Yet Another Degrading DVD 672
Aire Libre writes "Efforts to eliminate price competition from cheap DVD rentals and used DVD sales appear to be speeding up. Flexplay Technology's EZ-D self-destructing DVD, which goes dark in a lagardly 48 hours, has been surpassed by a French DVD-D that goes dark in a speedy eight hours. Because neither technology has anything to do with piracy, they both appear marketed at movie studios that might wish to drive up the price of DVD rentals. Presumably, once throw-away DVDs catch on, the studios can for the first time prevent price competition between rental and sales of DVDs by charging more for a regular DVD (rentable and re-saleable) and having the retail sales copies disappear 8 hours after opening so that no one can re-sell them, lend them, rent them or give them to charity. This will also suppress competition from rentals and used copies against currently uncompetitive online movie downloads."
Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
The combinatiom of these things does nothing to stop piracy, it may even increase it. You could rent one of these and copy it in the first 8 hours to a regular DVD-R and enjoy it forever.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Funny)
Actually I'm surprised, no-one has mentioned Circuit City's DivX, which was essentially the same, and went nowhere (maybe they should have learned?)...
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation: Flexplay has given a few donations to some gullible people who think they can browbeat taxpayers into paying for the mayor's best friend's garbage hauling contractor to set up whatever closed-loop recycling option makes everybody the most money and/or votes, depending on whether they're businessmen, lobbyists, or politicians, not that we
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course this would be 'ideal' because then we would find out what chemical they used and do it ourselves.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of this is to provide a watch-once (or a couple times anyway) copy of a piece of media to the average person. It's meant to deter copying, not prevent it, which you can't do anyway.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Interesting)
Recycle codes, if you're interested:
1 -> PETE (Polyethylene terephtalate)
2 -> HDPE (high density polyethylene)
3 -> PVC (polyvinyl chloride)
4 -> LDPE (low density polyethylene)
5 -> PP (polypropylene)
6 -> PS (polystyrene)
7 -> Other
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate to say it, but DIV-X's software solution to the same end that they are going for here makes a lot more sense environmentally. I'd be surprised if a Div-X-ish hardware time bomb wasn't integrated into the next round of the DVD spec.
Most recycling programs for things like this are just lip service to make people feel less bad about supporting a very wasteful technology. Polycarbonate (
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. This is such a throw-away society and this only makes it worse. After a time, you know that people are going to "force" government to mandate recycling programs for these types of DVDs, thus adding to the cost that the tax-payer ultimately pays (unless they tack on a deposit like soda cans in some US states, and perhaps elsewhere).
Once recycling technology improves in such a case, movie studios could buy back the cheaper plastic and probably make more of a profit than from new throw-aways, thus a
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
How high is this box. Is it a 30 mile cubed box. or 1 mile high, or 6 feet high, or 1 inch high. It really doesn't say much about the amount of garbage. I could fit the garbage of the US in a box that's one foot square. It would just stretch out to jupiter.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
Was that Oscar the Grouch? (Score:3, Informative)
You are wrong about many things so I'll just focus on a couple:
1. AL isn't the only product worth recycling. There is a little thing known as the scrap iron business that has been a major industry for over a century. In China and S Korea scrap metal is so valuable that people in Mongolia are collecting old junk cars and rebar and shipping it to China.
Glass is another item that is especially energy in
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Right (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition... On average, a city pays $50/ton to throw away garbage.... and $150+/ton to recycle it.
Re:Right (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition... On average, a city pays $50/ton to throw away garbage.... and $150+/ton to recycle it.
Back when DC had a recycling program, it cost less, per unit weight, than the trash disposal program. Of course, they shut it down, citing cost.
Re:Right (Score:3, Interesting)
If everything was recyclable and recycled, the costs of such a thing would come down, and the process would become more efficient. It would have to.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Right (Score:5, Interesting)
That's bottle recycling, not glass recycling. Your refreshing bottle of Vimto or Dandelion and Burdock had to be returned intact because the manufacturer wanted to clean and re-use the bottle. This actually makes sense both economically and environmentally.
Most glass recycling in the US is less logical; here in New York you are legally obliged to recycle glass. The glass is carefully sorted into three categories - clear, green and brown - before being mixed in with regular garbage for landfill because no one wants to buy the raw glass.
A year ago Mayor Bloomberg lifted the recycling requirement, to howls of anguish from armchair environmentalists. The recycling requirement is back in place now, but the glass still gets mixed back in with the regular garbage.
That isn't recycling the bottle is used again (Score:3, Informative)
What they are talking about is glass containers. Where the bottle is smashed and smelted again to create a new bottle.
Now a lot of the right wing make all kinds of claims that this kind of recycling is actually more costly. Funny thing is that the glass industry itself doesn't seem to think so. Just that the only problem is that
Re:Right (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Right (Score:5, Insightful)
That's exactly right. Even worse, most recycled products that are generated to satisfy 'green' consumer demand use more energy to produce than normal products and so are worse for the environment.
Essentially you're right. The big exceptions are metals, especially steel, aluminum, copper and lead, all of which are profitibly recycled. Of these, only aluminum recycling really benefits from consumer action. There is one big benefit to deposits on bottles though, and that is that some people find it worthwhile to pick up litter.
Old School Fool (Score:3, Insightful)
Dumping garbage is cheaper because it is only one small part of the recyc
Timeline (Score:5, Funny)
Hour 1: You realize the package was opened, but do not know when. Hour 2: You finally get home, only to realize that your Windows machine is DOA and needs a reinstall.
Re:Timeline (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Timeline (Score:3, Insightful)
And -- duh -- there's no market for it anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
The two potential uses I can think of for disposable DVDs would be:
a) "screener" disks and
b) maybe giveaway disks on cereal boxes? Neither one of those even makes much sense. For the screener problem, this would introduce a nuisance copy protection measure. (Note to industry; have those ever done anything to prevent copying?) For cheap giveaways, I'm missing why you'd want kids not to play your commercials-for-Fox-programs disk as many times as they'd want.
But this product page calls these "the new video rental." For anything like a Blockbuster chain, these'd *cut profits*. Rental places don't want to be paying extra for the media that get thrown away, and they make a ton of their money on late fees. I could almost, almost, imagine a model with re-recordable disks and a deposit system, but even that would just create a big nuisance for both customers and the store, with no payoff for them. Moot point, these aren't re-recordable.
If you imagine them as one-time-only purchases (as in "I want to watch this movie, but only once"), the priced had danged well better be way less than a ticket at the multiplex.
Where's the blinkin' market? Who's going to sell this to the audience? What market is there? Steve Jobs couldn't pitch this crap...
It really is as if, in some incredible example of snake-eats-its-own-tail self-reflexive logic, media companies are working steadily to assault their own audiences and remove their own products from circulation. They rant about how they don't want customers to have "near perfect" versions of their stuff, because that'd let people rip them. (You want me to have an inferior version of your product?!?) They steadily try to introduce restrictive DRM measures that prevent people who DO want to buy their products from feeling comfortable about it. Presented with the original Napster, they try to conduct a scorched earth war with their audience.
We didn't choose to accept this mission. The tape should not self-destruct in two minutes.
Re:And -- duh -- there's no market for it anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
There is only one way to make copy protection work:
Make the amount of effort required to bypass the copy protection greater than the gain.
Since there are people who regard breaking copy protection as an interesting challenge, the difficulty in bypassing copy protection for a consumer is usually about as difficult as a visit to google. Apple seem to have this right at the moment with iTMS (I've bought a few albums from it. I could remove the copy protection, but since I can listen to them on 5 computers, my iPod or burn to CD already I wouldn't gain anything.) I hope the rest of the industry learns from this (they probably won't, but I can hope).
Even if there were a market... (Score:3, Insightful)
Raising prices on DVD won't crush the video re
Re:And -- duh -- there's no market for it anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the funniest bits of research I've ever read delt with the last version of these. The analyst sent his assistant out to purchase them for trial purposes. In every case the clerk looked at him dumbfounded and
Re:And -- duh -- there's no market for it anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Regular DVD. Fair chance it's scratched up a the previous renter, and when you forget to return it (which you often do) it's gonna end up costing you twice as much. You can watch it as many times as you want (in two days), and even lend it to a friend (try not to get it back late!)
2) Disposable DVD. It's a fresh copy virtually garaunteed to not be scratched. You can only watch the movie once, but that's all you planned on doing anyway. Toss it when you're done, gauranteed no late fees.
Now, think about how you'd explain to your mom why she doesn't want #2, and tell me again how there is no market.
As far as who is going to sell it, the middleman doesn't really have much of a say in that. If the big money supplier is pushing it, and the customers are demanding it, the free market will force the middleman to sell it or lose out to his competition that is.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Rental Length (Most rentals are like, 5 days now?)
2. Charging for unreterned rentals.
3. Sales of previously viewed movies.
I'll admit, I'm no expert on the economics of running a major rental chain, but this can't possibly be viewed as a positive thing by them... I mean really, what ADVANTAGE do they get? If I ran Blockbuster, I'd see it as the thinly-veiled attempt to screw me that it is, and reject it on that simple fact.
But, I guess we'll have to wait and see on that one...
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
Recycling still consumes energy and resources and produces pollution---just at a lower level than manufacturing from scratch. Manufacturing durable goods is better than manufacturing recyclable disposable goods.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly right. People have the idea that paper is made with the pulp of virgin rainforest. Almost all paper is made from crop trees which are locking down carbon dioxide.
The final irony is whales and the rainforest, which people feel are somehow 'good'. People think the rainforest generates most of the oxygen in the air, but rainforests only produce something like 5% of it; most oxygen comes from algae in the sea. Who's eating the algae? That's right, the whales.
So the upshot is that if you want to make a real contribution to the environment you would be campaigning to cut down the rainforest to make harpoons to kill the whales with.
Whales do NOT eat algae (Score:3, Informative)
Whales do *not* eat algae.
Whales eat krill - small, shrimplike creatures. Krill eat algae. Less whales = more krill. More krill = *less* algae.
In tropical waters it's actually slightly more complicated; some t
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
So even if it did make sense to kill the whales, people would not accept the idea. Our attitude towards the environment is totemic rather than rational.
For example, using recycled paper uses more resources and energy than new paper, and it doesn't lock down any carbon. People believe recycled paper is better because a simple lie is easier to accept than a complex truth.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why this 8-hour cd will be a boon to IP renegades. Insted of hours of downloading, buy a $2-4 dvd, rip it in minutes, toss.
The only upsetting thing is the amount of landfill material implied by these discs. There should be a way to make manufacturers pay in advance for the trash disposal costs such a practice would make inevitable.
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Absolutely Stupid! (Score:5, Informative)
DVDs are not recyclable, CDs and DVDs from the manufacturers that have been rejected are ground up for use as filler in building sites.
Here is a site that shows you how to reuses CDs/DVDs as a disco ball, or bird scarer... [worldwise.com]
Using old Abba CDs to make a disco ball has a certain justice to it.
People seem to forget the "three R's"... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Reduce
2. Re-use
3. Recycle
IN THAT ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. Yes, ultimately anything can be recycled, but recycling still requires energy and has an environmental impact.
The only widespread commercial use of TDP at the moment involves waste from food production. Food scraps, sewage and so on are basically "natural" organic waste. Things like CDs and DVDs are make from plastics--an organic chemistry process but still an "artificial" polymer. There are also a lot of inorganic components in the various layers, requiring extra energy and time to process out and re-use.
The best known commercial application (involving the turkey waste) has achieved quite a remarkable efficency in making waste into low-grade heating oil (upwards of 85%). However, consider the source--it is renewable. The original energy was from grains/poultry feed and water. Also consider that for every 1000 BTUs of energy stored in the waste only 850 BTUs becomes usable heating oil.
Now think about all these disposable DVDs. They are made from petroleum products--non-renewable oil pulled from the ground. It takes energy to make them to begin with, then it takes more energy to handle the waste (trucks burning fuel to haul the spent waste to a recycling facility). THEN it takes the 15 percent stored in the DVD material to convert it back into heating oil.
Why don't we forget about all of that crap with disposabel DVDs and just heat our homes with the oil that came from the ground in the first place? That would REDUCE how much non-renewable energy we used. When we buy DVDs today they don't become useless garbage in a few hours-- we can RE-USE them. that way we don't even need to RECYCLE them, and we can devote our resources to more effective recycling efforts--particularly those with big payoffs like composting, metal cans, glass bottles, building materials and scrap paper.
Besides the overtly greedy nature of such a scam as disposable media it is also blatantly wasteful. It makes me cringe when people casually throw away empty tins of soup, but at least food is a necessity and there are few proctical alternatives.
In the case of these throw-away DVDs their mere existence offends me. They are not a basic need, and take no less resources to make than a normal DVD--a practical alternative that is very re-usable. I hope they become the miserable flop they deserve to be and that the inventor and company responsible for them end up broke and destitute.
*phew* good to get the nut-case out of me from time to time...but you get the idea---recyclable or not they are a lousy idea.
That's fine with me... (Score:4, Insightful)
WARNING (Score:5, Funny)
And here I thought... (Score:2)
Only 8 hours? (Score:3, Insightful)
48 hour dvd disks are much more suitable for rental.
Re:Only 8 hours? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Only 8 hours? (Score:2)
At least I doubt it's 8 hours from when the DVD is manufactured, or there would be some problems with transport/stocking
Everyone will have to do it (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the distributors who use these DVDs better make sure they don't distribute the same movie in VHS format, or else people will just go back to that. How this helps the distributors I'll be fucked if I know (it is possible to pirate videos, just before DVD became popular they were experimenting in copy-protection, but there would have been work-arounds).
I really don't get the point to this, this will only increase piracy. People like to own stuff they buy. If you make them think they don't own it, they won't buy it if there is an alternative (even an illegal one) available.
It's Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
I heard about the first degrading disk a long time ago, and I really see it as THE WORST invention in many years.... It's a horrible product for consumers, and a clear example of many things that are horribly wrong with companies today.
Re:It's Sad. (Score:5, Informative)
So yes. Companies do spend a lot of time and effort making crippled products that cost them more to produce than the premium version. And they have been doing it for years.
Re:It's Sad. (Score:4, Interesting)
In the case of the 486, the math processor took about 3/4ths of the die, which means that 75% of the errors were in that spot. Intel saved themselves some cash by first testing the chip in total, then if it tested bad, disabling the math processor and testing it again. Those 2nd line chips were sold as 486SX processors.
Re:It's Sad. (Score:3, Interesting)
Where is the market? (Score:2)
Stability? (Score:2)
8 Hours?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, one legitimate use for these (Score:2)
Oh well, as bandwidth improves, downloading movies(legally) will *hopefully* become the norm of after-theatre distribution. But then again, the MPAA could always emulate the enormously successful strategy of the RIAA
hey (Score:2)
Take it easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, the technology has only been developed. The movie studios haven't bought in yet. And if they do, it'll only be a financial disaster for them.
Using laquer... (Score:2)
MI (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone have any ideas for Mission Impossible to stay ahead of the game?
Idiotic (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, think of the environmental impact of these disposable discs! Thousands of t
Re:Idiotic (Score:2)
No. They will force all the blockbusters (and even small shops) to get the disposable ones. They simply won't sell regular DVDs to video rental stores.
Re:Idiotic (Score:3, Interesting)
This message will self destruct... (Score:5, Funny)
They should make them a bit more exciting. When you have finished watching the DVD it should display "This DVD will self-destruct in ten, nine, eight..." so you have to quickly take it out of the player and throw it out of the window just before it explodes. Would make watching DVDs much more fun, and would stop you falling asleep during movies.
Probably redundant but... (Score:2)
From now on, I'll just keep the master copy stored away safe and only give them copies to play.
Joe
Re:Probably redundant but... (Score:5, Informative)
I would highly suggest you go get a DVD burner really soon, the prices of even a Dual Layer Burner are below a 100 bucks. You can then rip out all those commercials and simply insert the DVD and Walk away and it will play automatically. Download DVD Decrypted [dvddecrypter.com] and DVD Shrink [dvdshrink.org]. You will never touch the originals again. The convenience of a movie playing when you insert the disk is the greatest thing for kids (no waiting no fussing you'll agree).
This too shall pass (fail actually) (Score:3, Interesting)
People just don't want to buy something that becomes worthless as a matter of course, and they probably never will. As far as I'm concerned, these products are just interesting exercises in chemical engineering, and nothing more.
Blockbuster will never go for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the studios expect Blockbuster to carry 3000 copies per location to get that same number of rentals? Or order 30 copies per week, every week, for the same time period?
Shyeah, right. Blockbuster's a big enough corporation that they won't hesitate to tell the studios to get stuffed on this.
They won't need Blockbuster... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just sell 'em at retail for a couple of bucks, and the purchaser get's 48 hours of viewing once they crack open the package or first play it. No returns, no lost DVD's, no damaged DVD's
Who takes the plunge? (Score:2, Interesting)
If someone *were* to take a gamble on these, I bet the geeks in the world could fin
Economic model? (Score:5, Interesting)
Awards Show Screeners (Score:2)
I don't know if it's the academy members that do the ripping or the people they loan them out to after screening it, but if it's the latter, this would help reduce the problem.
Disposable DVDS solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Say that when you tried to play it the DVD was already dead. How can they prove the air seal hadn't failed already or the disk was faulty due to a manufacturing defect.
Philip
Re:Disposable DVDS solution. (Score:3, Funny)
It will just include an nice EULA then that will tell you to fuck off and go to hell if you have any complaints.
Also, this EULA will be printed on the inside of the case.
Re:Disposable DVDS solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
Eh? The product works exactly as described on the package--it was viewable for eight hours after opening--and you bought it from the clearly-labeled 'disposable DVD' section of the store, and paid significantly less than for the conventional DVD...
And you're going to hassle the store for a refund?
I bought milk a while ago. It went sour after the expiry date.
Audio/Video quality (Score:3, Interesting)
So does this mean that the A/V quality of the film will degrade as I watch it? If this thing is slowly going dark over 8 hours after I open it and the movie is say 3 -> 4 hours long, will I notice a loss in quality as the film progresses?
I imagine that Hi-Fi DVD players will not like these discs one bit...
8 hour money. (Score:5, Funny)
Soloution hanging onto dieing problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Which means that I pretty much NEVER rent from the video store anymore. PPV usually costs a little bit less than a video rental, I don't have to return anything, and I can keep it as long as I want. Other than the fact that the concept is really kind of insulting, decaying DVDs are irrelevant to me.
I suspect that they're going to be irrelevant to most people, too, which means that there's going to be almost no market for them. But if there is a market for them, who am I to say how other people spend their money? These things are only going to take off if there's a demand. If there isn't demand, they'll die. If there is demand, they'll sell. If they sell, I think it's a bit presumptuous of the
Two things (Score:5, Insightful)
Point 2: I frequently open up a disc to check it out, read the book, look at the artwork, etc, and sometimes don't get around to actually watching the thing for weeks.
Of course, they will probably use this for totally cut-rate, disc-in-a-jewel-box, no booklet, no commentary, no extras crap versions. Knowing their market, they'll probably all be 4:3 pan & scan shit, too. Remember DivX (the original, BAD one)?
Wastefulness (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to be an environmentalist or anything, but our garbage production is already out of control, and the manufacturing process for CDs and DVDs is already polutant enough. This is over the top.
This is a great example of when scientific researchers should pause and think "is this the right thing to do?" It's time the concept of ethics got reintroduced to science, but that's unfortunately not likely to happen.
Science, meet my good friend Ethics. Ah, you know each other! Well then, here's to old friends!
irreversible? we'll see... (Score:3, Funny)
Environmental concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Note: I'm not an environmentalist, just looking for other ways to poke holes in this technology plan)
Backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
You may want to loosen that tin-foil hat a little--it's cutting off more than just the spy-waves.
What self-degrading DVDs do is allow a whole bunch of retailers (Walmart, Target, gas-stations, etc.) to sell 1 viewing of a movie. That's a new product for them. That allows them to hit the $8 pricepoint for single viewings and the $30 pricepoint for durable DVDs. It's not like the durable retail DVDs we have now are going away any time soon. (All of which is bad for consumers, of course.)
Current rental shops, BTW, should _hate_ degradable DVDs. First, they cost more per sale than rerentable durable DVDs. Second, rental shops _love_ late fees, which degradables don't have. Third, rental shops love returns because it causes people to go to their store. Fourth, degradables allow big-box retailers to enter the rental shops' price range, eating their business.
Can't you just picture the marketing meeting? (Score:5, Funny)
Its funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other, the more they push them, the more people will realize how hard they're getting screwed, and will resort to MODERN methods of aquiring media, ie, P2P, and BT.
Now, of course piracy is bad...and there WILL be actions taken (like the RIAA suing), but they can't sue everybody, and sooner or later we'll have something similar to what happened with prohibition.
Who knows, maybe all we have to do to usher in the new era the right way is just sit back, keep doing what we're doing (including developing new distribution technologies, and yes, pirating) and let the companies shoot themselves in the foot over and over again.
It may get worse for us before it gets better, but these things take a long time, as they have a lot of money. Sooner or later though, either they'll run out, or they'll lose enough where they are forced to do things our way.
Returns??? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the disks work on how long it has been since the disk has been exposed to air, then 8 hours would hardly be enough time to get the disk back to the store you purchased it...I imagine one of the advantages of this format is that stores not likely to rent DVDs could sell at a competitive price. The only problem is, most people play DVDs at night (after they get home)...you pick up one of these disks from a local store and open it at 10pm...by the time the store opens in the morning, the disk is already dead.
And the other method is to base it on hours of actual play (i.e. the laser destroys part of the disk as it reads)...this too would be a bad idea, as most defective disks don't show problems until somewhere around the layer change. On some movies, this isn't for an hour or so into the movie. Some cheaper DVD players (Apex players specifically) exhibit similar problems when the player needs to be reset. You would certainly be asked to try reseting the player first (at which time you'ld probably already be at least half way through the 8 hours).
How does the technology work with fast forward??? slow motion??? If I run a film in slow motion, could the disk actually die before I get to the end??? If I run it in fast forward, could it die within an hour??? Do intro trailers and such count??? (they shouldn't...that's not what I bought) And what about Enhanced DVD-ROM content??? Probably none. These will likely be bare bones DVDs with little more than a few trailers. Which means they probably won't even compete with DVDs...
And lastly, what will this technology do to people's DVD Players??? Harsh chemicals and electronics don't always mix well...
DivX by any othe name is still DivX.
Re:Only 8 hours? (Score:2, Funny)
I guess you'll need to get 33 copies of 'Another 48hours' with it.
Re:Rent, rip, throw away... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually it might lend people into making this a standard procedure - just in case. And once the image is on HDD, it is easier to decide to make a copy/reencode it (easy-to-use tools are available) - so this will propably actually promote piracy of rented DVDs.
Copy-protection - why now? (Score:3, Insightful)
So the question is, why then? What happened then that made everyone from that point onward paranoid about copy-protection? It's like America with terrorism. Before 9/11 your average-day joe didn't c
Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Basicly, the time aspect disappeared. Before, you usually had to wait a while and dig around to get the latest and greatest fad. Nowadays they're released as fast or faster than retail.
Also, I think it might have something to do with DVDs having CSS. It would even it out "they both have it", no reason to stay on VHS.
Re:Cinema or home? (Score:3, Insightful)
They've done that already. I believe the reply to DeCSS was "Oh c'mon! That took us forever to come up with!"
Let's face it, people, copy protection is really really easy to do. It's really really hard to do it well.
Re:Cinema or home? (Score:3, Informative)
It cost me $50 to take the family (of four) to see Shrek II. I got the reduced matinee pricing for seeing an early show. I got the discounted 'combo snack packs' which allowed one treat and a small drink for each person.
Next time, I'll wai
Re:kickass (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but your case is baseless.
Re:kickass (Score:3, Insightful)
DO NOT TRY THIS YOURSELF!
Or at least, for the love of god look away while doing it, most cheap CD-Rs explode into lots of tiny little pieces. I'm not sure how recoverable they are after the data layer is lying in the dust on the floor, but my guess is "not very".