Watching movies on original DVDs
According to World Bank, India’s economy will grow 5.2% this year. Whereas according to our own Finance Minister, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, the growth will be around 7%. Let’s see how close these numbers are in reality. With recent compromise between the Multiplexes and the India Movie Producers, we will soon be seeing the so called block buster hitting on big screens again. Its a good news for the metro janta who throng to multiplexes to watch crap movies. Most of these movies in a months time end up on DVDs unlike blockbuster like Ghazani or Taare Zameen Par, which I think took almost more than 6 months to come onto to DVDs. DVD business is booming in India and it will continue to grow considering the growth factor. People like to watch movies at their own pace and own time. With big screen TVs (LCD/Plasmas) filling the Indian Market, more and more people will watch movies at home. In many big cities and II tier cities, real estate builders are building gated community. I would recommend these builders to come up with (5-10) mini-theatre with projection or LCD TVs big enough to entertain small group, say 20, of resident. The number of mini-theatres could be determined based on number of resident / flats / houses. There mini-theatres need to not be hi-fi. Just a basic room with good cushy chairs to sit and enjoy movie comfortably. I guess the cost of constructing this would be around 15-20 lakhs which they can include while fixing the home price. With this approach, I guess more people will watch movies on DVD. Many would say that these blockbuster movies come to TV channels like UTV, SETMAX, Zee Cinema within 6 months time or watch on pirated DVDs/VCDs. So why to pay extra? Well if you are someone who enjoys movie in true sense, either you would go to theatre or watch in a theatre kind of atmosphere. Have you seen the picture quality of movie telecasted by channels on LCD TVs? Or the picture quality of pirated DVDs/VCDs? The picture quality is so bad that you would end up getting headaches and if you continue to watch bad picture quality movies, you would definitely end up getting vision problem. I think to avoid piracy, the entertainment industry need to bring down the prices of quality DVDs. I think currently good movie quality DVD sell around Rs. 400 / -, which is quite expensive considering that Bollywood is not an industry like Hollywood. Most of the workers in Bollywood are temporary and they don’t get any benefit and they dont have fixed income. This is something which I think entertainment industry in India need to think about.