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[john mcfadden]

Stores May Get An Unlimited Selection Of DVDs


Store customers will soon be able to have the same wide choice of DVDs that they have online as a result of technology announced Monday by Sonic Solutions and Macrovision. The two companies said that they would be able to provide retail stores with the ability to download movies for their customers from a list of thousands of films, burn them onto DVDs, together with "extras," and print out cover art work. "This would let retailers stock the titles that sell the most and still have a kiosk that could provide thousands of more films," Kurt Sherf, an analyst at Parks Associates, told Bloomberg News. The system would also allow studios to make more of their libraries available on DVD, since currently there is little demand for three-quarters of their archived films and it is therefore not cost effective to release them on DVD, the companies observed.

From imdb

Interesting ......IF they offer titles that are still NOT on dvd .

 

[Carlo_M]

This would only be most useful for me for the obscure titles that you have to hunt down through various online specialists. However, I fear those are the ones that won't be available on the service...

 

[Jeff_HR]

That is my concern also. Show me FIRST!!

 

[Andrew Bunk]

If this catches on at all it will likely only be with J6P.

If I wanted to have a burned copy of a movie with cover art that looks like it came off an ink jet printer, I'd just rent them from Netflix and burn them myself.

Furthermore, will they burn bigger movies to dual-layer blank disks or compress it all on to one layer?

Too many variables here. Worst part is it would probably mean the end of pretty much any catalog titles in store for places that offer this "service".

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I just can't see this taking off for the reasons mentioned.

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned is time -- how long is it going to take to download a movie (because if they're going to have as many titles as they've mentioned), they likely won't put them all on the machines instore. DVD burners have gotten a lot faster, so that's not as much of an issue, but combined -- if it's a busy night and the store is out of copies of that week's popular title, will customers be satisfied with "We're all rented out of that, but if you want to wait for 15 minutes we can make a copy for you"? And that's just assuming it's one person at a time...

Haven't they done this with CD burning instores? I remember reading (though I could be remembering wrong) that no one really cared.

It's not that I'm opposed to any other form of content delivery other than prepackaged media, although like most people on this forum, it is the method of choice. I am opposed to using services that just don't make sense. If I'm going to pay to rent or buy a burned disc, why would I want to leave the house to do it? I've downloaded episodes of The Office and CSI from iTunes when I've missed the broadcast, but there's no way I'd want to put the time into going to the store to wait for them to download and burn it. (Granted, it's not an exact comparison, but I think it makes the point.)

 

[Felix Martinez]

As a content creator, I can tell you that not all recordable media - or all drives used to author them - are acceptable from a quality-control/compatibility standpoint. Until I see more info on how this will be rolled out, I think I'll stick with factory-pressed discs thank you very much.

 

[Jason_V]

It is an interesting idea, but it definately does preclude the "additional purchase" people...the ones who go into the store for a CD and come out with 3 movies plus the CD. If you know what you want, fantastic. If not, you're crap out of luck.

How will TV shows work? Download content for 6 discs and burn all of them? What happens when you get a burned disc home and it doesn't work? With the product looking so close to a "home" job, will the store take it back? Are all films ever made going to be available or just the top 100 or 200?

Too much can and will go wrong with this in the early going. Maybe someday it'll work, but that day is not today.

 

[MielR]

Frankly, if I'm going to the trouble of driving to a store, I want a "real" DVD, not a DVD-R (like others have said, if I want a DVD-R of a movie and a crappy cover, I can stay home and make it myself).

Circuit City has some sort of service where they make back-up copies of your DVDs for a fee, and I don't think that idea is going to take off either.

 

[Robert Floto]

Also, it has come to the attention of our staff here at work that burned CDs and DVDs do not last. We've already begun burning new copies of discs over four years old...

 

[Johnny Angell]

As a consumer, what would make more sense to me, would be if I could go online and order DVDs through this service to be shipped directly to me. That way I could browse the catalog of available movies to make my selections.

It would be great if many of the movies available were those that haven't been "released" to the regular DVD channel.

 

[DeanR]

Robert, Are you and your staff using good media? I am far from an expert on the subject but the guys at Afterdawn.com swear that using good media is the key to longevity and long term good playability. I agree the only way this is good is if studios offer movies that are obscure.

 

[Ethan Riley]

I ditto Dean's question about the media. I have stuff burned over 4 years ago that plays fine. But then, back in the day, they said that VHS tapes would last only 8 years or so. I have vhs tapes that I made back in 1983 that play as good as they ever did. I think burned cds and dvds will last as long as studio-manufactured discs, if they are well cared for.

As for this nutty "burn-your-own-dvd" idea, I can see it working. In about 10 years. And I'd only be interested in using it for really obscure titles that have never been released on any media. And as far as THAT goes, it's not really profitable for the studios because as I say, it's obscure stuff that nobody really wants. You can't make money off movies that only 15 people want to burn. I also am greatly concerned about compression, here. All movies have to be compressed differently to fit on a disc properly and look good in the process. This idea seems like it'll use one method of compression on all movies, regardless of length. Anyway, you can't just let a machine do it; compression needs to be done by talented studio engineers. I have a DVR at home that compresses things to fit a disc on whatever speed I choose, but it never looks very good, one way or another. A human being has to be doing this, (or it'll end up looking like "the Little Mermaid").

 

[Robert Floto]

So far we have only encountered one or two CDs that appear to be corrupted (but had been accessible previously). Otherwise we have not had any trouble with the other CDs and DVDs we've burned...however, the key thing here is that the discs cannot be guaranteed to last over a few years and we need our programming and films to be broadcastable (is that a word?) indefinitely. Therefore we are now required to re-burn our discs over four years old. Our technicians are quite certain that most of our discs will last much longer because we keep them vaulted, but since the technical specs we've received indicate that CD-Rs and DVD-Rs will degrade long before manufactured discs our studio is required to take action now.

As for the store-bought/burned-discs...I can only say that I know for fact that I don't have the resources to store those discs at home in the optimal environment and I'm not willing to pay a premium when manufactured discs are available for a little more effort...

 

[Keith Paynter]

Plus side: more obscure or limited titles

Minus side: little or no chance of restoration, DVD-R (etc) media rotting too soon.

Companies aren't going to spend millions on restoration or music rights, and have (at best) 10,000 people download and burn a single obscure title.

As far as the compression factor is concerned, I think the idea would be to burn the disc from an ISO image file. The compression can still be done professionally. I don't know how many people would be willing to wait in line for 30-40 minutes for a dual-layer 8GB movie to burn.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Of course, they're not going to spend millions on restoration or music rights and have (at best) 3,000 people purchase a disc that fewbrick and mortar stores will give shelf space to.

 

[ted:r]

Man, that sounds, at least initially, as great news. It does depend on the state of the movies that are available though. What kind of re-mastering/cleaning up will they have gone through? Its hard to imagine they will be top of the line jobs. Personally, I just hope for more than acceptable. But them being available at all is a great plus.

 

[Jay Pennington]

Well, one thing about older CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, is whether adhesive paper labels were used on them. Prior to printable media, a lot of people used those things, and after a while they peel off, taking the data with them. I've removed a brittle, peeling label from an old disc, and by the time it was off, the disc was a clear peice of plastic.

 

[Mark Oates]

Call me a cynic, but I can't see a wider choice of titles being offered. I see this as a method of maximising profit margins as Studios won't need to go to the expense of getting discs pressed. These units will be for stores that don't have the real estate to display boxes, or perhaps have problems with pilfering. You choose your disc as you go in the store, then pick it up when you pay for your gas, pack of toilet seat covers and slurpee.

 

[Brian Little]

Hate to break it to you but its a service to transfer your home videos (non copyrighted material) to DVD-R. Its not a service to make backups of your copyrighted DVDs.

 

[Ravi K]

I'm a proponent of the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy. I just want to go into a store, browse, and buy the DVDs I want.