I have quite a large DVD collection.
Some would call it a colossal DVD collection. I’m not so sure, though. The number is presently around 1000. That’s not a huge number, if you ask me. It’s good, because there’s always something to watch, or for friends to borrow if they’d like to.
DVD’s are great compared to how crappy VHS tapes used to be…. in some ways. I get kinda pissed off that my “non law-abiding friends” who copy their DVD’s can remove the “obligatory” “don’t copy this DVD” warning that appears at the beginning of every DVD, and yet I, a legitimate purchaser of the DVD have to sit through the bloody things. How bizarrely ironic. Most of them have these days gone to the trouble of making sure you can’t get around watching that bloody awful thing every single time you stick the DVD in if you’re a legitimate user. FAIL!
One day, I’d like to have my entire DVD collection on iTunes, or some kind of other place that involves as much ease-of-use at finding movies as music does.
Why not collect with iTunes Movie Store? Well, mostly because of the inflexibility. I can’t play it anywhere other than on an iTunes enabled Mac or PC. Bloody annoying if you want to take it over to a friend’s house who doesn’t use iTunes… or (and this is a great one) how about if you want to get some content onto a DVD for a friend - you want to buy him something for is birthday, say, and he can only play DVD’s.
FAIL! So irritating. Add that to the fact that our current storage capacities just don’t cut it for having a DVD/Movie collection of this size and you have a really annoying failure.
There’s more, though. Haven’t you noticed how if you put a DVD into iTunes it doesn’t ask you if you want to rip it like it does with Audio discs? Why this mis-match? Probably due in large part to the same reason why I get those “You’re burning your future if you copy this disc” messages on the discs I buy.
Basically, I find it irritatingly ridiculous that for people who do the “WRONG” thing, life is about 1000 times more easy than those who do the “RIGHT” thing. I’m pretty sure this has always been the case (copy protection on software is a good example here).
For what it’s worth, I love Apple’s take, which tends towards giving people exceptionally awesome products/things at a good price such that they not only don’t feel compelled to copy it for other people, but in fact that they feel compelled to either recommend to others that they buy the products themselves, or BUY AND GIVE THEM THEIR OWN COPY.
I myself have given about 5 of my iPods to friends/acquaintances because they’ve needed one more than I needed it. I think it’s a nice thing to do. (Mostly iPod shuffles, but still).
We’re supposed to be in an age of technology. More like an age of ridiculous limitations at the moment (and it’s not being imposed by the technology - just by our own fears).