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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.
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.
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.
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
There is only one way to make copy protection work:
Make the amount of effort required to bypass the copy protection greater than the gain.
Since there are people who regard breaking copy protection as an interesting challenge, the difficulty in bypassing copy protection for a consumer is usually about as difficult as a visit to google. Apple seem to have this right at the moment with iTMS (I've bought a few albums from it. I could remove the copy protection, but since I can listen to them on 5 computers, my iPod or burn to CD already I wouldn't gain anything.) I hope the rest of the industry learns from this (they probably won't, but I can hope).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Good to see the scriptwriters for the next series of 24 posting their ideas on slashdot!
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).
...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.
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.