Surround Sound Mixing
"The World is not flat, it is Surround"
Christopher Columbus-1492
Today there are various opportunities for up and coming mixers to venture into a surround sound format, especially in their attempts to satisfy the seated audience in a theatre and for those listening and watching on a good home theatre system. The trend these days is that consumers are investing more and more in home theatre systems than traditional stereo systems decreasing the desire to take the time to go a theatre to see the newest Hollywood releases. Just recently film companies are simultaneously releasing films in the theatre, Pay for View and DVD at the same time, causing major film playing theatre chains and distributors to protest on what is sure to be a loss of revenues. I am sure the initial DVD price of a spanking new release will be close to $30, if not more, until the initial theatre traffic slows down, thus eventually lowering the price of the DVD.
Recently, a joint venture between Warner Bros. and the German company Arvato Mobile have joined forces in developing a new option for consumers called In2Movies, a P2P delivery system for films. Movies will be available day and date along with physical DVD's, with a price still yet to be determined. Fox studios is following suit also in exploring new distribution methods. In Germany last year almost 12 million movies were downloaded with almost all consumers expressing a desire to pay for downloading services. Will this corrode DVD sales some think? Most executives feel it won't and will add revenues to the $16.3 Billion dollar value. With double digit increases in high bandwidth subscribers, most industry types feel that the market will increase for back catalogues and newer cheaper films smaller independent film companies. If this new marketing strategy proves profitable, look for a major increase in the consumer demand for quality home theatre systems.
Today, post-production professionals have started...
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