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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."
It would be interesting to see if they had a return policy and the DVD could be reused or recycled. Like a return on a coke bottle or something
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Everyone will have to do this, or else people will just stop buying DVDs from people X. Sure they might miss out on some movies, but people would rather that then not being able to own a DVD.
Also, the distributors who use these DVDs better make sure they don't distribute the same movie in VHS format, or else people will just go back to that. How this helps the distributors I'll be fucked if I know (it is possible to pirate videos, just before DVD became popular they were experimenting in copy-protection, but there would have been work-arounds).
I really don't get the point to this, this will only increase piracy. People like to own stuff they buy. If you make them think they don't own it, they won't buy it if there is an alternative (even an illegal one) available.
8 Hours?!? WTF is that. That's hardly enough time to watch some movies. What with all the comentary from this director, and that actor, and rewatching it again with the in-movie game.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The new disposable DVD will cost more to manufacture and they will charge less for it at the retail point. Doesn't this just beg the question of their ethics and business practices?
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Yes, the costs of collecting it, transporting it, sorting it, and breaking it down, far exceed the cost of creating fresh glass.
In addition... On average, a city pays $50/ton to throw away garbage.... and $150+/ton to recycle it.
The ideal mechanism for this kind of thing would be a DVD-RW where the recording substrate returned to its initial state over time. The disk could then be returned and a new movie burned to it. I'm still not entirely sure what the point would be though. If it's a digital movie then a bitwise copy could simply be created and stored on a more permanent medium.
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Ever since I got a TiVo, I don't rent movies from blockbuster anymore. Why? Because Pay Per View is just too convenient with a TiVo. If I want to watch a PPV movie, I simply set up a recording of it. I can watch it as it happens or watch it later... or watch it much later - as long as I want to save the recording.
/. crowd to universally deride them. Isn't that like me telling you how you should spend your own money?
Which means that I pretty much NEVER rent from the video store anymore. PPV usually costs a little bit less than a video rental, I don't have to return anything, and I can keep it as long as I want. Other than the fact that the concept is really kind of insulting, decaying DVDs are irrelevant to me.
I suspect that they're going to be irrelevant to most people, too, which means that there's going to be almost no market for them. But if there is a market for them, who am I to say how other people spend their money? These things are only going to take off if there's a demand. If there isn't demand, they'll die. If there is demand, they'll sell. If they sell, I think it's a bit presumptuous of the
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I don't believe this for one second. Glass recycling schemes predate the whole green thing by decades. In the UK back when virtually every soft drink came in glass bottle form, virtually every bottle had a rebate available to people who returned the bottle.
That's bottle recycling, not glass recycling. Your refreshing bottle of Vimto or Dandelion and Burdock had to be returned intact because the manufacturer wanted to clean and re-use the bottle. This actually makes sense both economically and environmentally.
Most glass recycling in the US is less logical; here in New York you are legally obliged to recycle glass. The glass is carefully sorted into three categories - clear, green and brown - before being mixed in with regular garbage for landfill because no one wants to buy the raw glass.
A year ago Mayor Bloomberg lifted the recycling requirement, to howls of anguish from armchair environmentalists. The recycling requirement is back in place now, but the glass still gets mixed back in with the regular garbage.
Take a step back and pretend that you're not part of the Slashdot crowd, you're part of the VAST MAJORITY of people who are not inclined to hacking stuff. The grandmothers, the wives, the truck drivers, you know, all those poeple who have unsecured/unpatched computers sitting on broadband connections PLUS all the people who don't even use a computer/the net regularly. Now, looking at it through their eyes, what do you see? You head down to blockbuster to pick up the latest hollywood hype, and you're presented with two options. Lets assume they are the same price.
1) Regular DVD. Fair chance it's scratched up a the previous renter, and when you forget to return it (which you often do) it's gonna end up costing you twice as much. You can watch it as many times as you want (in two days), and even lend it to a friend (try not to get it back late!)
2) Disposable DVD. It's a fresh copy virtually garaunteed to not be scratched. You can only watch the movie once, but that's all you planned on doing anyway. Toss it when you're done, gauranteed no late fees.
Now, think about how you'd explain to your mom why she doesn't want #2, and tell me again how there is no market.
As far as who is going to sell it, the middleman doesn't really have much of a say in that. If the big money supplier is pushing it, and the customers are demanding it, the free market will force the middleman to sell it or lose out to his competition that is.