(PS: It's been a long time since the break, and even the feeling of code words is gone!Sitting for a night, writing and deleting, I wrote 2,000 words like squeezing toothpaste, I'm sorry!!Sky will work hard to adjust the state, strive for, the last seven or eight days of this month can break out!)

Akio Morita and his Sony thought they had found the right path to gain a head start on the competition by integrating content "software" and electronic "hardware".

But the practical effect of this approach is actually very limited, even if Sony buys Columbia Pictures, there are also MGM, Paramount, Warner, Universal, Disney.

The original eight of the United States were acquired by MGM in 1981 and disappeared, but Hollywood has a bunch of second-tier film companies such as Summit Entertainment, New Line Pictures, Lionsgate, and Miramax Films, and has always hoped to add to the first echelon.

Therefore, even if Sony acquires Columbia Pictures, although it can obtain the rights of nearly 5,000 films, including many classic films that won the Oscars, it is impossible for it to really control the entire copyright of Hollywood. The acquisition of Columbia Pictures alone would cost Sony four or five billion dollars.

Among the Big Eight, Columbia Pictures does not rank high in terms of market capitalization. You must know that in the early eighties, Columbia Pictures even fell into bankruptcy crisis for a time. Fortunately, Coca-Cola's ownership brought a lot of cash, which gave it a chance to turn around in recent years.

Of course, Sony wants to control the rights of the whole of Hollywood, and it doesn't have to take all the studios into its pocket. Not to mention that it would require nearly 100 billion dollars of capital. The U.S. government and American society will never tolerate such a thing.

In fact, Sony only needs to sign exclusive agreements with major film companies for a period of time for video copyright. For example, Oriental Commercial Company has reached similar agreements with Hong Kong film giants such as Golden Harvest and New Arts City.

But the size of the Hollywood film industry is far from being comparable to that of Hong Kong films. North American video rights revenue generated by new films each year. That's billions of dollars. What's more, this is a long-term benefit, and the price you pay for exclusive copyright is naturally much higher.

In another time and space, the two camps led by Sony and Toshiba respectively did vigorously win over major Hollywood studios when they were engaged in the battle for DVD standards. Both major alliances threw a lot of money to buy film rights, but neither of them was able to completely complete it.

As a result, Hollywood, which made a lot of money in the bidding of the two major alliances, made a lot of money for the video rights, after both sides were exhausted and could not afford to continue to throw money around. Immediately came out to mediate strongly, forcing the DVD formats of the two camps to achieve compatibility.

Hollywood's Big Eight have long been firmly in control, dominance of the North American and even the entire Western film market. The situation is quite different in the emerging Asian film market. Although Hong Kong films have swept the entire East Asian market in recent years, Hong Kong film companies have very weak control over the market.

Even Hong Kong film giants like Golden Harvest and New Arts City have not strong overseas distribution strength, and they basically sell their films directly to overseas film dealers. So Oriental Commercial Company only has to pay a little more. It's easy to monopolize content. In the end, anti-customer is the main thing.

And this so-called "slightly more price" is actually relative to the level of developed countries in Europe and the United States. The production cost of Hong Kong films has begun to rise in recent years, but it can reach 20 million Hong Kong dollars, which is definitely a big production. And if you convert 20 million Hong Kong dollars into US dollars, it is only 2.5 million, which can only be regarded as a small-budget movie in Hollywood.

The film company's investment in production costs is determined based on the projection of the film's box office revenue, and it is necessary to ensure that it can return to its original cost. So although Hong Kong films are selling well in the East Asian market, their box office is far from comparable to that of the North American market. You must know that the box office of the entire North American market accounts for almost one-third of the total box office in the world.

But the Oriental Group is backed by the Oriental Group. But it is a world-class electronics giant. Paying an extra 10 million or even 100 million Hong Kong dollars is a drizzle for the Eastern bloc. But other studios in Asia don't have the confidence to do so. The Asian market in the 80s, after the removal of Japan, was at best a small pool for the Eastern Bloc.

It is based on mental arithmetic and unintentional, and it is definitely a crushing effect. Once the potential of the Asian market is exploited, it will not be difficult to sell millions of VCD players every year. But this is still a small drop in the bucket compared to the European and American markets with higher consumption levels!

VCDs are at best the appetizers of this feast, and the DVDs of the future are the real main course. After all, the European and American markets are the most important markets in the world, and VCD can only be regarded as a stepping stone for the Eastern Group to enter the home video market.

Of course, the barriers to entry in the European and American markets are much higher than those in the Asian market, and controlling piracy, for example, is a very difficult problem. But Li Xuan had a rebirth aura on his head, so naturally it was impossible not to have a strategy to solve it. In many cases, he simply copied ready-made countermeasures from another plane.

In order to control piracy, Sony in another time and space deliberately used a partition strategy when formulating the DVD standard. The global market is divided into 8 zones, such as D-1 for the United States and D-2 for Japan and Europe. And the DVD in each zone has different process standards, such as the configuration of audio tracks and subtitles. In this way, each region's DVD player can only play its own DVD in the corresponding region code.

Although the VCD standard has just been launched, the subsequent upgraded version of the super VCD standard of the Oriental Research Institute has actually entered the later stage of improvement. According to the schedule set by the Oriental Institute, the Super VCD will be launched in one to two years.

Super VCD will be a transitional product between VCD and DVD, its definition will reach 350 lines, about 100 lines higher than the mainstream VCRs on the market, it will be the pioneer of the Oriental Group to enter the European and American home video market.

In the future super VCD standard, Oriental Group, as a responsible international enterprise, will naturally cater to the needs of European and American countries for copyright protection. As for the current VCD, it will always take time for the technology to advance!

Of course, objective technological progress has a very limited effect on curbing piracy. In another time and space, Sony's DVD standard deliberately listed China as Zone 6 for separate treatment, but this did not prevent the spread of piracy in China.

In addition to the D-1 to D-8 zones, the great Chinese copycat manufacturers specially developed the D-9 zone. The so-called D-9 version of DVD refers to the DVD re-edited by domestic pirate manufacturers from the advantages of the official versions from D-1 to D-8.

For example, Sony in later generations had a technology that if you directly copy illegally, many paragraphs in the middle will appear on the disc. Therefore, this needs to be stitched together through multiple versions of the picture. Moreover, the foreign version of the DVD subtitle is a foreign language, and it needs to be replaced with Chinese subtitles.

Many hardcover DVD versions also include many footage and footage that were not available in theaters. What's more, the editing scale is different in different regions, so the content of the film will also vary to a certain extent. According to these rich materials, the cottage factory can even edit more sophisticated DVDs than the genuine DVDs produced by domestic companies such as Zhongkai and Zhonglu.

So much so that there has been such an unbelievable thing in China, the company with the right to distribute the genuine version, did not choose to work hard to produce the DVD itself, but simply pirated the content that the copycat company had already produced! )