Fox DVD creates Two Classes of Discs

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So what do you guys think about this? Two classes of DVDs, a barebones version for renters and then a version with special features for people that buy?

"Slumdog's" rental DVD, for instance, carries only the movie and trailers. The retail version also has special features including deleted scenes and commentaries. And while the rental Blu-ray does have the bonus features, only the retail Blu-ray adds digital copy.
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So really it doesn't affect anyone. We'll still be able to buy them at the regular cost and the renters edition will still be pricey because blockbuster charges 4 bux to rent a movie.
 
Let's just hope they don't do something like this with our games.
 
Not exactly sure what this does, except up the cost on all the DVDs. Now instead of pressing just one version, they have to press two versions.

Also those who rent are left without special featuers and odds are high they won't bother buying the dvd anyways. I think it'll just lead to more piracy and hurt video rental stores.
 
Personally I rarely watch the special features anyway so I am not going to mind that. It seems like quite the racket but really, what isn't when it comes to studios and content providers. I don't have time to be outraged about this, nor am I surprised.

They want to give us a reason to buy their DVD's rather than rent. I let Netflix to almost all of my DVD buying.

 
Ehren8879 said:
Let's just hope they don't do something like this with our games.
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Read this quote from the article:
"Whatever Fox's intentions may be, its ability to enforce those terms is limited by the First Sale Doctrine, which gives retailers the right to rent any legally purchased copies. Rental stores, for example, can go to Wal-Mart and buy the premium versions, then rent them to consumers.

"There's no question that some rentailers will go and buy from Wal-Mart and rent out the copies, and you can't stop that," said Ted Engen, president of 1,800 store cooperative Video Buyers Group. "But it's not going to be that big of an issue as people think. The main thing is that studios have to add value to get customers to buy and they aren't buying. Numbers have been falling through the floor."

I don't think the game industry is currently giving Gamefly or other rental services special, lower price like the rental industry gets. If the game industry were to come up with two teirs, AND offer a much lower price to Gamefly, then Gamefly would have to consider just how much has been removed. If too much were removed, and people didn't find renting the games worthwhile anymore then Gamefly would have to go right back to buying full versions or risk losing their subscribers.
 
krotch said:
Not exactly sure what this does, except up the cost on all the DVDs. Now instead of pressing just one version, they have to press two versions.

Also those who rent are left without special features and odds are high they won't bother buying the dvd anyways. I think it'll just lead to more piracy and hurt video rental stores.
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I only watch the special features on a select few movies. Don't you guys have to really like a movie before you watch the special features too? If you really like a movie you'd probably be buying it anyway. I can't remember the last time where I didn't think a movie was worth owning, yet at the same time cared enough to watch the director talk about "And here...yeah, we were thinking this....." through the movie a 2nd time.
 
If they would offer this option to consumers for a significant difference in price I'd be all over it. Out of my 100+ DVD's I have only checked out special features on literally 3 of them. I'd gladly buy a stripped down movie only version of a DVD if it was cheap enough.
 
Special features = crap I dont want to see, unless I *really* like the movie.
 
In times when everything else is going on sale, DVD's / BR are going up in price. Is it any wonder buyers are taking a pass?

The only special features I ever check out are on cartoon movies, like Shrek.
 
This is not new, barebones DVDs have been selling for decades in "emerging markets".
 
Ualdayan said:
I only watch the special features on a select few movies. Don't you guys have to really like a movie before you watch the special features too? If you really like a movie you'd probably be buying it anyway. I can't remember the last time where I didn't think a movie was worth owning, yet at the same time cared enough to watch the director talk about "And here...yeah, we were thinking this....." through the movie a 2nd time.
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The only special features I watch are the deleted scenes/bloopers. I could hate the movie, but I still watch those features.

The rest is a big waste of my time. I don't care about director's comments, how the music score was made, etc.
 
As far as I'm concerned you can ditch the extras and all the other BS too if it'll make more room for a better quality encode of the main movie... you know, the part I actually give a shit about.
 
Is there really such a huge cost difference b/w barebones dvd vs dvd with features?
 
I have to admit getting a good laugh out of the article. Poor, poor, entrenched studios are so doomed to failure.

I thought 37 different brands/styles of toothpaste was bad, 5 different runs of the same movie? Still laughing.

I either Netflix or buy movies used on Amazon. If your a small independent and I like what you have, I will buy new. Major studios no longer will see my money due to the way they view customers that want to rip movies and archive the media for safe storage.
 
wiseoracle said:
So really it doesn't affect anyone. We'll still be able to buy them at the regular cost and the renters edition will still be pricey because blockbuster charges 4 bux to rent a movie.
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its 4.75+tax where i'm at for a new movie at Ballbuster! only like 2.5x at family video.

Sorta a dumb ideal cause now you have to open another manufacturing line for another edition of the same movie, it will cost them more to do this.

Agreed about the trailers, they either need to be at the end of the movie or in extras, I'm tired of them at the begining, and some starting not allowing to skip to root menu so you have to FF through them!
 
Monkey God said:
Special features = crap I dont want to see, unless I *really* like the movie.
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You're missing out with some films, if you care about the craft of making films at all. The oddest films can have the best commentary tracks -- "Dark City" has one by Roger Ebert that's really informative, as is the writer's commentary on "War Games."

Some are, as you note, indispensable if you really care about the content of the film. The "Apollo 13" track with Jim and Marion Lovell is fascinating in how frank it is about what the movie got wrong, and Marion Lovell's genuine emotionality when watching the launch sequence.

If it's worth owning, it's probably worth checking out some of the extras. That's probably also true of some rentals, although I may not bother with the extras on "Hancock" when Netflix delivers it later today.
 
Plz switch to digital distribution. I will then buy the movie, sans special features, for cheaper.

kthxbai
 
What I don't get is why don't they let the rental stores burn their own copies? Give them the basic movie and that's it. No more pissed off customers that drive all the way to the store to find out the movie they want is rented out.

The studios should then press out a single version of each movie with all the extras. If somebody likes a movie enough then they'll buy their own copy, and people that like it enough just might watch some of those extras.

The movie industry is failing just like the music industry because they keep trying to adhere to their aging business model. I'm thinking whoever makes the decisions in the movie industry is a cousin of whoever makes these business decisions in the music industry. :D
 
I think this is good if it lowers rental price? Renting is getting to be yesterdays news anyway, so either way it wont matter.
I almost never look at the other stuff, unless the movie is just too good that i need more somehow, but that has happened maybe only a few times in my life so far.

As far as i am concerned one of the best things for our world would be to have 50-75% of all the money wasted on making stupid movies no one ever sees and put that money to good use in our country.
Its amazing people will go see or rent some insanely stupid movie, but wont vote for a tax increase of $50 a year to help their kids schools.

And yes, no trailers in purchased movies would be awesome!
 
no freakin edit button

I also wanted to add that these studios need to clear up their transition process. Give it to us at the best quality possible. Several of these blu-ray movies look like shit. I'm guessing they want to do this because they think we'll buy Terminator 2 for the 5th time over... ain't gonna happen. :p
 
Arcygenical said:
NO FUCKING TRAILERS ON PURCHASED DVDs
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I don't mind trailers, I do mind FORCED trailers. So how about

NO FORCED F*ING TRAILERS ON RETAIL DVD & Blu-Ray Disc

Studios can leave them on the rental versions if it helps keep the overall cost down.
 
How about a bare bones version that you can buy for LESS MONEY?
 
"The main thing is that studios have to add value to get customers to buy and they aren't buying. Numbers have been falling through the floor."

Give me $10 DVDs at release with the movies only. No special features, no animations in the menus, no voiceovers--and for damn sure no previews that I'm unable to skip. Okay--leave the FBI threat message up there. I can live with that for $10 because all I want is the movie. Or better, $5-7 for a digital copy that I can burn to a DVD.
 
The movie industry has been doing something similar to this for years. They will first release a popular movie on DVD. Then after a few months later they sometimes release a "Special Edition" version of the same movie. Most of the time that just means they have added a ton more extras and maybe a few deleted scenes into the movie itself. I used to buy movies all the time now I just rent from Netflix. I only buy a few movies a year now and those are the ones that I really loved and feel like I may watch again in the future. But as far as the special features go, I could really care less if they are on there or not.
 
wiseoracle said:
So really it doesn't affect anyone. We'll still be able to buy them at the regular cost and the renters edition will still be pricey because blockbuster charges 4 bux to rent a movie.
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Considering Blockbuster's bargain bin stock, I don't think we'll have that problem for long :)

It really comes down to NetFlix/RedBox at this point. They already create a "rental" graphic (gray with the logo cutout, so it's only 1 pass on the disc), so why not. Most renters don't rent for the special features, I *never* watch those, unless I love the movie enough. And if I do, I probably buy it.

Good for them.
 
Let's not forget that movies are compressed for special editions. Often the movie is compressed further and quality suffers to put all that extra stuff on the disk. Will the Rental version have improved visual quality?
 
Can the studios not get this through their heads? It's the same as piracy -- if you ADD value, people will buy because of the added value. Otherwise, I'll stick to the bargain bin.
 
If they put unskipable trailers before the menu to the main feature im gonna be pissed.

Aside from that, the extra's are usually on a second disk anyhow. Or at least a bulk of them are. Meaning that you don't get that disk when you rent anyhow, except for netflix. Sometimes with them you can request the second disk.
 
This doesn't change the fact that a crappy movie is still going to be a crappy movie. I mean, as a business plan, more people aren't going to buy a crappy movie because it has extras. It really seems like studios are missing the whole point.

The only way people are going to buy more movies is if:

A. Studios lower the cost of new releases.
B. Make much better movies.
C. Make DRM less restrictive so it actually feels like you own a copy of the movie that you purchased.
D. All of the above.
 
sweet fox just made it easier for me to rent and pirate a movie! now i dont have to rip off all those extra features to fit the moving on a blank dvd! thanks fox!
 
Arcygenical said:
NO FUCKING TRAILERS ON PURCHASED DVDs
Click to expand...

+ another 9000

I have no issue with two classes of dvd, in fact I would prefer to purchase the "rental" class that is stripped down to just the movie. Honestly, I have never even bothered to look at any of the "bonus" content on any dvd I have ever purchased (well except gladiator) because for the most part it is all complete crap anyway.

I'm in favor of straight to DVD release myself cause I hate going to theaters anyway and I would gladly pay 25 - 30 bucks to buy a movie on release day.... so long as I don't have to sit through a bunch of stupid trailers before the movie... ohh wait, I use mythtv anyway so I don't have to sit through any trailers either way ;)
 
No Sir, I don't like it. I like being able to see special stuff, it makes the movie more dear to you, let say you watch a movie and go wow that was awesome, special features ahoy! Its not going to be a reason for me to buy the film if I wasn't going to anyway.

I like trailers! Keep them! But make them menu items and not forced, makes no sense.

It is also not like they are going to do a better job encoding the movie to take the entire disc space for the renter version.

Lastly Releases are starting to become pretty bare these days anyway.
 
krotch said:
Not exactly sure what this does, except up the cost on all the DVDs. Now instead of pressing just one version, they have to press two versions.

Also those who rent are left without special featuers and odds are high they won't bother buying the dvd anyways. I think it'll just lead to more piracy and hurt video rental stores.
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They already make 2 versions of most movies: the stripped down 1 disk version and the deluxe 2 disk releases. It sounds like they're not going to directly sell the deluxe versions to Rental places. I'm skeptical that this will make any difference for sales, since i don't think many renters look at extras, but then again, if you're going to buy a movie you already rented, maybe you will look at them.
 
webdev511 said:
I don't mind trailers, I do mind FORCED trailers. So how about

NO FORCED F*ING TRAILERS ON RETAIL DVD & Blu-Ray Disc
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absolutely. You can't make those letters big enough.


Studios can leave them on the rental versions if it helps keep the overall cost down.
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Yeah but.. it's not about keeping the cost down, it's about maximizing profit. The cost is only kept down by people not buying the shit.
 
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