Particulary since I can go down to the local video store and get a 5-7 day rental for $5 or so.
So WHY would I want a self destructing DVD?
The company does have a recycling center that you can send your used DVDs to.
I am, however, failing to find anything on their site about the copy protection others mentioned. Indeed, it seems to imply the opposite. From their FAQ:
If this actually got off the ground, there would be massive opposition to it. I’m think Project Mayhem-type resistance, like gangs of people going into a store and opening all of these things up.
I’m not sure this is that bad an idea…definately not Divx scale bad.
Lets pose the idea that you could make the disc from renewable resources, such as a soy/ethanol based product, and that it biodegrades quickly like most of those plastic grocery store bags.
Blockbuster could stand to be in great shape if this takes off. Even if the “burn on demand” concept isn’t applied (even though I think that’d be the ideal goal). Look at it this way, Blockbuster only needs to order as many copies as they need, and then they have no use for dealing with “previously viewed” titles. Sure they probably do pretty well on popular titles in that case, but think about all the crap that ended up being “garuanteed to be in” leaving the stores stuck with 50 copies of Freddy got Fingered. Plus, they’d be able to much less frequently be “out of stock” for movies, which would up the rental rates. If these things are ordered in mass, they could rent 1000 copies on opening day, and then reorder for tomorrow instead of having to wait until thoes 1000 copies make there way back to the store over the 3 day span.
The litter aspect sucks but if they get around it, and these things end up costing around as much as the typical rental, frankly I bet they could be cheaper, it could be huge. To make it even sweeter, they could be available anywhere, not just video stores. It’d break the monopoly Blockbuster has on store fronts and infrastructure. If the studios can sell these to every grocery store, electronics store, and create vending machines, you might see competition ending the $4.75 Blockbuster price.
Frankly, I’m willing to give them a shot. The environment knee-jerk reactions might end up costing the average person money but preserving the status quo, which sucks.
Even if these things don’t end up being biodegradable or non-petroleum based, they might be able to effectively create a good recycling system similar to the “disposable camera”. You return the old DVDs and cases to designated places, and perhaps even recieve a $1 deposit back to encourage it.
I think you guys are being to quick to bash this. Do you not realize how horribly overpriced Blockbuster is right now? I personally would rather use this to create a situation where the movie studios are able to directly rent to me without the mark-up from the middleman.
But I don’t think they necessarily buy more when the title is “guaranteed” to be in, to make sure they have enough; if it’s not there, they just give you a coupon for the next time.
Three days? My Blockbuster says “by noon on the third day,” meaning if I get it Sunday it’s due Tuesday by noon. Most people probably either return it the next day or the following (in this case, Tuesday) morning.
How come? After all, you can get videos just about anywhere, too. Plus, there actually are vending machines for DVDs now. Some McDonald’s have them.
Besides, what if you want to buy the DVD? You know, keep it forever n ever? 
Whats to stop somebody stealing the DVD burning machine and figuring out some way to get the Data stored inside there?
I think the cost of keeping the machines secure would make it too costly to become ubiquitous.
What are you talking about? The current business model is the Blockbuster store buys a bunch of $20 DVDs (but probably gets them cheaper), rents them for about $4 a session, charges big late fees, and then sells the extra coppies for $9 - $14 as “pre-owned”. I can’t imagine that buying restocking a vending machine full of 100s of blank DVDs and DVD cases (LOTS of overhead) would be an improvement.
What I am talking about is going from renting a 3000 ft^2 space and two or three employees, heat and a/c, electricity, buildouts, etc. and buying all that inventory to a small ATM sized machine. I could envision one employee maintaining a dozen or more such machines all over town, instead of 2-3 employess equivalent at several locations in the same town. With that comes fewer benefits, workers comp etc. expenses. I think that profits would go up.
The cost of the blank DVD and case has got to be next to nothing. The machine would be expensive, no doubt, but probably not more expensive than the buildout of a store, and the day to day expenses would be increadably low.
I don’t know how it is now, but in the 1980s VHS tapes would cost a video store about $100, while consumers would pay $20 or so. Why $100 to a video store? Copyright. The fee included a “license” to use the tape for commercial purposes. Consumer tapes would have a recorded prohibition against using the tapes commercially.
Preach on, brother. Is there any way we can bribe movie companies to only release certain films in this format? Even better, transfer their masters to these disposable dvd’s?
I think Battlefield Earth would be a great first choice.
Not exactly true. The retail value was $100; the stores would pay about $60-80 per tape, IIRC. They made them $100ish so that people would be encouraged to rent them, rather than buy them once and never rent.
So if they are paying $60/DVD now, and they can sell it as used for $12 down the line, they still have to rent each DVD at least 12 times before they even break even. I still say they could make more with a disposable.
I meant VHS. Have no idea what the cost of a DVD is for the dealer; if you can buy it at $24, though, it’s probably more like $16-18. But that’s only a guess. And if it’s $18, then they only have to rent it 4 or 5 times before it’s paid for itself.
Astro… how far away IS your local video store?
Even better: pop open a Tom Green movie and it bursts into flames and disappears like flash paper.
I’ve got a idea that tops that. Pop open a Tom Green movie and Tom Green bursts into flames and disappears like flash paper.
Do you have any idea how many times a tape or DVD will get rented in its lifetime? Probably hundreds. Movies typically stay in the “New Releases” section for months, and most stores will keep at least a couple of copies of a movie around for many years. Believe me that they make plenty of money on the rental aspect.
These self-destructing DVD’s must cost signifcantly more than normal DVD’s to make, and the store will have to continually re-stock their vending machines with them, instead of getting 99.9% of the DVDs and tapes returned to be rented to someone else. Plus, they’ll lose out on the candy sales, late fees, and sales of previously viewed videos (which have probably paid for themselves several times over by this point). I’m very skeptical that the economics of this can work.
Interesting idea to use it for sneak previews, but still: why would I pay money to watch a two-minute movie trailer once, when I could almost certainly download that same two-minute trailer from the internet and watch it as often as I want for free?
These guys will probably end up like DIVX.
BTW: I like the idea of a self-destucting Tom Green
You guys talking about $100 VHS tapes are discussing “priced for rental”. Strangely, while VHS tapes do in fact cost about $100 when they first come out, DVDs do not.