Flexplay - DIVX returns!!

[admin]

DVDs that are unplayable after 48 hours of viewing are coming soon to a store near you.

To squeeze even more bucks out of the typical consumer, movie studios will now try to make DVDs pay-per-view. Once the new discs (dubbed EZ-D) has been exposed to air for 48 hours, the disc becomes opaque and will no longer be readable by your DVD player - there is no way to restore the disc back to it's playable state, and hence, it will have to be thrown out.

So everytime you want to watch a movie, you have to go out and buy a EZ-D, watch it for 48 hours, and throw it away - each time costing you $$$.

Not even considering the rip-off to the consumer, the environmental effects of throwing away hundreds and thousands, perhaps millions, of discs each year is unimaginable.

I feel a petition coming on soon ...

More information about Flexplay - EZ-D :

http://www.flexplay.com

[Batman]

I believe this is an effort by entertainment companies to by-pass rental stores, and in doing so, increase their share of profits.

Many factors, notably convenience and pricing, will determine the success or failure of this product.

[admin]

DIVX was marketed as an alternative to DVDs, and I have the feeling that had DIVX succeeded, we wouldn't have DVDs today. The same may be attempted with EZ-D - IMO, if the studios had a choice, everything would be pay per view.

To be fair, this Flexplay has been around for quite a while, and I seriously doubt it would take off in any fashion, regardless of the price. Unless studios bar rental stores from renting sell-through DVDs (unsuccessful so far in Australia), why would people bother with EZ-D as a renting alternative, taking into account the already low cost of DVD rentals. The only real advantage of EZ-D would be the distribution method, in that it does not require a video rental store for mass distribution (but then again, rental stores will have a greater range).

And the pollution issue, I think, is a serious one as well, unless they were made from some kind of bio-degradable material. I guess one can always add used EZ-Ds to their collection of coasters, and AOL CDs

Also, these discs only have a shelf life of 1 year - if the package is broken, then people may be buying duds. Never thought I'd have to check use-by-dates for DVDs ...

[SKD_Tech]

Just a question but isn't this going to cost a lot of money to waste plastic on DVD cases that are going to be thrown away?

[admin]

DVD manufacturing costs are actually quite low, about $0.20 to $0.50 per disc (if I can remember correctly), and probably less than that for the plastic case.

The production (authoring, encoding) and licensing costs are probably the only major costs in producing a DVD movie, and that's just a once off cost anyway.

[SKD_Tech]

Let's say they cot .35 cents it would cost 175,000 USD to make half a million. That isn't too bad. (Just the disk cost not burning or anything for maintence)

[thelimey]

I think that we should get hold of some of these DVDs and see what we can do to defeat the darkening mechanism on the disks. I have some ideas and I intend to try them when I can get my hands on the disks.

[SKD_Tech]

Please share you ideas

[alcskid]

Well, I think there will be a Vacuum DVD case and a Vacuum DVD Player. So the DVD Disc will not be Exposed to the Air ! Or some mechanism to make that DVD disc playable using thin vacuum layer that wrap those disc and readable by common DVD player.

[thelimey]

Flexplay has a patent on their disk no. 6,489,892 which explains that when you open the packet containing the disk, a substance starts evaporating resulting in a chemical change which causes the disk to go from red to black. I believe that the key to preventing this from happening is to put a coating on the playing side of the disk to prevent the evaporation from occuring. 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. I also tried putting a clear DVD label on to the playing surface of a DVD but this was a disaster. Fortunately, when I peeled the label off again, the DVD played OK. So this is where I am until I can get my hands on an EZ-D disk. I would be interested to hear any ideas that anyone else has.

[SKD_Tech]

I wonder if it is just exposed to Oxygen just a little it keeps going or it has to have oxygen present all the time for the reaction to keep going. If you wanted to put a coating on it and it just needed a little oxygen for it to work there would be no way to take it out and do the coating of XXX solution

[thelimey]

I'm not convinced that oxygen really has anything to do with the process. I think that it is evaporation of a chemical that causes the reaction to occur. This evaporation occurs over a controlled period, depending on the way the chemicals are applied. That is why I think that all that is necessary is to apply a coating to prevent the evaporation from happening.

[SKD_Tech]

Good Thereory (sorry I can't spell worth poop)

Maybe it'll be true and become a law

[alcskid]

Originally posted by thelimey
a substance starts evaporating resulting in a chemical change which causes the disk to go from red to black.

Well In the term of Evaporate that mean it's just like an alcohol evaporate in the air if it exposed to the air. So it is not a chain reaction with Oxygen in a little time exposure. In this case we can coated it up !

[Comberman]

According to reports, BVista which is an arm of Disney is supposed to be the first to venture forth with EZ-D video disks. Whether it becomes widespread is debateable, but if it does I firmly believe it will be directed to the rental market only. Who on earth is going to BUY a DVD that goes into disintegration mode after 48 or so hours. On the otherhand......maybe we need a petition AND a boycott!!