HMV Finally closing down for good?

gothic_hobbit said:
Some people still prefer the physical product.

I.E. case and booklet.
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Poster just made a comment about sound quality, I offered an alternative to CDs with equal quality.


arknor said:
do ipods play flac and wav natively yet?
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Yes ipods can play WAV files. Apple have their own lossless codec (ALAC) and you can convert FLAC or WAV into that format quite easily. It's still quicker and easier than ripping a CD which takes about 30 mins. Not that you'd be able to tell her difference between a WAV and a good 320kbps MP3 on something like an ipod anyway, unless you're using an external DAC.
 
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I'm starting to get slightly worried about this tbh.

Soon the only method of obtaining music / films / games will be online, which is all well and good. However for those of us with poor net connection out in the sticks, where exactly can I obtain the latest games or large downloads? :confused:
 
[TW]Fox;23566412 said:
This isn't true yet. Only 25% of media sales in 2012 were digitial downloads. 75% were physical copies. Movies particularly - most normal people have no idea how to watch a digital format movie on the television in the lounge. They want a blu-ray instead - you just put it in and watch. Infact can you even legally purchase movies in, say, mkv format? I'm not even sure you can.

Don't make the mistake of assuming the market in general thinks the same way as we do on here.
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Correct and digital downloads still cost more in some cases. For example I wanted to purchase all Seven series of The West Wing at Amazon I could get the physical box set for £40.25 but iTunes were selling each series between £9.99 and £14.99!

Despite the convieneance of digital sales I'm not going to pay over the top. Even HMV was cheaper then digital. As I didn't want to carry the box set on the train home from work I decided to buy on Amazon.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Interesting point.

I'm extremely lucky in Bath as there's a couple of private car parks I can use, but... during Christmas I went into town to go ice skating. Minimum time the council pay and display car park would do is £5.40 for four hours.
I didn't have £5.40 in coins! Notes/Card/Oyster would have been fine, but not in cash. Plus that was half the cost of what an hour on the ice costs!
(In the end I went skating a couple of times on other days when I could park in the private ones!)
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Parking charges in Bath are a rip off, slowly killing the city & that new 'Southgate' is utter ****, & Busgates:mad:, totally stupid things.

I tend to shop more in Chippenham now, & occasionally Salisbury.
 
There's an excellent article here written by someone that had the advertising account for HMV:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21028803

Essentially it blames a complete lack of understanding of how the market was changing, but its interesting to read about the HMV glory days. They were such a huge force in the market, that if they'd had the leadership and vision they could have been sitting where Apple and Amazon are right now
 
Good on the people who still want the physical product, but there clearly aren't enough of you buying it from places like HMV anymore. I just cant see the sense in buying a CD ripping it and then it sitting on a shelve for the rest of your existence,
The sales figures don't lie but they are only going in 1 direction and physical media is on the way out like it or not

As for the sound quality that's a personal thing, I dont really care much, a tune is a tune. Obviously there is a line

Im pretty sure a lot of people off the street would never be able to tell the difference if you played them a song from a reasonable quality download or DAB source then a CD

Everything is mounting up against physical media. Itunes, sky+ (on demand), love film, netflix, Spotify, iplayer,4OD and obviously piracy. Its almost like the BBC and channel 4 etc are telling you they dont want you to buy dvds or box sets, watch it here instead

It is a good point about the size of game downloads and a legit place to buy blu-rays, I know the pain here as im still stuck on a 4mb line and even streaming iplayer while doing anything else can be a struggle
 
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Are they all gone and shut now then? I've not been to on in literally 10+ years, basically ever since we got the internet. Used to pop in just to have a look at some stuff, the only thing I actually remember buying from there was the Trigger Happy TV box sets back in the day.
 
I must admit, I think councils, to a point. can be blamed for adding to this. By charging for parking.

We have places like meadowhall near me which is free for parking, everything under one roof. warm, dry. Good for shopping.

Places like Chesterfield and Sheffield center's charge for parking £1 - £1.50 per hour. It all add's up. That must contribute a little to people perhaps buying on line as well.

Also high rent charges for buildings cannot help as well.


I think it is a shame. Were loosing HMV, Jessops is gone. We only in the 2nd week of the year.

Not looking good for town center's is it. I wonder who will be next.

Boots? WHSmiths?
 
gizmoy2k said:
Good on the people who still want the physical product, but there clearly aren't enough of you buying it from places like HMV anymore. I just cant see the sense in buying a CD ripping it and then it sitting on a shelve for the rest of your existence,
The sales figures don't lie but they are only going in 1 direction and physical media is on the way out like it or not

As for the sound quality that's a personal thing, I dont really care much, a tune is a tune. Obviously there is a line

Im pretty sure a lot of people off the street would never be able to tell the difference if you played them a song from a reasonable quality download or DAB source then a CD

Everything is mounting up against physical media. Itunes, sky+ (on demand), love film, netflix, Spotify, iplayer,4OD and obviously piracy. Its almost like the BBC and channel 4 etc are telling you they dont want you to buy dvds or box sets, watch it here instead

It is a good point about the size of game downloads and a legit place to buy blu-rays, I know the pain here as im still stuck on a 4mb line and even streaming iplayer while doing anything else can be a struggle
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Digital media is all fine and dandy if you live in a major city but what about the others who dont and have ****/**** poor network connection? fine for music but not good for movies at all.

im fortunate to live in london so internet speeds are good in most areas here but until internet of speeds of 20mb becomes as common as having a telephone line in iraq(worse case scenario) then relying on digital content is a no no for many people.
 
Not surprised really by HMV closing down, I really don't see shops such as HMV or GAME etc on highstreets for much longer, they just don't belong there. Better and cheaper choice online.
 
Parking charges are getting so ludicrous. Who wants to pay £1.50 an hour to park in Portsmouth, when there are a million spaces everywhere! It makes no sense to bring in parking charges when A) Theres no shortage of spaces, B) It puts off fickle customers who could go elsewhere.

When I lived in Bristol, I never went into town, purely due to the cost of parking there. I always did my shopping at the Mall, as it's free!
 
Brookert said:
Parking charges are getting so ludicrous. Who wants to pay £1.50 an hour to park in Portsmouth, when there are a million spaces everywhere! It makes no sense to bring in parking charges when A) Theres no shortage of spaces, B) It puts off fickle customers who could go elsewhere.

When I lived in Bristol, I never went into town, purely due to the cost of parking there. I always did my shopping at the Mall, as it's free!
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It is very much a problem. I either go shopping in Kingston or Guildford which is typically £1.20-£1.60 an hour depending on where you park. Sometimes if i want a few things i just start to think it is going to cost me a fiver in petrol + probably a fiver in parking, so that is £10 more than buying online before you have even considered that products are generally cheaper online!
 
Did the exact same thing last weekend. Wanted to order some clothes, once you factor in petrol to drive to Leamington and parking, it was cheaper for me to buy off their website.

There is also the pitfall that you drive there, pay to park and then they don't have your size available.
 
Jono8 said:
It is very much a problem. I either go shopping in Kingston or Guildford which is typically £1.20-£1.60 an hour depending on where you park. Sometimes if i want a few things i just start to think it is going to cost me a fiver in petrol + probably a fiver in parking, so that is £10 more than buying online before you have even considered that products are generally cheaper online!
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Yeah but you have to offset that against the delivery charges of ordering online.

That is something a lot of people are missing, the base cost of the product online maybe cheaper but once you throw in the delivery charges it's not always true, especially on lower priced items.

In my experience it's not generally worth ordering anything online unless it's over a tenner.

I reckon as 'physical item' shops start falling by the wayside, the prices on online goods will go up. Firstly because they'll be no competition from the high street and as such the price element they currently have as a competitive advantage will disappear and many online retailers will start including the price of delivery in with the items and then boast about giving 'free' delievry.
 
Mark Kleinman ‏@MarkKleinmanSky the city editer at skynews.

Announcement expected imminently about #Blockbuster UK administration. Another retail business killed by the internet
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yet again blaming the evil internet like they where yesterday for hmv going to the wall, blockbuster should have invested or bought netflix when it first started to be honest, wouldnt save the shops but would at least keep the company alive.

yet again its just down to bad management trying to cling to bricks and mortar rather than embrace the internet, and im sure the movie industry had a hand in this also with there reluctance to go on line. but to blame it on just the internet is rather narrow minded by the supposed sky news expert.
 
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