Today, six major movie studios announced their intent to begin selling movies through online downloading services, specifically Movielink and Cinema Now. The studios that announced their participation were Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, Paramount, Fox, and MGM. That pretty much covers the spectrum. Movies from these services can be burnt to DVDs, but those will only play on computers authorized by the particular service.
Now, let's talk numbers. Average DVD cost today- somewhere around $15. Little more for new releases, little less for some of the "oldie but a goodie" labeled movies, WAY less for the cult classics. Well, using this service, you're gonna pay between $10 and $20 smackeroos for the older movies. New releases: somewhere in the range of $20-$30. WAY too much.
I've also failed to cover the upcoming release of titles being released on HD discs, which will only play in HD DVD players. $30ish bucks per title. I've seen players for as low as $200, but I not from any big name distributers. Trust a general price closer to $500-$1000.
It gets worse. A format war has begun.
HD DVD has a rival. The Sony-developed Blu-ray. This is another High Defination formatted disc, which ALSO requires its own player. The players are set right now to cost around $1,000, with titles going for either $30 or $40 depending on what you choose of the very limited selection.
Both of these formats keep getting delayed (HD DVD was originally supposed to be released on March, 28. Wal-Mart and Best Buy had even already been taking pre-orders). Both of these have release dates staring mid-April/May now.
Here's why this sucks.
1. WAY to expensive for most of us mere mortals to afford.
2. The HUGE VHS library I still have at home that doesn't have a DVD counterpart.
3. The format war. Now you have two different, exclusive formats competing for the majority market. Whichever one wins, that leaves the other camp as MAJOR losers. They would've already invested so much money in one format, and all for naught.
Why can't we all just get along? C'mon, give us one format, or at least players that will support both, and for MUCH cheaper. There's no excuse for these titles to cost that much. It's a piece of plastic, let's be honest. And there's no way you can convice me it costs half of what their charging to produce these. If they really want their format to win, they should get these these prices down to normal DVD standard. C'mon industry. Rally behind one standard and get those prices down. In te end, you're only pissing off the consumer and promoting the pirating you bitch aboutu so much.
The only good news: Windows Vista (*cough* buy Mac *cough*) will natively support both formats.
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