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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.
These disks should not be used for backing up valuable data
That man tried to kill mah Daddy
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Mission Impossible movies are going to have to think of a new way to transmit mission information. Once this technology becomes completely mainstream, the whole "this tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds" won't be so hip and cool, and you'll hear moms in the theater saying "Just like our Little Mermaid discs at home".
Anyone have any ideas for Mission Impossible to stay ahead of the game?
They should make them a bit more exciting. When you have finished watching the DVD it should display "This DVD will self-destruct in ten, nine, eight..." so you have to quickly take it out of the player and throw it out of the window just before it explodes. Would make watching DVDs much more fun, and would stop you falling asleep during movies.
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.
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?
Stay tuned for new sig...
Hour 0: DVD Purchased. Child or sibling opens it while you are not looking. ...
Hour 5: Reinstall finish. Hunt for DVD burning/decrypt^H^H^H^H^H^H backup software begins.
Hour 6: DVDXCopy found and installed, read phase begins. You realize that you burned your last blank DVD last night.
Hour 7: You return from Staples with a rediculously priced 5pack. Burning begins.
Hour 8: You finish just in time to watch the light show on the back of this 'novel' disc. Perhaps a 48-hour version would be less stressful in the future.
Hour 1: You realize the package was opened, but do not know when. Hour 2: You finally get home, only to realize that your Windows machine is DOA and needs a reinstall.
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
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.
I'll make money that goes blank in 8 hours, and buy them with that
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.
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 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)?
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!
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
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).
Glass has always been an expensive business. Recycling glass bottles has been a money earner for decades.
I know people want to hate the green lobby because it does some daft things, but not everything the green lobby proposes is being done simply because the green lobby has proposed it. Sometimes it makes economic sense for businesses to act in a way that happens to be environmentally sound.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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)
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.
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)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
...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.