Disney's Disposable DVDs Deemed Duds

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like disposable DVD's are headed the way of the dodo bird. Consumers (ahem, customers) in several markets are rejecting the $7 self destructing flexplay discs. Some stores have decided to stop selling. According to the stores, 'Customers aren't interested in paying more than $6 for a limited-play DVD when they can pay $2 at the video store. Even with a $2 late fee, it's cheaper than buying a disposable DVD.' and 'he hasn't seen one customer purchase an EZ-D, though some of them have been shoplifted out of the store.'"

Comments

Re:Good.

[Squonk01]

For those who missed the DivX fiasco the first time.

Netflix

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

First off, what video store costs only $2?! Its more like $4-5 here in Boston.

And second, I don't see how any of these models (rental, disposable for $6, etc) can compete with Netflix, other than if you happen to need the movie right away (and how often is that the case?) Right now I average about 12 movies per month on Netflix, all for $20! And the foreign and independent selections is *far* better than at local video stores.

Ok, I'm a fanboy...

Re:Netflix

[jdreed1024]

First off, what video store costs only $2?! Its more like $4-5 here in Boston

Local video stores. I live in Boston, and at my local video store, I pay $2 each for 5-day rentals if I rent on M-Th. And they have a huge selection, too - I often end up going there because Blockbuster doesn't have what I want.

Re:Netflix

[Deagol]

Ditto the fanboy comment. I'm currently on the 8-DVD/month plan (~$42/month, includes taxes), to get my wife and I through the slow winter months.

It's awesome. We live in small rural town, and though I like to support local businesses, the 2 local video rental places suck. The first, a grocery store, has decent prices ($1 for old flicks, $2.50 for new releases, for 2 days), but nearly all of their movies are full-screen (eeewwww!), and their selection is pretty limited. The other store, charges $2-to-$4 for one day (!!!), though their selection is fairly eclectic.

Netflix beats them, hands down. The turn-around is pretty quick, so I can get movies in 2-to-3 days delivered, plus another 2-to-3 days to return. In batch mode, I can cycle through about 4 lots of 8 DVDs in a month ($42/32=$1.31 -- not bad per rental, eh?). Sending movies back at the rate I can watch them is roughly 1 movie per day, about the same prie per disc. When we get into "marathon mode" we can crank up the rate even more.

I always have a few TV series DVDs on-hand and a few movies for both my wife and and the kids. Right now we're cycling through the X-Files (just finished Season 2, DVD 7) and Battlestar Galactica (my kids -- 5 & 8 -- love this show).

The mix of available movies and genres is awesome. The kids enjoy anime (they have Castle in the Sky, right now), and my wife and I have gone on a foreign film binge: watched Open Your Eyes (the Spanish original to the US's Vanilla Sky) 2 days ago, watched the German film The Winter Sleepers last night, and will watch the French film Venus Beauty Institue tonight.

My only gripe is the sometimes-long wait for certain movies. I've been waiting for Disc 4 of the Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 series for months, and it looks like it's a long wait for the first season of Sex In the City and the new DVD release of Underworld. Also, the rate of shipping slowed down between Thanksgiving and New Year's, I assume due to the backlog of the US Postal service dealing with gifts and holiday deliveries.

But overall, the experience has been very worth-while. I encourage anyone to check it out.

Re:Counter?

[Dr.Zong]

From the website: How Does it work?

Renting movies is a HASSLE?!

[Asprin]

I love it when stupid crap like this fails in such a humiliatingly fatalistic fashion. It makes me think maybe we aren't turning into a nation of sissies after all. Since when did renting a movie and returning it to the video store become such a traumatic experience?

They'd probably do well if they were 99 cents instead of $7.

Re:Good.

[PhuCknuT]

actually that's not true. The degradation is caused by a chamical reactuion with oxygen in the air, not by the read laser, so they can be watched as much as you want, for about 2 days.

Re:Good.

[rblancarte]

Well not exactly true. You do get to watch it as many times as you want, during the "good disk" period. But after that, you just throw it away.

Now that all being said, I think that the EZ-D format had it's place. It allowed places like the gas station to sell disks. HOWEVER, they were on the pricy side. Make them $5, and then you might have something. I think it was not a horrible idea, just one that was not quite done right.