We would like to address some confusion caused by the DVD version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Upon opening the case, librarians and patrons will find what looks to be a burned DVD-R with the movie’s title scrawled across it with a marker, as seen below:  If you have ordered The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on DVD, rest assured that you did not receive a bootleg copy of the film. This is the authentic DVD direct from Sony Pictures. Sony designed the DVD and its packaging to reflect the theme of the movie and its popular hacker protagonist, Lisbeth Salander.  We apologize for any confusion this may have caused. If you have further questions or concerns, please contact us at info@midwesttapes.com or 800.875.2785.
In an effort to show continued dedication to film preservation, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has launched Columbia Classics. This collection not only includes digitally restored films, but also hundreds of classics, restored to the highest quality and available for the first time on DVD and Blu-ray through Columbia Classics’ Screen Classics by Request (DVD on-demand) program. Through our partnership with Sony Pictures, we are proud to announce that we now offer this collection, which debuted with 100 titles this past fall and adds more titles every month.
According to DVDtalk.com, this program is very similar to the Warner Archive Collection (also available from Midwest Tape): “Like WB's program, Screen Classics by Request is a heady mix of cult favorites ( Crash Landing, The 27th Day, The Interns), forgotten epics ( Genghis Khan), Columbia series films (four ‘Jungle Jim’ adventures starring Johnny Weissmuller), intriguing but largely forgotten gems ( Mickey One, 10 Rillington Place), foreign films ( Les voleurs, a.k.a. Thieves), good-to-indifferent TV movies ( The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, To Sir with Love II, Hart to Hart: Home Is Where the Hart Is), and bizarre, one-of-a-kind oddities ( Birds Do It).”
What is DVD on-demand?
DVD on-demand is the most cost-effective way to bring DVDs and Blu-rays to market—only when consumers or libraries want them. Columbia Classics’ Screen Classics by Request titles are individually ‘burned’ based on orders, rather than churned out in bulk amounts and disseminated to retailers and media distributors.
On-demand DVDs are manufactured using the most widely accepted [DVD] format, DVD-R. As noted in an earlier News & Views post ( DVD-R vs. DVD+R), DVD-Rs are developed through duplication (disc burning) with cost-effective retail DVDs, whereas titles produced en masse are developed through a more costly replication process.
There are several ways you can access Midwest Tape’s Columbia Classics collection on our website:
- Select “Columbia Classics” while browsing DVD collections via Browse.
- Search via SmartBrowse stock number prefix “CBO” or collection name “Columbia Classics” to access all available Columbia Classics titles.
- Select the “Columbia Classics” collection displayed on the Midwest Tape homepage.
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According to BusinessWire on Forbes.com, Library Ideas, LLC, “a new media company focused on Public Libraries,” announced in early May that it would “provide its network of Public Library websites in the United States with access to songs” from Sony Music Entertainment’s catalog.¹ This music service, entitled Freegal, enables patrons—using their library card IDs—to download music for free from their library’s website.
In a Library Journal article, Norman Oder explains that “libraries must pre-pay for a minimum number of downloads from Freegal, and each library user will be limited to, at most, 20 downloads per week. Libraries that see a spike in use can limit the number of system-wide downloads in a week or month to ensure wider access, and library card holders can also reserve downloads.”² In an effort to allow files to work across multiple platforms, Freegal boasts no Digital Rights Management (DRM) policies and delivers content as MP3 files.
While initially Freegal may seem like a worthwhile venture, the service does have its drawbacks:
- Freegal charges libraries per download and requires libraries to pre-pay for a minimum amount of downloads, thus subsidizing libraries’ music and eliminating any sort of permanent collection.
- Over time and especially for popular artists, libraries will end up paying significantly more for Freegal downloads than the initial cost of buying albums on CD. Additionally, libraries own the content they purchase on CD and can house that content within their collections. There’s nothing to own with Freegal.
- Because the service simply uses libraries’ websites as interfaces for content download and not content collection or hosting, Freegal forces libraries to become the middleman in what should be their own system—and music collection.
- Freegal leaves it up to the libraries to determine any sort of rights management. Therefore, if libraries aren’t savvy about their patron downloads, they could essentially give music away for permanent storage and use on their patrons’ hard drives. Thus, libraries become mechanisms for free music rather than public sources for lending.
Earlier this year, we posted a blog story on CD albums sales vs. digital album sales based on data culled from Nielsen SoundScan; (check out our blog story Did You Know? In 2009, Compact Discs accounted for 78.9% of all albums sold). We noted that CDs accounted for 78.9% of all albums sold, while digital albums only made up 20.4% of sales in 2009, meaning that, by and large, patrons still prefer CDs. Additionally, we discussed how CD audio tracks are better in quality compared to MP3 and AAC downloads. This blog discussion from February only amplifies the details elucidated above about Freegal.
While there’s no denying that digital music might be the way of the future, one must wonder: Is Freegal a sustainable service for libraries to consider? With Freegal, instead of paying for a product once and circulating it 1000 times, the library must regulate downloads and renew monetary commitments when the pre-pay runs out. Essentially, Freegal forces libraries to subsidize their patrons' music collections.
What are your thoughts on pay-per-download services like Freegal and digital content? What issues have you or patrons encountered with DRM and usability? Post your views here as comments.
In an article in Home Video Magazine, Chris Tribbey notes that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the latest studio to release DVDs with described video, or Descriptive Video Service (DVS)¹. DVS—pioneered by WGBH Media Access Group—provides audio descriptions of key visual elements within such visual media formats as TV and film to visually impaired and blind audiences². WGBH, the Public Broadcasting Station in Boston, Massachusetts, developed its Media Access Group roughly 30 years ago with the mission of creating and delivering captioned and described media “to people in their homes, classrooms, at work, and in the community”³. With over 20 million people in the U.S.—12 million of them movie watchers—possessing some form of significant visual impairment, major studios are stepping up to enhance the public’s media-viewing experience⁴.
Such studios as PBS Home Video and Universal Studios Home Entertainment provide described video on select DVD titles. Now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will provide described video on select DVD and Blu-ray Disc™ releases of box office feature films, starting with The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and followed by such hits as District 9, The Ugly Truth, and Julie & Julia⁴.
According to Home Video Magazine, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment lists the described video feature as an audio option in the languages menu of their DVDs and Blu-rays¹. And while some studios simply state “Described Video Services” or “SAP” on the packaging of any titles that feature described video, others note the option on their packaging with symbols (examples below).
When looking for titles that feature described video on the Midwest Tape website, search via SmartBrowse™ keyword “described video” to view the DVD (and now Blu-ray) titles we’ve categorized as having the described video feature.
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