genres. The good part for Netflix vs Blockbuster is that this is a one-time cost and it will be digitized forever. You don't have to market it to a mass audience or attempt to determine the number of VHSs you'd have to create. I don't think they need to market it at all. Just do it. Surely it is only a fraction of the cost of having Will Smith in a Police-Alien movie and it'll boost your catalog.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I agree the audience is currently small, but I don't agree it is getting smaller. People rediscover eras and genres. Slowly enough to not matter and always stay a niche endeavour.

forgot-my-pw 9y ago

I feel libraries should be doing this. Maybe the national library of each country should archive every out of license movie. Heck they can even just use Youtube if they don't have the infrastructure to do so.

kodablah 9y ago
In a perfect world, I'd agree. However, I think the technical challenge is in the digitization and I'm not the most confident that the state could tackle it. I think a company w/ a financial incentive could setup a high quality restoration and curation process. But in the current absence of haste, I'll take anything for now.