Welcome to Yesterday Variety! Two DVD Versions is Nothing New.

Filed Under: Articles | Article Tags : commentary , industry news , opinion

I just saw this morning an article posted on Variety magazines website (via Techmeme) with the headline of “Fox DVD creates two classes of discs”.  I am fairly irked by this. Why this is news today I’m really not sure, there’s isn’t anything new here. The gist of the article states that Fox has decided to create two DVD versions for new releases, one barebones for the rental market, and one with all the bells and whistles for the consumer market. Why is this anything new? They have been doing this for years, everyone practically has. Every time we see announcements for films coming to home video, there’s typically two versions and clearly we have reviewed plenty of DVD’s around here designed for the rental market.  These discs are a ripoff because they are usually around the same price point as their loaded versions, which typically (at least in Fox’s case) come out a few months later in “Special Editions” or “Collector’s Editions”. The strategy of course being that the huge fans of that film will buy both. Its double dipping plain and simple, but at least now it looks like they are coming to market at the same time giving people a choice. Some like just the films, while others (including me) want the whole enchilada so this is a nice change I suppose. But come on guys, you write as if this is a first for the industry. Not really.

Welcome to yesterday.