Flexplay - DIVX returns!!

[admin]

Question : Who on earth is going to BUY a DVD that goes into disintegration mode after 48 or so hours.

Answer : People who don't have a choice but to buy a DVD that disintegrates after 48 hours

Remember that these are the type of people (RIAA, MPAA) who would rather see their discs not playable on computers and many standalone players, then to let people copy them

I just hope that in the future, we all still have the right to buy and keep copies of movies permanently, and to make backups of these movies for personal use.

[Sithlord48]

flexplay

What ever happened to the right to copy your media in case it goes bad? just as the flexplay is gonna do after 48 hours (just imagine if your oringal starwars tapes did that) i have backed them up just to provent such dammage to them i am sorry but if they start making those things the well its 48 hours to copy it to another medium ...... but wait if i have one of them and i copy it for my self (to have it more then 48 hours) does it now become copy right infringe ment even though i payed the $20 for the disk

Then what happens to video stores where people rent movies from they are gonna be the ones who get screwed the most from such a disk.......

[voodooJoe]

Originally posted by thelimey
... I have found that if I coat a DVD with RainX, a liquid which is used on windshields to make it easier to drive in the rain, it leaves a very smooth coating on the disk, and the disk will still play. Whether this will work on an EZ-D disk remains to be seen. I have also found that it is possible to coat a DVD with Rally cream wax, an auto wax, and it will still play. ... [/B]

These may end up not working overtime, as both could come off easily. How about using a clear spray on sealer like Krylon???

[thelimey]

I think that auto wax should be quite durable. In any case, I can't prove it one way or the other until I can get hold of some of the disks, which won't be until August , when they have a test marketing of some Disney movies in four, as yet unknown , cities.

[setarip]

The announcement regarding coming Disney DVDs stated that they'll only be using this function on RENTAL DVDs - which makes perfect sense...

[ddlooping]

Hi all

How would rental outlets deal with these, though?
Every time they rent a DVD they would have to use a new one?
If that is the case, I don't see it ever happening.

[setarip]

To ddlooping

The pricing structure from the distributor to the rental stores would have to be altered - unless, of course, these DVDs will have some hidden method of being resurrected ;>}

[ddlooping]

But wouldn't that also mean they would have to stock at least 3 times the amount of DVDs?
(if there wasn't a hidden method to resurrect the DVDs)

[SKD_Tech]

They would have to do something like that. Also if there was a way to resurect the DVD you would have to send it back to the company. They couldn't have rental dealers knowing how otherwise the secret would get out in a heart beat

[setarip]

To ddlooping

"But wouldn't that also mean they would have to stock at least 3 times the amount of DVDs?"

That wouldn't present a problem. As I said, they'd have to change the pricing structure from the distributor to the rental store.

The crucially important thing to understand, if you guys are truly interested in how this business works, is that the LEAST expensive part of a DVD is the physical DVD itself!

It only costs pennies to physically produce commercial DVDs PRESENTLY. The biggest underlying costs are those related to the original production of the movie.

1) If the distibutors (e.g. the Buena Vista subsidiary of Disney) now want to arrange to increase production threefold, to accomodate the new requirements of disposable DVDs, the manufacturing cost per individual DVD will go down dramatically

2) More importantly, the distributor can readily afford to drop its price to the rental stores from, for argument's sake, $15 to $5 each - since they'll be selling three times as many DVDs to the rental stores - and the distributor will make at least as much profit as it would have under the present scenario

[admin]

With the current renting scheme, a disc can be rented about a hundred times over a year (3 days per rental, continuously rented) before it needs to be replaced (normally, it should last longer, but we all know how people seem to abuse rental discs). The same number of rentals under the new Flexplay scheme would require 100 disposable discs. And that's just for one movie - imagine the 100 or so DVDs released for rental each year per store - that would mean 10,000 disposable discs from one store only!!

But back to the main problem of rentals VS sell-throughs. The problem for studios is that rental stores frequently rent sell-through DVDs - buy one for $20 and make $$$'s. Here in Australia, the studios have tried to prevent this (WB's multi-colored discs systems - one for rental, one for sell-through), but the courts rejected their claims, and now rental stores are allowed to rent sell-through DVDs.

After this decision, studios came up with different methods to prevent this from happening, including "rental-only-no-extra-features" versions. This meant that unlike in the past where sell-through and rental periods began at the same time, sell-through was now pushed back 2 to 3 months after the original rental release, which meant an even longer wait after the initial release of the same title in the US (up to 6 months, in some cases). So for those eager to watch the movie, they have to rent first and then pay up later for the sell-through version (if they want the extra features, and of course, the ability to watch the movie and *not* have to pay for every viewing).

In other words, it's all about control (just like the region coding system, CSS copy protection and all the gimmicks the MPAA/RIAA have come up with).

Flexplay is just another method to give studios more control over their content, specifically rental content. If a disc limits the amount of playtime, then it gives the studio total control over the rental price of each disc, the rental period and the release date or rental material. This allows them, for example, to set all rentals to 48 hours at $5 each, and allows them to delay the release of sell-through titles (and hence, the rental of sell-through titles) until well after the rental period is over. The tussle between rental outlets and studios is not a new one.

Flexplay will mean :

1. Less business for rental outlets (ie. more business for studios, as people can by-pass rental outlets and rent movies from their local grocery stores or something)
2. Less competition in rental market (more control to studios on pricing structure, etc... basically a studio monoply on the rental market)
3. Possible environmental disaster as landfills, already struggling with unwanted copies of "Disney's The Kid" DVDs, are now overflowing with Spy Kids 2 Flexplay DVDs
4. No more renting of discs with extra features on them (unless you consider subtitles or multiple languages extras)
4. Delayed sell-through releases, possibly 2 to 3 month after rental release date

On another point, studios will be very happy if a subject ... um I mean "customer" pay for :

1. movie ticket,
2. rental of Flexplay
3. purchase of sell-through DVD

Thereby getting money 3 times for essentially the same content.

The only other way they would increase profits significantly is to remove point 3 altogether, and make all content available to viewers in a temporary (and controlled) fashion. They've tried it in the past (DIVX), and I doubt they will stop trying again, but they won't succeed because no one will use this system. Either that, or they will continue with their fairly sucessful system of releasing multiple versions of the same movie, starting with the least featured version first (special edition -> limited edition -> collector's edition -> director's cut -> ultimate edition -> extreme edition -> ultimate extreme edition ...), which is more like :

1. movie ticket,
2. rental of Flexplay
3. purchase of sell-through DVD
4. go back to 3 for every different versions of the DVD released

[Livewire]

Interesting hearing all your input on how to bypass the 48 hour degrading period, waste prevention and interesting hearing opinions about boycotting.

Point is true, if the manufacturer of a product decides to sell several different copies of material with several different ways of distribution "Acceptable or not by the consumer", the consumer will have no choice but to be turned off by the measures taken to complicate obtaining a so called entertaining product. Remember everyone, that this is not a necessity. As a result, we can turn to other options: Getting out of the house or exercise. I personally am turned off by the measures they have taken to complicate my efforts to obtain or retain this entertainment, yet still fall to endorsing it by watching movies and renting video's. However I do not own a single copy of this material but rather obtain pirated copies as I am charged extra money for every CD I watch in order to pay for a fee towards the recording industry, "an unconstitutional law passed by pressure of the recording industry".

If thier Tactics were not as offensive, I may grow a conscience and discontinue copywrite infringement and endorse thier services/products to which I may afford. But nonetheless I am breaking the law that they created within our free democratic society.

Point is, there are more important issues in the world that deserve attention than a bunch of silly corporates trying to control what rights consumers have to end of retaining an expensive lifestyle. Talk about insurance companies ripping us off, or Banks ripping us off, or Governments who Tax us to death with nothing in return. Maybe?

[SKD_Tech]

Well like the whole thing says. This ISN'T offically out. They might reconsider their ways of doing things.

Also do you think regular DVD's will still be for sale? Will flexplay only be in rental stores?

[setarip]

To SKD_Tech

As I mentioned earlier:

The announcement regarding coming Disney DVDs stated that they'll only be using this function on RENTAL DVDs - which makes perfect sense...

[Sithlord48]

abuse rental disks>??

Now who would ever want to do such a thing when i rent a dvd it is only in use for the 5 min it takes to extract data from it ...... and as for not having special features gheez then i might as well pay the 50 cents it costs to rent the VHS of that movie and save some $$ for my self