Flexplay: The Disposable DVD that Failed (Thankfully)
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- Опубліковано 27 кві 2019
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Have you ever run across a cool idea that you desperately hope doesn’t catch on? Flexplay is one of those. In this video, we’ll talk about what it is, why it was crazy to think it would go anywhere, and why it’s probably a good thing it didn’t.
Did you know you can follow these links? It’s pretty neat. I heard about it on the Internet.
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I mentioned the tragedy of the commons a couple of times in this video. This is an old but (in my opinion) underutilized term for the concept of what happens when shared resources are used by individuals acting in their own best interest. Although the term is flawed and some situations are far more complex than can be explained in four easy words, it’s a useful reminder that things that seem harmless on an individual level can scale in ways we can’t grasp. If you’d like to learn a little more about this concept, check out this website I found; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Why not use the correct term and then explain it?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
Because TotC is more eloquent and specific to the aspect of resource depletion.
That's a really neat website! Thanks for telling me about it! Seems to have a lot of really informative articles! That are editable by the common people! It's almost like a recursive example of TotC itself!
Technology Connections Respect the consumers
@@unusefulidiot externalities is an economic concept and focuses on the fact that they exist and what problem that causes to try and make a tangeable cost benefit analysis. Whereas the tragedy of the commons is what it is called in environmental science and is what is actually being discussed in the video the environment and the lower efficiency and waste produced over another product. Something externalities does not look at as it is focused on one product itself rather than alternatives and greater societal good.
They were so proud of the concept that they made the company self-destruct as well.
They used a chemical compound to destroy all their employees and management.
@@gabrield.4276 I see 0 errors throughout this comment and any of its replies where "they" is the proper correction.
They put that in the patent too.
😂😂😂😂👌
@@gabrield.4276 so as well as a idiot you're also correct people's grammar over UA-cam eh ? Your life must be great
Me: "Mom, can we watch Charlotte's Web?"
Mom: "Sorry honey, it expired last week."
We have charlottes web at home.
The copy of charlottes web at home
@@ashspades5307Great way to make a comment less original!
Get a better movie, like a Restricted horror movie
LOL I've seen your pfp before, feels weird seeing it here
Nice one lol😂😂
There is something so horribly depressing about this, I can just picture a little kid buying Chrarrolets Web and not understanding why their favorite movie just stopped
😢😭
@@johnfoltz8183 no
Woah there, Satan!
@@danek_hren no
Yah I could see a completely ignorant parent (or Karen) buying this in a store and then flipping out about it no longer working because they didn't pay attention to the package.
Another problem: The consumer is much more likely to rent another movie if they have to return the first one, continuing the rental cycle.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the “environmentalist pressure” was applied by the rental companies themselves.
That was my first thought exactly. I hate how cynical I’ve become but I immediately wondered “how could that have been to their advantage?”
Its so cute that you assume companies care about environment
@@kyarumomochi5146 Maybe you should read his comment again.
I honestly doubt it since the tech would require a business model that was inflexible due to having to buy a lot of overhead that might never sell while simply renting discs multiple times has more flexibility and can off-load the discs later when that many of the same title are no longer needed. What I mean is that even if the tech worked as advertised and they managed to get enough studios to give them licenses to make all of the popular movies, it'd actually cost more to run a video rental store with Flexplay movies than it would the traditional rental plan. The profit margin would be worse for stores selling Flexplay movies than it would if they simply stocked a handful of the popular movie titles to rent out repeatedly due to the fact the initial high cost of buying the actual DVDs would be offset by the ability to continually rent them until the discs wore out making them more money in the long run.
Flexplay, in my opinion, was simply not a threat to the video rental industry like streaming services and the Internet ended up being.
Thus creating a self sustaining economy
I remember buying a couple of these just to see if it was possible to rip them to the computer before the disc oxidized. It was.
Jerry Shugars legend
awesome
Brilliant
and so even their greedy "if I can't have it, NOBODY CAN" idea for this failed as well...
Wondering the same. 🤷♂️🤦♂️
Hearing "11 years ago" in reference to 2008 made my head hurt.
And 11 years before that, it was 1997!
I'm old!
Same
@name2 Subtract 1 and it's 1985, the release year of the savior of Video Games - Super Mario Bros.!
Getting old is when you have socks older that the person calling you an idiot on the internet.
The rental model worked quite well because upon return, usually the consumer would rent another one on impulse.
That's not really true, as almost every rental store had the drop box just inside the front door and some form of external drop slot for when they were closed. While some folks might decide to rent another movie while they were there, stopping in front of the door while a kid shoved the movies in the slot was more common. Granted I didn't spend long hours working in a video rental store, but people watching while waiting for my girlfriend/fiancé/wife to pick out movies over the years showed me that the vast majority of people returning movies never entered past the drop box and the vast majority of people renting movies didn't drop any off as they came in.
@@andrewapplegarth334 The video rental market was largely founded on the idea of returns generating more rentals and sustained multiple national chains before digital services displaced them. As a counterpoint I guess we do have you sitting in a car prepping recall bias
@@MegaZeta That's a cool buzz word to try and justify ignoring observational data. Better luck next time...
That's why I used the drop box even if they were open lol
would have worked better if they didn't force so many people to use the dropbox. $50K late fees turning into felony charges rightfully ended that industry, epically bad leadership choices meant the public hated them by the end anyway, it was time for them all to go.
Talking about self-destructive media storage, Hideo Kojima (that Metal Gear daddy) once thought of using this kind of CD when developing Metal Gear Solid. He said if Snake died, the PlayStation disc would be permanently unusable. Good thing this tech never took off.
Okay, but that would be funny
You don't need that disk to do this. You can burn the dead flag at the free space of the disk and refuse to run if the flag is there.
That would piss a lot of people off. I'd never fw hideo again if he did that shit.
Thats the most Kojima shit I've ever heard
@@talkysassis Oh yeah how dare Hideo Kojima not think of think of that when making Metal Gear Solid in *1996.*
The jokes on them. I store my DVD player in an airtight box filled with nitrogen.
good job brack
@@Fable1Guides Brak*
Pro gamer tip
*Zorak blinks
Michael O smart man!
The flexplay patent basically made it impossible for other companies to try the same thing, so at least we can thank them for that.
Plus it wouldn’t make sense today, with Redbox and digital rentals.... (I’d imagine those would’ve eaten this things lunch eventually)
don't believe they received multiple patients except for what was actually " designed, prototyped & tested ". . . . . . . . . & ya don't get an exclusive patent for " Vaperware ".
@@robozstarrr8930 At one time you had to prove something worked to get a patent. But that requirement disappeared a long time ago. Which has created a mess from people who thought of an idea claiming rights to someone who did all the effort in making it work.
@@russellhltn1396 really, that's sad...did some patients in the 90's and we had to have a proof of concept /schematic/documentation/prototype ( that worked ). all i recall later were the renewal cost went sky high . . but if's thats the case shortly i'm gonna submit anti-gravity, backwards time travel ( at the speed of dark ) and HS dark skin gurls with short white hair, freckles and tan lines . . (cause that's my jam!)
@@robozstarrr8930 If anyone actually invented time travel, they'd simply go back to before you submitted your patent and submit it first.
I remember my dad talking about these. They were very popular with long-haul truck drivers. You could get these things at the major truck stops, watch the movie in the off time, then toss it. Most truckers had a portable TV/DVD, but not a ton of space to store movies. And since many places, especially in the Midwest, didnt have Redbox yet, it could be hard to return a rented disk on time.
Another perk was a trucker could buy these disks on the company account while buying other work supplies at the truck stops or even pay with cash. If a driver wanted to use Redbox, they woud have to use their own personal credit card.
So, I guess the Flexplay system did "work", but only for a relatively small market. Of course, when truckers started using Wi-Fi or smart phones, there was no need to use disks at all.
disposable DVD's thank God it failed can you imagine the amount of ruined DVD's in the landfills had it taken off?
Surprisingly Redbox is still popular. The one at the grocery store I work at has people standing in front of it all day. I'm glad disc rentals haven't fully died out. Watching my mom come home from work with a Redbox disc in her hand was always an awesome treat and I always got excited to see what new movie we would be watching.
I miss going to the video store. Sure, nowadays I can watch anything I want with just a few clicks, but it's just not the same. I'm glad I at least got to experience it though. I got to be a kid during the video rental heyday, and it was awesome!
I'm guessing they weren't very fun if it was your mom™ that did the choosing
@@pensacolian211It feels so much harder to discover stuff now that's not curated for you
Love red box. Once and a while they even sell me on a cheap buy
And renting video games!@@pensacolian211
*opens disc*
Flexplay: "I have decided that I want to die."
THAT'S A LOTTA depression
Gauntlet Legends Narrator: Your Flexplay IS ABOUT TO DIEEE!
like flipping McAfee when the trial runs out
Flexplay was the true Charlotte all along.
Depending on the movie put on the disk maybe a good choice.
That red color does look really cool.
that's what I was thinking
600 likes and one reply? My spot
There are colorfied CD roms so neat
the disk does look like something darth vader would sell.
looks like fresh blood to me
I actually still have one I purchased from Staples, The Kite Runner. IT STILL WORKS! The disc has air gaps in the center that allows oxygen to slowly degrade the disc, BUT if you quickly apply superglue after opening to seal that gap.... no degradation! At the time this wasn't a mystery and info and methods were readily available online via forums. I only bought the disc for the challenge of making it permanent. I was an early Netflix and Blockbuster by Mail so even paying $5-6 to permanently own the disc wasn't that appealing because the selection was poor and I still had to drive TO the store to buy it.
bro found the bypass
so even Flexplay isn't immune to the way of the pirate 🏴☠️
@@joshc5613your comment is 100% factually true, but jesus christ does it hurt to call someone a pirate for modifying their own physical property.
bro really homebrewed his dvd disc ☠️
@@joshc5613 And others here mentioned ripping FlexPlay DVDs to their computers. ...From which you could presumably burn a DVD±R copy if you wanted.
One of the earliest "nightmares" I had as a kid involved me reading books that destroyed themselves after 1 reading, and video games that self-destructed after you beat them. This kind of shaped me into the non-wasteful person I am now. Learning just now that something dystopian like this actually existed, makes me sick to my stomach.
I remember hearing about a pvp game, I think it was called Yolo where if you die, you can't play the game anymore. Sounds dumb, and there was no chance that a game like that would keep a community.
Ngl, a premise where a kid keeps resetting thier favourite game and never beating it to stop this from happening would make a good premise for a creepy or at least sad film.
@@blakksheep736 i agree! why not make the video game characters a *bit* more self-aware after each reset? it could be little things changing, like some lines being a bit different (using different words/sentences instead of just going by the script) or the character(s) trying to outright talk to the player through the screen!
@@mioko5679 great idea. And halfway through the main character takes the kid aside to ask what's wrong, then it's revealed why he keeps resetting.
If we want a happy ending, we can then have the two work together to break the cycle, only for the kid to realise this means he will likely not ever see his favourite game again.
The movie ends with the hero comforting him, telling him its time to move onto other games, as well as the rest of his life. ❤
Are you in therapy?
Thankfully, they patented every conceivable way to make a aelf destructing disc, so nobody else can create such an abomination
A patented idea becomes open source after some years.
@@vipervidsgamingplus5723 Yeah, but it we're kinda past the era of renting DVD's.
There is a typo in the comment
@@vipervidsgamingplus5723 *Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
Not open source, it becomes public domain.
Also not JUST after some years. It becomes public domain x years after you do not pay the maintenance fees. (4, 8, 12 years depending on the patent)
They can sell rights to patents, and businesses have no problem buying those rights if they think they can make money with them.
Watching Mission Impossible. "This DVD will self destruct in 10 seconds"
Underrated post.
Lol why didn't I think of this?
Or Inspector Gadget
I believe there's a patent for that...
Tim Lewis what if your DVD player explodes along with the disc
Gotta love how he managed to futureproof for Disney+ when it was about half a year away!
Also, did Flexplay ever think about the obvious thing of just backing up the ISO file?
I mean that's the same issue as any rental dvd
@Game Plays 1230 thought the same, if one could rip it (which I was doing with xcopy back then) to your drive, the data should be the same no?
Considering LOTS of us were still completely capable of ripping... No, flexplay didn't think about anti-piracy in the slightest. They thought "A time limit's good enough"... AND clearly never ran into someone who'd take the first opportunity of viewing the thing to go ahead and rip it down... The quality's going to be better on most rippers if you play it normally anyway...
Actual technical efforts to counteract ripping would be implemented around or just after this point in time, but even that was slow to hit mainstream production, overly complicated in manufacturing means, and generally only a matter of time before some enterprising individuals would figure out "the work around" anyway...
Even today, nearly any form of security that's older than 3 months has already been hacked successfully. Older than a year, and there's likely a product somewhere for your home convenience of hacking it, cracking it, or fooling it on your own. ;o)
@@hannahranga yes but at least with rentals, you dont loose the investment of the original dvd and can just rent it to someone else. Most often people rented most movies once anyway.
Future proofing not looking so good with Disney+ hemorrhaging money right now.
"You will own nothing and be happy"
This DVD concept was ahead of its time
Agreed!
very kosher
Streaming 😢😢😢
The DVD WEF wishes on the 99%.
I will pay nothing and I will be happy.
I'm a risky man. I'd watch Mission Impossible on those, two hours before expiration.
"Mission: Impossible" actually featured a view-once video tape (at the end; Smoke emanated from the tape).
It would be easy to implement. For example, you could have a battery in the gap in one corner of the tape, other electrical components (mainly a capacitor) in another corner, and an explosive that can be detonated by an electric current (RDX would work work well, as long noone drops the tape) between the reels in the middle. Then there would be two electrodes (maybe metal wheels) in contact with the tape at one point, and a piece of the tape at the end replaced with aluminium foil (to make an electrical connection between the electrodes when that point is reached).
Of course, people might complain if it blew up their whole room, or you might lose repeat business if customers were killed by the shrapnel of the video recorder.
You could make an incendiary version (more like the film) by putting vials of potassium permanganate and glycerol in the gaps between the reels, with a mechanism to open a door between them (to cause them to mix).
@@johnbernardlambe8582 just to be safe we should put you on the no-fly list and ban you from coming within 500 yards of a chemical lab.
@@alt8791 You kidding? Airlift this dudes DVDs to North Korea and watch the hilarity that ensues
@@Rebellions bold of you to assume they know DVDs
@@foxtrot1962 They know and use DVDs well. However it is a taboo to watch foreign DVDs in North Korea, but most citizens do it anyway. Most are smuggled from China or sent by South Koreans via balloon, along with post cards, diskettes, hand written notes, drawings, posters and etc., as a campaign to educate, inform, show love, and piss off North Koreans.
If they made a VHS version, would it be called Flextape?
They made something similar to VHS with a mechanism that slowly lowers a magnet towards the tape. I would pay for it if someone calls it flextape 😂
Hi Phill Swift here for Flextape
園田 I SAWED THIS BOAT IN HALF!
*THATS A LOTTA DAMAGE*
*pulls vhs out after it self-destructs
NOW THATS A LOTTA DAMAGE
Back in college, I bought one of these from Staples. I used my DVD player drive and copied it. I still have the video file even though the disc has been long gone for 15 years.
Interestingly enough, growing up in western Pennsylvania, the best video rental store was a sub-store inside Giant Eagle grocery stores. The “Iggle Video” stores severely cut into blockbuster’s business in the area, especially since you could grab the movie while getting groceries, and the rental terms were usually long enough that it was convenient to drop it off next week when you needed more groceries, and Iggle was just closer to the neighborhood, usually, also.
Western PA gang represent!!
@@CelesteWuff Ah yes, the Dirty Bird, where the floors are mopped once a year whether they need it or not
Gian Iggle
Imagine having a DVD that expires before the soup in your pantry.
If it's canned soup then I'm not sure the majority of DVD's won't. Millitary canned rations from the korean war were still edible from what I read a few years back. :P
Robert Phoenix You should watch Steve 1989. He once ate canned beef from the 1890s.
imagine having a teemo pfp
Imagine *dying*
@@helenwhs Spoiler : It wasnt edible cuz the air seeped in and it was just dirt
No sane person would ever return a copy of Shrek 2.
Yeah I still have mine 👌
why not?
Some
I buyed all of the copies of shrek 2 in a store and threw them off a cliffside. I SENT EM TO SHREKVEN.
No sane person would rent a copy of Shrek 2, They buy a copy
In the late 90s my mom got really into doing online surveys and stuff to earn gift cards and what not, and I remember one company who would mail us VHS tapes to react to, but they were single use. Once you played the tape, it would destroy itself. I was always curious about how that worked.
Another commenter down here brought up the name One-View, idk if thats what you're looking for
It's hard to say if this is more or less dystopian than the modern streaming subscription model. Nowadays your license to view a movie you enjoy can be revoked at any given time with no warning, and I have to imagine the massive servers have an environmental impact as well
Not only that, but someone other than you or even the people who made the media can censor the media.
And because of that, movie piracy has pretty much come back. Netflix, much like Spotify, almost killed piracy in their own segments when they arrived but now that every movie studio wants their own pies instead of sharing it like music streaming services do a lot of people went back to downloading.
@@MaaZeus thats what I did!
Also they can edit their content at any time (to comply with the latest fashions in politics, for example, or because a government forced them to) and you'll never be able to watch the old version or even know for sure that it was changed. Soon this can be done with AI deepfakes so that it is possible to "re-shoot" a scene with different dialogue and action, without the participation or consent of anyone involved in the original production.
I think those who archive digital media (legally or not) are doing a great service -- they ensure that people in the future will be able to watch what we watch, and understand our own era better, as it really was and not as the censors of the future want it to have been.
Literally everything has an environment impact
Tested one of these back in the day by leaving it constantly running in a DVD player. After about a day and a half the image began to get scambled and it was unplayable within an hour
Potententialy, you filmed it
@@lgasc ?
@@mazda9624 Apparently you did not
@@lgasc that is, like, piracy or something
@@lgasc I'm not sure if you're aware but we didn't have phones with decent cameras until a decade ago... Camcorders weren't common either.
Broke: e-waste
Woke: *T E C H N O T R A S H*
Stroke: blood for the blood god
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE
technoblade: you talkin bout _me?_
Technoblade fans: "write that down write that down!"
Dreams: *T E C H N O T R A S H*
8:50 "grocery stores probably didn't want to deal with all that"
Back in the hayday of physical rentals, every grocery store I knew of had a rental section.
I loled SO hard at the "open before 2009" on the inside of the sealed wrap! Another great early 2000's tech :)))
The Failure of Flexplay is one of the few indicators, that we do not infact live in the darkest timeline.
The fact that my own imagination scares me more than reality does is what confirmed that for me.🤣
True, but the fact that it exists at all supports my personal favorite argument that we live in the most ridiculous one.
@@MrBrightcide For me, it's an indication that we live in the most hypocritical one. Let's be honest, the Flexplay people didn't expect anyone to come back to the store to recycle the discs, they bet on people buying the discs and tossing them out with their household trash without caring about the environmental impact. But the concept was so wasteful that even Joe Public found it a tad harsh on the environment.
PS: I think some people boycotted Flexplay as a retroactive middle-finger to all those useless unsolicited AOL CDs they had received in the mail through the previous years.
@@user-yg4kj2mf1p This was clearly about money
@@user-yg4kj2mf1p Except DVDs arent gonna destroy the environment.
Your being just as ridiculous here
I'm old enough to remember getting fined for bringing a VHS back to Block Buster without first rewinding it.
Congrats
What was the fine/
@@WanderingBrushArt 6 months in federal prison usually
Be kind, rewind
@@RustyShacklefordReal Damn, beat me to saying it :)
I remember walking through an airport terminal and seeing a kiosk that was renting DVDs along with portable players. I don’t know if the DVDs were destructible, but the DVD players certainly weren’t, so you’d have to return something (again, negating the self-destruct feature).
Weren't users supposed to return the players and discs before boarding their flights by any chance ?
(Therefore renting and returning the stuff at the same airport)
Ah, I remember these. I remember reading about them before they came out and hating the idea immediately. So much waste, so much greed, so much pointlessness when other solutions (video rentals, especially) already existed. I was very pleased to find that most of humanity agreed with me, and this stupid product failed hard.
I am SO glad they were overconfident and patented everything under the sun.
Now no other company, no matter how foolish, will get to doing this
Until the patent expires in another 10 or so years.
@@RAndrewNeal who still watches DVDs though ?
@@jcrowley1985 That wasn't really the point. Though it's best to own everything you buy on physical media, which can be ripped to a hard drive.
I'm sure the current owner would license it cheap.
@@jcrowley1985 there's some old fogies who still use VHS, so I wouldn't doubt that there's many DVD users out there
That disc packaging is like software that has the user license inside the package that states "By opening this package you agree to the Terms and Service."
Or the E U L A.
Although in that case (as in the case of most EULA) it would be legally unenforceable
@@georgeparkins777 most Eulas are probably unenforcible
@@maxcorrice9499 that's what I said
@@georgeparkins777 No you said they'd be unenforceable. He said they'd be unenforcible.
The problem I have with the proposal that streaming is worse environmentally is that you also have to *ship* the DVDs everywhere, and it's a lot easier to solar/wind power a data center than to make a delivery fleet that doesn't burn dinosaurs.
the good thing about their patent thingy is, if anyone had had that idea again in the 10 or so years until the patent runs out they wouldve had to pay that patent too in whatever way they wouldve made the selfdestrution of the dvd into reality. so they pretty much ensured it wouldnt be a problem ever again :D
Casuals: "E-Waste"
Me, an Intellectual: "ｔｅｃｈｎｏｔｒａｓｈ ケ壱ま"
@D3lkatty same
*B U E N O*
@Sharkbyte399 it looks like an insult to all of the lucario fan community
And thats exacly why i love it
I love your comment, and your profile pic.
So vaporwave.
3:52 when the technology is so bad that even the DVD player is laughing at how bad it is
I'd go further than that, it sounded like Muttley snickering.
I laughed when the DVD player made a thunk whirring noise
lol I'm dead!
Well played, good sir or madam!
AnimeMangaViewer you know it’s bad when it’s a funai
Another reason no doubt movie rental stores in their heyday surely didn't want Flexplay, aside from making it so much easier for store outlets everywhere to compete with them.... is that it kept customers from coming back a 2nd time. And that second time often resulted in renting more movies, or at least seeing them.
Anyway this guys videos are well researched and interesting! good work
There was actually an attempt to market a self-destructing VHS format. I think it was called One-View. The tape would somehow erase itself as you watched it. Not sure if the resulting blank tape could be reused for recording or not.
I have a faint memory that inside that cassette was a gear that destroyed the tape when it was played.
The tape wouldn't erase itself while watching. They were set up to erase all content when the tape was rewound. You could watch the tape once, but if you tried to rewind it and watch again, all you got was static.
In the mid 90s, I was in a focus group for one of the major TV stations. I would get one of these stupid tapes every few weeks to preview new shows, mostly pilots.
No, you couldn't record onto the tape afterwards. I'm not sure how it worked.
Wow, it was the pioneer of the "view once" featured on many messenger apps
@@ShannonRice-hc2kr A bulk-eraser magnet that swung into place when the tape was pulled the other way to rewind, maybe? Or else what @notpublic5159 said.
And I'll bet _some_ people out there opened these up and defeated the destructive mechanism. Or moved the reels to a regular cassette's shell _before_ rewinding.
Never eat an expired DVD no matter how much your father insists it's fine.
It hasn't killed me yet.
I wanted to eat cereal and my dad sniffed it and said the milk was fine
I smelled the milk and goddamn it was sour
The blue flame _is not_ cold
Omg i thought this was just my father
I want to know the story behind this one
It's probably a good thing the patent included so many different ideas for self-destructing discs. Imagine the waste if people kept trying to make the idea stick and one of them did.
The patent only protects what's written in the patent's claims. Those are usually a lot less expansive than the written description, since you have to actually make it work before you can claim it.
Not how patents work.
It’s really not the worst idea I’ve ever heard of, it just sounds dystopian but definitely has a purpose. Older people who only use physical or you know someone without cable or internet maybe taking a trip to a cabin etc. I’d wager it might even be less wasteful than some trips back to return a dvd in person. Pretty niche tho lol
There is nothing wrong with the U.S. patent system :) /s
@@monhi64 ewaste that can be easily avoided does not have a purpose beyond creating waste.
I got one of these to test out, but by the time I was in the mood to watch what it was, the disc was already unreadable on multiple drives and a perfectly working PS3
honestly I like that they patented pretty much every way to make a self destructing disks
so that no one, not even if they wanted to, could make something so useless as a self destructing disk
“This message will self destruct in...”
I want every mission impossible dvd rental to do this.
Fearghus Keitz It has to start smoking like an FRH or explode, then it will be the best.
kabob 007 exactly!
Fearghus Keitz Also it has to hiss when you open the packaging.
Y E S
THIS IS THE PERFECT IDEA
And a fingerprint sensor
The irony is that the local supermarket has an endcap loaded with regular DVDs costing $2.99-$7.99 each -- none of which will commit suicide after 48 hours. :-)
And some good ones, to boot.
Lol!😂
Though in some cases, the DVD has seemingly already committed suicide before you buy it.
Blu-rays, even.
Or get a pirated DVD for a buck, it'd last a lot more. Piracy offered a lot of advantages back then.
Imagine you just got your Freeplay-CD, then you try to watch it a day after, but the DVD-player suddenly burns in a second and explodes. That would be terrifying.
the fun thing with these is that you could, if you had a home computer (most had CD drives at this time), burn it to your computer and have a permanent working digital copy.
I just imagine someone taking that special someone out for dinner and then coming home for a movie blowing the dust off of the plastic wrap and being like "I've been saving this for just the right special occasion" smelling the freshly open dvd and being like "ah yes this was a good year." popping it in and being like "damn why isn't it working?!" And the whole night is ruined because they didn't print the best by date on the outside of the package smh
Like saving a condom lol, at least those don’t destroy themselves after 48 hours, that’d be awkward.
@@DisDatK9 48hrs!? Most of us would be happy to get a couple minutes out of them!
@@liambergstrom8183
Oh, dear God! Think of the chafing!
😬
Show off!
If it were that special, you would buy the full dvd, not a 2 dollar rental.
Can't even express your displeasure in a strongly worded email because the company no longer exists.
Man, companies always finding ways to make you not own anything.
Some things just don't change over time, do they?
@@letcreate123 yes red dvds change over time to black dvds :)
@@WoodlandChill Thanks to capitalism and corporatism that'll be a thing though. Welcome to the 5g control grid where we own nothing.
You know your name can have a very fishy meaning, right?
*google stadia intensifies*
11:51 I was thinking when you mentioned allowing other stores to get into video rentals, "it'd be nice if they could have a video rental system where you could return to any rental location and not just the one you bought from, even business travellers going to a different city could just return it there", glad to hear somebody else had the same idea and made it work.
everything from 2:40 on is hilarious! Your humor and sarcasm is top choice mate! the cuts used ( and then you cut and you're not sitting there) -- i just love it. ive literally watches that section up until you get up to see the tv 4 times.
Truck Driver here: these were cool, but kinda on the expensive side if I recall. They were great for us, as getting back into a place to return a DVD could never be guaranteed. Hence, the truck stops you mentioned them being in: captive audience. Except that audiobooks were cheaper, and in only a year or two, smart phones were available so these were much less useful.
I don't remember but was it possible to return BlockBuster movie anywhere in the country? Like Redbox?
@@Nexus9118 no
@@grandmoffpuppeteer Well, thought so.
@@Nexus9118 you could sometimes if you could convince the person at the counter, but I don't think it was an officially supported thing.
Truckers was the market I thought of, too (I have a friend who's been one for 20 years). Get the disk at the truck stop, watch it when you stop for the night or a break so you don't drive too many hours, and toss it. But it turns out that Netflix worked pretty well for that, too. My friend would get his three DVDs, take them on his trip, mail them from wherever, and have three more waiting for him when he got home.
Imagine if the disc destroys itself whilst you're still watching it haha
Yeah, don't even start it in the 47th hour... :D
BIG OOF
And it's a horror movie so you just think the glitching out is part of the movie.
Now I want to know what that would've looked like.
@@gnupfo Probably a couple of glitches, freezing and the director's cut straight to the DVD player's splash screen xD
I seen something similar to this earlier at my local Goodwill store. There was 5 DVDs that had a price on the back on rental fees. I didn't bother looking at the disc but I feel it's the same thing. They were different from the one you featured in this video. The cardboard cases were just that. Thin cardboard DVD cases.
A lot of rental stores used stripped down versions that did not include special features and such that were included on the retail discs. These are usually clearly marked as rental versions and are more likely to be what you found than the type of disc this video was about.
Rip probably was worth alot should always pick shit like that up could be a good little flip
A classic case of a solution looking for a problem. I'd assume if it had caught on with the traveling subset there'd be enough disposal bins scattered about at travel stops and the like that one could just discard the disk on their next stop, but everything you pointed out still applies.
Other commenters have mentioned these being somewhat popular with long-haul truckers in that second attempt. Buying regular DVDs was more expensive, and space inside a sleeper cab was pretty limited anyway. Redbox didn't have kiosks everywhere in rural areas, so it could be a challenge to return rentals quickly enough. And cellular data wasn't good enough for streaming actual movies yet. But trucking companies often have fuel deals with truck stop chains, that keep their drivers going to the same chain everywhere they can. So many truckers were bound to stop at another location, drop their no-longer-playable discs in the recycling, and buy some new discs for their next few rest breaks.
To show you the power of Flexplay, I sawed the movie rental industry in half!
*_IT EVEN WORKS UNDERWATER_*
NOT VERY TOUGH
You win the comments section
Technicality Whoaa you're the man from that one Braille Skateboard video
Shoulda saw that coming
I think that red color is gorgeous.
Agreed
Me too
me three.
Me four
@@EssexAggiegrad2011 Me forty-six, but I agree :P
I was working a summer job during my college years at Staples in 2008. We got a single one of those cardboard stand things that are in the middle of retail aisles (I forgot the fancy retail jargon word we had for them) to put out. I thought it was the most random thing ever, about maybe 50 at most discs of a random assortment of movies, mostly very old. I had heard of the "no return" dvd concept before, but never actually seen it. I doubt we ever sold any (never during my shifts at least), and we DID get at least a few complaints about participating in that wasteful nonsense.
The word is endcap! :)
In the distant, forgotten past...some grocery stores did operate video departments. Now they're all banks or Starbucks or UPS stores.
Record stores did it too, forestalling their inevitable demise.
Flexplay: Suicidal
Flextape: Immortal
So, just Flextape the Flexplay.
Immovable object vs unstoppable force
@@knownas2017 Still slightly more effective than placebo.
@İlker Kesal even*
800 million flex disk in the trash?AOL said "hold my beer".
joseph fulks I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where Flexplay got the idea.
I remember when AOL was on floppy, at least you had free reusable disks, then they switched to CDs and you had drink coasters and landfill.
I think AOL sent me, personally, at least 800 million discs...
Now that's funny
@@grandetaco4416 At least one of them they sent to me actually came in a fancy metal tin (like an Altoids one, but bigger and thinner). I was impressed, but I already had AOL at the time.
Glad I found this! I was working for Staples when we started selling these and I never knew how they worked (and people asked all the time!). They were not a big seller. You'd sell a few here and there. I don't remember the return/recycle part, but that was quite a few years ago.
2:14 Astronauts on the moon:"Sweet it wont happen to me!"
Disposable DVD what a nice way to produce huge amount of plastic waste.
kapitanbomba1989 in comes keurig, hold my coffee cup.
*cough* like plastic water bottle *chough*
Disposable bottles what a way to produce huge amounts of plastic waste
less disposable things
I was thinking the exact same thing.
They thought I was crazy to fill my DVD player with nitrogen, but look who's laughing now!
You maniac
This was actually my first thought as well.
The voices aren't laughing now, now your the boss.
Plus nitrogen can be used as laughing gas so you can finally enjoy an Adam Sandler movie
You'll still expose the disc to oxygen between the package and the DVD player... At best, you'll slow down the decay of the disc, if at all
Thank you for preparing such a cool presentation. Thoroughly enjoyed this and learned something completely new!
I’m actually really curious about how reliable these DVD’s were. Because first off 48 hours is a really convenient amount of time, wouldn’t it be hard to moderate the reaction to exactly hit a classic rental time of 48 hours. So was it really 53 hours and do the discs always expire at the same time or is there variation. But i think most importantly is there a decline in picture quality towards the end, if it goes from perfect to completely unplayable over like even an hour would be impressive.
DVD is a digital format. There is no declining in picture (or any content that you wrote) quality. It's either playable in that perfect quality or unplayable at all. (Ofc unplayability can differ a lot depending on how various digital formats work. It can be a fully corrupted file, or just one piece of a file not working)
@@LadislausKallig even if there isnt degradation in picture quality, there can be a varied time of when the dvd player can actually read the disk.
@@Hero-do7wm that's what being unplayable means, yes.
Ez-d doesn't sound like easy dvds at all
It actually sounds like a male escort service...
affordable-d
XD
Hangs around for a few days then is gone, sounds about right.
@@bojangles2492 A few *days*? Geez, who has that much stamina?
@@450AHX An EZ-D, that's who
@@danielle5160 need me some easy d's
The tiny moments that kept dystopia dialed down. Imagine if in addition to region locks and DRM, companies could destroy your DVD remotely.
Everything is digital now, you just lease everything you pay for online. If your account gets banned or the service goes down, you lose everything. You don't own anything in the digital age.
@@Teh_Random_Canadian Everyone knows lol, people pay $5 for streaming services because they want to watch some stuff on the go, they don't care about "owning" movies or shows. If they did they'd just buy the DVD and then copy it
@@Teh_Random_Canadian yarr harr if you ask me
sort of like how buying original cartridges to legally rip them for emulators is something some people do. Just a thought
@@gamespender8605 I get that, if you follow the law by the letter then sure. The money you use to buy a hard copy so you can play on a emulator isn't going to the developer anyways, just a third party.
What I mean is if for some reason steam goes offline in a few years there would be billions of dollars worth of purchased games that people would no longer would be able to access
@@Teh_Random_Canadian In all fairness many steam libraries simply dwarf what would be possible with physical disks. Most people simply don't have the room for thousands or even just hundreds of games. As long as the game is physically installed to your pc and is playable offline, you'll be able to play it for as long as you have it installed.
I remember seeing these at my local Food Lion back around 2008 or 2009, and I read the front and was like “well that’s really stupid”.
0:57 is exactly the reason that I enjoy your channel. Thank you sir. You’ve done a grand service to the community.
He's so gosh darn hilarious
me and the homies running home before the charlotte's web dvd kills itself
Of course I'm sort of biased, but I wish you'd talked about the chemistry going on in the disc. It's an absolutely fascinating (and really clever) process!
You know what? It honestly never crossed my mind to get into how this actually worked! I was more interested in exploring the rental angle and how pointless it was. And I suppose by the time I got through there the script was long enough that I just considered it done? I don't really know. Usually I am quite interested in getting into the nitty gritty like that but for whatever reason this time I just wasn't. Weird!
@@TechnologyConnections Maybe an excuse for a followup video?
@@daredaemon8878 Or an excuse to use that second channel lol
It looks simple enough. The Flexplay discs use a dye to store 1s and 0s. When the dye turns dark, the player just sees a bunch of 1s on the disc. - It’s similar to how CD+Rs gradually die with age (the recording dye darkens & becomes unreadable).
the dye used is methylene blue, a medication that causes blue eyes and urine
Late to the party, recently found your channel and I'm really enjoying it. Had to click on this one, because I remember grabbing a self-destroying copy of Reign of Fire back in '03. Then I never saw these things again. Had no clue they were released again in '08, but by then they wouldn't have made much sense I guess. Thanks for the video
8:58 Honestly, I was enjoying this video and will likely check out future videos from this fella, as I actually remember these, and they didn't work very well when they were new either. But this moment was genuinely hilarious, and you have earned a sub.
The subtle "It's back, how'd tha-" followed by him just continuing to speak at 8:58 made me laugh quite a bit for some reason.
His timing and tone was absolutely perfect, lol.
Disposable DVD: fails as a commercial product
Sea turtles: [sigh of relief]
Nah the sea turtles are still pissed about all the AOL floppy disks.
There are 3 Flexplay DVDs worth of waste in a 2L (½ gallon) soda bottle and 1½ Flexplay DVDs worth of waste in a 600mL (20 oz) soda bottle.
The sea turtles are not impressed.
@@TheFalseShepphard no
@@falleithani5411 they would be if it had taken off
not that theres not worse things, but it certainly wouldnt make anything better
poor turtles
@@brunoslybruno Even if it'd taken off, it'd be a drop in the bucket compared to most other products. Subtle enough that the turtles probably wouldn't have _noticed_ the change, although it _would_ have increased fatalities.
That said, it's good it was stopped, because every detail _does_ matter, but it's _very_ important to put this stuff in perspective. Hank Green's response to this video on the Vlogbrothers channel (Called "The Worst Product Ever") does an _amazing_ job of putting this issue in perspective.
As a truck driver we utilized those disks since we would not be able to return the disk to locations. Redox locations were placed for the general consumer convenience and not for truck drivers. It was nice having a movie to watch and not having to try to figure out how to get a truck to a return location. Not to mention we can't get movies mailed to locations since we were never sure where we would be at a specific time or date.
It’s interesting what’s described as “disposable,” meaning single-use. I was just listening to someone talking about transitioning in their lifetime from traditional batteries to everyday rechargeable lithium batteries, and it occurred to me how retroactive the term “disposable” is, now that the idea of reusability is more popular in the public conscience. I wonder how these dvds were referred to / thought of at the time.
There was a VHS version of this in the early 90s. It would self erase itself with the mechanism that would slowly lower a magnet onto the video tape as you watch it after five times. Needless to say it didn't work well when they realize people can just open up the video tape and remove the magnets.
As if vhs can survive for long anyway, it's good we got rid of tapes
@@Journey_Awaits yeah I remember leaving one on my dash back in the Blockbuster days and it literally melted!
Never underestimate a heated car
dam i was looking for this comment and found it...thanx. i remember this also and thought it was stupid.
Yeah I got one of those once; it had some kind of STUPID promotional thing on it, nothing worth watching. Took me about 30 seconds (because it said on the package it would erase itself after one watching) to find the magnet and remove it, and then tape over the stupid promotional with something else.
Thank goodness this flopped. What a horribly wasteful idea.
Disc is a beautiful shade of red, though.
Incidentally, I've got a 2005 Capcom promotional DVD with various trailers of upcoming title (from the Tokyo Game Show) that was a similar colour.
i know that would have been soooooooo wasteful
Lady Brightcynder I agree it’s wasteful but at least it is something that’s useful and can be recycled. It’s crazy to think how many products are sold every day who’s packaging contains more plastic than that disc does and the majority of the time it just gets tossed out.
Saves the fuel required to return a disc though.
And then including *more* material to mail it back, requiring more of the disgusting diesel fumes from the mail lorry.
At the time it may have worked if not for the fact that renting a movie from a video store then was between 2.99-3.99 and getting one of these destructive discs was 5.99-7.99 depending on the movie.
I think its great that the patent covers basically every way to make a self destructing dvd, because it helps prevent anyone else from thinking it up.
I could see this being useful for one purpose. The need to transfer information that is sensitive. Having a set period of time would limit the chances of other people using it to get that information.
That’s some mission impossible shit right there
"...as usual, in the event that you or your IM force be captured or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your organization. This disc will self-destruct in 48 hours, long after your mission is complete and the information becomes irrelevant anyway."
@@Harryw007
*_MI music start playing_*
@@craZivn I'd wager they can probably adjust the formula to have the disc destroy itself much faster. 48 hrs was the desired rental period, not a happy accident.
Mind if I use that in a spy story I'm writing?
The movie industry finally found a solution to the problem: Simply make movies that noone would wanna watch twice!
*Cough* rim shot *Cough*
Disney already did that when they made The Last Jedi.
The funny thing is, that's exactly what I used to do with DVDs. I would go watch the movie in the theater, then dutifully buy the DVD when it came out and then never watch it.
This is funnier than it should be. Made me lolirl
@@acidphaze And still it make over billions dollars, just saying...
I'm excited to check out more of your videos cause I really like your way of presenting!
This was the first video I ever saw on this channel a few years back, been lovin' it ever since
I actually remember these things from long ago. We never rented them but I remember seeing them in stores. Also there’s an issue with DVD rental/single use DVD things. Once you buy/rent the DVD, throw it in your computer and rip the disk. You have successfully obtained the movie for less then it costs to buy it.
@Subaru Impreza Cool Impreza
@@razmann4k cool letter
@@mr.randomgamer888 cool waifu
@MinecraftDude 777 cool slime
@@razmann4k cool orange color on the letter R
Can’t wait for flexplay2.0 when they make it so it blows up your DVD player after 48 hours
they missed out on the opportunity to put in the patent, making the disk from tightly packed nylon or polymer filament, so that it unravels if you watch it a 2nd time, like cassettes sometimes did haha
It would be destructive if you love watching dvds
thats what I thought this was when I clicked the video haha
Thanks for the video, always enjoy watching!
Back in 90's I found a VHS tape that had a lever/latch inside that prevented the tape from being rewound. It was a training contest/test or something for car sales people. They'd watch, pause at a question, answer and continue. But could not rewind to review the questions, or lead up content. The latch was trivially bypassed if you were inclined to open the case (I was).
Somewhere in a alternative dimension dystopia, the world is full of giant red piles of discs
AOL has you beat for over a decade
Instead of K-Cups? I'm curious which one is worst.
My favourite SCP
Wall-e
@@isaacroder3025 my immediate first thought. www.scp-wiki.net/scp-093
A disc that turns into landfill after a few days? What a brilliant idea! I'd rather go to Blockbuster instead.
that same prospect hasn't stopped K-Cups from taking off
@@polaris911 Because these are for rich people. And rich people don't stop spending money on bad ideas.
@@polaris911 agreed and there are plenty other wasteful products.
@@polaris911 Because K-Cups are food and not reusable.
@@griffin8062 There are reusable ones though...
Oh wow. The bit at 8:54 reminded me that back in the 90s my grocery store did in fact have a video rental store in the front, and also a library, with actual books!