The great DVD scam, and how it continues...

[ReadWryt]

It seems like only yesterday that I read the Press Release...

Charter Memberships
The Lord of the Rings Fan Club launches today with an innovative charter membership program on lotrfanclub.com. In addition to having their names appear in the film's credits on the DVDs, charter members receive an annual subscription to the bi-monthly movie magazine; special-edition, widescreen-format collector's lithographs (featuring scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring); a 10% discount at the Fan Club's online store and catalog; preference (two weeks before the general public) in purchasing exclusive, limited-edition collectibles; a fan mail service to link fans directly to the stars of the trilogy; and more.
Decypher Press Release: NORFOLK, Va. October 17, 2001

...and I thought "Gee, this seems like some high falootin way of saying that if you pay more now you will get first crack at paying for really pricey stuff in the future...", not that I have anything against people selling stuff or anything, just that I questioned at the time what REAL benefit, other then having your name appear in the credits of the 3 different DVDs, was there in being a Charter Member?

Shortly before the Theatrical Release DVD came out Decypher and New Line sent out a letter in E-Mail to all the Charter Members they could informing them that they "...know Charter Members were told their names would be included in all three DVDs", but supposedly because Peter Jackson was so wildly impressed with the 19 minutes of fame, 4 minutes longer then Warhol ever DREAMED of, that he "...wanted to expand it by placing original scored music behind the names as they scroll on-screen" and the reason the names would not appear on the First and Cheapest DVD was that "...the time required for Howard Shore to score and produce additional music -- means that neither space nor time was available to place the Charter Member name scroll on the first Theatrical Release DVD".

My first reaction, and the one that stuck actually, was that this was their way of "Super Sizing" the purchases of people who ponied up premium money by taking a group of high rollers and telling them they have to buy the more EXPENSIVE DVD if they wanted to see their names in the credit scroll. This made it sound as if a whole new piece of music was being written just for their benefit! See, you slip them up to the higher ticket item and give them an ego stroke for good measure.

Well, sure enough...in this Short Attention span world we live in it seems that nobody remembers Decypher's original announcement, or the subsequent statement that Jackson had comissioned Howard Shore to write new music...but none the less the hose job continues as the DVD gets played to the end and the few who DO remember realize that there IS no original music there...there is a Cut and Paste job of themes and music already in the score of the movie that anybody with talent and a copy of Acid or Cakewalk could pull off with the Soundtrack CD instead, leading me to believe my initial gut reaction...that this, no matter how much they try to claim it is about "art" is actually all about Shiesterism and raking in money at the expense of honesty...

Here is the URL of the original press release about the Fan Club

http://www.decipher.com/lordoftherings/articles/fanclub.html

...and the subsequent announcement that the Charter Members were getting shafted by New Line

http://www.lotrfanclub.com/article_credits.aspx

...I wonder if Howard Shore feels as used as he actually is in all of this?

[Thorin]

RW!!!! You're back! Where the heck have you been all this time? We've missed your old, codgy cynicism! It's good to have you back!

Yeah, it sure is a big money making scheme, there's no doubt about it. Apparently, the 800+ million made off of the first movie isn't enough even with the probability that the next two movies will make just as much. Let's stiff the fans for a few dollars more!

Have you seen the Extended Edition? It is sooo much better than the theatre. More true to Tolkien (despite the Arwen, Saruman, cheesy dialogue fiascos). The only problem with the EE is the expanded role of Aragorn acting like a selfish prodigal son shirking his heritage. :rolleyes:

Once again, it's good to have you back, and did you know that Greymantle has returned to us as well?

[Talimon]

Wow...RW is back...cut the bridges!!! To arms!!! To arms!!! ;)

I'm a charter member, though I signed up after they had already promised the names on the DVD. But the subscription has payed off, at least for the fan-magazine and the forums. Supposedly PJ browses those forums, but they are great forums besides the point if you want inside info.

As for RW's complaints regarding the name-scroll (which, I might add, this isn't the first of), I think this is really pushing the purist cause to the extreme. Reasons why:

1) The inclusion of the name scroll on the original theatrical DVD, within the credits, would mean either a) the quality of sound/video would be highly reduced, or b) we'd have the film split over 2 DVD's. As a charter member, and likely a fan of the films, there is absolutely no way I'd want either unless absolutely necessary.

2) The "official" motivation for moving it, regardless of it's execution, is a sound one. The fact that Howard Shore went in and recorded 19 minutes of music, as one piece, is in my opinion credible. The creative legitimacy of that music is a matter of taste, but it certainly isn't a direct repeat of any single piece of music in the film. The repeat of themes in motifs was only to be expected. It's how they are arranged that is original.

3) I would be willing to bet that there is not one charter member who does not own the EE already, or will not own it. It is by far the superior edition, in both content but more importantly value. You call the EE a "more expensive DVD", but that would be ignoring it's content. The Theatrical DVD included not one new piece of footage. Everything was just repeats. The only new bits were advertisements, for christ sake. Compare that with another package that costs $10 more, but includes completely new footage. There is not one extra on the EE DVD that is a repeat. Even the movie is new. Then we have 4 commentary tracks, 3 1/2 hours a piece (that's 14 hours of pure commentary, folks). Then we have over 6 hours of pure documentry. On top of that there is over 2 hours of bits and pieces, and then over 2000 stills and pre-production art design. If all that is not worth $10, I do not know what is. I've seen more expensive DVD's that have included less then half as much material.

The point here is this. From a marketing stand-point, it would have been much smarter of New Line to include the name-scroll on the Theatrical DVD. Why? Because everyone who is likely to buy either edition for the name-scroll alone is for sure going to buy the EE. So, that being a given, it would have been much smarter to include it only on the Theatrical edition. That way, you can get the hard-core charter members to buy both editions, instead of the superior one. As it is, charter members have no reason to buy both. Marketing? Over honesty? Perhaps, but not in this case. If you want to make any sort of accusation against New Line, make it regarding the release of 2 editions at 2 separate times. PJ, however, plays little to no role in either case here. In fact, the very existence of such an awesome EE DVD is largely due to his efforts.

[Talimon]

The fact is that the theatrical release has a 178 Minutes running time...DVD 9 Dual Layer standard is capable of playing 240 minutes of high quality MPEG-2 encoded video, together with three surround sound audio channels and four subtitle channels. (Without video compression one DVD-9 disc would hold only about 7 minutes of video.), more then enough space to put the entire movie plus the 19 minutes of extra credits, trailers for every WB movie in the works and still have time for an AOL 8.0 advertisement...

Very, very few movies are entirely compressed. Ussually, when they are seriously compressed, it shows. For the most part the serious MPEG-2 encoding (the kind required to keep over 240 minutes) is kept to a minimum, and then great efforts (ideally) are put into hiding it. So, you are asking me, a charter member, to give away with quality at the expense of my name scroll? I don't know if you are personally a charter member, but being one myself I can tell you with full assurance that I'll take a superior looking (and sounding) movie anyday. There is a good reason why the movie was split over two DVD's on the EE, and that was for improved performance. Very few movies over 3 hours are stuffed on single disc, and when they are it is always at the expense of either visual quality or sound. The EE (as well as the the TC and most of New Lines DVD's in general) are widely hailed for having superior sound/video, and that is because they don't compromise. More then I can say for some studios...

In fact nearly EVERY major movie that comes out with extra documentary or interview footage, like in the case of "The Sixth Sense" for instance, has that same footage used to promote the movie on television once it hits the Pay Channels. This stuff also gets shown around at the Conventions to drum up excitement for the film, and so it behooves the studio to shoot it in the first place.

You are getting two different kinds of documentries mixed up here. The kind you are talking about was included on the TC (theatrical cut). The kind on the EE is not shown on TV. Anyone who's sat through it can testify that it is not TV material. For one it is largely boring and obscure to those not interested and in-the-know regarding the movies, and secondly it is not edited with a TV audience in mind. There is a big difference here between a Promotional Documentry and what is included on the EE. There is absolutely nothing promotional about the EE or any of it's contents. It doesn't sell another product in any sort of way. Not even TTT, something I found quite interesting. I don't know about artistic honesty, but not even including a short preview for the next movie in the trilogy?

The Production art cost them nothing extra to include. It was already there and was cheap to scan. In fact, aside from the commentary, almost nothing included on the more expensive EE cost them much more then the mastering of the things, and the fact that they used 4 DVDs to hold it when they had 480 minutes of space on 2 DVDs is evidence that they just wanted to make folks feel as if they WERE getting more.

I already addressed the space issue. 2 DVD's does not equal 480 straight minutes, unless you want that at the expense of quality. Considering this movie supports a DTS sound track, a 5.1 dolby surround track, a stereo track, and 4 commentary tracks, the movie itself simply had to be spread over 2 DVD's. Whether it actually cost them anything to make or not is irrelevant. It's the fact that this is brand new material that has never been seen before. All the material on the TC had aired before on TV. None of the material on the EE had aired before anywhere, and as I stated before I doubt it ever will. Though I must note that New Line hired a documentry crew to make these features, and considering that crew might still be working, that does cost some money, and certainly took quite a bit of work. And lets not mention howard shore rescoring many, many parts of the film, and adding a new score elsewhere. This DVD wasn't just a simple compiliation of pre-made material. The material was made specifically for this edition. And, if you want to buy New Lines story, the reason it came out after the TC to begin with was because it took so much time to compile all the extras and record all the commentary tracks.

No, many people who bought the Theatrical DVD were executives sitting behind their desks beating the distributor over the head for the vollume discount because the Rental Outlets they were purchasing them for couldn't even fathom renting out the EE to people later, and in fact the local Blockbuster Video didn't even have the EE available for purchase!

I would really be interested in doing a comparison of the sales of the two DVDs to see just how many fewer of the higher ticket products got sold in the long run though...

There are two markets here. The "commercial" market, and the "hardcore" market. The two editions catter to those two separate groups, respectively. My point in what you quoted was that those who got charter memberships quite obviously belong to the hardcore market, and would buy the EE regardless. The only question facing them was whether to buy the TC or not. In fact, I might make another point: the only people who'd even care about the name-scroll would be the hardcore market. No average fan is going to go buy an edition because it's 20 minutes longer and has some random peoples names. In fact, were I an average customer, I'd personally be angry at the fact that visual quality was forsaken at the expense of some peoples names. Considering that the charter members still got thier names on the better edition anyway, I doubt they are complaining.

I get the impression you aren't a charter member yourself. Why the long post and the passionate rant, then? I can tell you as a charter member, and as one who visits the charter member forum regularly, there is very little dissent here towards PJ or New Line. No one is complaining, and I think I've pointed out quite well why no one has a reason to.

[ReadWryt]

already addressed the space issue. 2 DVD's does not equal 480 straight minutes, unless you want that at the expense of quality. Considering this movie supports a DTS sound track, a 5.1 dolby surround track, a stereo track, and 4 commentary tracks, the movie itself simply had to be spread over 2 DVD's. DVD 9 Dual Layer standard is capable of playing 240 minutes of high quality MPEG-2 encoded video, together with three surround sound audio channels and four subtitle channels.

I think the operative terms in the italicized quote are "high quality" and "three surround audio channels". DTS, Dolby 6.1 (Which is actually only 6 channels) and you still have enough space for 6 more digital audio tracks...interestingly enough a crazier person than I could argue that you got ripped off to the tune of two more commentary tracks...

As for the quality of the MPEG-2 Compression and file sizes, I'm going to crank out the math for the different and most popular Bit Rates and how they translate to File Sizes starting with the maximum sustainable bitrate which all DVD-V players are required to handle, 9 Gb/sec. I think that I will be able to show you that at over 8 Gigabytes of storage there is really going to be enough space to put one heck of a lot of content at the standard 720x480 resolution for NTSC DVD-V, and the fact that 9 Gb/sec exceeds Broadcast Standards makes it the highest quality capable for the masses. (Some few DVD-V players are capable of moderately sustained bitrates of 15 Gb/sec, but certainly not for 2 hours as that would require more memory then would be cost effective.)

[Talimon]

I am going to quote from the FAQ at www.dvdreview.com, since it is widely regarded as being the most comprehensive source regarding DVD:

A DVD disc can be single-sided or double-sided. Each side can have one or two layers of data. The amount of video a disc can hold depends on how much audio accompanies it and how heavily the video and audio are compressed. The oft-quoted figure of 133 minutes is apocryphal: a DVD with only one audio track easily holds over 160 minutes, and a single layer can actually hold up to 9 hours of video and audio if it's compressed to VHS quality.

At a rough average rate of 4.7 Mbps (3.5 Mbps for video, 1.2 Mbps for three 5.1-channel soundtracks), a single-layer DVD can hold a little over two hours. A two-hour movie with two soundtracks can average 5.2 Mbps (with 4 Mbps for video). A dual-layer disc can hold a two-hour movie at an average of 9.5 Mbps (close to the 10.08 Mbps limit).



interestingly enough a crazier person than I could argue that you got ripped off to the tune of two more commentary tracks...


I am not sure what you are arguing here... that the EE doesn't have 4 commentary tracks? Mine does.

[aragil]

Originally posted by Talimon
It doesn't sell another product in any sort of way. Not even TTT, something I found quite interesting. I don't know about artistic honesty, but not even including a short preview for the next movie in the trilogy?

Hmm. I don't know what sort of insider information you're getting over at lotrfanclub.com, but here's a tip I found here which you might enjoy:
http://dvd.ign.com/articles/375/375119p1.html

[Talimon]

Thank you for that, though I happened to have read about it 2-3 weeks ago. But I don't consider a hidden, obscure easter-egg to fall under the category of "selling a product".

[markrob]

Well welcome back RW. I too took an extended vacation but with the TT looming its back to the old forum boards to do battle with the likes of Thorin and yourself. But honestly, do you guys ever stop *****ing about how horrible New Line, PJ, Decypher (whoever the hell that is) etc. is? I mean come on, I am somewhat of a conspiritist lover myself but you guys take the cake! Give em hell Talimon and I will join you when I have more time. FAD's Forever!!!!!

[Thorin]

Originally posted by markrob
Well welcome back RW. I too took an extended vacation but with the TT looming its back to the old forum boards to do battle with the likes of Thorin and yourself. But honestly, do you guys ever stop *****ing about how horrible New Line, PJ, Decypher (whoever the hell that is) etc. is?

****SPOILER WARNING!!*****

Ah yes, markrob the incorrigible. Soon, markrob, you will come around and see the ludicrous changes for what they are...ludicrous, and will get off your PJ soapbox. If a flying Nazgul attacking Frodo for the ring on a tower of Gondor in TTT, and a Denethor/Boromir attitude in Faramir towards F and S and the ring doesn't do it for you, then you might as well marry the guy because there is obviously no change and distortion to Tolkien's story that he can do that will tick you off.

[PRH]

Thanks for the spoiler warning.

[Thorin]

:rolleyes: Whoops!

Sorry PRH. I forgot. I have edited for the next person who should read it.

[markrob]

Thorin, Thorin, Thorin, try to stay on subject. I know its hard for you but I know you can do it. When the TT is released we can debate on the evil director PJ's mangling of the sacred text. I was referring strictly to RW's rant on DVD/rip-off/charter member gobblygook! We will do battle with the TT later. If you recall, when I heard the elves were going to be at Helm's Deep I wanted PJ's head on a platter myself. Still love ya! And if you really think about it, everything we buy is a rip-off one way or another. Thats America.

[PRH]

Thanks Thorin (on behalf of future unsuspecting readers).

[aragil]

Actually PRH, your first thanks spared me. I have to say I'm surprised to now see you asking for spoiler warnings- I thought you were the one always looking for every scrap of news you could find!

[PRH]

Not at this point -- not with these complete reviews all over the place that leave nothing to speculation. I need my little spoiler fixes over the long months between movies but with such complete spoilers available now, and the very short time before I get to see it -- I'm gonna avoid them.