I guess I’m not typical.
It’s rare for me to watch a DVD at home anymore. If I’m watching TV, it’s a basketball game, something on HDNet/Movies, or one of the HD channels, or something I Tivo’d. Typically Dave Chappelle or Law & Order.
About the only time I actually place an actual DVD into a DVD player is when it’s for my daughter.
That’s not to say I don’t want to watch DVDs, or I haven’t watched DVD’s. I do, and I have.
I watched them in hotel rooms on my PC. I’ve watched them on my PC when I’m on a plane. Mostly, and I’m sure this was my fault for not being careful, I watched half ‘till the end, the other half until they stopped playing because of a scratch.
Is there anything more irritating than a scratched DVD?
So I thought I would do something about it. I have already written about how I think hard drives will have a significant part to play in how we experience and watch video content. What I hadn’t done personally was take the time to convert DVD’s I had PURCHASED to a format that could be easily stored on my new remote control sized, 80gbs Firelight.
My plan was to take the drive, stuff it with movies, and use it to launch movies I could watch on the road.
What a pain in the ass.
I used 3 different rippers. All pretty much worked in realtime. Slow. Tedius. Didn’t rip correctly every time. My dream of taking 20 or so movies on the road with me died a sad death halfway through the boredom of coming back and checking to see if Dodgeball was done.
Which leads to the “aren’t I the customer here moment,” we all have.
Why isn’t an AVI, DIVX, WMV, MOV or any format of computer usable video put on one of the DVD’s ? Anything but those pain in the ass VOB files. Most DVD’s have the less than 1gbs in space left.
It can be copy protected for those studios with Piraphobia (fear of piracy). I just need the ability to copy it 3 or 4 times (don’t want to be left off when I put it on my new 250gbs mobile drive next year ).
I would even pay a premium for it…Put a sticker on the package saying this DVD has a format compatible with PC hard drives.
Better yet, you could put it online. Let me put my DVD in, it checks your website for authenticity, I give you my demographic information, you let me download a file I can put on my hard drive.
You win, the customer wins and guess what? When it comes time to buy a DVD, and it’s a toss up between the movie that makes it easy for me, the customer, vs. the one who doesn’t care about me. Guess which one I pick ?
If no one wants me as their customer, then I do more of what I’m starting to do now. I take the movies and tv shows I record from my computer based PVR and copy them to my little harddrive (in minutes for everything), and watch them on the road instead of buying your DVD’s.
Complications lose customers. Simplification gets customers.
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