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Yet Another Degrading DVD
Aire Libre writes "Efforts to eliminate price competition from cheap DVD rentals and used DVD sales appear to be speeding up. Flexplay Technology's EZ-D self-destructing DVD, which goes dark in a lagardly 48 hours, has been surpassed by a French DVD-D that goes dark in a speedy eight hours. Because neither technology has anything to do with piracy, they both appear marketed at movie studios that might wish to drive up the price of DVD rentals. Presumably, once throw-away DVDs catch on, the studios can for the first time prevent price competition between rental and sales of DVDs by charging more for a regular DVD (rentable and re-saleable) and having the retail sales copies disappear 8 hours after opening so that no one can re-sell them, lend them, rent them or give them to charity. This will also suppress competition from rentals and used copies against currently uncompetitive online movie downloads."
The DVD burner will be your best investment. As you probably know, Disney movies have 30 minutes of commercials up front and either you can wait until the startup gets to the point where you can actually hit play or you have to hid forward for 5 minutes to skip the commercials.
I would highly suggest you go get a DVD burner really soon, the prices of even a Dual Layer Burner are below a 100 bucks. You can then rip out all those commercials and simply insert the DVD and Walk away and it will play automatically. Download DVD Decrypted and DVD Shrink. You will never touch the originals again. The convenience of a movie playing when you insert the disk is the greatest thing for kids (no waiting no fussing you'll agree).