Self-Destructing DVDs

[Ksyrup]

Now this is cool...


Disney Impossible: self-destructing DVDs

Firm eyes competition with rental chains with $5 movie discs that become unreadable in 48 hours.
September 9, 2003: 7:55 AM EDT


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If Walt Disney Co. gets its wish, an experimental type of DVD will begin flying off store shelves Tuesday, and self-destructing 48 hours later.

Disney (DIS: Research, Estimates) movies on disposable DVDs are set to arrive in convenience stores, pharmacies and other outlets in a four-city test of whether Americans will pick up a limited-life DVD rather than dropping by a video rental store.

The red DVDs turn an unreadable black 48 hours after their packages are opened -- exposing them to oxygen, which reacts with the disc in a process similar to how Polaroid film develops.

The DVDs, which are being distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney's home video unit, will carry a suggested price of $6.99.

Some retailers are expected to sell them for as little as about $5, said Alan Blaustein, chief executive of Flexplay, which owns the self-destruct technology.

The advantage to the disposable DVD format -- known as EZ-D -- is that such discs can be sold anywhere and never need to be returned, potentially turning any retailer into a competitor with video rental chains such as Blockbuster Inc (BBI: Research, Estimates).

"It should be 'aisle two, bread, aisle 4, EZ-D,"' said Flexplay's Blaustein, who predicted families would continue to rent videos and start buying the disposable DVDs as well.

Stores in Austin, Texas; Peoria/Bloomington, Illinois; Charleston, South Carolina; and Kansas City, Missouri will begin stocking the disposable DVDs including titles such as "Signs" and "The Recruit."

Toys R Us, Phillips 66, Circle K, CVS and Walgreens are some of the chains participating.

The plan has stirred some criticism from environmentalists such as the Alliance for Safe Alternatives, which is asking callers to phone Disney and tell them to scrap the plan which they say will add needless waste to America's landfills.

The plan offers some recycling -- though not in-store -- and consumers will eventually be able to get a new disc in return for six used ones, the companies said.

Although the disposable DVD format does not make it harder for digital pirates to make illegal copies, Blaustein said by making DVDs cheaper the effort would also undercut the incentive to make such bootleg copies.

[QuikSand]

genius.

[GrantDawg]

Will probably fly.

[Fritz]

are they edible? they should be

[Bee]

Originally posted by Fritz
are they edible? they should be

mmm...American Pie.

[GrantDawg]

Why does American Pie smell like tuna?







I can't believe I posted that

[albionmoonlight]

This plan makes perfect sense. However, I do share the environmental concerns. The fundamental problem is that it is so cheap to pull raw materials out of the earth and process them that it adds a negligible cost to the value of a DVD. All the value is in the intellectual property.

Some people had predicted that the move to intellectual property would create less use and waste of raw materials. It seems that the effect may be the opposite as raw materials become less valuable in a relative sense and, therefore, more disposable.

Additionally, people, rightly or wrongly, view their time as more valuable than ever before. Taking 6 minutes to run to return a movie has become an unacceptable cost–more valuable than the raw materials to make the DVD–and worth paying a premium to avoid. (see also: buying more expensive pre-cooked food with lots of packaging rather than taking the time to cook dinner).

I don’t fault people for making rational choices about what is more and less valuable to them and acting accordingly. I, do, however, think that there is an environmental cost to these decisions in the aggregate that will end up affecting all of us in the long run.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by GrantDawg
Why does American Pie smell like tuna?







I can't believe I posted that

in case grantdawg decided to edit his post.

[KWhit]

Anybody remember Divx?

[digamma]

Originally posted by KWhit
Anybody remember Divx?

Beat me to it. What was that 3 or 4 years ago? Maybe the idea has had time to sink in, but it was a miserable failure then.

[Shkspr]

Apparently going after that lucrative demographic of People-Who-Are-Willing-To-Pay-Three-Times-The-Going-Rate-Of-Catalog-Rentals-To-Pick-Up-A-Title-They-Get-To-Watch-For-Half-The-Time-As-A-Rental-And-That-Was-Available-On-Pay-Per-View-Months-Ago.

It's Div-X all over again, only with movies that are available in the used bin for $6-$8.

Disney wants to gauge how truly lucrative this is? Release the Lion King DVD to the disposable format September 30.

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by KWhit
Anybody remember Divx?

I alreadyI thought of that, but there are two ways this will probably work:

1) Divx was introduced at the same time as the DVD. It was still a new format and there was a much smaller customer base then there is now (shoot, you couldn't even rent at that time).

2) To top the smaller customer base even further, only certain machines had the feature that allowed there use, and they were only sold at Circuit City (the DVDs, maybe the machines as well). That is way too limited to be affective.

[Marmel]

I cannot understand why PPV cannot be expanded to include massive libraries of movies where the viewer can choose the movie and the time to watch it.

Hotels can do this with a limited library, so why can't a cable company get something like this going. I prefer to pay 4.95 and never leave the house to rent a movie, but the choice is pretty limited although they usually start every 30-60 minutes.

Still, the self destructing DVD is a great idea.

[Wolfpack]

The other problem with DivX was the fact that the player was connected by phone line to a central database to ensure that the discs were properly credited for use. Lots of privacy advocates got up in arms over the fact that DivX and Circuit City could track your buying habits that way. This is substantively different from that in that respect since these discs don't allow time extension by holding everyone to the same 48-hour limit.

And I agree with albion...it's a friggin' waste of plastic. AoHell already bombards us with CD-ROMs that most of us just chuck into the trash. Why add to that? I'm generally a conservative, but even I recognize that our society sometimes gets a little too disposable. Be that as it may, it is up to the consumer to decide this matter. It may not matter in the long run if video-on-demand or internet-connected televisions utilizing cable can download DVD quality movies in a reasonable amount of time, rendering rentals obsolete.

[EagleFan]

Isn't the idea of buying a DVD instead of renting so you can have it whenever you want to watch it? 6.99 is more than the usual 3-5 day rantals at a video store. I'm not going to pay more for something that I can't use 2 days after I bought it when I can rent it for cheaper.

Pirates will continue to rent and burn DVD's. Consumers who buy DVD's will still buty the full version since you usually buy it so you an watch it whenever you want, as many times as you want. Consumers who want to see a movie once will still rent or go through PPV. I don't see there being a huge market for this, maybe I'm wrong.

[Samdari]

Originally posted by Marmel
I cannot understand why PPV cannot be expanded to include massive libraries of movies where the viewer can choose the movie and the time to watch it.

Hotels can do this with a limited library, so why can't a cable company get something like this going. I prefer to pay 4.95 and never leave the house to rent a movie, but the choice is pretty limited although they usually start every 30-60 minutes.

Still, the self destructing DVD is a great idea.
The simple reason for this is capacity. Hotel tv systems can differentiate the signal they send to individual televisions at the source. A different signal to each user requires a different path, which is relatively easy in a hotel. Cable companies do not send a different cable from the source to each customer, they send out a single cable to each neighborhood, which branches to each street, which branches to each block. The 'trunks' of that tree, which are the cables to neighborhoods, can only carry limited signal, and nowhere near enough shuch that each end user could even have one channel dedicated to them alone.

If they could string a source differentiated cable to each house, two things would happen. One, the hotel type system would be possible. Two, the entire country would be buried in cable.

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by EagleFan
Isn't the idea of buying a DVD instead of renting so you can have it whenever you want to watch it? 6.99 is more than the usual 3-5 day rantals at a video store. I'm not going to pay more for something that I can't use 2 days after I bought it when I can rent it for cheaper.

Pirates will continue to rent and burn DVD's. Consumers who buy DVD's will still buty the full version since you usually buy it so you an watch it whenever you want, as many times as you want. Consumers who want to see a movie once will still rent or go through PPV. I don't see there being a huge market for this, maybe I'm wrong.

Your missing the quote on down that many stores will probably offer them at $5. I think $7 is too much, but many will pick them up at $5.

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by Samdari
The simple reason for this is capacity. Hotel tv systems can differentiate the signal they send to individual televisions at the source. A different signal to each user requires a different path, which is relatively easy in a hotel. Cable companies do not send a different cable from the source to each customer, they send out a single cable to each neighborhood, which branches to each street, which branches to each block. The 'trunks' of that tree, which are the cables to neighborhoods, can only carry limited signal, and nowhere near enough shuch that each end user could even have one channel dedicated to them alone.

If they could string a source differentiated cable to each house, two things would happen. One, the hotel type system would be possible. Two, the entire country would be buried in cable.

But if the movie is transmitted (downloaded to) to a digital box that stores the movie to be replayed anytime (like TiVo), shouldn't that work? You wouldn't need to dedicate a channel.

edit: I'd swear Time Warner is doing something like this on my in-laws system in Daytona...

[EagleFan]

Doh! You mean I actually have to read all of these stories. :)

[Fritz]

Originally posted by Samdari
The simple reason for this is capacity. Hotel tv systems can differentiate the signal they send to individual televisions at the source. A different signal to each user requires a different path, which is relatively easy in a hotel. Cable companies do not send a different cable from the source to each customer, they send out a single cable to each neighborhood, which branches to each street, which branches to each block. The 'trunks' of that tree, which are the cables to neighborhoods, can only carry limited signal, and nowhere near enough shuch that each end user could even have one channel dedicated to them alone.

If they could string a source differentiated cable to each house, two things would happen. One, the hotel type system would be possible. Two, the entire country would be buried in cable.

this sounds a lot like the "why cable internet can't work" argument people were making around '96.

FWIW, Cisco has tackled this exact sort of task.

edit:

seems to me the only real challenge would be getting enough information to the user to have a quality picture in a large size. This may not be too much of a task if you want analog quality video/aduio.

[Shkspr]

Originally posted by GrantDawg
Your missing the quote on down that many stores will probably offer them at $5. I think $7 is too much, but many will pick them up at $5.

And you can rent them at a video store (often in the same block as the drugstores Disney's targeting) for $1.50-$3.50, depending on whether they're new releases or older ones, frequently for four days rather than two.

Ifyou want to shell out $5 for a DVD for two days, why not pick up a used copy for $8? Of the seven films that are part of this deal, at least five have been around long enough that used copies at video stores have hit the markdown racks.


Fastplay has some utility. I'll grant. Academy awards screeners, promotions in cereal boxes, that sort of thing. If this were being promoted as an alternative to music CDs (which routinely get called "too expensive"), it might fly. But the market goal is supposedly convenience, and we in America drive too damn many places for it to be truly inconvenient to throw the DVD into the car and drop it off at the video store, particularly when it costs us twice as much to toss it in the trash instead.

[Bee]

I'll stick with Netflix, but thanks anyway. :)

[clintl]

I think this is an idea that will be a failure in the market. It doesn't really fill a niche that isn't being filled already by other means.

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by Shkspr
And you can rent them at a video store (often in the same block as the drugstores Disney's targeting) for $1.50-$3.50, depending on whether they're new releases or older ones, frequently for four days rather than two.


Sure, if you never run up late fees. I think an average rental for me ends up costing me about $6 a rental because it never fails that I forget the DVDs at home when I leave the house. That's why I'm on Netflix and never rent any longer. This would be an attractive alternative, though.

[Franklinnoble]

Bah. I plan on watching my movies in an oxygen-free environment, thereby defeating the system.

[Ksyrup]

Originally posted by Franklinnoble
Bah. I plan on watching my movies in an oxygen-free environment, thereby defeating the system.

Maybe we should develop and market fashionable oxygen masks and cannisters for use with this new system. It's a niche market, sure, but I bet we'd make a killing!

[Fritz]

This is much better than the first generation disposable movie technology pioneered by Fisher - the 48 hour self destructing DVD player.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by EagleFan
Isn't the idea of buying a DVD instead of renting so you can have it whenever you want to watch it? 6.99 is more than the usual 3-5 day rantals at a video store. I'm not going to pay more for something that I can't use 2 days after I bought it when I can rent it for cheaper.

For me, at least, a significant part of the "cost" in renting a movie is the time and effort of driving to the damned rental place. It takes maybe 15 minutes each way.

It's certainly not the end of the world, but the value of my time and the cost of using my vehicle to get there and back a second time for the rental is very possibly worth two bucks to me. If a rental is $4.50 now (mine area) and a dossolving disc is $6.00-$7.00... I'll at least think about it.

(Thinking just about the value of my time...15 minutes for two bucks. The 7-Eleven would hire me for $8 an hour, but I'm not willing to give up my time for that little pay... same thing applies here)

[Samdari]

I hear ya QS. There are many instances where I will gladly pay $3 to get an extra half hour (the RT drive to the video store) of free time. But, I read the article and immediately decided there was no way I was going to do this.

I cannot see it as anything but a 75% price increase over the video store - much harder to justify looking at it that way rather than a simple $3. When you consider that $7 is often 1/3 of what it would cost for a permanent copy? No way I'm paying that.

I am kind of curious that Disney has chosen to do this. I thought families with kids were more likely to buy real copies. If half an hour is worth $3, what is two hours twenty times a year worth?

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by QuikSand
For me, at least, a significant part of the "cost" in renting a movie is the time and effort of driving to the damned rental place. It takes maybe 15 minutes each way.

It's certainly not the end of the world, but the value of my time and the cost of using my vehicle to get there and back a second time for the rental is very possibly worth two bucks to me. If a rental is $4.50 now (mine area) and a dossolving disc is $6.00-$7.00... I'll at least think about it.

(Thinking just about the value of my time...15 minutes for two bucks. The 7-Eleven would hire me for $8 an hour, but I'm not willing to give up my time for that little pay... same thing applies here)

This is the main reason I've gone with Netflix. I spend enough of my time commuting to and from work each day, I won't burn a goddam minute on anything else. I get movies I want to see right in my mailbox at the frequency I want, and it's hard to go anywhere without passing a mailbox to drop them back into.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by QuikSand

(Thinking just about the value of my time...15 minutes for two bucks. The 7-Eleven would hire me for $8 an hour, but I'm not willing to give up my time for that little pay... same thing applies here)

but you have a masters. perhaps they would pay you more.

[thesloppy]

I think they're on the right track here, if they can get every copy of 'Signs' to destroy itself, I will applaud them.

[sabotai]

"I am kind of curious that Disney has chosen to do this. I thought families with kids were more likely to buy real copies. "

Good point Samdari. How many times do you see kids want to rent the same movie over again? Every single time I go to the video store, there seems to be one mother going "You already saw that movie." Kids want to watch the movies over and over again. Especially little kids, 1-4 years old. Whenever my mom babysits my neice, there's a DVD on to keep the kid occupied. (She's 2 1/2...she needs to be occupied or it'd be total chaos. :) )

Anyway, the point is the market for Disney and these movies is kids. And kids want to have the DVD to watch again and again. I think this whole deal fails.

Marmal, for "Movies on Demand" (as Comcast calls them), look into digital cable or satellite TV. They usually just have a limited selection, but they do let you rent movies in the way you described.

One line from the story has me shaking my head. It's just bad logic.

"Although the disposable DVD format does not make it harder for digital pirates to make illegal copies, Blaustein said by making DVDs cheaper the effort would also undercut the incentive to make such bootleg copies."

No, making the actual permanent kind of DVDs cheaper will undercut the incentive to bootleg DVDs. Because, and here's the thing, bootlegs of DVDs are permanent! It's just helping the bootleggers when you give out temporary DVDs for $6 or $7 when the permananet ones still cost $15-$20. You just cut an expense of their's in half.

[thesloppy]

Hey, I got an idea....if you an actually spend enough on technology to make DVDs self-destruct, and still make a profit selling them for $5, WHY NOT JUST SELL THE ACTUAL DVD FOR $5?

How many people rent movies twice, or buy the movie AFTER they've rented it? Couldn't the potential losses be covered by those that would end up buying the movie who may not have wanted to 'rent' it for a snazzy, new higher price $5, or would've bootlegged it if it were more expensive?

[sabotai]

I'm sure Blockbuster would not like that one bit. :)

[Leonidas]

I'm not getting this. Is this just Disney's ultimate product for the short attention span generation? Like many are pointing out, why the heck would I want to pay $5 for something that goes away in 48 hours when I can pay $3-4 for the same thing and get a week to use it? The only advantage to this thing is I don't have to return it to the video store I happen to drive by on my way to and from work every day. Gee, that's worth the extra buck or two plus less time to use it.

[Ragone]

In other news.. the dvd's are copyable.. :P

and in other news.. anyone consider using a vacuum sealed bag on one to see if it stops the degradation?

[Ksyrup]

Maybe my viewing habits are different from everyone else's, but do any of you get any real use of the extra 2 or 3 days on a movie rental? The only time I rent a movie is when I know I'll be watching it that night. Sometimes - rarely, if ever - I will rent a movie on a Friday, thinking that I will watch it by Saturday night, if not that same night. And that one viewing is the only time I want to watch the movie, and it's likely the only time I have to watch it regardless, even if I wanted to watch it again.

My point is, I never make use of the full 3-5 days you get for a rental. If anything, I'd rather have the option to rent for just 1 or 2 nights, and get it at a cheaper price - the movie's coming back to them quicker than if I could hold it for the full 4 or 5 days, meaning another opportunity to rent it for them, which should translate to a cheaper cost to me.

So, this seems like a great thing to me. Yes, it costs me $2-4 more, but if they expanded this to include just-released movies, this could really be worth it, if the alternative is trying to get to Blockbuster and finding that all of the copies of the movie you wanted were already rented. Throw in the fact that I don't have to worry about returning it...I see a market for this.

And, contrary to some opinions, I think the Disney movies could be perfect for this. If this caught on, I wonder how many parents would be duped into purchasing the same disposable movie more than once, just to shut their kids up while grocery shopping?

[korme]

what the hell, this idea sucks

[RendeR]

The fact that this is burnable will do nothing more than escalate the pirating of movies. Think about it, if people have to rent them to copy them off, there is a record of it. if they can just buy it off the shelf and burn it, where is the record of who had what?


this is a DVD pirates wet dream about to happen.

[RendeR]

and on another note, anyone who has digital cable right now will have the ability to dial up whatever movie they choose anytime they choose,

I know Comcast has it running on some of their regions, I'm in metro-west boston and its coming here supposedly by the end of 2003.

how do they do it? who cares. They do and thats all that matters =)

[wishbone]

My wife and I were in on some of the testing for this a year ago and I think it's a great idea for the following reasons:
Clean unused DVDs - I rent at Hollywood and have found disks that looked like they were put through rock polishers, used as gas station bathroom key holders and one that had peanut butter (i think) on it.
Convenience - If I see a movie I want as I finish doing my grocery shopping, I would rather get it than make a whole other stop at the rental place. And I don't have to return it.
Choice - I can get a movie and decide when I want to watch it, When I decide to watch it, I open the package and have 48ish hrs to watch it. There are no limitations on when I can watch it, I can pause it or stop it while I go to the bathroom.

What I don't like:

Price - $3-$4 makes more sense to me. This makes it a rental replacement but I'm guessing they don't want to create problems for Hollywood, Blockbuster and all the other rental places. In fact, I'll bet those 2 companies have talked to Disney about the price point and don't mind the $5-$7
Time - I would prefer 3-4 days, again to make it more of a rental replacement.

As far as environmental concerns, can anything be done with cd/dvds at this point? Can they recycle them or reuse the material somehow?

[Killebrew]

I like this idea a lot, especially the angle of attacking piracy by reducing the incentive. The return-6-disposable-DVD's to get a new one is a clever way of reducing the waste/recycle concern, assuming something can be done with the garbage DVD's.

[sabotai]

On the recycling issue, aren't DVD's mostly plastic? What else are the physically made of? It doesn't seem liek it would be hard to recycle them in some regard.

[sabotai]

You know what? I changed my mind. I love this idea.

I can now pay $6 for one of these things, take it over to my friend's house, rip the data off it and use his DVD Burner to make a new, permanent copy. A $20 DVD mine for $6 + the cost of the blank DVD (which would be about another buck or two.) That's over half off.

I've seen the light!