{"id":168517,"date":"2010-01-11T23:40:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T04:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"Gizmodo-5445905"},"modified":"2010-01-11T23:40:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-12T04:40:00","slug":"blu-rayitunesdvd-combo-movie-packs-prove-dvd-is-still-king-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/168517","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray\/iTunes\/DVD Combo Movie Packs Prove DVD Is Still King [Rant]"},"content":{"rendered":"

More and more big movies—Where The Wild Things Are<\/a><\/em>, to name the latest—are coming out in a single package that includes Blu-ray, iTunes-friendly Digital Copy<\/a> and<\/i> DVD. This proves DVD is still the best way to sell movies.<\/p>\n

I naively enjoyed the Blu-ray\/Digital Copy combo for a while, during the period I was still trying to see the point of Apple TV, and didn’t mind the rights-managed movie files. Now that Apple TV is dead to me<\/a>, and I use other media players<\/a>, I prefer a clean Handbrake rip to a DRM-shackled digital download. I am not a pirate; I just like being able to do what I want with a movie I buy.<\/p>\n

Sell me a Blu-ray disc, solo, and I can rip it<\/a>, maybe even downrez it. But melting a hole in my laptop trying to rescale 1080p to DVD-standard 480p is a thousand-hour pain, and trying to play a movie at my in-laws when all I have is a Blu-ray disc (and they don’t have a player) is annoying too. Combining Blu and the DVD solves these problems, so it’s the best, but it does render the Digital Copy totally pointless.<\/p>\n

With the right gear and software, I can watch movie files pretty much wherever. But so many people don’t rip movies and don’t download them either. Combo packs solve a huge headache, but again, Digital Copy is the odd man out.<\/p>\n

A DVD can be portable-ish, playing on laptops, little LCD DVD players, and—especially for family stuff where these combo packs first appeared—in-car entertainment systems. There aren’t many Blu-ray players in cars, and unless each of your kids gets their own iPod Touch, iTunes DRM video isn’t gonna work either. Maybe someone has a Blu-ray player in the home, connected to an HDTV, but that Blu-ray disc is never really portable. Hollywood backs into these problems, then brings its ace out of retirement to solve them. DVD proves it’s still the best.<\/p>\n

Warner Home Video<\/a> is delivering the monster pack of Where The Wild Things Are<\/em> on March 2, 2010. It’s priced at $36, steep but it will no doubt be reduced by a lot when it arrives at Amazon. The Pixar movie Up!<\/em> is selling in a triple combo pack for $18<\/a>, while Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs<\/em> sells in combo for $25<\/a>. The Bourne<\/em> trilogy will be out in three separate $20 combo packs on January 19.<\/p>\n

I would argue that Hollywood cares less about people ripping DVDs than confusing (and losing) the mini-van set. Everyone will benefit, as more and more high-profile films get the triple-combo-pack treatment. Hell, I will gladly pay $18 for a movie if I get to keep all of that stuff—that’s not even the price of two theater tickets, and I pretty much hate movie theaters these days. But at $18, Hollywood’s “upsell” for the included Blu-ray and iTunes download is gone. It’s less what they gain than what they don’t lose, I suppose. So where does that new dual-sided Blu-ray\/DVD combo disc<\/a> fit in? I doubt it’ll go far. It costs more—and confuses more—than good old standalone DVD. Hail to the king, baby.<\/p>\n



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More and more big movies—Where The Wild Things Are, to name the latest—are coming out in a single package that includes Blu-ray, iTunes-friendly Digital Copy and DVD. This proves DVD is still the best way to sell movies. I naively enjoyed the Blu-ray\/Digital Copy combo for a while, during the period I was still trying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}