This Blu-ray boondoggle has gone far enough, and it is time to clear the air. The Blu-ray format should have failed two years ago, but the entertainment and electronics industries are keeping it alive. We have all seen the commercials. You buy a DVD, try to play it, and you get slapped in the face with a commercial for Blu-ray. The music is fast and loud. Your screen is filled with explosions and cars flipping over. The sound effects blast through your speakers. Spider-man looks like he’s about to jump right out of the screen and land on your lap. As the excitement builds, the announcer implores you to gaze upon the incredible clarity of Blu-ray. The problem is this is all taking place on your entertainment system. You are enjoying the wonderful spectacle that is the Blu-ray commercial because you already have a decent entertainment system. If you enjoy the sights and sounds in the commercial, then you do not really need anything else. Call it a day, and enjoy what you already have at home.
Here’s the deal. Blu-ray is a ridiculous format. If you are not using it yet, do yourself a favor and do not go down that dead end street. If you are already on Blu-ray Street, get off now, cut your losses, and stop wasting your money on a format that will be obsolete in a few years.
On HD screens properly connected to HD players, Blu-rays are more clear than DVDs, but the difference does not really matter that much. Really, are DVDs that bad? Just ten years ago, people were awe-struck with the clarity of DVDs. In the past couple of years, however, Sony and the other contributors and members of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) have managed to convince a lot of consumers that Blu-ray is a major leap in technology.
In reality, Blu-ray is little more than a glorified high-capacity DVD. Sure the image is nice, but the cost is way too high, the title and equipment selections are limited, and the price to assemble a true full HD entertainment system is out of reach for most people. The problem is that if you do not have a spectacular entertainment system, you will not be able to appreciate a sufficient difference between DVD and Blu-ray. There is just not much quality to access, and accessing it is just too costly.
The real purpose of Blu-ray is not to benefit consumers. The entertainment and electronic industries are who really hope to benefit from Blu-ray. DVDs are fairly easy to copy, but Blu-ray discs are not duplicated so easily. Blu-ray discs are produced with a more advanced and expensive technology, and they hold much more data. Blu-ray discs also allow for other more sophisticated electronic copy protections. The entertainment industry has realized they cannot stop people from copying discs, so they are trying to move to a disc that is so expensive to duplicate that many people will not bother. Also, by using such large files for Blu-ray content, the entertainment industry makes the downloading of Blu-ray content cumbersome and time-consuming.
Also, the electronics industry hopes to benefit from Blu-ray by pushing consumers to replace their existing DVD equipment with new Blu-ray equipment. What better way to sell electronics than to make existing electronics obsolete. This is what they are doing. They know your DVD player is going to last for ten more years. Since you are not going to buy another DVD player for a while, the electronics industry has just chosen to make your existing one useless.
The biggest drawback to Blu-ray is its inevitable obsolescence. The era of the disc is rapidly coming to a close. Soon, we will all be moving to fully digital downloadable content. Movies will be transferred over the Internet and flash drives. Few people will be using discs, because discs will be largely unnecessary. If you want to see what is going to happen with movie content, all you have to do is look at the music industry, which typically stays five-to-ten years ahead of the movie industry.
The music industry abandoned cassette tapes for CDs years before the movie industry abandoned VHS tapes for DVDs. Currently, CD sales are plunging as the consumers force the music industry to move toward downloadable digital music. At some point, the CD will be relegated to obscurity. This same thing is going to happen in the movie industry as well. Video discs (DVDs, HD DVDs, Blu-rays, etc.) are the movie industry’s counterpart to CDs. If you want to see what is going to happen to Blu-ray and the other video discs, just watch what happens to CDs over the next couple of years. As goes the music disc, so goes the video disc.
In summary, DVDs are inexpensive, and the quality is very good. Blu-rays are expensive and they do not provide enough quality to justify their associated expenses. Video discs of all types will be obsolete in a matter of years anyway, so why start investing in a new format? The Blu-ray Disc Association, the movie industry, and the electronics industry are trying to jam Blu-ray down our throats. If you have not already said no to Blu-ray, consider the poor prospects for the technology and consider swearing it off. The era of fully digital downloadable movies is just beginning. You really should be saving up your money so you can enjoy digital downloadable content once it becomes the new standard for all video.
4/01/2009
12/24/2008
Redbox DVD Rental Vending Machines
Have you used a Redbox (www.redbox.com) DVD rental kiosk? If so, please describe your experience here.
12/23/2008
The New Release DVD Rental Kiosks
Have you used one of The New Release (www.thenewrelease.com) DVD rental kiosks? If so, please describe your experience here.
12/22/2008
DVDPlay Rental Kiosks
Have you used a DVDPlay (www.dvdplay.com) rental kiosk? If so, please describe your experience here.
4/06/2006
Video Underground Atom/RSS Feed
The syndication (Atom/RSS) feed for Video Underground is http://videounderground.blogspot.com/atom.xml.
2/17/2006
Quepidity
Anyone who has subscribed to a DVD-by-mail service has learned how to create and organize a list of DVDs that he wishes to see. This wish list is commonly called a queue.
The odd thing is that many people get upset when a company ships them a DVD that is anything but the first choice in their queue. For example, a person will get his fifth DVD choice and be outraged over the horrible injustice. The disgruntled subscriber will be filled with dread at the thought of having to watch the undesirable DVD.
This outraged subscriber is suffering from quepidity. Quepidity is a very common syndrome that compels an afflicted person to put DVDs in his queue that he does not want to watch. There is no explanation for the existence of quepidity, but the condition is widespread and causes a lot of unnecessary frustration and conflict.
The reality is that a DVD-by-mail company will rarely ship a DVD that is not in a customer’s queue. If a subscriber does not wish to watch a DVD, that subscriber should make certain the DVD is not in his queue.
The best way to avoid the symptoms of quepidity is to go through your queue and carefully examine each title. If there is a DVD in your queue that you do not want to see, remove it. If there are DVDs in your queue that do not excite you, move them to the bottom of your queue. In the end, make sure that your queue reflects the top thirty DVDs you would like to see, ranked by importance.
Understand that anything in your queue--especially in the top ten positions--could possibly be sent to you without warning. If you are in the process of viewing a multi-DVD set, keep the volumes at the bottom of your queue. Move each DVD to the top of the queue only when you are ready to watch it.
Queues have become the primary point of interaction between the subscribers and the DVD-by-mail companies. With some careful planning, you can get the most out of your rental plan and avoid the inconveniences of quepidity.
The odd thing is that many people get upset when a company ships them a DVD that is anything but the first choice in their queue. For example, a person will get his fifth DVD choice and be outraged over the horrible injustice. The disgruntled subscriber will be filled with dread at the thought of having to watch the undesirable DVD.
This outraged subscriber is suffering from quepidity. Quepidity is a very common syndrome that compels an afflicted person to put DVDs in his queue that he does not want to watch. There is no explanation for the existence of quepidity, but the condition is widespread and causes a lot of unnecessary frustration and conflict.
The reality is that a DVD-by-mail company will rarely ship a DVD that is not in a customer’s queue. If a subscriber does not wish to watch a DVD, that subscriber should make certain the DVD is not in his queue.
The best way to avoid the symptoms of quepidity is to go through your queue and carefully examine each title. If there is a DVD in your queue that you do not want to see, remove it. If there are DVDs in your queue that do not excite you, move them to the bottom of your queue. In the end, make sure that your queue reflects the top thirty DVDs you would like to see, ranked by importance.
Understand that anything in your queue--especially in the top ten positions--could possibly be sent to you without warning. If you are in the process of viewing a multi-DVD set, keep the volumes at the bottom of your queue. Move each DVD to the top of the queue only when you are ready to watch it.
Queues have become the primary point of interaction between the subscribers and the DVD-by-mail companies. With some careful planning, you can get the most out of your rental plan and avoid the inconveniences of quepidity.
2/15/2006
GreenCine Promises No Throttling
Amidst a storm of criticism of throttling in the DVD-by-mail industry, GreenCine has wisely clarified their "no throttling" policy. Click here to read more.
11/29/2005
CleanFlicks Plays Dirty with Artists’ Creative Rights
CleanFlicks, founded by Utah’s Ray Lines, is a DVD rental company that edits profanity, nudity, violence, etc. from movies and rents them out to people who find those things unbearably offensive. It is wonderful that people have the power to avoid things that they do not want to see, but the problem is that CleanFlicks is editing these movies without the consent of directors. This is akin to putting a fig leaf on a naked statue, clipping out words from a song, or blacking out text in a book.
Film is an artistic medium, and directors are artists. An artist creates a piece of art as a complete work. Every element in that piece of art is there because the artist put it there for a purpose. When companies delete things from art, they diminish the art and degrade the artist.
This is a free-market system where people are supposed to vote with their wallets. Whenever people rent or purchase a movie, edited or not, they are giving the director financial support. If people are offended by nudity, profanity, violence, etc., they should not financially support directors that put those elements in their movies.
If a lot of people start paying for only family friendly movies, the studios will take notice and shift their financial backing to more tame fare. Look at the movies from the 1940s. They have virtually no profanity, nudity, or violence. This is not because of prudish directors, but because the American movie-goers at that time demanded clean movies. Show business is a business, and the entertainment will eventually conform to market demands.
The issue here is not consumer freedom. Consumers should be able to see or not see whatever they want. The issue here is the rights and reputation of the artists. The artist is the creator of the work and accountable for its content. Therefore, the artists (and their financiers) are the only ones who have the right to authorize changes to their work.
Television networks edit movies all of the time, but they do it with the permission of the directors, studios, etc. Likewise, CleanFlicks should be allowed to edit whatever they want from movies, but they should have the decency to get the permission of the director before they do it.
Mel Gibson is currently suing CleanFlicks, because they edited out three minutes of material from The Passion of the Christ. Gibson’s case against CleanFlicks is bound to be a landmark decision for artists’ creative rights.
Film is an artistic medium, and directors are artists. An artist creates a piece of art as a complete work. Every element in that piece of art is there because the artist put it there for a purpose. When companies delete things from art, they diminish the art and degrade the artist.
This is a free-market system where people are supposed to vote with their wallets. Whenever people rent or purchase a movie, edited or not, they are giving the director financial support. If people are offended by nudity, profanity, violence, etc., they should not financially support directors that put those elements in their movies.
If a lot of people start paying for only family friendly movies, the studios will take notice and shift their financial backing to more tame fare. Look at the movies from the 1940s. They have virtually no profanity, nudity, or violence. This is not because of prudish directors, but because the American movie-goers at that time demanded clean movies. Show business is a business, and the entertainment will eventually conform to market demands.
The issue here is not consumer freedom. Consumers should be able to see or not see whatever they want. The issue here is the rights and reputation of the artists. The artist is the creator of the work and accountable for its content. Therefore, the artists (and their financiers) are the only ones who have the right to authorize changes to their work.
Television networks edit movies all of the time, but they do it with the permission of the directors, studios, etc. Likewise, CleanFlicks should be allowed to edit whatever they want from movies, but they should have the decency to get the permission of the director before they do it.
Mel Gibson is currently suing CleanFlicks, because they edited out three minutes of material from The Passion of the Christ. Gibson’s case against CleanFlicks is bound to be a landmark decision for artists’ creative rights.
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