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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."
That's just great. Lets overflow landfill after landfill with disposable view-once or twice DVDs, and use up those fossil fuel supplies even faster making these disposable frisbees. Oh yeah, while we're at it, lets gouge the customer's wallets more on regular DVDs that don't self destruct...
The combinatiom of these things does nothing to stop piracy, it may even increase it. You could rent one of these and copy it in the first 8 hours to a regular DVD-R and enjoy it forever.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I'll just rip it and burn a copy before I watch it.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
What happens when you want to get a dvd to watch the next day?
48 hour dvd disks are much more suitable for rental.
inject all those massive amounts of non-renawable energy and chemicals into creating a tiny plastic disc to be thrown away after use (but will take 2000 years to degrade into bio-usable matter)
It's sad that most consumers won't 'get it'.... The disposable DVD costs more to make, has the same data on it, and costs 25% the cost of a normal dvd.... which is identical without the degrading chemicals...
I heard about the first degrading disk a long time ago, and I really see it as THE WORST invention in many years.... It's a horrible product for consumers, and a clear example of many things that are horribly wrong with companies today.
Calm down, guys. They've tried self-destructing DVDs before and they didn't sell then either.
Remember, the technology has only been developed. The movie studios haven't bought in yet. And if they do, it'll only be a financial disaster for them.
Nobody in their right mind would buy one of these discs. Unlimited-view DVDs can be easily found for $10-15, and a five day rental is usually about $3.79. They would have to sell these for $0.99 to get anyone to buy them, and even then I imagine that most people would much rather spend a bit more money to get an item that they can watch again whenever they feel like it without running back to the store to buy another copy.
Also, think of the environmental impact of these disposable discs! Thousands of them would be thrown away every day, and our landfill sites would quickly overflow with these discs. It is also a complete waste of energy, as using the same amount (or less) of energy could easily produce an item that could be viewed/rented a practically infinite number of times.
What type of idiots think this stuff up? Do they really think this is going to help piracy or something? Just copy it in the eight hours you have it!
This still won't prevent me from buying the cheaper copy and ripping it, er... backing it up... onto my hd for later viewing...
Actually it might lend people into making this a standard procedure - just in case. And once the image is on HDD, it is easier to decide to make a copy/reencode it (easy-to-use tools are available) - so this will propably actually promote piracy of rented DVDs.
Now the studios expect Blockbuster to carry 3000 copies per location to get that same number of rentals? Or order 30 copies per week, every week, for the same time period?
Shyeah, right. Blockbuster's a big enough corporation that they won't hesitate to tell the studios to get stuffed on this.
Once Video-OnDemand it pervasive won't the idea of buying or renting these things become obselete.
Imagine this...the full TV/Movie library on Demand...anytime you want it. Let's say $50 a month. Would it be worth it? You could bring up "Tails of the Golden Monkey: Episode 7" at 2:13am.
Other than portability to take it to your mom's house in BFE...why do you need a hard copy?
Reuse the space in your living room that you were using for that Danielle Steele movie collection. Those VHS tapes aren't needed.
Any other ideas?
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
People have been copying cassette tapes for years. They had also been copying software for years (all of my software on my Amiga was pirated). They have also been copying VHS video's for years. But it was only until a year or two before I got my DVD player that they started making copy-protection for VHS videos.
So the question is, why then? What happened then that made everyone from that point onward paranoid about copy-protection? It's like America with terrorism. Before 9/11 your average-day joe didn't care about it. After 9/11 they did care. What was the 9/11 in the music, video and software industry?
All you need to do is take the thing back the next day and demand a refund.
Say that when you tried to play it the DVD was already dead. How can they prove the air seal hadn't failed already or the disk was faulty due to a manufacturing defect.
Philip
Philip
Signatures are broken
Hour 6: DVDXCopy found and installed, read phase begins. You realize that you burned your last blank DVD last night.
err... if you've made past the read stage then the data isnt going to degrade anymore. you can go get that blank cd some time next week and it'll still be sitting there waiting to burn. its chemicals destroying the data on the dvd, not magical bits and bytes
TIAEAE!
They've done that already. I believe the reply to DeCSS was "Oh c'mon! That took us forever to come up with!"
Let's face it, people, copy protection is really really easy to do. It's really really hard to do it well.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
The two potential uses I can think of for disposable DVDs would be:
a) "screener" disks and
b) maybe giveaway disks on cereal boxes? Neither one of those even makes much sense. For the screener problem, this would introduce a nuisance copy protection measure. (Note to industry; have those ever done anything to prevent copying?) For cheap giveaways, I'm missing why you'd want kids not to play your commercials-for-Fox-programs disk as many times as they'd want.
But this product page calls these "the new video rental." For anything like a Blockbuster chain, these'd *cut profits*. Rental places don't want to be paying extra for the media that get thrown away, and they make a ton of their money on late fees. I could almost, almost, imagine a model with re-recordable disks and a deposit system, but even that would just create a big nuisance for both customers and the store, with no payoff for them. Moot point, these aren't re-recordable.
If you imagine them as one-time-only purchases (as in "I want to watch this movie, but only once"), the priced had danged well better be way less than a ticket at the multiplex.
Where's the blinkin' market? Who's going to sell this to the audience? What market is there? Steve Jobs couldn't pitch this crap...
It really is as if, in some incredible example of snake-eats-its-own-tail self-reflexive logic, media companies are working steadily to assault their own audiences and remove their own products from circulation. They rant about how they don't want customers to have "near perfect" versions of their stuff, because that'd let people rip them. (You want me to have an inferior version of your product?!?) They steadily try to introduce restrictive DRM measures that prevent people who DO want to buy their products from feeling comfortable about it. Presented with the original Napster, they try to conduct a scorched earth war with their audience.
We didn't choose to accept this mission. The tape should not self-destruct in two minutes.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
They can't decrypt it that quickly, but they can copy it to their hard drives, or to a stable DVD with plenty of time to spare, then decrypt it at their leisure.
Sorry, but your case is baseless.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
If someone is carrying sensitive data on CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, they are probably better off just trying to snap the disk in half.
DO NOT TRY THIS YOURSELF!
Or at least, for the love of god look away while doing it, most cheap CD-Rs explode into lots of tiny little pieces. I'm not sure how recoverable they are after the data layer is lying in the dust on the floor, but my guess is "not very".
Gee, I usually watch the movie one day, and the "special" features on the DVD a day or two later.
No problem, I'll just rip a copy -- of course I've never done that before, but this will motivate me to start.
Before that, you had to know someone that knew someone that knew someone.... With the Internet, suddenly you have "friends" everywhere. Least friendly enough to give you a copy of their copy.
Basicly, the time aspect disappeared. Before, you usually had to wait a while and dig around to get the latest and greatest fad. Nowadays they're released as fast or faster than retail.
Also, I think it might have something to do with DVDs having CSS. It would even it out "they both have it", no reason to stay on VHS. Unlike the music industry (which is still stuck on protection-less CDs) the video industry saw it early and made precautions.
The software industry always saw it. I remember floppies with special bad sectors as copy protection. They've been pirated since the very start.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I only need 20 minutes to rip it. It seems like more than anything else, this technology is on its knees, BEGGING you to make a copy.
Point 2: I frequently open up a disc to check it out, read the book, look at the artwork, etc, and sometimes don't get around to actually watching the thing for weeks.
Of course, they will probably use this for totally cut-rate, disc-in-a-jewel-box, no booklet, no commentary, no extras crap versions. Knowing their market, they'll probably all be 4:3 pan & scan shit, too. Remember DivX (the original, BAD one)?
Yes yes yes. But that wouldn't have been as funny, and I was running out of ideas for delays. Artistic license and whatnot.
How many times has something that was seemingly impossible and way too costly been figured out by some tinkering person? Never say never.
I can just imagine the heaps of shimmering garbage produced as a result of this idea. Consider how many of these would be produced if each "EZ-D" or whatever the f**k they're called is a one-watch-only disc.
Not to be an environmentalist or anything, but our garbage production is already out of control, and the manufacturing process for CDs and DVDs is already polutant enough. This is over the top.
This is a great example of when scientific researchers should pause and think "is this the right thing to do?" It's time the concept of ethics got reintroduced to science, but that's unfortunately not likely to happen.
Science, meet my good friend Ethics. Ah, you know each other! Well then, here's to old friends!
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There are people concerned about the enormous numbers of AOL CDs in the landfills and dumps. What do environmentalists say about these so-called "disposable" DVDs? Asside from a pretty consumer-hating business model, are they totally forgetting the environment too?
(Note: I'm not an environmentalist, just looking for other ways to poke holes in this technology plan)
Even if there were a market for disposable DVDs, it wouldn't (as the story implies) destroy the existing market. Raising prices of regular DVDs would not effect the rental market. Studios have charged high rates on VHS rentals for years. Some tapes were selling for $130+ to video stores for 6 months before being released to the general public for $13. It wasn't until DVD came out that home collectors made is feasible to price initial releases at low prices.
Raising prices on DVD won't crush the video rental market. History has proven that Blockbuster can make money renting out a $130 video. Raising prices will kill the home collector market. The rental market would stay constant, and the result would be a net loss for the studios.
The whole conspiracy theory just doesn't add up.
MINIMIZING inventory?!? How is keeping 3000 disposable DVD's on hand as opposed to 30 reusable DVD's minimizing ANYTHING?
More purchase costs, more inventory costs, more staffing costs, more shipping costs, etc... The only thing you save on is reshelving costs for returns.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
That's exactly right. Even worse, most recycled products that are generated to satisfy 'green' consumer demand use more energy to produce than normal products and so are worse for the environment.
Essentially you're right. The big exceptions are metals, especially steel, aluminum, copper and lead, all of which are profitibly recycled. Of these, only aluminum recycling really benefits from consumer action. There is one big benefit to deposits on bottles though, and that is that some people find it worthwhile to pick up litter.
I like my beverages with warning labels!
...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 ... 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, ...
You may want to loosen that tin-foil hat a little--it's cutting off more than just the spy-waves.
What self-degrading DVDs do is allow a whole bunch of retailers (Walmart, Target, gas-stations, etc.) to sell 1 viewing of a movie. That's a new product for them. That allows them to hit the $8 pricepoint for single viewings and the $30 pricepoint for durable DVDs. It's not like the durable retail DVDs we have now are going away any time soon. (All of which is bad for consumers, of course.)
Current rental shops, BTW, should _hate_ degradable DVDs. First, they cost more per sale than rerentable durable DVDs. Second, rental shops _love_ late fees, which degradables don't have. Third, rental shops love returns because it causes people to go to their store. Fourth, degradables allow big-box retailers to enter the rental shops' price range, eating their business.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
...it can be played till the end even if the viewing window is finished. If the user tries to play the disk after the end of the viewing window, the DVD players displays "NO DISC".
So it can also become unusable just by taking it out of the box (suffiently long time). I wonder:
- is the entire disc degraded, or just the headers (whatever these are called on DVDs)?
- if the entire disc degrades: how sharply is the viewing period defined? I can imagine that, if you are unlucky, you will see the onset of degradation (artefacts etc) even during your 'legal' viewing time.
Mods are on drugs today. Just thought I should let everyone know....
The notion that it is cheaper to dump garbage than recycle it is only partly true. It assumes that there is a place nearby to dump it: a place near by that is cheap to transport the garbage to, a place that nobody wants for any other purpose. These places are becoming rare and will be more rare in future years. Especially when just dumping garbage and sewerage into the ocean becomes impossible due to the destruction of sea life.
Dumping garbage is cheaper because it is only one small part of the recycling process: collecting and 'warehousing' of raw materials. Recycling is expensive because so much energy is required to seperate the various components of the garbage from the pile. By seperating the components before shipping it all to the central dump, recycling is cheaper than inital processing from natural raw materials.
Please no more remarks about 'gaddam hippies'. Hippies are smarter than you. This is website that respects intelligence and creativity: Hippies are respected around here.
Please n
Money is a measure of value which can be used to quantify anything, including intangibles such as environmental impact, etc.
If you want to balance environmental impact againt other relevant factors, and you want to do it in a scientific way, you need to quantify everything in terms of dollar values.
On the other, the more they push them, the more people will realize how hard they're getting screwed, and will resort to MODERN methods of aquiring media, ie, P2P, and BT.
Now, of course piracy is bad...and there WILL be actions taken (like the RIAA suing), but they can't sue everybody, and sooner or later we'll have something similar to what happened with prohibition.
Who knows, maybe all we have to do to usher in the new era the right way is just sit back, keep doing what we're doing (including developing new distribution technologies, and yes, pirating) and let the companies shoot themselves in the foot over and over again.
It may get worse for us before it gets better, but these things take a long time, as they have a lot of money. Sooner or later though, either they'll run out, or they'll lose enough where they are forced to do things our way.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
...of environmental conservation. They are:
1. Reduce
2. Re-use
3. Recycle
IN THAT ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. Yes, ultimately anything can be recycled, but recycling still requires energy and has an environmental impact.
The only widespread commercial use of TDP at the moment involves waste from food production. Food scraps, sewage and so on are basically "natural" organic waste. Things like CDs and DVDs are make from plastics--an organic chemistry process but still an "artificial" polymer. There are also a lot of inorganic components in the various layers, requiring extra energy and time to process out and re-use.
The best known commercial application (involving the turkey waste) has achieved quite a remarkable efficency in making waste into low-grade heating oil (upwards of 85%). However, consider the source--it is renewable. The original energy was from grains/poultry feed and water. Also consider that for every 1000 BTUs of energy stored in the waste only 850 BTUs becomes usable heating oil.
Now think about all these disposable DVDs. They are made from petroleum products--non-renewable oil pulled from the ground. It takes energy to make them to begin with, then it takes more energy to handle the waste (trucks burning fuel to haul the spent waste to a recycling facility). THEN it takes the 15 percent stored in the DVD material to convert it back into heating oil.
Why don't we forget about all of that crap with disposabel DVDs and just heat our homes with the oil that came from the ground in the first place? That would REDUCE how much non-renewable energy we used. When we buy DVDs today they don't become useless garbage in a few hours-- we can RE-USE them. that way we don't even need to RECYCLE them, and we can devote our resources to more effective recycling efforts--particularly those with big payoffs like composting, metal cans, glass bottles, building materials and scrap paper.
Besides the overtly greedy nature of such a scam as disposable media it is also blatantly wasteful. It makes me cringe when people casually throw away empty tins of soup, but at least food is a necessity and there are few proctical alternatives.
In the case of these throw-away DVDs their mere existence offends me. They are not a basic need, and take no less resources to make than a normal DVD--a practical alternative that is very re-usable. I hope they become the miserable flop they deserve to be and that the inventor and company responsible for them end up broke and destitute.
*phew* good to get the nut-case out of me from time to time...but you get the idea---recyclable or not they are a lousy idea.
Hmmmm...sounds like P&T aren't thinking clearly. A 30x30x30 mile cube of trash? Where would that go? Dig 30 miles deep? Let's recalculate at a much more realistic depth. Covering the land with 1000 feet of trash, you'll need about 150,000 square MILES, which is the size of one of our larger states. At an even more realistic 100 feet depth, you'll need about 1.4 MILLION SQUARE MILES. Which is, what, about half of the surface of the continental USA? Assuming my math is correct, anyone else care to check it?