by Jeff McNeal, editor - The BIG Picture
In one of my favorite books, Guerrilla Marketing, author Jay Conrad Levinson describes the patience and wisdom of the stone-cutter in knowing that it will take many, many blows of his hammer and chisel to carve out the stone. It would be foolish and unrealistic to think that the task could be completed in a single blow.
Remembering that wisdom, I long ago gave up on the notion of a single, magic-bullet "Divx Killer". That certainly would have been nice, but like huge boulder that looms before the stone-cutter, the Divx monolith is too big and too powerful to be brought down with any single blow. That's the bad news. The good news, however, is that the arsenal is growing. Slowly but surely, we're finding the right tools for the job.
The first major salvo was fired by by several major studios, taking the lead of Warner Brothers and Columbia Tri-Star, by refusing to provide software content to Divx, despite the enormous pay-offs that were being offered. I consider their acts to be the ultimate gesture of their commitment to the success of open DVD.
Only six studios will be offering Divx content. One of them -- Dreamworks, has so little content to offer at the moment, they almost can't be counted. They're a non-factor in the success of Divx or open DVD, in my opinion. You can't really blame them for taking the bait from Circuit City -- they may have really needed the money to help finance Saving Private Ryan or something.
The next round was fired by we, the consumers, who immediately recognized Divx not only for for what it is, but what it represents to our freedoms and the future of home entertainment if it survives. We've made a LOT of noise on the Internet and on the streets -- patiently informing our families, friends, co-workers -- and even strangers we meet at the video stores -- about our concerns over Divx -- and our enthusiasm about open DVD.
The next nail in the coffin for Divx is the very limited support from hardware manufacturers. Less than half a dozen out of all the available manufactures have offered varying degrees of support to Divx. Most of them have offered only feeble promises of hardware by next summer, when the battle against Divx will have been fought and won, in my opinion.
Lack of widespread distribution support is another lethal element in the mix against Divx... Remember, even with the national launch slated for September, as of today, Divx has not announced support from a single national retailer willing to stock their discs, other than Circuit City...
As the opposition to Divx grew, NetFlix, seeing a need and then filling it -- came forth to provide open DVD rental options to those isolated from local DVD rental outlets, thereby filling a big gap in open DVD distribution. The only problem with NetFlix is that they are currently limited to those using the Internet. If I were their marketing consultant, I'd find out which areas had the fewest open DVD rental distribution channels and run radio ads there touting the service and offering a toll-free number. There is no reason why Divx can't expand into an aggressively promoted call-in service. Well, at least there wasn't until recently.
After much hand-wringing and debate, the Video Software Dealers Association -- finally taking the Divx threat seriously, announced just prior to the recent VSDA convention that their members will stop fighting open DVD (which they perceived as a threat to their VHS rental operations) and begin promoting DVD rentals. It's nice to see that the video dealers have finally acknowledged that the real bogeyman in the optical disc format is Divx, not DVD.
Warner Brothers then took the offensive, offering special rental packages to video retailers and introducing their three-tier pricing structure, which effectively slashes the cost of some open DVD discs to just over $10. Now what are you going to do? Spend $100-$200 more for a Divx player, then "about" $4.50 to watch a creatively crippled (P&S, no extras) Divx disc and "about" $3.25 everytime thereafter? Or are you going to buy a better quality open DVD player and pop for $10 - $30 to build a library of full-featured, enhanced discs that you can watch over and over and over and over again to your hearts' content? Let's not forget that widescreen is coming as the new "standard" over the next five years. Are you really going to want to watch 4:3 Divx encrypted discs on a 16:9 display? Is anyone?
Now, the next two ultimate weapons against Divx are falling into place. The watermarking protection that IBM and NEC announced will provide the same kind of security that Divx does to the copyright holders -- without the totalitarian restrictions inherent in the Divx model. Like Digital Audio Tapes (DAT), consumers will be able to make a single, perfect, digital copy of TV shows and the like for archiving purposes, but it will be impossible for them to make "copies of the copies", which strikes at the heart of digital piracy. The Big Picture views this new protection scheme as a totally reasonable and responsible approach that should alleviate any concerns the movie studios might have, while protecting our rights as consumers to purchase and enjoy unfettered, our favorite home video titles.
When recordable DVD video players hit the streets in the not-too-distant future, no one will even given the restricted, playback-only Divx a second thought. The ability to record perfect digital DVD copies for personal use (as the IBM and NEC watermark technology will allow) is something that Divx will not provide and cannot allow in their hardware -- and for good reason. It allows the consumer to record!
In short, when recordable DVD hits the market, DVD playback only devices -- no matter what flavor -- will take a back seat.
Divx cannot survive the repeated blows against it anymore than a huge boulder can withstand the repeated blows of the rock-cutter's hammer and chisel. Like the boulder, with patience, time and relentless hammering -- Divx too, will crumble.
That's my opinion -- what's yours? Post your comments to The BIG Picture Forum.
Jeff McNeal, Editor
The BIG Picture
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