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Look out Divx round two may be near!

#1
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4/16/03 at 9:32am
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While walking through my local shopping mall this weekend I was approached by a gal doing marketing research (there is a marketing research business in the mall). She asked me my age and if I owned a DVD player. She then proceeded to lead me to their offices (in the mall) in order for me to view some materials.

What I was exposed to was some preliminary logos, names, and store mock-up photos of what can only be described as Divx 2.

They're calling it POPDVD (Purchase, Open, Play), LTD (Limited Time DVD), or Play2Day. They're basically DVD's with an "unlimited" 48 hour viewing. They had pictures of stands in grocery stores, gas stations, and video rental stores. The purchase price mentioned was $5.99.

I pretty much made my opinion clear that I thought it was a bad idea that has already failed miserably once (ala, Divx).

Anyone else heard of this potential menace to the DVD world?
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#2
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4/16/03 at 9:41am
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They just never learn their lesson, do they? I hope they try it, and that it fails miserably again. Why is that they never stop me for these kind of surveys?

"Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award."
Billy Wilder

"This business has come a long way in the last 30 years, but why should I depress you"
I.A.L. Diamond on the Movie Business (1986)
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#3
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4/16/03 at 9:56am
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I say bring it on!

When DIVX was introduced, DVD had only been available regionally for a few months, and nationally for a couple of weeks. DVD had hardly scratched the home video market.

Now, six years later, DVD is the dominant home video format. Alternate means of delivery will be insignificant, now that the studios understand the power and profitability of DVD.

- Steve
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#4
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4/16/03 at 10:12am
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I hope they try this format and loose millions of dollars on it.

It's not a question of whether the studios "get it" or not, its a question of what their ultimate goal is (what the consumer wants is almost irrelevant) What they ideally want is a pay-per view only world where you pay them each and every time you watch "their" movie. They don't want people to "own" a copy of a movie because they only get to sell it to you once (or maybe 2 or 3 times).

Don't be fooled into thinking that the market place is customer-driven, there are only a handful of multi-national corporations involved here, and they believe that they can direct the market by limiting choices and through marketing.
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#5
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4/16/03 at 10:12am
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Yeah, they've been trying to do it for awhile. There's a chemical that upon expoure to air slowly becomes opaque on the disc

Basically this will lead to ultra-cheap DVD as soon as someone figures out a solution that neutralizes the process

Jeff Kleist
Watching Buffy widescreen makes Baby Joss cry
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#6
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4/16/03 at 10:26am
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I forget where I read it - someplace like CNN.com, I'm sure - but I heard that several states including Calf. were discussing bills to ban these things. The idea being that they would just lead to landfill waste, etc. since they "are not reusable".

Now, if you got a quarter every time you turned one in for recycling, that would be neat...


But I would have no intention of buying them. It defeats the purpose of building a library of movies that you can watch anytime you feel like it. If I wanted a "throwaway, watch-it-one-time" movie service, I'd look into VOD, right?
DAVE/Memphis, TN

...Want to see your favorite show on DVD?
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#7
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4/16/03 at 10:29am
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As Steve stated so eliquently, bring it on! And we'll crush it into it's grave just as we did that first unholy abomination!

I did a dance of joy when the first one went down like the Hindenberg, and I WILL dance again.
When Jack Bauer was in 2nd grade he killed a terrorist for show and tell.
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#8
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4/16/03 at 10:42am
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As David says, Video on Demand technology will fill this niche. Even a basic rental (5 days at many places now) would be cheaper than this $5.99 48-hour scheme. The environmental landfill problem is a real one. These shiny petroleum-based discs will last forever. I don't think this business model has any legs.
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#9
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4/16/03 at 10:43am
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Quote:
It's not a question of whether the studios "get it" or not, its a question of what their ultimate goal is (what the consumer wants is almost irrelevant) What they ideally want is a pay-per view only world where you pay them each and every time you watch "their" movie. They don't want people to "own" a copy of a movie because they only get to sell it to you once (or maybe 2 or 3 times).

Don't be fooled into thinking that the market place is customer-driven, there are only a handful of multi-national corporations involved here, and they believe that they can direct the market by limiting choices and through marketing
Right on!

Cogito, Ergo Sum
My DVD Library / The BLOOD is the Life!
Pioneer Elite PRO PDP-111FD - 2/28/2009
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#10
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4/16/03 at 11:03am
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Quote:
Don't be fooled into thinking that the market place is customer-driven, there are only a handful of multi-national corporations involved here, and they believe that they can direct the market by limiting choices and through marketing

If that were the truth, they'd have forced widescreen on the masses and we wouldn't have the dual AR mess we have now.

Uncle Joe: I'll never marry you, Selma Plout!  You may as well take off that wedding dress and put it back in your Hopeless Chest!

--Petticoat Junction--

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#11
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4/16/03 at 11:24am
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This has been in the works for two years or so. Originally was going to be used for promotional DVDs which would self-destruct shortly after opening as said above. Mr. Phelps will deny any knowledge of the user.
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#12
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4/16/03 at 12:18pm
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Bring it on & we'll stomp this format into the ground. Can't these marketing people get it into their head that DIVX failed & DIVX2 will fail also.
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#13
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4/16/03 at 1:37pm
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This isn't really the same thing as DiVX as it doesn't have a renewal sysstem. It's meant more as a replacemnt for rentals, I'd think.
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#14
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4/16/03 at 2:00pm
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It's meant more as a replacemnt for rentals, I'd think.

Seems doomed for failure. When I can get a 5-day rental for $1.99, what would ever get me to purchase a 2-day disposable disc for $5.99?

Uncle Joe: I'll never marry you, Selma Plout!  You may as well take off that wedding dress and put it back in your Hopeless Chest!

--Petticoat Junction--

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#15
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4/16/03 at 2:10pm
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You don't have to return it, mainly.
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#16
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4/16/03 at 3:39pm
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First round knockout!
DVD over POPDVD.
Play2Day, GONE tomorrow!

Movies are: "The Greatest Artform".
HD should be for EVERYONE!

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#17
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4/16/03 at 3:42pm
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I actually see it as an alternative to dual aspect ratios on dvd. Divx2 if priced right could potentially take over the J6P market, and if it's like the original Divx that means MAR presentations across the board. If it turns out this way I say it's a good thing. The collectors will go for the widescreen dvds while everyone else can watch the Pan & Scammed rentals, leaving dvd to concentrate disc real estate on the widescreen version.
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#18
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4/16/03 at 3:48pm
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I've heard of this too. From what I can tell it is not like DivX. These discs are supposed to be standard DVD’s and can operate in any DVD player, whereby DIVX required special players. I think it’ll be fine, for those that want to buy, they just won’t use this. VOD will eventually settle all this anyway. Also, I’m pretty sure discs are plastic and if the silver media inside is removed the plastic is recyclable.

Dan
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#19
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4/16/03 at 5:28pm
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Quote:
I've heard of this too. From what I can tell it is not like DivX. These discs are supposed to be standard DVD’s and can operate in any DVD player, whereby DivX required special players.

While the technology may be different, the concept is the same as DIVX. I guess what I'm most concerned about is the potential loss of high quality, feature packed releases from our favorite studios if something like this were to catch on in the mass market. I truly hope that would never happen.
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#20
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4/16/03 at 5:33pm
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The concept isn't the same as DiVX. With DiVX, the idea was to sell something to someone once and have them keep paying for it. This is a rental you don't have to return.
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#21
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4/16/03 at 10:06pm
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I pretty much made my opinion clear that I thought it was a bad idea that has already failed miserably once (ala, Divx).

Twice, if you count DataPlay. Let's take an easy-to-lose disc with less storage capacity than CD, load it with DRM, shove on several "locked" albums on top of the album that the sucker^H^H^H^H^H^H customer gets to use -- and charge as much for this as for a CD.

No, the world was NOT eagerly awaiting DIVX-Audio.
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#22
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4/16/03 at 10:40pm
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I think anything like Divx was is a bad idea. But if they were to provide a pay-per-play delivery system via the internet using encoding like DivX or some other flavor of MPEG-4, I might be interested. It would be convenient as well environmentally friendly to just download a movie with near DVD quality, watch it in the allowed time and delete it. MPEG-4 has come a long way. Though not as good as DVD's MPEG-2 for picture quality, it's damn close.
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#23
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4/16/03 at 11:40pm
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The solution of corse is a 200GB harddrive and software from tigerdirect
20 Movies i like .

\"To thine own self be true. (If not that, at least make some money.)\" - Fortune
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#24
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4/16/03 at 11:59pm
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Jeff, they intend on selling these pieces of crap in airtight packages? Wouldn't it be fun to run a long needle down the center through a stack of them! They'd all be toast before they were even sold!

Also, and just for fun, I think I might go for this if the price was $1.00 That I could handle.

Glenn
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#25
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4/17/03 at 5:59am
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Do the people who come up with these ideas actually learn from previous experience? Why would I want to buy a disc that I can only watch a couple of times before it's rendered useless? It's a much better deal to do a conventional rental not to mention far less wasteful.
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#26
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4/17/03 at 6:07am
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The amount of waste this would generate troubles me much more than the potential adverse effect it might have on prices of retail DVDs.
Fielding Mellish: \"We fell in love. Well, I fell in love - she just stood there.\"
-Bananas (1971)
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#27
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4/17/03 at 8:06am
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Heh heh heh... Now the suckers are going to have to sell me a DVD player that has a built-in internal clock to make sure I can only watch the disk for 48 hours. What they don't know is that my current player will be around for years and I never set the clocks on any of my gizmo's (Just ask my VCR).

"Did you know that more people are murdered at 92 degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature? I read an article once. Lower temperatures, people are easy-going, over 92 and it's too hot to move, but just 92, people get irritable."

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#28
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4/17/03 at 8:41am
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From an environmental stand-point, this concept sucks!

In this day and age there's got to be a better way to distribute media (read: VOD) than disposable plastic discs coated with chemicals.
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#29
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4/17/03 at 8:56am
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Quote:
I forget where I read it - someplace like CNN.com, I'm sure - but I heard that several states including Calf. were discussing bills to ban these things. The idea being that they would just lead to landfill waste, etc. since they "are not reusable".


That's good news.
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#30
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4/17/03 at 10:22am
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I have got a great DIXV story. While I was in college I worked for CC. Of course like any self respecting home-theater enthusiasts, I HATED DIVX. Everybody from management to fellow employees would give me a hard time about it, but I always stuck to my guns and never strayed to the DIVX side despite the HUGE discounts we were offered on DIVX DVD players (sometimes almost 75% off). But anyways, the cool part of my story is on my very last day, which was about 2 months after they had announced the cancellation of DIVX, my manager asked me if I would help destroy all of the DIVX disk!!!! Who better than a DIVX hater to do the job. Well, let me tell you this. Divx Disk don't like sledge hammers.

It\'s Frank\'s World, We Just Live In It.

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