Andre Yoskowitz
18 Apr 2008 19:02
Italy, France, Germany and Scandinavia have begun offering DVD movies on a new format called DVD-D which is unique because it is self-erasing.
By self erasing I mean that the content on the discs are erased exactly 8 hours after the movie is first played in any DVD player or PC drive. The timer is slightly longer for DVD-Ds that have software on them, 48 hours to be exact. The new format is available at kiosks, bookstores and gas stations for about 1/3 the price of standard retail DVDs and seem to be growing in popularity.
After the time is up, inserting the disc into a player will give you a "No Disc" error message. More interestingly, there are recordable DVD-D discs available which can be recorded at up to 8x speed and DVD-5 capacity. After ordering the blanks, the client can then "specify how long the data is to remain, having the option of one-time viewing only, or a time period of 8 hours, 48 hours or otherwise."
It is important to note that it is unknown right now what copy protection is used on the DVD-D discs, if any or what copy protection potential clients can use to stop experienced users from copying the data to their computers. Even more importantly, the discs and packages are fully recyclable.