HMV Finally closing down for good?

Hmv is the only place I can impulse buy on the high street.

The full price stuff was rubbish but the offers they did were reasonable value for me when accepting there is a premium for "there and then". It was always good for a mooch and a quick purchase.
 
If so Fox the only other reason for poor sales is my previous point, they missed the boat and could not drop their prices due to the cost of being on the high street.

Itunes must also have a huge part to play on the music front, im sure on the 6pm news earlier i saw that in 2006 only 6% of music was digital sales and 2012 was 76% and still rising
Edit, i should add the growing number of artists who release albums or promotional singles early exclusively on digital platform - See Bowie last week not being allowed into official top 40

If things continue it must only be a matter of time until the major studios for tv and movies skip the middle man and offer the consumer some kind of direct subscription service to their product via downloads. In my opinion if this was priced right it would also reduce piracy
 
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gizmoy2k said:
In my opinion if this was priced right it would also reduce piracy
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100% agree with this. It is absolutely ridiculous that piracy offers people choices (Both in terms of available content and content format) they cannot even willingly pay for, but thats exactly the current situation.
 
gizmoy2k said:
Probably, but for me the main point is no one wants to own cds or dvds anymore, its all about digital content and downloads
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Erm... lots of people want CDs. I dislike the crappy quality supplied by many online download sites as well as the presence of DRM on some. I want a CD I can rip, look at the covers, read the inlays and so on. I have the space and an okay hifi.

In fact, although I do rip my music I love having shelves of them in my music room.
 
gizmoy2k said:
Probably, but for me the main point is no one wants to own cds or dvds anymore, its all about digital content and downloads

Why have a series boxset take up a shelve when it can take up 15GB instead and be available on almost any device.

I dont care that you sell me Transformers with a digital copy, i dont want the disc i just want the film, save yourself the money and dont even bother producing the disc

It always amazes me when you walk into these places, they have all this stock and over the past 5-10 years its apparent that no one is interested buying it at the prices they are offering.....yet they still stack the shelves high!

Good point about virgin above
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Nope. I still buy Blu-rays and i am so far unaware of a place where i can download (legally) blu ray quality films?

I also like to buy CD's for certain things because of the sound quality.
 
CDs were to deliver such an incredible profit margin for HMV that the House of Commons set up a Select Committee to investigate these bumper profits and the then-CEO, Brian McLaughlin, got a serious grilling but ultimately nothing was done to the pricing structure.
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Such was the heady feeling of success that HMV would get together all of their store managers and head office staff for a three day "conference" every year, which was two and half days of fun and partying and a half day of presentations by the board.

Now, we're not talking Bournemouth or Bognor here. It was usually somewhere exotic like Turkey or Spain. I remember a five star hotel in Marbella when Billy Connolly was the surprise cabaret act and everything was free for everyone, from watersports to the watering hole of the beach bar.
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free 5 star hotel + everything including thr bar free for around 325+ people.

Ya really needed those profits! much better to waste them away than take the business online or save money for stock :p
The more you read that article the more they sound like bankers :rolleyes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21028803

MD also a class A idiot
Suddenly, I realised the MD had stopped the meeting and was visibly angry. "I have never heard such rubbish", he said. He accepted supermarkets were "a thorn in our side" but not for the serious music fan.

"As for the other two," he continued, "I don't ever see them being a real threat. Downloadable music is just a fad and people will always want the atmosphere and experience of a music store."
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arknor said:
whats the bit rate of a cd compared to flac? and lol wav? for real?
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FLAC is CD quality and the bit rate varies on the complexity of the music. Why 'lol WAV' seeing as many digital stores offer that format so you can then convert to FLAC or MP3 and keep a high quality uncompressed copy. I suspect from your 'lol WAV' comment that you don't know what you're on about.

The last FLAC album I bought was a 24bit, 900MB download so I suspect that's better than CD quality.
 
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Administration message up on the website for me now.

Amazing to think HMV were worth £1bn in 2002, now worth £10m.... thats a 99% decrease in market value lmao. Shocking figures to read.
 
FLAC is lossless and WAV/PCM is raw. FLAC will be 24bit 44.1khz the same as CD quality.
 
I'll miss HMV as a place to go to when walking around town, but I don't think I've ever bought something there before.
 
Janesy B said:
FLAC is CD quality and the bit rate varies on the complexity of the music. Why 'lol WAV' seeing as many digital stores offer that format so you can then convert to FLAC or MP3 and keep a high quality uncompressed copy. I suspect from your 'lol WAV' comment that you don't know what you're on about.

The last FLAC album I bought was a 24bit, 900MB download so I suspect that's better than CD quality.
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Some people still prefer the physical product.

I.E. case and booklet.
 
Wife ordered something with them recently, it hasn't turned up. Ordered with a debit card, what can we do?
 
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