How Would You Rate This Idea? re: TV Season Sets (1 Viewer)

a lot of people have very eclectic tastes when it comes to tv series and what they want to see on dvd.
i know i want a lot of shows that probably don't have a snowballs chance in making it to mass market retail (especially if something like Mary Tyler Moore can't sell well enough!?)

since a lot of studios are expanding their Home Video divisions due to the popularity of dvd, why don't they start up (and outsource) a subscription service to offer tv series sets from their vaults?
i don't see them licensing things to Columbia House or Anchor Bay (see the recent chat and what they had to say about the studios in regards to this stuff), since they seem to jealously guard their holdings no matter if they actually intend to release them or not.
this to me, seems like the only other alternative to get 'deeper' tv catalog titles out there.

each studio could use a basic authoring template, doesn't have to be fancy 3-d cutting edge menus, or enormous amounts of extras, just well transfered from good elements.
one good designer with photoshop could bang out all the graphics needed for a single series (from menus to jackets) in a day.
the studios need to convert the material anyway in anticipation of VOD and for hd broadcast.
hell, you could replicate the things on dvd-r's with just a $500 silkscreen machine and do them in quantities far lower than retail distribution would allow- then if there is a need for distribution at retail levels, they already have most of the work done.


as long as they gave us around 4 hrs of content per disc, i would be willing to shell out $20 every six to 8 weeks to put together a series of something that otherwise wouldn't see a release.

while i know its a long shot, i would much rather have hard copy discs-on-demand, rather than a much more intrusive VOD system.

just a thought

I think the best distribution method for series that don't have a 'sure sell' sticker on them would be direct or mail order from the studio. Ala Animego's release of some of their titles. You would expect to pay a premium for it, but the studio would only have to churn out enough to meet the current demand.

However, I'm really against the disc by disc method. It leads to all kinds of problems with incomplete seasons if they don't keep selling or instead churn out best of discs. Keep it to season sets. I can see myself buying a set of discs in cost effective packaging. I can't see myself buying two racks worth of individual discs along the lines of the original Star Trek.

Sell them in season sets 'direct' even on a 'produce on demand' method. The ONLY problem with doing the DVD-R method is that (right now) you can only do single layer disc. At full DVD quality that's ~2 hours (2-3 1hr, 4-5 1/2 hr [depending on how old it is] episodes per disc, so the disc count would RISE.

This is a good idea if someone has the money and could negoiate the contract.