http://city.udn.com/50132/3687329?tpno=0&cate_no=0 DVD市场将萎缩 片商寻找新产品 By Brooks Barnes LOS ANGELES – Movie studios, desperate to return their home entertainment divisions to growth, are scrambling to shape the post-DVD era. 急着让家庭娱乐部门恢复成长的电影公司，正卖力塑造後DVD时期。 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，多数好莱坞重量级片商都不愿意太公开谈论数位娱乐的前景， 指的是在电脑、网路电视和行动装置上面下载和串流电影及电视节目。没有人想要 惹恼像沃尔玛这样的零售夥伴，或是去做任何可能减缓DVD获利的事情。 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. 但是生意的潮流已经改变。虽然DVD和蓝光影碟未来几年仍将是获利主力商品， 电影公司主管却终於面对了令人不安的现实：小小的银色光碟，基於便利、价格和 消费者的厌倦，可能无法重振销售雄风。为了成长，电影公司得找出数位发行的方式。 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. 迪士尼日前宣布已开发出一套追踪数位商品所有权人身分的方式，如此一来， 消费者将不必为不同装置重复购买相同的电影或电视节目。但这只是最新的方式， 而且八成不会是最终的方式。 “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.” 「我希望这些人能尝试许多不同的方式，找出数位娱乐的最终方案，」 投资银行Cowen & Company的媒体分析师道格‧克鲁兹表示。「在此同时，你会发现 许多失败的尝试。」 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. 人人都在尝试解决一个问题：业界相信在携带更方便且能在不同装置收看相同内容 之前，消费者不会愿意为数位电影和电视节目掏腰包。片商要消费者像收集DVD 或书籍般收集数位娱乐商品。 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. 业界团体「数位娱乐集团」说，电影公司的家庭娱乐部门今年第三季营收约40亿美元， 比一年前少3.2%。数位商品发行只占4.2亿，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. 横阻在前的一个是技术障碍，如何让消费者在不同装置播放影片，而且不会让他们 在盗版网站上和一万名好友分享；另一个是片商不愿意和对手合作太密切， 原因包括怕被反托辣斯法盯上，以及纯粹基於竞争考量。 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. 迪士尼未来几周将推出追踪数位商品所有权人身分的新系统，叫做Keychest， 消费者将可购买收看数位影音商品的永久权利，例如某部特定的电影，可以在电脑、 手机和有线电视随选即看装置欣赏。分析家猜测苹果将是合作夥伴。 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）片商联盟已和Comcast与英特尔等公司合作 采行不同的策略。他们的方案称作「数位娱乐内容生态系统」（DECE）， 包括建立一套共同的标准和格式。 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.” 主导DECE计画的索尼影业技术长米奇‧辛格认为，把Keychest和DECE看成互扯後腿 并不公允：「大家的方向一致。谈到购买数位娱乐商品，我们试图让消费者选择更多， 用起来更简便。」 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. 其他构想也浮上台面。时代华纳执行长杰弗瑞‧比克斯正在宣传「随处看电视」， 提供消费者，也就是有线电视付费收视户，多种在线上和其他装置上收看的电视内容。 苹果、亚马逊、Netflix等公司也加入数位娱乐的竞争行列。 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. 拚当第一的压力总是巨大的。媒体分析师克鲁兹说：「片商最不希望的， 就是杀出个程咬金把问题给解决了，因为颇大一部分营收会被分掉。」 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. 有好些因素影响了好莱坞在数位战场的新攻势。 今年，沃尔玛和其他大型连锁零售商店业者开始缩减专门陈列DVD的货架数量。 因此片商现在换档到数位商品，比较不担心惹恼零售业者。 Studios are also paying attention to predictions about an increased adoption of video-friendly electronics by consumers. 有预测说愈来愈多消费者将采用方便收看影像的电子产品，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. 派拉蒙数位娱乐总裁汤玛斯‧雷辛斯基说：「与网路连结的电视和游戏机今年第四季 市场普及率预期将有显着成长，数位电影的消费需求也因而突然显得前途大好。」 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 原文参照： http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/business/media/26stream.html 2009-11-10/联合报/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 张佑生 原文请见11月10日纽时周报七版右 -- 2581 NY Ｂ 　 TC Ａ　 ρ 雀 LA CR 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ 扁哥 扁维拉 宝贝扁 扁纳森 扁恩特斯 扁吉 扁兰克林 扁拉斯顿 扁屈特 --

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