Slashdot Mirror

In the late 90s, Circuit City tried to push an "innovative" new kind of DVD player that played regular DVDs and special DIVX (Digital Video Express) discs (more discussion of the format here), that were basically DVDs you bought for $4 that could only be watched for 48 hours after the initial viewing. After that, you would have to pay for the privilege of additional viewings. The player had a modem and would phone home to the service for authorization to allow you to watch the disc you bought.

Yes, it was about the service lending to you, and this is about you passing goods to others, but either way it's still planned obsolescence. We (as consumers) were smart enough to quickly defeat it then. If anything, it made people realize that those magical shiny new DVDs were not expensive to produce (at the time some retailers were regularly selling individual movies for $30-$50). Are we smart enough to defeat this?

Brought to you by the makers of that ever popular rentable DVD => Divx !!!

http://www.dvdjournal.com/extra/divx.html

For nitpickers, there may still be a few problems -- Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut (a new addition) are still open-matte full-frame, but this is entirely in accordance with Kubrick's wishes, as he was never a fan of widescreen and thought these films looked best on TV in this manner (indeed, Spartacus and 2001 were Kubrick's only widescreen films, and it seems the director, a photojournalist in his youth, never lost his fondness for 4:3 composition).

Review of "The Stanley Kubrick Collection (2001)"

Who would read such garbage?

Apparently I would.

I subscribe to Computer Music which has a section where they critique user submitted songs based on their technical/production merits, which at least to me makes for an interesting read, especially as the songs are included on a DVD which comes with each issue of the magazine.

There are also sites like DVD Journal which mostly focuses on the technical side of DVD releases.

My "Phantom Menace" review, 1999: "Those of you waiting in line for Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace are, in my opinion, setting yourselves up for a grave disappointment. Either that, or you're about to brainwash yourselves into the short-term, delusional embrace of a sub-par cinematic product - which is even worse."

My "Attack of the Clones" review, 2002: "If these last two Star Wars movies have taught me anything, it's that all my prior rantings about Star Wars needing to be mythologically and thematically coherent and profound no longer apply. Those rantings were, in retrospect, most likely the justifications of a young adult who wanted to explain why she'd liked a pulp sci-fi/fantasy series so emphatically - and who gleefully adopted as her own the 'Power of Myth' mental gymnastics handed to her on a platter by Joseph Campbell and the Lucasfilm P.R. machine."

I'm afraid it's true... The front page now reads:
Welcome to Wikipædia Britannica, the free-content encyclopædia that anyone can edit.

Where is the web-as-we-know-it heading? I sure hope that someone (maybe RMS and/or Lawrence Lessig?) can save us...

I love all three (and of course, Raiders of the Lost Ark is both my favorite and the greatest of the three, and one of the all-time great movies period), but I have particular affection for Temple of Doom that I don't for Last Crusade, the conventional wisdom about how Last Crusade is "better" notwithstanding.