17 April 2006

An open letter to the DVD industry

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me...

When I got my first DVD player I went out and got DVDs as soon as they came out. Then, the expanded edition with widescreen and director commentary came out, then the delux edition with the "making of and PC extras disk". THEN, eventually, the boxed set with the whole series in a convenient packaging. *sigh* And you know I got more than one of them....

Now, i've stopped. I wait until the 10 year anniversay edition (which totally backfired with the Rocky Horror DVD, should have held out for the 25 year). I won't buy a first edition DVD no matter how bad I want it (right now, I'm waiting on the Firefly-Serenity boxed edition). And based on the declining DVD sales, I 'm betting I'm no the only jaded buyer out there.

So, here's the deal... We'll start buying first run DVDs again when you stop re-releasing them with a couple of added features. First run, full comentary, dual wide/full version with making of and such, with no re-releases except for the boxed series edition (BTW, I love the Jurrasic park boxed set). One version, one set, and we'll buy all you can make. Jerk us around, and watch a whole media type fall into disuse...

While we're at it, no more mandatory previews. I'd love to watch some upcoming previews before my movie....sometimes. I HATE being forced to watch them EVERY time I insert the disk. Damnit, I paid top dollar for a DVD that costs $1, packaging for $1 and residuals that run about $2. Keep it up and you'll start seeing product retuns.

Fool me once....