Self Destructing DVD's come to a store near you.

[waheed]

I heard these disposable disks will be DVD-5. will attract those with burners.

Personally, its going to be a failure. dont think it will ever take off.

[mkelley]

Since we're revisiting this topic, I read yesterday the Academy (of motion pictures, natch) is thinking about using these type of disks for sending out their "previews" (where the members can watch the nominated films). Apparently there are soooo many pirated DVDs of these they are thinking this is the solution.

This is actually one case where it makes sense to me -- although if my experience with these bubble headed Hollywood types is any indication, more than half will open them up and intend to play them later, and then find they can't. That will be a LOT of fun <g>.

[overloaded_ide]

For all of you on the enviroment band wagon, why not mention the waist of producing all those throw away disks also! Yea everyone has now stated land fills many times! What about producing those things? They don't grow on trees you know!

How much oil is needed to produce the plastics?
Electric to power machines to produce them? Ect....
Making electric uses resouces too! And the factories don't burn candles for lights either!
Shipping from Tiawan to the US. You don't think they will make them here do ya? Na, they'll just be thrown away here, but like everything else they will most likely be made in China!

No offense meant to the Chinese, they make great products, just look at how much of it we buy!

See what I mean, lots of waist in making them also, just so you can fill the dumps latter!
Recycling is not the answer either, you waist the resources to make something to throw away so you can waist more resources to use it over!

Yea, sure you buy them as rentals you don't have to take back. But when you take back a rental, it is used over and over! They don't just rent them once, they rent the one disk as many times as they can!

Some-one mentioned other things we rent. I don't toss out $5 for a 48 hour rental often, and when I do it's for a hundred dollar tool I need to use but not worth buying! Sure I'd rent an engine lift (before I bought one)
for $20 for the weekend, but I needed the $200 tool to do one engine. Then I bought my own when I decided to do more engines. I'll rent a $20,000 back hoe to dig a ditch or foundation for a building for $500 for a weekend if I need to, but only because I won't need it enough to buy one and can't afford it if I did need it.
But $5 for a movie for 48 hrs? Might as well pay $8 and see it on the big screen! Or I'll rent 5 at $2 each for a total of $10 plus tax. Like a whole series like Beverly hills cop, police academy, Rocky I through Rocky 26
Friday the 13 all the way to Friday the 13 the final chapter 6
Examples aren't my favorites but you see what I mean. Many of us like to get a whole series like Star Trek the movie all the way to the last one like Star treck 6 and watch em all at once over a whole weekend. Thats another reason throwaways s*ck! I'll blow $12 on a six movie set for the weekend, so will many others, but $30 for 6 throw aways? No way!

As for AOL, Garbage disks for a Garbage product! I get the disks all the time and they are not even available in this area, hows that for smart marketing? Spend money making disks and paying postage to mail me disks I don't want for a service they cannot provide!

As for Milk and soda, we are comparing stupidity to a necesity! Throw away disks are stupid! Milk is needed, and unless you can raise your own cow and milk it fresh you HAVE to have some type container! Plastic is used because the govement once claimed Glass cannot be sanitized properly for milk. Most likely a bunch of bull. But, the fact is we use so much plastic for milk and soda bottles becuase so many IDIOTS out there tossing glass bottles out the car windows (mostly soda) and they smash on the roads or lay in the ditches or weeds beside the roads. They are a saftey hazzard because of stupid people!
So we use plastic which only harms the enviorment for the most part, not people and car tires! Also it is cheaper to produce plastic bottles than glass ones and both will fill landfills! Most States do not require a deposit and recycling of plastic soda bottles like they do glass ones. That was a big problem for stores in the old days. They had to charge a deposite on the bottle, then buy them back when you returned them, which meant they had to store the glass bottles some where taking up valueable store space. SO glass is better, but not used for many reasons! For sodas glass was great, could be washed and sanatized and reused, did not have to be recycled as in destroyed and re-made.
I hate that plastic taist you get with many things, and aluminum is even worse!
Cardboard is still used for half gallon (and smaller) milk and orange juice (and other stuff), but not for gallons.

Deposites worked for many years for many people, they would go out and find glass bottles laying around and return them for gas money! As a kid I used to find 5 cents bottles all over the place and return them, then they went to 10 cents, then plastics that stay were they are thrown!
Many people go out looking for cans, they have a built in deposite! No-one looks for plastics! Well maybe in the few states with deposites on plastic bottles.

As for the disks themselfs, why even be so stupid as to pay $5 for one?
Around here I rent the DVD's for $2 when I rent one, and I can buy the movie for $10-$20. Lately I been buying some pretty good older movies from Wall mart on DVD for $5 and those are real to keep forever! So why would I want to pay $5 for a 2 day disk? I can rent 5 for the cost of 2!

If it comes to my only option is buy a throw away disk or do with out, geuss what! Ya, I'll keep my money and they can keep thier disks!

That just shows the greed again for companies like Disney! Still like $15 or $20 for The Love Bug DVD, movie is nearly as old as me, came out when I was a kid! I can Buy Leathal Weapon and a couple of Star Trek movies for $5 each! Don't tell me it cost more to make the Love Bug DVD than it does the others either!
Sure we all love that cute little volkswagon Herbie, but dam $20 for a 30+ year old movie?? Cost as much or more than the new Disney movies, course most aren't as good as the old ones anyway. When Walt was frozen Disney Died! And Star Trek still has it's groupies! I never heard of or saw a Love Bug convention! Hundreds of people dressed like little VWs? Nope never did!

What we need is right now for the US goverment to step in and shut the disk deal down with something like a durability law! No more throw away products like these disks, and Bic lighters can be made refillable to be re-used very cheaply! You can buy a re-fillable lighter like a Bic for $2, so pass a durabilty law items must be permanant!
But greed again!
Loss of tax dollars if people don't have to buy the same items 3 or four times like lighters and disks!

The only type items that should truely be made as throw aways (one use) are things like tampons, disposable diapers and paper towels!

And no, I am not overly concerned with the enviorment myself.
The earth was here before man and will be here after man has extermented ourselfs, when it's ready the earth will shake us off like a dog shaking fleas!
But I don't beleave in needlessly destoying it either!

[sammie]

At the risk of sidetracking the environmental point (which I generally agree with but isn't the only reason this is a bad idea), one of the major issues I see is that low volume stuff will all but disappear from availability if this format becomes standard. As pointed out earlier, one of the reasons that this format would be attractive to the manufacturers is that it puts disks everywhere, not just Blockbuster's. In fact I imagine it would spell the end of most rental places. The problem then becomes that no one can compete with the large retailers and the large retailers are not famous for stocking a deep or old catalog of items (try and buy a slightly odd ball nut or washer at Home Depot!) I rented and really enjoyed "A Man for All Seasons" last week (a 60's academy award winner) What do you think are the chances of anyone bothering to put that out in a disposeable format. The ONLY place were a movie like that would be commonly available is through a rental service. In fact, I see that as the main attraction to places like NetFlix. I can get all sorts of rare/oddball/old stuff that is really hard to find anywhere else.

[mkelley]

I don't know where you live, Sammie, but in the relatively large city I'm close to I can't find anything other than major releases at *any* of the rental stores -- at least on DVD (there are an awful lot of old VHS tapes still on the shelves, but they are dwindling).

That's the main reason I joined Netflix -- you go into Blockbuster and see 500 copies of DareDevil but not one copy of the released a month ago "Day The Earth Caught Fire". At least here in our city (a state capital so not exactly hicksville) nothing but major releases are stocked anyway. So, no great loss if these stores go away.

[sammie]

I live in a small city in Tx now, but I used to live in L.A. In L.A. there were quite a few mom and pop type places that seemed to specialize in keeping a wide variety of stuff available. That variety allowed them to effectively compete with Blockbuster. The same reason there is always an old time hardware store or two around in most larger cities. They still have lots of stuff you can't find at Home Depot. Actually, you are reinforcing my point that the availability of that stuff is pretty marginal already.

I agree 100% with the NetFlix comment and joined for the exact same reason. I also agree completely with the Blockbuster comment. I never go to Blockbuster except when for some reason (usually the kids) I just have to see a copy of that new release the first week or two.

[energy80s]

At last, a use for these abominations!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3340197.stm

[lacywest]

[/quote] If this flies, those places are done. You will see these in Walmart, 7-11, Costco, Lowes, McDonalds, you'll get one free with a pizza order, you name it. The video store will be gone, like the old Drive-in theater.... [/quote]

"Like the old drive in theater" ... LOL ... we still have a drive-in theater in our neck of the woods. At the moment ... its closed ... because of the Tule Fog we have during the winter.

Hanford California ... location = center of California ... 20 miles east of Lemoore Naval Air Station ... one of the largest on land ... Naval Stations.

[DVO]

I wonder if the oxidation of these disc would have any longterm effect on the DVD-lens. If its a chemical reaction going on while playing the disc maybe it will reduce the lifespan of the DVD-player? How do I know that not some of the oxidation get on the lens? The disc is pretty close to the lens. Can I use a lens-cleaner to remove it if so? I don't think I trust these discs.

[RabidDog]

this is environmentally a double-whammy, as someone else stated a new disk has to produced for every viewing of a film with this format. This will positively MAKE people pirate disks.. your friends will be queing at your door begging for permanent copies! I have recommended that the Swiss Navy does not officially endorse this product. They(disney) have tried them out already and they like the economics.. just boycott them.. as I will.

Whats the difference between a flexplay disc and a std Dvd.. ones lasts and the other Dis'nae . (Scottish joke)

[cs_exile]

for a start, this will encourage the pirating business, think about it, a dvd the same price as rental, perhaps more, say £5 tops, instead of buying it then watching it once then throwing it away, people will buy it, burn it and save themselves £20 from buying the non-disposable version. its a fact, people like getting something for nothing, even if it is crappy disney films

[data0002]

What I would like to know is are they going to build new air tight total dark factorys to produce the cd's

[painkiller]

To Data0002 ......

You haven't been to Japan yet, have you?

I read on Instapundit.com not long ago where someone, after returning from a business trip from Japan, witnessed a manufacturing plant that is operated solely by robots.

Making more robot parts.

In the dark.

Continuously.

The only time lights are switched on is when humans visit the plant.

[GizmoTheGremlin]

I would like to see these disc's for sale (or rent), but I think it will all depend on price. If they are the same price as a rental, or even a little more, then they won't be shutting down rental stores anytime soon. Grocery stores in my area have tried to start rental departments within the store and they've always failed - even when they are cheaper than places like Blockbuster. I think most people will go to a major rental company just because they stand a better chance of finding something they want.

I don't think that these discs will necessarily promote pirating either. People who want to pirate movies will pirate either way.

Personally, I rent my movies for $2 US, so unless these things are cheaper, I may not get many of them. It will be interesting to see a movie and a bag of microwavable popcorn for sale at the counter of wal-mart for $3 US, but if the price is any higher, I think it will follow the way of Divx.

As far as the environmental argument, I think we need a major change toward recycling, but I think it's necessary with or without these discs. These won't make the world any worse, but it's just my opinion.

[zapcity1]

I can't see studios(manufacturers) benefitting from disposable discs.

Currently they sell a new movie to a rental store at a jacked up price, pocket the cash and the rental store is left trying to rent the movie to the consumer. If the movie doesn't rent, the rental store is out the $ and the studio is unhurt.

With disposable disks the manufacturer has to gauge consumer demand, over judge it and they get left with a pile of discs that the rental stores won't buy cause they can't re-sell them.

Essentially the "rental risk" goes from being 100% on the rental stores head to 60 or 70% on the manufacturer's side.

Plus, the way it is now, they manufacture 1 disc and sell it and the disc gets rented 50 or 60 times before it gets sold as a "previously viewed". With disposable that means they have to manufacture 50 or 60 discs and watch their production costs go through the roof.

[psycaz]

I'll go to the extreme on a tangent. Unless the disc itself is vacuum sealed and not just the case, what is stopping some smuck from walking through Best Buy with a pin and puncturing every package so when someone buys it, its already dead. Talk about a nightmare for pople.

[MrMungus]

'fair use' allows you to make a personal backup copy of any media you own

Legally, doesn't this apply to audio but not video? I know I'm new here but unless the law has changed, I think this is still the case.

Interesting concept. I wonder what Blockbuster and Netflix think. It seems it would be a lot cheaper for them to keep renting out the same DVDs over and over than buying new ones each week...and the other issue is that yes, they would be able to reduce the cost of returned videos, but then they would have a new cost -- constant inventory replenishment. One-off purchases sound like a good idea but the question there is, what's the profit margin difference between a 48 hour DVD and one you can play forever. Will retailers trade making $$$ on a lifetime DVD for making $ for a 48-hour DVD?

[MrMungus]

what ever have to that commercial dvd format
called "divx", you know, good for 48 hrs for $4....
think you can still get those Zenith divx/dvd
players on Ebay, REALLY CHEAP>>>(:

That failed because (a) it provided no improvement in the movie experience (compared to, say, the differences between VHS and DVD), and (b) it required the purchase and installation of a new piece of hardware.

[Zal42]

Here are some excerps form http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20021202dvd1202p6.asp

SpectraDisc's self-destructing DVDs can be reused if a new coat of the play-limiting chemicals is reapplied, Lawandy said. Flexplay's discs can only be broken down and recycled as plastic waste.

Ooooh, if SpectraDisc's system takes off, I could make a fortune selling spray cans full of that play-limiting chemical. Then, the disc wouldn't be thrown into the landfill, and it would be decades until they discover the chemical is a horrible environmental toxin!

Everybody wins

[Zal42]

I wonder what Blockbuster and Netflix think. It seems it would be a lot cheaper for them to keep renting out the same DVDs over and over than buying new ones each week.

If you buy a DVD (or VHS or whatever), you are not allowed to rent it out. Blockbuster et al have special licensing arrangements with the movie companies that permit them to rent out the movies. The movie companies get a cut of the rental fees (and rental fees is where the bulk of a movie company's revenues come from). I don't know, but I'd be surprised if the Blockbusters of the world actually have to pay a purchase price for the movies at all -- I think it's all done as a percentage.