The future of video rentals is pretty clearly in on-demand streaming of video over the Internet, but until then, DVD companies need to strengthen the legs of their business model somehow. Now, a German company named Einmal has announced that they have come up with a self-destructing DVD technology. Coated in a special chemical, the DVDs will begin to break down and corrosively melt after 48 hours, rendering them unplayable.
The idea is to allow people to “rent” DVDs (or, really, buy the DVDs while renting the intellectual property stored on the disc) anywhere: gas stations, grocery stores, 7-11s and the like. The whole concept eschews the troublesome “returning the disc” aspect of DVD rentals.
Of course, this isn’t new: Flexplay has offered disposable DVDs in America for the last five years. I actually saw some of these at a Mass Pike Gas ‘N’ Gulp in January, and I remember being flabbergasted by the utter wastefulness of such a scheme… along with the way in which each and every item I purchased was placed in its own individual plastic bag, then double bagged for good measure.
That’s what really bothers me about it. The wastefulness. I’m actually not particularly green conscious, subscribing to the Monty Burns School of Environmentalism. But the utterly stupid wastefulness of tossing out millions of DVDs a year — as if an optical disc were as befouled by a single viewing as a prophylactic is by a single syphilitic hump-and-squirt — just stupefies me.
What’s even more bizarre is the EU is far more green-friendly than the United States. I live in a country (Germany) where all of my garbage must be sorted into eight color-coded bins every trash day; where I am expected to pay 20 cents per plastic bag when I go shopping; where an empty beer bottle will get you a 25 cent deposit back. How can Europeans, of all people, be embracing such a wasteful, decidedly un-eco-friendly scheme, even as Americans have rejected it?
And I think that’s the rub: while Europe has high bandwidth penetration and people actually would like to stream video on-demand, it’s a second class citizen (but with a 40% higher currency value). We’re largely excluded from buying video off of iTunes. Most of the American corporate video streaming sites exclude us. There is no real European equivalent to Netflix or Blockbuster online. There’s money to be made, but no one’s paying attention.
Until the film and television industry starts reaching out to Europe in the same way it’s reached out to Americans, melting DVDs are about as good as it’s going to get.
This DVD will self-destruct in 48 hours [The Register]
Somebody got paid off?
I dunno, it happens.
Excellent points John. I am also a transplant into Germany, and I am just stupefied that this is even being allowed here. Excuse me while I go hassle some venture capitalists and start me a good ol’ fashioned interweb movie download company.
BTW, what city are you in? We only get 8 cents pfand per bottle of beer here in Munich! I may have to start a Newman-Kramer-esque recycling operation.
I almost forgot: I guess corn based plastics are not optically sufficient for use with DVD’s?
Qozmiq: I’m in Berlin, and I’ve seen deposits as high as 25 cents, I’m pretty sure. Not that I know, honestly: I tend to just toss them in the “glass” bin without actually returning them.
What about LoveFilm? http://www.lovefilm.de/
They have downloads.
That aside, what’s the point of these DVD’s again? To make sure you rip them as soon as you get them home, rather than waiting a couple of days?
If these are DVD-D based, then they’re not quite as environmentally hostile as they sound. The cases are made of cardboard, and polycarbonate discs are highly recyclable because they’re thermoplastic.
Uh, usually when one wishes to keep something from oxidizing away, one can simply coat said object with Carnauba Wax, and polish to an optically-transparent sheen.
You’d want to keep it in a soft, lint-free sleeve, and eventually you’d scratch it and it would degrade. But you ought to be able to keep one working for a few hundred plays at least.
–Charlie
Hmmm, fall asleep and forget it in the player and it will “break down and corrosively melt”. Won’t sell many to me butI would like to handle the class action case.
“single syphilitic hump-and-squirt”
Not necessary. Really unpleasant, actually.
mmmm, edible dvds. edible media. yum.