Careful Remarks about “Why I collect DVDs”
Sergio of the Shadow and Act team writes “Why I collect DVDs,” about his “love” for DVDs—which is really his love for film: “I respect films too much and all that they mean to me to treat them as just something I get in the mail and drop off in a mailbox. For me a life without films is not living at all.”
This love stuff gets my sympathy but I’m very certain that the younger generation might have pity for this love but no real sympathy. I can do no better for the kids. All I can add are a few objective, tactical reasons why DVDs are more useful than downloaded (or streaming) material.
- DVDs are designed to support supplementary material for the main feature. This allows the production to explain itself to the audience—become more intimate with audience. Streaming or downloadable alternatives are simply not there.
- DVDs and other more modern disc-based formats often have the highest quality sound and vision. The electronic alternatives are of lower quality—and I’m thinking about this knowing that “old-school” CDs are often of lower audio quality than “ancient” vinyl records. This implies that the entertainment executives are historically and collectively unconcerned about providing a high-quality visual/aural experience for the audience—which is quite different from the creatives out there who deeply care about such quality. Remember, it was a younger and more idealistic George Lucas who developed the THX system—not some owner of a theater chain,
- DVDs often provide the source data for downloads (and streams)—the entertainment company executives do not like this. It follows that “our future” is video on demand from “the cloud.”
- DVDs appeal to traditional collectors (like me—from the working-class, comic book world)—we don’t have dedicated, high-quality data lines here in my DSL, copper world, ruled by inelegant profiteers like AT&T.
- DVDs appeal to traditional collectors who are looking for more than popular, contemporary releases. There are films out there within my eclectic interests that are currently only on DVD (legally).So the reason why I’m excited about technologies like Silverlight is because video-on-demand and the interactive, ‘intimate’ richness of DVD (and beyond) are only possible through technologies like Silverlight. HTML 5 does not take into account the weird, 19th century concept of property in a 21st century commercial world.