Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Invents A 'Play-Once Only' DVD
auckland map writes "Microsoft has developed a cheap, disposable pre-recorded DVD disc that consumers can play only once." From the article: " Buying an ordinary DVD of a new film costs between £15 (E22, $26.40) and £20. Microsoft's new disc will enable the studios to release a "play-once, then throw away" copy for as little as £3, much the same as renting a video or DVD. But unlike a rented DVD, the new disc allows consumers to decide when they watch films and there is no need to return it. The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market." Update: 10/06 03:38 GMT by J : Kinda important to read the followup story.
Haven't we gone through this already? How many times have businesses floated this concept over the last couple of years? What on earth makes them think consumers will want self-destructing DVDs this time?
This will easily prevent piracy as everyone knows it takes multiple plays of a DVD to copy it.
Sheesh.
$3/disc is not cost effective with so many DVDs available for $9. Plus the need for new hardware? Nice try, been there, done that.
Hasnt this already been posted to slashdot already?
Already got this - it's called Netflix. You just throw it away in any mailbox.
Find coupons in Greeley
The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market.
Not to mention the fresh assault on our landfills that this disc format will make!
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
What did they invent? This appeared and failed years ago, it was called Divx
I'll stop being cynical when the world allows
Pigs.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
I don't think this is plausible. I know it's not the same thing as Divx, but it seems to smack of it.
I don't think the consumers are going to go for it. Not to mention the waste it could create.
put the what in the where?
Great, more stuff for the landfill.
I'm betting these aren't biodegradable?
They will give you many reasons to not repeat the DiVX failure of the late 90s.
consumer: "hey, so you can make DVDs for £3. Why are the rest £15?"
Play once == Read once
Read once == Rip once
Rip once == Play forever
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
So how environmentally friendly are these? If MS is going to be trying to put rental places out of business, do they have a plan for millions of now-useless single-play-DVDs and the associated packaging?
Does it self-destruct when you're done using it, kind of like in MI?
Bradley Holt
Let's hope this DRM scheme dies due to the blatant disregard for the environment. We don't need millions of copies of "Alone in the Dark Special Edition" clogging our landfills. Although I think that title might be VNTA (View Never, Throw Away).
Wow! Leave it to Microsoft to come up with an amazing innovation like disposable rental DVDs.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
like i just posted here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164258&cid=137 17025
if you can play it once, you can copy it. they have to ban all non-DRM enabled devices (i can see this happening) in order to stop piracy. one DRM free copy is all it takes...
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
Let's say I had to stop/pause early to do something urgent. Would that count as one usage?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
i guess this is going to work just as good as the one time use digital cameras? also. what happens if u have a power outage etc where you have to restart the movie? does it register when the last second plays and then corrupts all the data or what does it do?
Do they have some way to recycle all this plastic? We're entering the biggest petroleum crisis in history, and they're finding new ways of wasting oil. Shouldn't there be a petroleum tax for something like this that creates so much waste?
Wow, we're all still trying to figure out ways to make more permanent data storage, and M$ has jumped light years ahead of us to making data storage that doesn't store data. WTG!!!
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
This is so ridiculously wasteful. Because someone is too lazy to drive a couple miles and return a video, they buy a disposable DVD instead? How idle can someone honestly be?
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
distribution media.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Oopsie, DVD power cord fell out again.
Watching this movie I just payed $4 to rent, power goes out (brown/blackout, or whatever). When the power comes back on... I can't play the movie anymore!
Or I'm part way through the movie that I just rented, and I have to leave the house for whatever reason, come back later to find out someone took the dvd I was watching out of the player because they wanted to watch something else. Now it won't play again.
I just see this being another headache for customers and customer support.
Its not what it is, its something else.
No, much like everything else out of Redmond, Microsoft has merely copied an innovation developed someone else, and called it their own innovation.
They started out copying somewhat useful things, such as CP/M, a BASIC interpreter, on-the-fly disk compression, and web browsers.
Now they're copying DIVX discs. Look on the bright side -- it's proof that they've run out of good ideas to copy.
What a great way of boosting pollution!
"Don't want to wait for global warming to ruin the planet? - Microsoft can give you global-catastrophy today!"
Seriously tho, they'll push it as 'you can recycle the disk'. Well, maybe but I doubt they'll tell you about the excess carbon emmissions from both the manufacture and recycling process. (If everyone rents one movie twice....... you get the pic.....)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
"The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market. A big chunk of its $7bn research budget is spent on digital rights management (DRM). A senior source in the company says Microsoft is in talks with the main electronics manufacturers about developing DVD players to play the new discs. And when the movie industry does find the courage to move to a fully internet-based distribution model, Microsoft wants its DRM software to be the industry standard, giving it dominance of the server market, and the telecoms and cable companies that need to store and manage their video-on-demand services."
We need them to scream about the "big trash pile" and "wasted plastic" again...
Because coming from the previous article on Sony, we all known consumers will lap up new DRM.
As long as you use DVD Shrink to play it the first time!
I just don't understand why anybody in their right mind would want such a DVD. For a normal DVD rental business, the company purchases a DVD once and it's watched many times, over and over again. Additionaly, there is little waste until the DVD has finally been neglected enough that it no longer plays. I don't work in a video store, so I'd only be guessing how long before DVD rental companies must replace their DVD's. But to purchase the same DVD again and again and again and again seems just a little silly. Actually, rather rediculous. And what happens if I fell asleep, like so often is the case for me? Now I'll have to buy it again? No thanks...
My lame blog.
Interesting...my only question is whether it can tell the difference between "playing" and "ripping". Even with DRM, the scheme will eventually be cracked, allowing people like me (who buy DVDs and then rip them so they can be played anywhere in the house without having to tote the disk around) to buy them much more cheaply and achieve the same goal.
On the same note, will there be some sort of click-wrap agreement to forbid this? If not, it would seem to be well within fair use to rip the discs after buying them for a fraction of the cost of a normal DVD.
The article was a little light on details...I wish they had addressed the more technical side of things.
My power went out, now I have to wait to watch the end of the movie... HEY!! I can't see how this can be done without compromising the whole DVD concept. Menus, special features, secondary audio tracks, etc., etc.
how can they get away with calling it a DVD?
Everything is made on the cheap these days. Why not cut to the chase?
More important, the discs would prevent copying and digital piracy, which is costing the film and music industry billions in lost revenues.
Let me be the first to say: bwah ha ha ha ha.
The revolutionary product could be on the market as early as next year, with the new DVD players needed to view them .
And exactly how difficult is it going to be to mod these players to say they're erasing the disc as it's being viewed, while not actually doing anything at all?
Researchers at Microsoft believe they have a simple solution to the challenge of piracy.
Microsoft: simple solutions for simple people.
Chairman Bill Gates has been working on a solution to the film industry's piracy problem since making a now legendary pitch to the industry in September 2002. Showing a video of himself dressed in a sailor suit...
Ewww. I had to stop reading at that point.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Move over Circuit City. DivX has a new competitor. I bet we're all waiting on the edge of our seats to see the outcome of this vicious competitio... oh wait.
I guess if having your only competitor die of market starvation isn't enough to give Microsoft a clue, nothing is.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
They didn't mention in the article how this would be done... some sort of DRM (new format) or is the disc itself made out of some material that will corrupt the data shortly after being read by the laser?
From the article: "Showing a video of himself dressed in a sailor suit pretending to audition for the blockbuster Titanic, Gates pitched Hollywood with the proposition that only Microsoft could solve its piracy problem"
Is there a pirated video of this available anywhere?
Office Space trivia game - play it now douche hole.
just dont f*ck with my intelectual property.
What's next: Microsoft invents a 'Play-Once Only' Operating System?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
all you environmental people are overlooking much more pressing issues with this resource hog.
Gas here is $319 a gallon and plastic is made from petrochemicals.
I'd like to applaud microsoft for figuring out the second most efficient way of depleting the last of an already expensive and scarce resource which is essential to such things as agriculture and national defense.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
There is no way that this won't be hacked or compromised or a workaround documented in very short order. I mean really, if it plays (and I assume this will), there is inevitably some way to put something in-line and basically tee the video out to a save source - hard drive. From there it's simply a matter of recording to a DVD.
The reality is that there is always a way around these efforts to limit viewing or copying or whatever. The problem is that you have to be technically able to implement the workarounds. The unwashed masses will never be able to jump through the hoops needed to circumvent the copy protection or viewing limitations imposed by the manufacturers. So, in essence, their efforts pay dividends. 3% of the people circumvent and make copies while the other 97% happily plop down their 3 bucks to view a dvd once and once only.
You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers, and say "that's the bad guy."
Hey what a great idea! This is obviously what the planet needs - more wasted energy and non-biodegradable product. Give me something else I can throw away, because I, like you Mr Corporation, also loathe the natural environment!
Two scientists in lab coats. One is holding up a test-tube. He says:
Finally! Success! A moth that eats synthetic fibers!
I fail to see how this is any different from the miserably failed Divx scheme. Sure, the execution may be different (don't know that for sure). But the end result is the same: pissed off and/or uninterested consumers. I hope Circuit City sues the crap out of them for stealing their stupid idea.
Plus, I don't see how being 'play-once' = nonpirateable. There has to be something else in there that fulfills that feature and does not require the run-once factor.
And what an environmental nightmare. Sierra Club et al should be all over this.
I guess I can soon update all the AOL coasters that are beginning to wear out?
Yes, we have been here before. Crippled DVDs have been tried and failed.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
We actually need a put down to call people who buy and use DRMed products. It seems like taunting and name calling might be the most effective way to make people reconsider buying in to DRM.
Think about it, walking past the store aisle, geeks can point and laugh at the "DeRMs" just like people used to laugh at geeks and say "nerds".
"Hey, look at those pathetic DERMS!" "Hey DERM, I'll be you let Microsoft decide when you use the potty also!".
Other suggestions?
Way to go, Microsoft. Didn't they learn from AOL?
I know they're not giving it away, but all its going to take is a year of these things being popular and the amount of landfill junk would be astounding.
That, right there, will alienate loads of people. Fair use and content control issues aside, this is a stupid, stupid idea from an environmental perspective and a PR perspective.
And I'm sure it wouldn't be cost-effective for them to include a recycling program for it, either.
Microsoft: Buy our Garbage!
well, for me, seems like the only viewing i'll need to do is that of my dvd player when it's burning it to a new dvd :]
you play it once... straight to your hard drive
then play and distribute forever
duh
when will corporations figure it out?
drm simply doesn't work, drm simply will NEVER work
the technology behind drm isn't to blame, the very CONCEPT is failed
because you can't control the consumer
you can't replace a carrot with a stick
nothing, absolutely nothing, defeats millions of poor, highly motivated, media addicted, technologically savvy teenagers with a lot of time to burn
$1 trillion in r&d and the best nobel prize winning minds in the world will not defeat them
are you listening media conglomerates?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I just need to play it once to make a copy of it anyway.
If the solution includes buying a new DVD player, just when HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are about the launch, when DivX Certified DVD player are in full swing in Europe and Asia, this is not going to fly very long.
The actual concept has failed in much more interesting and subtle way (UV "bio" degradable discs that play on Standard DVD players), so I predict that one is not going to even make a ripple in the market.
Wait this is just strike me as I type, the article do not mention about anything related to DVD forum and the actual DVD format, I will not be surprised if theses disks are actually encoded using VC1, so that's mean that the cost of the "M$ play once DVD player" is going to be much more expensive than you generic DVD-only or even DivX Certified DVD Player. This effort is doomed !
C'mon! you've got to be kidding me. When will they learn the lesson that, the strongest copy protection as good as how low the desires of a determined mind can go. If you encrypt a media and leave it in my hands for as long as I desire, I will find a way to circumvent the copy protection. It is this simple. Unless this is like thse, open the wrapper and media deteriorates slowly kind of physical protections, it is doomed to be cracked by DVDJon or alikes.
In my opinion, this idea is in the can before it is out of the door from M$.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
The revolutionary product could be on the market as early as next year, with the new DVD players needed to view them.
Do they seriously think people with existing DVD players are going to pay more for a new player just to watch these one-time discs? Or will the players go out for next-to-nothing as long as you buy a few of the disposable discs at once?
The article doesn't mention how exactly this works, i.e. how does the disc know it's finished playing? What if the power goes out in the middle of the viewing? Can I still pause and skip around chapters, or is it all closed off after I watch the final chapter? Can I theoretically just leave my DVD in for 12 hours and it's not off until I remove the DVD? What if I put the DVD in and only get through the FBI warnings etc. but never actually hit "play movie" because I'm interrupted and have to turn the DVD player off? Etc etc.
... after being exposed to laser light this will make a DVD basically equal to a cable provider's PPV (only with obviously a lot better image quality) since you won't be able to rewind/pause/restart things.
With VOD being offered now by cable cos (where you can watch things as many times as you want for 24h, including rewind and so on) this doesn't sound that appealing, save for folks with HDTVs where they'll be able to get "quasi-HD-PPVs" for the price of "normal" ones.
If these were recylable this wouldn't be so bad, but having tons of extra non biodegradable stuff in our landfills doesn't sound too good.
-- the cake is a lie
Well, I suppose Redmond is a long way from New Orleans, so perhaps they haven't noticed the effect that America's love affair with wasting as much as possible is having on the real world.
Won't this be instantly outdated by VOD. I already rent most of my movies through a set top box. I find it hard to believe microsoft doesn't see this, I think this is more a matter of them making noise for the sake of making moise. This isn't even original, I read about "self destructing" discs almost a year ago. This also goas against their proclaimed goals for the xbox 360. I think they are trying to look active and raise interest from shareholders.
aspx pages never work in my browser, so I can't rtfa. so forgive me if this is covered in tfa.
what happens when you start watching a self-destructing movie, and watch it partially? Say, half way through you have to stop and go take a shit. Or you have to go visit your mother in hospital because she just fell over.
Does the disc destruct after a partial watching?
If not, what constitutes a full viewing? Do you have to watch it all the way to the end of the credits before it self-destructs?
What happens to the disc when it self-destructs? Does the process have the potential to harm older DVD players? or can it cause harm to DVD players if you try a second viewing?
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
A few years ago, Disney was pushing disposable DVDs - they degraded on exposure to air, so once you opened the box, you had ~24 hours to watch the movie. Then it would degrade beyond playability. The manufacturing process was licensed from a startup company whose name escapes me.
They sold them in Walmart for about 3 bucks. No one wanted them, and Disney pulled the project.
If we can watch it only once, we can copy it once.
-Palal
Vista or whatever other operating systems they put out. You can only install Windows once. We all know that if you install windows multiple times, you are a pirate. Forget a reformat. If you do, you have to go buy another windows os.
I wonder how many brilliant Microsoft engineers it took to come up with this
brilliant "innovation".
This wouldn't be one tenth as funny if it weren't true.
I hope the DVDs self-destruct in a Mission Possible way.
play once and throw away.;)
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Not until blockbuster and netflix are long dead... This has always been the worst idea ever. Why do people just keep doing it?
ascii art
And if you have small children and don't lock up your remote, this is a very real possibility. At least if you rent the DVD, you can simply pop it back in again.
I can envision ways around it - perhaps the "I've seen it" bit only gets set when you get to the end. Does that mean you can watch all but the last two seconds of a film as many times as you want? Perhaps it gets set in five increment chunks, preventing you from going back too far. What if my wife starts watching and I want to go back with her and watch again from the beginning?
I'm preaching to the choir, but punishing your customers is a lousy business model for anyone besides a dominatrix.
Is it completely bio-degradable and will they be cheaper than renting from Blockbuster or Netflix?
I have a website. It's about Macs.
What Microsoft calls "Innovation" is always what others call "old news".
Who's surprised?
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Most hollywood movies belong in the trash anyway.
Yet more evidence that Microsoft is run by clueless dweebs with a god complex.
And they wonder why the movie industry is going down the toilet. Treat your customers like crap and they'll run directly away from you.
People didn't like online, interactive, DRM'ed DVDs 5 years ago, why would it change today?
Test your net with Netalyzr
I propose a new technology where the disc self detructs before it is played. I think the following films should be made available in this format.
Star Wars Episide IV: Attack of the Clones
Matrix Reloaded
Ishtar
Heaven's Gate
Death to Smoochy
Please feel free to add further recommendations
Don't they have a huge market research department? Don't they know that people don't want a disc that erases itself after one viewing? What if I want to watch a movie again? What if i want to show it to me friend the next day?
DIVX
And I quote from Wikipedia:
"DIVX (Digital Video Express) was an attempt by Circuit City [et al] to create an alternative to video rental in the United States...
DIVX was a rental format variation on the DVD player in which a customer would buy a DIVX disc (similar to a DVD) at a low cost, which would be able to be freely viewed up to 48 hours from its initial viewing. After this period, the disc could be viewed by paying a continuation fee [...] resold, given away, or discarded."
Does this include non-crashing Media Player? So you could actually see the movie.
Um they have been saying this for years. So if they're losing billions, where is the billions? Being spent on something else obviously. Otherwise we'd have But I thought dvd sales were up recently they said. Just like a broken record. Even if it was 1 billion lost, the population of the US is around 300 million I think, thats on average 3 dollars extra each consumer has. Geez.
My Gawd WTF...
Here we go again, DIVX take two! I wonder if Circuit City will be selling them...
..utilizing my knowledge of future events now that I've somehow travelled to 1997!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
for our land fills. When will people learn...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
MS creates disposable OS, uses it to encourage disposable PC, now invents disposable DVD. They're never going to shed the 'cheap' image.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
they could just sell 3$ last-forever DVDs and they'd make even more profits from the increased number sales
A: Online. Same which DivX did. People didn't like.
B: Self-oxidizing disks. Been done, unadopted.
C: Overwrite the block upon insertion. When the disk is inserted, the player will overwrite part of the disk (with a DVD-R laser). Probably serial # the disk too, and specify time & date.
Probably C. Doesn't change that it isn't significantly cheaper or more convenient than Netflix or the local DVD rental place. So why would anyone BOTHER. Especially with the Borg involved?
Test your net with Netalyzr
...when MS is going to introduce the "throw-once" office chair!
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
The "buy-once customer". They'll buy this once, and then never again. Fortunately for MS, there's a fool born every minute. Unfortunately for MS, the internet can spread information to warn would-be marks very, very quickly.
Also, it'll get broken 2 seconds before it gets launched.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
More like, can you say DIVX?
A disc that the average consumer will have little use for and hackers will likely turn into a brilliant way to build their collection of DivX files on the cheap. Thanks Microsoft!
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
from the article:
The revolutionary product could be on the market as early as next year, with the new DVD players needed to view them. Sorry, but it won't work if I and millions of other people who already have DVD players, have to buy a "special" player. This reminds me a lot like DiVX.
Didn't anyone else notice you'd have to buy an entirely new DVD player to have the privlidge of buything these watch once then throw away discs? What is going through these people's heads when they think this is a good pitch?
Not only will I have to buy a new type of disc, which offers little over today's rentals (what, I don't have to return it to the store? Welcome to Netflix 5 years ago.) but at the same time I'm supposed to want to replace my entire living room set to do it?
Then there's the question of whether or not this new tech will work with the next gen of DVD's. I might see people replacing their DVD players if that means they'll get the 30GB or whatever version of DVD's, but for the same 9GB crap we have now? Don't think so.
Granted they went into zero detail as to how this will work, but I wonder if it will incorporate into the new DVD formats. (or maybe that's they way they plan on releasing it, who knows)
Funny though that the music and entertainment industry would rather put their fate in the hands of MS over the hands of their customers. Although the customer might eventually stop putting his/her hand in their pockets to pull out their wallet at the drop of a hat, and least they won't be putting their hands around your throat.
Launch Windows just once. Chances are that you will not be able to launch it another time.
The problem with Slashdot memes is that YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
It's not going to work. The movie industry is nothing but money gluttons. Besides... Who's to say this won't increase piracy even more... 3 bucks to buy it, rip it, then resell it. Sounds good to me. No need for Netflix or any other online DVD rental service with wait times from sending via mail and whatnot..
And the product name is, wait for it, Microsoft DIVX.
Remain calm! All is well!
it is like renting but simply worse? ------- oh! I didn't see the point there
we've finally caught up to the technology portrayed in mission: impossible ("this tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds...")
and mission: impossible is probably what the title should be for this drm plan
doubly appropriate because it stars tom cruise, who is always making an ass of himself
now let me go watch my rip of mission: impossible
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Netflix, by contrast, was a low-tech approach (except that DVDs were still early-adopter back then) that absolutely rocked, because it matched what most customers generally wanted to do most of the time.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
DIVX in its day was irrelevant at best and hated at worst. Good to see MS is still willing to throw good money after bad.
Here's all you'll ever need to know about the original self destructing DVD format:
DIVX Bites The Dust
This DVD will destroy itself in 3.. 2.. 1..
Microsoft Invents A 'Rip-Once Only' DVD
Microsoft developed a "view once" neural movie format that will erase the corresponding contents of your memory after you play a video. This way you won't be able to remember what you saw and copy it to the unprotected and forbidden physical media.
Microsoft expects to ship its "Amnesia(TM)" DRM technology by the next year. However, the first people who tested it complained that their enjoyment experience was erased too. Microsoft is currently working on a bugfix.
It seems pretty unlikely the media self destructs. Maybe, but I doubt it. Why would a new player be needed if it were in the media itself?
Perhaps it's really a dvd+rw type media, where the player uses a higher power laser to erase the disc during or after playback?
Or maybe they're going to try Circuit City's DIVX approach (nothing to do with the mpeg4 coded, for those who don't remember those days), where the player will phone home.
Or maybe it's something else? Any ideas?
Maybe Microsoft's research teams have turned out something truely revolutionary? Or maybe just another lame idea, as usual?
Unless it really is media that degrades, or even if it really is in the media, if it's not compatible with existing players, then people are going to have to "upgrade" their players... for no real benefit other than being able to get a play-once disc for about the same or slightly more than simply renting a regular disc. So the players won't sell well, so they won't get the ecomony of scale that makes for a sub-$100 dvd player. It's quite an uphill battle. Witness Circuit City's failure... and that was in the early days of DVD when a few studios were releasing some movies in their lame format but not on DVD. This thing probably going to die before it even gets started.
But even in a world of perfect DRM, where movies are only distributed on these play-once discs, and no ordinary DVDs are made anymore, and movies aren't ever distributed in any other digital form.... it's still only going to take one pirate with special equipment to capture a pretty good quality "rip", and then upload to a circle of friends, who give to others, until someone makes it available on a file sharing network.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
All the world is talking about environmental pollution, everyone is thinking about environmental friendly products ... and Microsoft invents a one-use-and-throw-away DVD. Very nice, Microsoft, very nice. This shows how innovative you are.
BTW: £3 for one view? If I want to see a movie, I go to my local DVD rental shop. Here in Germany, you can rent brand new movies for about 1,60.
Cheers
D.
If I go to Blockbuster or my local video rental store, the movie I'm renting eventually goes back to the store, where they can rent it to the next guy for another few bucks. They stop renting that particular disc when it gets scratched or broken, but otherwise, it's a continuous revenue stream.
If video stores started sending home these self-destructing discs, they could only rent them once. Then they'd have to buy new copies from the manufacturer. Why would they choose to do this? The answer is, simply, they wouldn't.
PS: Just practice enough so that you won't have to buy a DVD-Drive after watching each new movie!
when you want to pause it or watch a scene over? what if you missed what someone said?! what if it's all coming out in french and you can't figure out how to change the language until 5 mins later? what if what if what if?!?!
Doesn't this defy a BIG point of DVDs in that they're meant to be played over and over?
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
What makes me want to puke is that this only highlights the movie studios profit margin per-copy of a DVD that is actually purchased.
Is this chemical degradation ? the player destroys the disk after/during play ? the player remembers all movies played and refuses to play again ? Anybody knows how its supposed to work ?
I hear people talking about how this is bad for the environment. But which is worse? a 15 gram DVD in a landfill? or wasting a 1/4 gallon of gas for that 2nd trip to the video store?
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting damn tired of being assaulted by Microsoft. Gotta go now, Ballmer's at the door with a chair...
Just HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Riiiiiiiiight! Sure I am gonna go buy a one time use DVD and then find that I fell asleep watching it and find that I can't watch it later.
Microsoft invents the self destructing OS... Oh wait...
Apparently, it was in fact a technical problem. Mod me -1, Offtopic. :-(
Do you like German cars?
It's cheap, but it's just another way to increase the raw materials we use and the waste we produce. It's interesting technology, but I'm still happy renting DVDs.
Don't these idiots give a shit about the amount of crap they produce ?
If these awful things don't evaporate in a flash of smoke the minute they've been used then people should get together and mount a campaign to send every single used DVD back to Microsofts headquarters. And then their local waste collection people should make sure they charge them top dollar to dispose of them.
How to stop irresponsible "environmentally unfriendly" crap like this: Make the polluter pay the full costs of disposal/cleanup.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Maybe they are planning on releasing DVDs with DRM built in so that you purchase a license to watch the movie. You play the movie on a special DVD player that phones into Microsoft HQ to make sure your license is vald. When your 'rental' period is up the DVD stops working and you can either throw it away or save it to repurchase another time. The great thing about this is they can start shipping out movies like AOL and if you want to watch it you just have to punch your credit card in over the phone. Pretty soon everyone will have their very own library of thousands of movies to watch any time they want to.
No not the cool codec but the failed watch once DVD format.
Good grief Microsoft are now stealing failed ideas?
File this next to Microsoft Bob
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Microsoft Denies Single-Play DVD Plan
On Tuesday, Microsoft refuted earlier reports that it plans to introduce single-play DVDs aimed at curbing music piracy. A Microsoft representative told me there is no single play DVD initiative at the company, denying a report that first appeared in "The Business."
"It appears there is considerable confusion coming from [the] article in The Business about features within Windows Media DRM that allow for single-play of promotional digital materials," a Microsoft spokesperson told me. "This has been an option for content owners to use for some time with the Windows Media format--but not for the MPEG2 format found on DVDs. Windows Media DRM technology allows for a wide range of business models and scenarios, but it's important to realize that this is at the discretion of the content owner to implement and that the market will dictate whether or not these features are compelling enough for consumers to make a purchase."
"Sufferin' succotash."
We have all copied music - via tape, via CD burner, via MP3. God knows I've done it on and off for the past twenty years. Is the music industry dead yet? No, because although I may copy certain music I find marginal, I'll always keep buying the stuff I'm really into. And so it balances out between me and the guys that love Metallica :)
Any DRM will always be worked around as long as we have software and hardware. In fact, until PCB's become completely 'unmodable' there will always be a hardware back door - loss in quality - well then love MP3 then!
cat and mouse - for how long and for how futile?
Chairman Bill Gates has been working on a solution to the film industry's piracy problem since making a now legendary pitch to the industry in September 2002. Showing a video of himself dressed in a sailor suit...
Am I the only one that thought of this? ARRGGGHHH!!!
*scrubs brain madly to vainly try to remove subsequent image*
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
Surprise, surprise. Sure would be if fact-checking was a requirement of being an editor around here.
Microsoft Denies Single-Play DVD Plan
On Tuesday, Microsoft refuted earlier reports that it plans to introduce single-play DVDs aimed at curbing music piracy. A Microsoft representative told me there is no single play DVD initiative at the company, denying a report that first appeared in "The Business."
"It appears there is considerable confusion coming from [the] article in The Business about features within Windows Media DRM that allow for single-play of promotional digital materials," a Microsoft spokesperson told me. "This has been an option for content owners to use for some time with the Windows Media format--but not for the MPEG2 format found on DVDs. Windows Media DRM technology allows for a wide range of business models and scenarios, but it's important to realize that this is at the discretion of the content owner to implement and that the market will dictate whether or not these features are compelling enough for consumers to make a purchase."
"Sufferin' succotash."
So, is this going to figure into their anti-pirating plans for Windows as well? Install Windows once, then you have to purchase a new DVD if you ever need to reinstall?
Considering the crud coming out of Hollyweird lately, filling this thing with something that's worth playing even once is going to be a major challenge.
Wish I could get to the article to see specifics... but, there is nothing, nothing about this that makes any sense.
This approach will
What are these people thinking? Imagine if the publishing industry went this route when books began being widely published. If they'd been of the same ilk (and the could have, they had to know people were reading books, then passing them around), they would have developed some kind of self-destructing mechanism for books so once you read it you could not read it again. How crazy a world would that be? (I know, I know... they've sort of gone down that road making some books so fragile that once you crack the spine and read them, they barely hold together for another read.)
I would just love to be in some of these meetings where people are suggesting these ideas, and others are approving them.
Does that let you play each section of the DVD only once? For example, if I wanted to watch the main movie and then the special features, would I find myself unable to go back to the menu (since I've already seen the menu) to select the special features? Also, what about game DVDs such as the Who Wants to be a Millionaire one I've seen? I don't believe there would be a way to force those to play only once as they re-use a lot of the menus and video clips.
The USPS is feeling the labor cost pinch too. Many (most? all?) new subdivisions have one conglomerated mailbox per block, and you have to walk to get your mail. No more slot in the door or mailbox on the porch. I think they are even gradually retrofitting these mailbox stands in older neighborhoods.
Infuriate left and right
is it possible to 'rewind' such dvd's like if you miss a scene.........if yes (evil angel pokes me) why not just never finish movie and keep it forever.... if no....(curse in 8 languages) isnt that even worse that On Demand feature on cable???
Microsoft invents a cheap, disposable one-use web server that becomes inoperable after one hit.
Here's how :
...
1- buy the "play once" DVD
2- insert into player
3- mencoder
4-
5- profit!
I'm renting a DVD to watch a it for a specified amount of time. I borrow a DVD, watch it when I get home, then i might want to watch it again before i return it. (Like fight club or donnie darko) I wonder how this would work for weekly rentals? I highly doubt any video store would be interested in this - it would only cheese off customers. Besides, alot of their revenue also comes from the fact that people forget to return their rentals on time.
Wow! This is just stupid. Microsoft invent the 1read DVD. Play it, then throw it; what a waste. Shouldn't there be law about making products intented to go to trash??! If you want my advice, I'll use that 1 read to rip the dvd and share it. I'll get sure nobody except me will buy one of those and throw it away. Sharing to makes dolphins happier....
Play it once and I now own a drink coaster. That saves me a special trip to the US Post Office for those AOL coasters. Thanks M$!
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Yes, we must all pat Microsoft on the back for re-innovating an old technology that failed 5 years ago to restrict consumers abilities. But couldn't there be a better way? If only there was some means of distribution to send out Movies to consumers that restricted their ablilty to re-distribute and cost roughly the same as a rental.
Oh yeah, it's called pay-per-view. It's as old as cable television. $3 - $4 to watch a movie (record with TiVo or some other recorder if you want, quality won't be the same as DVD rip), and no discs to dispose of, no special players to force on the market. Maybe Microsoft will re-invent this after their new Divx fails.
The whole host of places, like Netflix, that rent out DVDs for as low as $10/month are a much better deal. Why would you pay even $5 for a movie to watch once when you can pay $10/month, see as many movies once as you like, or watch the one movie over and over again, and never have to go and buy anything? I smell a short-lived product unless there is a new catch we're missing.
Plus, all we need is a big pile of 1 use DVDs in our landfills to go along with AOL disks.
I'm sure a few extra discs won't clog our landfills more than they already are with companies like AOL shipping out millions of discs.
much the same as renting a video or DVD
Much *unlike* renting, How many times have you rented a movie and wathced it more than once. Or someone was out at the time and they wached it when they got back. Pointless....
- Shrödinger's Cat is Dead, Or is it?
No, we can't watch the movie again... Mickey Mouse killed himself overnight.
Why are you modding up people who simply hit "Reply" as soon as they see the first few words in the article text without reading the article ?
Every single comment with "what happens if the power goes out / i press stop because I have to find another beer" should be put to that special rating of -RTFA.
I wouldn't worry about Slashdot covering up for Firefox when Mozillazine is headlining the same story...
...to make things more inconvent... God damn. Microsoft comes up with another crap product to accomplish three things: add more rubbish to those already-full-of-95/98/me/200/xp-and-aol-trial landfills, frustrate the end user (possibly to the point of suicide this time round) and creating YET ANOTHER thing some hacker or cracker will figure out a workaround for. is it just me, or does it seem like a 'once only use' disk is pointless? i mean, couldnt one rip it to the PC during that once, and have it till his/her hard drive fails (from formatting/reinstalling windows yet AGAIN) oh well. more crap to fill up the m$ tech help desk phone lines with.
woo hoo?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
We need them to scream about the "big trash pile" and "wasted plastic" again...
We need to call up the SUV driving soccer moms and tell them it will make gas more expensive since it uses X amount of oil to make a disc. If Microsoft's new DIVX system becomes popular, the price of gas will go up Y.
How much is X?
For Y, just find a talking head "expert" and have the droid go on TV. And then the droid, once self aware, will join our side. It will have joints that will need lubrication.
This cheap car be parked at the parking lot of any Wallmart after it has emptied it's two billion gallon tank of Iraqi produced gas.
Thought this was *new* DVD formats, which M$ are happily pushing VC1 (AKA WMV9) at. So its strictly accurate this won't apply to current MPEG2 DVD, it will be very possible on future formats and M$ are evading that issue.
I recently saw the power of the Comcast DVR and On Demand setup, and it is indeed frightening. This technology will most likely replace traditional DVD rentals as well as all other subscription DVRs. It has all of the advantages of Microsoft's proposed distribution method, with none of the waste and potential piracy. Customers get the movies that they want with none of the waiting. I could be wrong, but I also have not yet heard of anyone pirating the Comcast On Demand shows. It seems to me that the Comcast way would please both consumers and the entertainment industry. Eventually, this distribution method might even start to resemble iTunes, as DRM would be very easy to manage. As hard as it is to say being a proud Tivo owner and Netflix subscriber, I like the way Comcast (and others like them) are heading. The only major hurdle I foresee is the cost, but I guess the market will decide that.
Wow, Slashdot got something wrong? It's almost as if they don't care about the quality of their ... oh, never mind.
it only takes one read to make a copy of the dvd. That is enough for me.
Copy once, and watch it as many times as you like ...
That's right Mother Nature, I'm going to climb up to the top of this building and shit upon you from on high!
Truly, one of the dumbest comments on Slashdot in a while. An article was shown to be completely false, and you defend it by using a lot of dollar signs and saying Microsoft is somehow "evading" something when they say they're not making play-once DVDs. What are they evading, Slashdot's numerous fuck-ups?
The Microsoft person is just saying DRM has always allowed for play-once video media (for years now, in fact), and it's up to content-makers and consumers to decide if those formats fly. Complete non-story.
In this "Throw Away Society", you have to expect this. Like it, no. Fight it tooth and nail, yes.
Heard any good sigs lately?
this won't stop piracy but will it really make us rent/buy more dvds? maybe they're just going to hit an untapped market, but I think 8========> the css on this page is causing posts to hover over other posts.
A few months ago I went to a talk given by the CEO of a cryptography software company (which I won't name). He said they were working on a system for that kind of device whereby the media player would have to exchange some kind of key and establish a secure channel with the TV set / screen in order display the medium's contents. Obviously, everybody would need a new encryption-enabled DVD player and TV set for it to work, so this is probably a longer-term solution. But you can be sure that contents producers are already working hard to make ripping impossible in the future.
MMMMM.. Play once, burn many times.
i wonder if the pigment degrades in time after being hit by a laser or the air or what... if it degrades immediately, can you rewind what you just read?
one DVD occupies at least 2x10x10cm = 200cm3 unless you pay a lot of people to stack them neatly. Your 20 billion DVDs would occupy a volume of 4000 m3 (a terrain of 40m x 100m with 1m deep of DVDs)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Limited play time.. Check
Limited to special players.. Check
New proprietary standard that thumbs nose at existing standards.. Check
Likely to fail.. Most definitely a check
CUSTOMER: So where is my new car? SPOKESBORG: Right over here sir, just follow me. CUSTOMER: Sure is cool looking. SPOKESBORG: We designed it with you in mind. CUSTOMER: Cool!!! SPOKESBORG: Hop on in and give it a try. CUSTOMER: **gets in ** hey where is the key? SPOKESBORG: There is no key, we decided the people lose keys therefore no keys. CUSTOMER: So how do I start it? SPOKESBORG: Just push the big green button labeled start. CUSTOMER: **pushes button** VVVRRROOOOOMMM, sounds great! SPOKESBORG: it should we added sound effects to augment the engine noise. CUSTOMER: How do I shut it off? SPOKESBORG: Simple, just push the green start button again. CUSTOMER: **hmmm looks puzzled** SPOKESBORG: Don't worry we designed it with you in mind!!! CUSTOMER: **takes it home for it's first drive** CUSTOMER: **Goes out the next morning to drive it to work and nothing left in the drive way but a pile of molten plastic** CUSTOMER: **Gives M$ Motors a call** Hey you guys sold me a piece of junk. SPOKESBORG: Didn't you read the EULA? CUSTOMER: NO! SPOKESBORG:Too bad. **CLICK** brrrrrrrrrr*&^*% If you would like to make a call please hang up a try again.
FragHARD or don't frag at all
....to Rip it into DIVX.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
That says it all.
How many stores offer 1 day rentals these days?
..
I dont rent any movies, so its an honest question. Back when i did, you got them for several days so you could watch them more then once.. Or at the least go back and replay scenes you missed while in the bathroom
Having the DVD self-destruct on a time scale, instead of a view-scale makes more sence to me, but then again im a consumer trying to watch a movie, not the corporation trying to suck me dry.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Who the hell is the nut sack who thinks that this is some Microsoft invention?! This was first talked about FIVE YEARS AGO! In fact, Disney has already released discs that are of basically the same technology, called EZ-D, except that the disc dies after 48 hours. Sure, it wasn't one-play, but it was the same type of process.
r adisc.shtml
n e.shtml
http://www.widescreen.org/commentaries/2000_spect
http://www.widescreen.org/commentaries/2003_06_ju
Now, if fairness I could not RTFA because it got slashdotted, but I'm assuming that a chemical reaction from the laser striking an added film layer is what's making the disc "read once". But, again, this technology was discussed by SpectraDisc back in 2000! No one "invented" it in 2005, particularly not Microsoft!
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
That might be coming next:
" We are sorry, you have previously used your right to your one install, please purchase a new copy of windows to continue. Press any key to shut down your PC. Thank you for choosing Microsoft "
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...in a million to succeed !
And every greedy company on the planet is hurrying to imagine failing scheme after failing scheme, to accumulate the 999999 failures necessary before success.
I have time...
I honestly expected the article link to go to The Onion.
I don't like products that exercise prior restraint, given the expectation that I will steal a product if given the chance. I'd rather live in a world where the honor system works. A world where dvds without drm can be rented and people voluntarily respect the desires of the content producers. Let's win people's hearts and minds. Then we won't need this kind of nonsense.
When I was a kid, the local tobacco store used to just leave pile of newspapers outside the shop in the morning. People would leave a dime on the stack and take a paper. They knew what was expected of them and they complied because they made the right voluntary moral choice. I'd like to live in a world where the same thing happens for movie rental consumers.
Microsoft announces today they invented the first disposable operating system. You install it once, and use it. After that it ceases to work properly.
wait...I think I may have heard of this before.
yay! more plastic for the landfills! yay! yay! yay!
Don't they mean a rip-once only DVD?
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
The way these things (previous single play dvds) work is to have the dvd slowly become opaque as it is exposed to air.
Usually a day or two from opening packet.
Dang, you missed *the* main reason why Divx didn't succeed. It *didn't* play on "any 'old' DVD player"... and neither would these ( if they were really going to be made, which apparently they aren't ).
It's too late for something like this, and it might have never worked, since we don't really want it. Way too late now anyway- DVD penetration is already too great, and guess what? DVD players don't go belly up often enough for replacements to get a lot of these out there quickly. I'm certainly not about to run out and buy a more-expensive-than-average DVD player just to 'buy rentals'... they'll have to figure out a way to make NetFlix go away first.
we are not producing enough waste, according to some of our fellow compannies. Well, if the DVD which had the film could be used as a DVD+RW or something like that and it costed just over what a regular DVD+RW costs, then, yes, MAYBE we could have a something new. It doesn't seem to be the case. Nothing to see here, please move along to the next post.
Hey Microsoft, 1998 called, it wants its video format back.
...because now I'll be able to use DVD Shrink on a DVD that costs 90% less.
AOL used to send out millions of CDs, just like clockwork.
Must've worked for 'em, because I've got a stack of those CDs holding up one corner of my desk...
AOL has been slacking off, I haven't gotten one of their CDs for quite a while.
Now Microsoft is picking up the slack...
It's this.
Remember, we vote with our wallets.
I mean, I better walk to the video store and then take the plastic+silver+bunch-of-bad-chemicals containing disk back....
But hey, even if I drive i am better to mother earth (as i ride a 250cc enduro or a 2000cc compact VW not a monstertruck/suv).
Then again, power failure, windows crash, dvdplayer crash would render my half watched movie unusable ?
Even if they start selling it: $5 + 2 x DVD-R = $8 vs $12-$20 on amazon if I want to keep the disc.
I just do not see myself buying into it: I'd even buy a big jar of joghurt, one flavour instead of 2 little ones to save on plastic crap I produce......
Of course looking at the US consuming habits and the unbelievable pain for some people to actually take a movie back (on time) I imagine that it could be succesful - hopefully not at many places.
-yes I am a treehugging grass eater-
That second trip to the rental shop to return your DVD is very important for their business. They want you to come back and see something else you want to rent, so why exactly would any rental shop support a product that not only removes that extra trip but also must be replaced all the time, for every bloody title that the shop carries, every time someone rents it. This could only be useful for postal DVD rental which is going to be dead soon. I won't even get started on one-play = one-rip.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
just one more thing for us to consume and throw away. What a great idea!! Almost as grand as the printers that cost less than their ink cartridges.
Something is wrong with this type of thinking...dead wrong.
He can take it and shove it up his pink ass
They could care less about what the public wants. It should be pretty obvious that what people want is real time access to digital media with no strings attached. People are willing to pay for the hardware, software, and service to access digital media and they pay a premium for fresh media.
Unfortunately the media moguls are so hung up on their fears of losing control of their "intellectual property" for which every living being should pay them for that they are missing out on the potential for a massive multi-billion dollar market. Yeah, they are making money now, but history has shown that new markets and innovations create frenzies where lots of money is to be made.
If they would feed the market it would grow immensely and the media giants would make incredible amounts of money along with lots of other existing companies and new ones that would pop up to be part of the new market.
I see all the new technology today with amazing possibiities (HDTV, WiFi, broad band internet, etc.) and the market is suppressed by a few greedy bastards who would likely make even more if they would just let go.
how would this effect backward scene changes and rewinding?
Of course, it may kill us, and then we *will* be dead.
More disposable products means increased manufacturing, which for the forseeable future means increased carbon dioxide production, which will certainly wipe out 3 in 5 species of plants and animals in the next few *decades*, not centuries!
So yeah, it'll be us that try to survive the mass extinctions, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, et al, not just our descendants. We can try to cut down our CO2 dumping, and maybe only kill 2 in 5 species, but regardless of what we do now, our activities in the last fifty years have already "committed to extinction" a large number that it's too late to save. Goodbye Great Barrier Reef, goodbye Polar Bears.
If you can't tell, I'm proud to live in Australia, which, along with the USA, are two of the only four nations (the other two are tiny) in the world not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Hooray for us.
PS: There's a great book on this stuff, with lots of great geeky science behind it all, published in Australia in September 2005, and due for release shortly in the US (according to Amazon). It's called The Weather Makers, by Tim Flannery. Despite the tone of this post, the book is dire, but positive about the actions we can take personally to help things.
First off, biodegradable?
Secondly, what would stop the consumer from piping through that one play through a recorder, or are we assuming a dedicated player for these discs to require consumers to buy?
this was covered a long long time ago.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
so instead of renting a movie for $3 and being able to play it an infinite amount of time in a week, I will be compelled to pay the same amount for a disposable media that I can only play once?
Sure...it takes away late fees. But seriously, anybody who thinks this could get off the ground is insane.
You can't sell products that go backwards in time. None of the Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or this thing alternatives to the DVD will catch on because the fact is that DVDs are still more convenient than these crazy new formats.
More things to dump into the landfills...
Can someone *please* put Microsoft out of our misery?
Yeah, if you have a mailbox at the end of your driveway. Some of us who live in apartments have to run to the post office for outgoing mail. Same thing happens on campus in a dormatory/"apartment housing."
... no return postage, no return handlers, no restocking. "Everything goes out... nothing comes in". Could save a lot of dough.
Also this could potentially reduce costs for an operation like Netflix
And how about those queues? Netflix only has a finite number of copies of each movie, sometimes you have to wait. With a model like this, potentially, they could ship out an unlimited number of read-once DVD's.
-everphilski-
Who in his right mind would buy a DVD that plays only once? That sounds like a pretty bad idea.
They must think we're retarded.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If M$ or anyone else ever made a "play once" anything, it would completely flop. Someone would get fired for spending money on such a stupid product. Noone in their right mind would do anything like this. If they did they are not thinking very clearly at all.
Sure. And Microsoft can always be trusted to tell the truth. [newsforge.com] Notice they say it isn't possible with MPEG2 from current DVDs AND that it is available with Windows Media DRM? What is the format that is supposed to be used for video on HD-DVD again? That's right, Windows Media.
Does this still sound like it is beyond reality?
The short and nasty of it is: People expect to be screwed by Microsoft. Their feeling is that this is what Ballmer and Gates do. When your a monopoly, of course, you don't have to care. But on the long run, that can't be good. If I were working in their PR department, I'd probably feel suicidal after reading this thread.
Because of all the uncertainty in the direction of media and players, I have not actually bought a single DVD or CD in the last 3 years. I haven't ripped a DVD/CD, I haven't downloaded music of films. I've bought the cheapest DVD player so I can watch rented DVDs.
.mp3/.wav/.gif/.png/ .....alternatively you can buy a DRM Home entertainment unit today and we'll turn our backs and walk away."
I have refused to buy into the current genre or MP3 players and cool DVD/ widescreen/surround sound mumbo jumbo because it seems that the people that 'control' its format and distribution have every reason to repeatedly pull the rug from under me when they feel like it.
I wonder what percentage of the market I represent.
How concerned with my attitude should the recording industry and Hollywood be?
In the UK I would be accused of TV license evasion until I proved that didn't have a TV. Could the same thing happen with music, video and TV in north America?
- "Sir, your credit card company has disclosed that you haven't bought a DRM home entertainment unit in the last 3 years. For this reason we are taking possession of your PC for analysis. You'll get it back if we find that the following file types are not present on your PC
If you would like to read this again please go out and buy another copy of me.
In Soviet Russia,disc erases you!
Not that there isn't enough disposable stuff poluting the planet nad taking up landfill room, now we have disks that are disposed of at a rate even more exponential than a traditional DVD? Sounds like the best invention since disposable cell phones :P
More like a fresh assault on what's left of our fair use rights. MSFT can't get into bed with the MPAA fast enough. Although all the sucking up to RIAA and record labels didn't pay off very well, now did it?
Think MSFT learned anything from that? Ha! When does MSFT ever learn?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If this technology is applicable, what are the chances Microsoft will consider "install only once" DVDs for distributing software?
Paranoid? I'm from New York, where it's normal to be paranoid!
I'm just asking *g*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This has been an option for content owners to use for some time with the Windows Media format....[snipped rest about Windows Media format & DRM]
Now can someone tell me again, what is the next-generation video format the Microsoft backed HD-DVD will be using, and why we shouldn't be concerned about statments like this?
Previously you had the "time expired" DVD's that ran in a standard DVD player. They self-destructed 24 hours after coming into contact with air (I.E. they were unwrapped).
Nobody bought them anyway.
There is just that feeling of having your toys taken away. With a rental car, you rent the thing and have to give it back because the next person needs it. Same with video. But if you buy a disk, and it is set to explode after a few plays, you're buying something that is crippled. You don't have to give it back because somebody else needs it, they're taking it away purely to try and get more money from you. Microsoft is used to kicking it's customers in the teeth, but maybe that's why it is stuck in Operating Systems and Corporate Lock-in land.
Even without the player dongle this would probably be doomed. But with it, the system might as well run Microsoft Bob.
The ______ Agenda
How exactly would that work? Lets say I pop it in my home dvd player, watch it all the way through and then I take it out, and put in my PC. My DVD player can't write to a DVD, and it sure as anthing isn't networked to my PC, I don't know how it would work.
Hey... it complements their "run once" operating system...
If I remember correctly, when DivX died, they provided a number to call that would unlock the players for their customers. They might have died a well-deserved death, but they died with honor.
The ______ Agenda
Of course, you don't need Microsoft technologies for DRM--there are plenty of workable systems. Microsoft didn't even invent DRM or the key DRM technologies. But Microsoft has likely amassed a big patent portfolio anyway to create big problems for everybody else, and they are going to try and create a monopoly on media servers based on proprietary, non-interoperable servers, and by pushing their software into players.
Of course, the media companies and device manufacturers would be fools if they went for this, but I suspect at least some will.
Yes, let's make disposable play-once DVDs that have to be thrown away. What a lovely sentiment to the environment. That's THE DUMBEST idea i have ever seen!
1. More garbage, the treehuggers will be pissed.
2. Whether the movie industry likes it or not, movie distribution is going digital. It's going to happen. Why bring out a whole new line of hardware and products that are probably going to be obsolete in a couple of years?
Plus, there's no way I'm going to buy something like that, it's just such a huge waste on so many levels.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
So will this be like the last time this was attempted? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX Or will the DVD player actually contain a destructive laser to physically disable the DVD permanently? Either way, you wont see me using this.
Didn't Disney try this scheme once before and had it totally flop. If I remember correctly, the major problems were that 1.Few wanted to buy the single use DVD's 2.People were cracking them for unlimited use (therefore defeating the purpose) 3. Environmentalists went up in a storm over the fact that we were willing to be so wasteful with a substance that isn't exactly Earth Friendly.
http://www.dvd-d.org/
:)
"dvd disposable". pretty cool technology, they briefly explain how it works here: http://www.dvd-d.org/how-it-works.html
note their discs are recyclable
Basically, DivX the codec was named to make fun of Circuit City's DIgital Video eXpress. From http://www.divx.com/support/what.php:
When we say "DivX," we are not referring to the Digital Video Express
(DIVX/DVE) service previously marketed by Circuit City. If you need
information about Circuit City's DIVX, you might try the DIVX Owners'
Association.
Good Morning Silicon Valley, which had this story a day or so ago, now says it's a hoax. "[The story] appears to be confusing an existing feature within Windows Media DRM that allows for single-play of promotional digital material," a Microsoft spokesperson explained. "This has been an option for content owners to use for some time for the Windows Media format - it does not apply to MPEG2 content found on DVDs."
I do hope they use some kind of biodegradable plastic so those discs dont fill landfills. otherwise people are gonna have a lot of coasters. With the increased availability of broadband and the increased bandwidth it seems that movie downloads are far off. But it seems that we already have a good codec H.264 that can handle any size screen. To me as a consumer I would like to be able to keep a digital copy of a movie on a large media server that can stream to any TV in my house, this would be great for hotels also. Just allow people to burn 2 or 3 copies of a movie that they downloaded from a service and for any other copies they pay $5. That way people can take copies with them on trips, or clear some room off the server for a new movie. The server itself could have expandable drive bays so people could just plug a new HDD when one is running low and a simple catalogue on the tv screen could tell people what movies are on what HDD.
Two guys were out on camping
Guy 1: Did you bring the matches?
Guy 2: Yes. Here.
Guy 1: Fuck, they don't work!
Guy 2: How come? I've tested all of them before we left!
Some people don't seem to understand that DVDs (the actual physical discs) don't cost that much. You're paying for the movie. I can buy DVD-Rs for $0.20 a piece, I'm sure they mass produce movie DVDs even cheaper.
...a play-not-even-once DVD for such masterpieces as Stealth or The Island.
Let me get this straight - a company invents something so poorly made it can only be used once... and this is a breakthrough????
In other news, it is reported that people will buy the Play-Once(TM) disks, so they can Rip-Once(TM), where I will subsequently Down-Once(TM).
This is the perfect medium. Hollywood mostly produces watch-once-only movies anyway.
I think a better idea would be if more municipalities enacted a garbage tax on the citizens.
If a city has proper compost and curb-side recycling pickup programs in place, your average 4 person household should not be throwing away more than a bag and a half of garbage a week. I know, because it is what my family produces.
But I see others on our street who routinely have 5 bags out there, simply because they are too lazy to put paper in their grey bin, and metal/glass/plastic in their blue bin (come on people, they pick it up for you, how much easier can it get???)
These types of people disgust me. I think a weight-based garbage tax would be a good solution. If they want to be lazy, fine - charge them for it. The city can use the money to fund the recycling program, and it will not only encourage people to recycle and compost more, but would also indirectly encourage companies to produce less wasteful packaging (because people would maybe think twice about buying that giant half-empty box of stuff when a smaller one would do).
My one play will be to image it to another media, Computer, another DVD, etc.
Once is enough ;).
... Standards and Practices !
PenGun
Do What Now ???
There's a lot of people who like to rent DVD's. Now they won't need to return them. Or watch them in time. What's not to like?
What a waste of resources... think of the piles of junk that's being created. This is like the genetically modified grain that won't reseed, or the cool HP inkjet drivers that disable printer sharing.
To even think like this is more than a little screwed up.
Isn't the goal of economics to increase wealth?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
According to Ed Bott, this story is a hoax/misunderstanding: http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1061
(if you RTFA, this is more about award screener piracy than consumer piracy, but since that's the way many comments have already gone...)
Everybody wants to provide a service, not a product. I can understand why this idea is still floating around.
Providing a product incurs hard costs while providing a service (rental) provides what is, for the most part, a hard cost free revenue stream whose profits are dictated more by what the market can psychologically bear than the price of materials. (I don't consider manufacturing the DVDs a "hard cost" per se, as they're made for pennies and sell for massive profit and the rental places basically operate under license.) Now, this can come back and bite you in the ass because you can't compete on special upstream advantages (just look how netflix changed blockbuster's entire business). But the only significant "dirty" part of the movie rental revenue stream is maintenance/replacement of stock (employees and shelves), which this eliminates, although in the most jackassed way possible. And people will often want to watch a movie more than once, etc. and it eliminates a major market for rental locations, selling pre-owned DVDs, which is 100% profit.
In short, it's a bad, shortsighted, stopgap between physical media and a well-protected method of video on demand that I hope never catches on.
vk.
We shall call it POO, and I'm not talking Winnie..
i say we toss msft's "dvdv "thinktank" into the landfill along with their one time play dvds!
Just what the world needs. A new assault on consumer rights, and *more* shit to throw in the landfill. Forward thinking will be the first state whose Department of Environmental Quality outlaws the disposable disc on the grounds that the product is 100% trash.
Help us build a better map!
those dvd's that deteriorate after 48 hours made a brief 2 month appearance then folded up. ms shoud learn that consumers just arent insterested. sure this might be great for sending to those artsy people who review if movies are artsy enough to win an award, but then you always have one yahoo who uses his one view to rip the daarn thing ;) this is a pretty lost cause. but leave it to ms execs to try reinvent old technology.. ebtv cough cough ;) haha
Microsoft should rather program windows and let the customer worry about how they want their dvd's. Apart from utter digust I have for this, it makes me think, have they thought what a tremendous impact that could be on environment when we come to disposing off those discs???
But seriously, when will the manufacterers realize that this is a losing battle? There is several holes with the self destructing dvd concept that are all legit (i.e. phone call, wife sets kitche on fire, etc) in which case you may/may not be able to pick up where you left off-- I, for one, would not accept this. This holds even more true if it comes laden with DRM. Plus, I don't see how you can really protect the media if it can be read, even if its only once, as that read very well could be a copy. So the purpose is self-defeating, so long as it can be read it can be copied, and if it can't be read, well then its useless.
But my point here is mainly that this entire thing is a losing battle, and the paradigm needs to change to where the corporations accept that it is the year 2005, that technology moved faster than them and now their product has become disposable and they cannot realisitically keep a person from copying the data if they wish, I don't really agree with it, as much as I hate the RIAA/MPAA, I do agree that the people deserve to be paid for their work-- however the simple fact of life is that file sharing/dvd ripping/etc is here to stay, and so as I said their paradigm needs to change to view the content itself as disposable/not the product, like TV for instance, all of these expensive shows and movies, all to sell your attention to an advertiser. So you give your content for little or nothing, and find a way to market something else that makes use of that and just accept that some people will steal your product.
The garbage the movie studios produce is already running rampant in our theatres. I suppose it's appropriate that their products end up in a landfill.
no one else made that joke in this ENTIRE THREAD CAN YOU BELIEVE IT OH WAIT
you fail the internets.
They make them out of the same material of the ipod nano screen.
Already having innovated and implemented the "work-only-once" Windows 95, the "bluescreen after-only-one-operation" Windows NT, and the "crash-after-one-minute Internet Explorer", the "play-only-once" technology is well within the software giant's technical range.
With my cheap DVD player, this would play out as follows:
DVD is playing....get's about 2/3 into the movie at the most critical part of the story.
Screen freezes...
"Error: This disc cannot be played."
Eject, wipe of DVD, re-insert.
"Warning: You've already played this video once. Please dispose of properly! Copyright 2005 Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved...except yours, of course!"
Landfills are already too full of various crap. I think that disposable DVDs is a retarded concept because they'll create even more garbage and pollution. This concept is retarded too because it'll annoy the end user to no end.
drm only annoys people owning legit copies...
100% of statistics are wrong.
rumour has it Microsoft plans to call the new discs ONSD's (One night stand discs). Why do I feel like the one that's being used?
Great now we have one more thing to throw in the trash.
what a waste
Just another crappy blog
Really? I used to go to Blockbuster all the time when all I had was a VHS player. I bought a DVD player fairly late on, probably only 2-3 years ago, but I'm pretty sure I haven't been to the rental store since. It always looks pretty quiet these days, and about half the shop is full of "pre-viewed DVDs" for sale (not rental), while the other half only has about 200 copies of the the top 20 movies this week and not much else.
Assuming the article is based in the UK from the currency, it's rather misleading: my fairly extensive DVD collection is 100% legal, yet I don't think I've ever paid £15 for a new DVD, other than box sets. You can get most major films (legally) for half that price within a few weeks of them coming out, or practically on release day if you buy on-line or as part of a special offer.
Now, since renting a DVD for one or two nights costs £3 to £4 anyway, it's hard to see why anyone who wasn't really (a) strapped for cash, and (b) desperate to see some new movie the moment it was released would bother. I don't see why someone would bother with disposable DVDs as in this article for the same reason - how would I have lent my disposable Firefly box set to a friend who'd never seen the series before we go to see Serenity in a few days?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"The new generation of DVD disc will spearhead a fresh assault by Microsoft on the home-entertainment market."
MS assualting end users? What's next? Throwing chairs?
For this comment alone. "Lastly, it would be a boon for pirates. If it plays once in a regular DVD player, then it can be ripped once."
Though, I must ask, what in the world makes a dvd readable only once? How does that work without physically destroying the disc as it's either played or as it comes out of the box?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The really funny part is how many people keep posting complaints about Microsoft's new product after the fact that Microsoft isn't doing it has been posted here several times.
Fact-checking is fast on the internet, but not yet effective.
Anyone thinking about the environmental waste it will create ?
environmentally friendly -- not!
If it requires Microsoft DRM, and doesn't play in a Standard DVD player, then it's not really a DVD, no? I assume M$ figures they can get around the whole "People will buy this just to rip it" feature by encorporating uncrackable DRM *cough*. Sounds like they're betting on selling these to Windows Media Center users. Still won't work, but it makes sense:
Sell a chemically time-limited AND DRM time-limited DVD-like disk with proprietary WM9 content to users who are running on an updatable operating system. Since you don't have to worry about backwards compatibility (just force your WMC users to update to play that new disk they just "bought", or include the update on the disk itself), you can change your DRM scheme as needed to work around the inevitable hacks, or at least stay one step ahead (behind?) them.
It's genius... In a sort of "I hate people and like to kill puppies" kind-of-way.
I'm always amazed at the large gap between what people are willing to sell you, and what you are willing to buy... sounds like, I don't know, a market opportunity? A little competition could clear that problem up real quick... oh wait... I forgot...
... rip once then throw away.
Somehow I don't see this effectively combating movie pirating. All that will happen is some bright spark will write a DVD decoding program that streams the decoded data to a HDD as it plays
Plus unless the DVDs are made of something similar to this, then won't this just clutter up the environment with more petrochemical based polutants?
I should really get around to creating a sig.... Nah - too lazy =)
Come on now, what sort of self-respecting Slashdot user are you?
Corrected:
ReadOnce = PlayOnce;
RipOnce = ReadOnce;
PlayForever = RipOnce;
dd if=/dev/dvd of=/bitorrent/newmovie2.iso
I love ROSM.
ROSM = Read Once, Share Many
Why would people want to spend 5-9 bucks to rent a movie and the cost for the new DVD player to play the disk to only watch a dvd 1 time when its easier and free to just download them. or people will buy the dvd and burrow/copy them for friends.
Most people I know watch a movie more then once, if not all the way through to at least see specific parts or the extra sections.
The only way something like this worked was if people were forced into it with no other options, and the dvd players were so cheap they could be giveng away from rental stores, or the hardware was created and the disks didnt come out for another 5-10 years.
TruePunk | Games
dump once
Didn't someone try this a few years back with DIVX? If I recall correctly, it was a miserable failure.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Disposable DVDs....
Doesn't it strike anyone else as being a bit wasteful of resources
to add yet another diposable, nonrecyclable, plastic item to the regimen
of all the other toxic computer waste that is currently going into landfills?
Will Microsoft allso be taking the disc hulks back for
recycling when everyone is done with them?
Should we be mailing the discs to them so they can do this,
or will there be a special Microsoft deposit box in every town
to handle the junk?
It's funny, how MS has lost complitely touch with the needs of costumers, who actually buy their products in order to play the policing role for all indusries imaginable.
MS just keeps digging it's own grave.
"Which one did we get again?" ."
"'MS Entertainment Kit for Wankers 3.6."
"Well, pop it in, Johnny!"
"I sure hope my parents aren't awake. .
Johnny pops in the disk
*Skeet!*Skeet!*Skeet!*
"Dude, rewind that - that chick was SO HOT!"
Johnny presses "rewind" only to find that the three-way scene has already been overwritten
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!"
www.linuxpenguin.net
A few years ago, Buena Vista Home Entertainment tested a product called the EZ-D DVD, which was just like any regular DVD except with the added manufacturing cost of placing a coating on it that was sensitive to air, and wrapping the DVD in an airtight package. One opened, the disc would turn black within 48 hours, thereby ensuring it could not be rented, lent, sold or given away. Although I do not know the details of the Microsoft technology, as described by you it would be just as sinister. Why? Three reasons.
First, it has nothing to do with fighting piracy. This is demonstrably so for three reasons:
(1) the most serious piracy comes before DVDs hit the market (copies resulting from camcording movies in theatres or from copies slipped by someone within the industry, long before the DVD release), (2) anyone who wishes to copy it can do so during the viewing period (you only need to make one copy, and if you can watch it, you can copy it, and make copies from copies), and (3) "dumbing down" the store-bought copies by making them less useful would be a godsend to professional infringers, who, thanks to lessened competition, can sell their copies very at profitable margins because they are a better product that will last virtually forever.Second, given that the cost of manufacture is likely higher, the only economic sense in going to added expense in making a product that will have less value to the consumer and be sold for less money is the expectation that greater profits can be made by doing so. The higher profits derive solely from the elimination of competition from the gift, rental, lending and resale markets. Secondary markets place healthy downward pressure on prices for new products. (Consider new and used homes, new and used automobiles, for example. What would happen if the sellers of new homes and new cars could prevent competition from resales?)
Third, it is socially disastrous. The only basis for copyright protection in the United States is to promote the progress of science and useful arts by encouraging the widest possible dissemination of works of authorship. This approach does the opposite: It would allow the copyright owner to generate higher profits from a smaller number of people. Gone from the exchange of information are those who cannot afford the price of a new DVD, and rely instead on used, rental, gift and lending economies. Those who most need low-cost access to copyrighted works because they cannot afford new ones would be disenfanchised.
This sort of market distortion should be condemned as an anti-competitive trade practice and as an unlawful extension of the copyright monopoly beyond the limits imposed by legislatures in the copyright grant. No nation on earth gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to control private performances of their works, but this invention would take that right, and the law be damned. Competition authorities should be quick to bring back justice -- assuming they can act independently and for the public good.
Aire Libre
Hmm, I completely boycotted buying ANYTHING from CircuitCity when they tried their whole DivX a few years ago.
Perhaps others out there will boycott Microsoft this time 'round.
then play the copy as many times as you want, or make as many copies of the copy as you want. How is this better or more secure than any other bootleg reduction method?
Oh well, what the hell...
So are these DVDs Rip Once as well? It will be interesting to see if people are able to rip them on their once only read cycle and then watch them as many times as they like.
When are we as a people going to wake up and smell the cat food?!
More technologies like this which by their very design add:
A.) to quickening consumption of fossil fuels (to make more and more just to throw away) and
B.) to the landfills (when you're done with 'em)
DO NOT MAKE SENSE. Period. Paragraph. Final. End of story.
Best antivirus software
Wasn't this posted long time ago? One of the huge problems with this was the waste management. We already are swimming on empty water botles, plastic bags, batteries and a lot of more disposable goods that cause a lot of trouble to the environment.
Anyone remember Billy Jack Video?
Tom Laughlin claims Billy Jack is the most successful indie film of all time, and IIRC that it was the first film to have a national ad campaign. maybe the first indie to do so, I've lost the literature.
But this was all his way of claiming he was a Marketing Wiz, and that you needed to invest $10K in a Billy Jack Video Franchise because it was Going To Be Huge.
His bright idea was that you'd buy a copy of a lot of videos - presumably through him - then you'd advertise and people who wanted videos wouldn't have to drive to the video store - instead they'd call *you* and *you'd* drive around the town delivering them like Domino's delivers pizza.
Except they never acted like a consumer through the whole transaction. They forgot that the typical call could go something like this: "Hi, Billy Jack Video. May we help you? - Sure. Can I get a copy of Star Wars? - Sorry - that's out - due back tomorrow. - OK - how about Blazing Saddles? -Oooh, that's in the car about to head so someone else's house. How about The Bear? - Erm, no - we don't carry that. - Bambi? - Never came back. - Beaches? - Nope. - Cool Hand Luke. - Out. - Screw you guys, I'm going to Blockbuster!"
Because nobody every went to a physical video store and didn't come back with *something* - even if what they wanted was out.
Laughlin didn't think about this as a customer, and it failed miserably. By the time he gave up on this, francises were going for $100 or some ridiculous amount.
Ditto this, DivX, and anything else with a built-in dead end. This is where I think Apple got FairPlay right - there is a safety valve in burning and re-ripping. I never worry about my iTunes collection, as there's a way to make sure I can keep the songs even if iTMS ever goes away.
(What am I saying - it's not if but "when" - I'm at the mercy of my LaserDisc player's components, and I'll never get a Disc Camera enlargement again! I know, I know - but I headed overseas once sans camera thinking I could pop into Manhattan on my way to JFK and get a great new film camera at a low low price... except it was Yom Kippur... d'oh! So airport gift shop it is...)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Rip once and throw away?
At least, that's how some people will treat them.
also if you attempt to digitially record the initial playing of the MS-DVD a fat bald man will knock on your door, scream at you till his voice is gone, and then throw a chair at you.
In these days of supposed enviromental conciousness, it never seems to amaze me with the number of disposable products the industry wants to shove down our throats. ie. camera's, swiffer broom pads, you name it and they have a disposable version. The fact that they're plastic based also feeds our need for more oil to piss away. It's bad enough that we're probably all guilty of burning coasters and throwing out disks with obsolete data and programs. I think this disposable society better have a good look at itself. Tick tock...
Go ahead mod my karma bad, just remember what karma is fuckers!!!!!!!!!
Uhhh... music on DVDs? THE FUTURE IS NOW!!!
...not to get. Though it looks more and more like "which DRM do you want" and not any options for no DRM.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
Hey, now's the time to start selling single-dump arses!
Go DRM! Microsoft Tissue Paper! Single use only!
Microsoft Mouse! Single click only!
Microsoft Windows! Single reboot only!
Bleh. I'm not going to try to wrap my head around this anymore.
If they want my money, they better give me a product that is useful, uncrippled, and worthwhile.
I'm outta here. See you around!!
To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image:bucked
If they maintain the current format, you could just use your one use to rip the ISO. So you could be getting what used to cost $15 for $6 ($5 for the first disk, $1 for the blank DVD-R(DL)'s).
And if they change the format, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before somebody cracks it. (Though it will cost them quite a bit, considering they can only test once per disc.)
So the whole one time use is easily circumvented, and if people are willing to pay the same amount for a indefinite use DVD as they are a one time use DVD, this will suddenly make it much cheaper to pirate movies. Or am I misunderstanding the point of the one time use? Is it simply a cheaper method of distribution?
...Because i have a feeling that DVD-Jon probably going to do something about it or someone else will develop a program to rip it off.
who know.
Slap a $10 per disk tax on Microsoft to cover environmental costs. Coupled with a $500 billion fine if they try to pass the cost on to the customer.
Just what I need, more GARBAGE.
This idea floats by over and over again because if people would actually accept it, the profit potential is enormous. Of course if people would just pay me $100 for my autograph, the profit poential would be enormous.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I didn't mod it up funny. My Karma doesn't go up when it gets modded up funny - but then it goes down when some idiots mod it overated. Isn't that what metamoderation is for??? Punish the people who modded it funny- not me. Freakin' Idiots. Man that pisses me off.
Yeah I'm not supposed to care, but this happens too often and I just don't see why it can't be fixed.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
How many discs do you have in your collection that you've only watched once? or even none. In the crazed consumer space where DVD sales outpaces income from the box office take - I'll bet there are plenty. This will never fly because it will eat into their profit margins for videos bought but never watched.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaah!!1!
Sounds a lot like the way that their operating system works. You can connect it to the Internet once and then it will never be the same.
What a waste, play once.
Microsoft still sucks.
More disposable plastic to fill up our landfills. Great thinking, Microsoft!!!
hehe nothink new here, Disposable Streaming videos ;)
http://www.interactivehuman.com/
an ad for Microsoft on /.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Rip they Rip rip only rip dvrip!? Hahaha! Jokes are funny!
People fight for the parking spot closest to the door of the gym so that don't have to walk too far to get to the treadmill. People aren't lazy, they're insane.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I don't know anyone who has seen that DVD twice...
Every time I've gotten a disk from Microsoft, I've played it once and then thrown it away...
Here's the thing: it's not a DVD. It's probably not even in MPEG-2 format (WMV9 instead).
It's a 12cm piece of plastic, the similarity to a DVD ends there. It might as well be a CD, or a GD-ROM.
The key to this in the article where it says that the DVD will arrive next with along with special DVD players required to play it.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Microsoft clearly did not INVENT once only dvd,
i have seen numerous designs the best is a DVD with plastic surface that withing 24 hours Oxygen causes it to decompose
With my luck lately, I bet i would get a buffer underrun and my 1 play would end up creating a coaster instead of a copy - doh! I just need to get better at this DVD copying thing but before these 1 play DVDs I had never needed to copy a disk. oh well :)
When they will have balls to distribute their OS on a "Install Once, Run Forever" DVD...
I'm seeing more and more disposable products coming from the USA lately.
You watch on TV as yet another commercial offers a product that 'makes life easier' by helping to destroy our planet.
You hear so many people complaining about how bad pollution is, yet they can't be bothered to wash out a duster, and they buy some disposable anti-static wipe - which the commercial shows being used once and then thrown away.
Even things that never required batteries/electricity are being changed so that they become battery/mains powered. What a waste of energy, what a waste of resources!
I'm no environmental activist, but I just can't believe how much pollution is occurring because people are lazy, and because businesses can't think of anything else to make a buck.
And, aimed specifically at Microsoft: Microsoft just seems to want to kill off yet another successful market because, as the article quotes, "Microsoft hopes it will help the company dominate home entertainment as it dominates the desktop computer market."
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Redundant, redundant. Sure would be if dupe-checking was a requirement of being a comment modder around here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164285&cid=137 17572
If they can produce and sell a disk like this for $3 then why can't they sell standard DVDs for that much or cheaper (assuming self destructing DVDs are more expensive to produce). Wouldn't this make a good basis for a class action suit against the movie industry for price fixing? Not to mention their controlling of the import of movies with the region encoding. I thought the federal government was the one that was supposed to control imports not the movie industry.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
i have read some of the comments here and agree that as a consumer i wouldnt want to throw away something i bought nor have my right to use something i owned more than once taken away from me.
however, how come no one has mentioned the environment? microsoft will be forcing consumers to dispose of useless plastic disks that do not decompose.
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
I wasn't aware of this. However along with all of the other CRAP that they themselves invent, POO was the next logical step I suppose.
I can see the logic here:-
Solution: Post all the expired DVDs back to MS using their free-post envolopes !!
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
Anyone remember the orignal DIVX players not the codec.
It was supposed to be the same thing M$ is proposing now.
It didn't work then and it won't work now.
Just be cheaper for it to be pirated probably with they can write it to hard drive once then burn it to a DVD+R.
If it makes it to market it will not last.
There was another trying to come out with some different layered dye that didn't last either. If anything they need to agree on Standard for DVD and Online Movie Distribution.
Crank them out in MP4 and they can get higher quality on DVD w/o going to HDVD or Blue Ray discs. Still need a new player to handle it. Why are there still black bars on HDTV also. I tried the different settings on TV it either distorts the aspect ratio slightly, crops some off, or both.
Just my $.02
Just what we need: more disposable crap to throw away.
Hey friends,
I just tried the MS Self Destructing DVD, it hanged in between . Now what do I do now ?
Abort / Retry / Fail ???
Save me please.....
Santy
"Well, now that the movie is over, I'm going to go grab my buddy."
*Leaves Room*
*Comes Back*
"Hey buddy, you wanna see something really funny?"
*rewinds*
*screen is completely blank*
"Wait, WTF?"
*Presses Eject on Player*
"WHERE THE HELL DID THE DISC GO"
*Looks at Disc Box*
"Brand new disposable discs. Rent what you want to watch, and you never have to return it, the disc just crumbles instead!"
"@#%&(*KJFVJ_U#(T*UQ#$U(gfldg"
Did I make my point?
This will be great.
I love to rent movies, but the one problem I have with renting is that it does not create enough garbage.
This will be just like renting, but with more trash.
I love trash.
This will be easily hacked... A DVD recorder costs about £100 to £300, so why not just link up the "Play-once" player to a DVD recorder by SCART and rip it to a normal DVD? Even if they use the MacroVision encoding, it can be stripped if you know what you're doing. If not, you can probably find something on the internet to do it. If they STILL find some strange way of protecting it, it could still be ripped in two ways: 1) Video camera pointed at the TV. * Upside: Cheap, easy. * Downside: Low quality. 2) Buy an old TV, connect it up to the player and tinker with it, so that the connections to the CRT driver are rigged to be sent to a box which re-organises the signals back into a standard video signal and into the recording machine of your choice. * Upside: High/perfect quality copy. * Downside: Expensive, you have to know what you're doing when it comes to video related electronics. It's all market hype, it won't work, it'll be exploited so easily and quickly. If you can watch it, you can rip it. That's all there is to it.
Walmart special DVD bins - $2 to $6 for movies that's a couple years old.
Why spend the same amount to get a watch only once DVD?
>>What's not to like?
Experience has shown that there is not much to like. And by experience, I'm not talking about some lab test or public poll, but actual market deployment of actual products. You see, this exact thing has been done before -- perhaps with different technologies, but the product was the same: Self-destructing DVDs -- and don't forget -- For Your Convenience (tm). Circuit City's DIVX, and the recent EZ-DVD (sp) products attest to the failure of self-destructing discs to capture interest. In the case of EZ-DVD, many convenience stores and small shops had to return their stock to the vendor because they just weren't being sold. And those were sold at about 2 to 5 US Dollars.
Another problem with self-destructing, limited-viewing video discs is the price. There is just not enough value to warrant a 1/3 of the actual purchase price, or the rough equivalent of a single rental. The technology itself has merit, and might eventually find a market, but I suspect that people will not pay more than a few cents for the discs, if at all. Perhaps they should be included in cereal boxes, or as promotional material (e.g. sent by post as a free incentive, along with your regular mortgage broker junk mail; distributed en masse a la AOL; or given away for "free" with your purchase of the Super-Duper-Extra-Mega-Uber-Large Pop-Corn Tub at the multiplex.)
Why do you think that regular video rental companies mention as an ad gimmick "no late fees" or "longer rental periods"? Hint: Its probably because people do not watch the video only once, or they like to have it around for a bit longer than its expected. Thus, companies like Netflix, whom have virtually abolished late fees and rental periods, attract lots of customers; offering customers the ability to watch the movies as many times as they want to, for as long as they want to, with no actual deadline or limit. Now that's real convenience.
I believe that any attempt to market this technology as a replacement of standard DVD discs will fall flat -- as it has done before.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
I hope these things are biodegradable, there are enough cds clogging the rubbish tips of the world already.
Microsoft defeats the purpose of storage media. Wow, I never would've thought of that one. And for a reason, might I add...
If by some "miracle" this does take off (in spite of special hardware needed, people rejecting CC's Divx and self destructing DVDs the first time around), how
do they plan to get people to take the time to recycle them, rather than throw
them out in the regular trash?
Although you make pretty good point (and in a very amusing way, too!), I think that the idea of the manufacturer is not to prevent piracy by disallowing multiple viewings, but by a two-pronged approach:
1. The introduction of a new format with a hook (i.e. "Disposable, For Your Convenience(tm)!"), which requires a change in player technology.
Thus enabling...
2. The introduction of a non-standard, more "secure" (read: restricted) DRM-enabled player.
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft is patting itself in the back for coming up with this. You see, everybody before them (DIVX, EZ-DVD, etc.) was pre-occupied with making the discs work with existing technology. Not Microsoft!
"We convince people that they need this, and replace all those dartard, godless DVD players people currently own, which allow them to play their movies as they wish, at the same time. Brilliant!" -- says Mr. Ballmer, as a chair flies over the conference table.
Right. Except, it might not work.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Thank you AOL and (possibly) M$! Now I don't have to run out and buy more
clay targets!
Think of all the waste going into landfill sites as a result of this? Watch a dvd once and throw it in the trash? not very environmentally friendly at all!
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Oh, yeah, I'm really looking forward to that.
Me, who sometimes falls asleep watching one..."You mean I have to buy ANOTHER disc?????"
Ah, and the wonderful coordinating of family viewing times, especially if both you and your spouse want to see it, but can't quite get your schedules worked out. Oh, and one or both falling asleep right about 2/3 through it.
Oh, yeah this technology will just fly off the shelves. I can't wait...
Sounds like a good idea but the name is somehow not quite correct, should be: :)))
"Copy once and throw away" technology
I can only rip the disk once then it can't be read again?
Nope, none of these things happen in MS land.
They've done all the studies and research. Yes, people buy a DVD and they watch it right away. They all have photographic memories, so that there is no reason to replay the movie...hmmm, could there be some kind of DMCA violation there? Make photographic memories illegal, since it is a circumvention of the encryption.
And all DVD watching families have perfectly timed schedules, where the whole family can watch it at the same time...even the kids, since they can start the movie at 6:30 pm and every body gets to bed on time.
And all have phones that "know" this and block all calls, and all power outages are put on hold.
Yep, MS has set the market. We just need to adjust our lives to fit the MS market mold. Steve Martin wrote a book once about just such an approach..."Cruel Shoes", I believe it was entitled...
Besides, whenever I hear words "cheap, disposable,..." I immediately reach for my natural renewable source powered rail gun!
Has anybody thought about the solid waste management nightmare this would cause? Tens of millions of DVD rentals occur annually; What would we do with the millions of now useless read-once discs?
Given their approach to pre-installed Windows (you have to *ask* for a CD "recovery" copy) I guess they'll come in handy for Vista upgrade packs.
As for Microsoft "invents" this DVD - I don't really see a track record of inventiveness there, especially not in hardware. Nice marketing word but hardly realistic..
Insert
lol, they really should call it: "Rip-once" dvd.
"encode it once, view it anytime"
why dont do companies begin to think on all the waste such technologies would produce? do we really need to shoot ourselves, while we are falling from the sky?
There are two reasons why this product will not take off. Firstly, it will be illegal in Europe, where manufacturers have a responsibility to make sure their products are recycled when finished with; and secondly, it won't work anyway.
..... Almost nobody will want to buy a disc that you can only watch once, especially not if they will need to buy a new player just to watch it. After all, DVD players -- region-free with tape-recordable outputs -- are already available for £30 .....
I invented a one-time-play audio cassette in 1979; but even before I had gathered together the bits to build the first prototype, I thought of a crack. And the crack I thought of was not one that could be "invented around". The limitation was a fundamental one with the universe itself, and so I never proceeded with the idea. Also, I had no idea that it would ever be useful for anything more than a practical joke.
There are two methods to ensure one-time-play, and two corresponding methods to defeat it. The easy one is destructive read-out; that is, the process of reading the data from the media also erases it. Or, more likely, the data is erased soon after being read. In either case, the corresponding crack is just to prevent the erasure from happening. My cassette idea {it was long enough ago for any patent I might have taken out to have expired by now, so I'm quite safe telling you this} involved a small permanent magnet downstream of the playback head; and the crack was to ensure that the tape never got as far as that magnet, by pulling out a loop of tape between the capstan/pinch roller assembly and the take-up spool.
The hard one is recorded read-out; that is, the fact that the disc has been read is remembered somewhere. This time, the crack is to cause the fact that the disc has been read, not to be remembered. If the record is kept in the player, then any other player should be able to read the disc {unless the disc carries the serial number of the player in which it is intended to be used; in which case it would be necessary to change the serial number stored in the player to match the one stored on the disc}. If the record is kept on the disc, then we effectively have a trivial emulation of destructive read-out {where the data itself remains intact and only a "permission to play" flag is altered}. The crack would be either to prevent the disc from being marked as played, or to prevent the "played" marking from being read.
Actually, there's a third reason why this scheme is doomed
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Haven't these bozos created enough landfill already???
The only people who'll go for this are the pirates, it makes it easier/cheaper for them to get hold of original discs to rip.
No sig today...
Sure
It's a hoax, guys. I know that there's about a million of you who would like to trumpet this ss one of the ultimate stupidities from Microsoft, but it just ain't so.
Play only once?
or Rip only once?
To reduce waste in landfills, they need to make these silly things edible. Maybe then I'll finally have my very own video toaster!
The market doesn't want it. Re: DIVX (not DivX).
Seriously. If I want to rent a movie, I'll rent it from the rental store, and bring it back for the next person to use. The last thing I want is to pay roughly the same price for a piece of plastic that is going to end up in the landfill. This kind of business model only makes sense if you are selling Kleenix or paper plates.
As anybody with half a brain can figure out, this is merely the movie companies' attempt to eliminate the inconvenience of having used DVDs on the market, so they can sell the same product, over and over again.
Don't waste your time.
If you want to do something useful, MS, figure out a way to protect the movie companies' copyright while still allowing people to exercise their fair use rights without encountering insurmountable technical obstacles. That would be progress.
This entire discussion in a nutshell: /.er 1: "So it's rip once, play copy many times, hahah" /.er 2: "Microsoft isn't really doing this, it was misinformation"
repeat ad nauseum.
Registered Linux User #404114 [url=http://www.punkoiska.com][img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/4379/posbannercf5.g
If I can only play it once, can I pause it? Does every second of paused time subtract from the rest of the movie? If you ogle Kate Winslet for a half hour how will you find out if they sink or swim at the end of the Titanic? :)
On a serious note, will these insta-trash be recyclable or will they just end up in the landfills with all those AOL cds?
Why is it a good idea to develop something that will only add to the mountains of _CRAP_ in the world? This should be stopped simply because we only have one single earth to live on. Shouldn't we really go for downloadable movies/tv series as this would cut _down_ on the number of plastic discs that we don't know how to take care of when people don't want them anymore.
"...with the new DVD players needed to view them"
Didn't we learn anything for the ill fated DIVX pay-for-play format? Didn't we?
-un
Yopu for you?
http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/10/05.html#a 11375
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
"the new disc allows consumers to decide when they watch films"
wtf? This can't be for renting (for very obvious reasons), so it's for purchase, right? So... if I purchase this, I get to decide when I watch the film ???? If by that you mean I get to pick one time ever in my life that I get to watch the film, then... there you go.
Here's my guess: Microsoft isn't developing this because this is IDIOTIC.
I call bullshit story.
Why would these big monkeys want to release a cheap DVD-like product, when most people are content paying $15-20 for a regular DVD movie and still will watch it only a handful of times during the lifetime of the product ?
Unless your name is Bubba and you like to watch the same movie seven times a week. Otherwise my Matrix / Blade Runner / whatever have been sitting quietly in the rack for several years already.
It just doesn't seem to make business sense.. sell us something cheaper ? Do they think we'll buy more ? of course we'll buy more, just like I go crazy in the 5.99 bins at Walmart once in a while. That doesn't mean the film distributors make any more money, I'm just getting more crap for the same money.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Scoble just reported that the story has been confirmed to be false.
This is a perfect example of environmental rape!
I am not considering myself green, but I do have just a tad of conscience.
We are facing a pollution burden in the most parts of the world already - how on earth can something likie this be justifiable...
This reminds me of disposable mobile phones... shudder!
What a waste of resources that could have gone to help solve problems instead of creating them.
Naughty, naughty Bill!!!
If these discs are not biodegradable then i think it is a total waste but leave it to an american company to make cd/dvds that just go in the garbage after one use.. like your landfills aren't full enuf from the wasteful capatalist nation.. Makes me sick..
...have an automatic hole punch installed in them that makes swiss cheese of the disc after you play it.
Some markets already have a solution for that; it's called video-on-demand.
And other markets don't. I imagine that these self-destructing discs will be more popular in those markets whose cable TV monopoly does not offer affordable video on demand, just as the GameCube tends to be more popular than the Xbox in many markets that do not have widespread broadband Internet access (required for Xbox Live).
Recent discoveries indicate that there are many "disposable" planets in our galaxy...
And when we run out of habitable planets, we can just roll up all our garbage into a katamari and make a new one.
Thoughtfull, informative (if not stating something those of us with an IQ already knew), and succinct.
Microsoft has a LONG history of F'ing up every piece of code they assimilate, calling it "innovative", and releasing the bloated, buggy, steaming pile of excrement upon the masses.
What in the HELL makes anyone think they'll do ANY better this time around?
Mod the AC up, and LART the parent poster...
If they can make a new DVD ROM tech that works with regular DVD players that will only cost consumers $3, then why do currently mass-produced DVDs cost so damn much now?