Thursday, March 31, 2011

Why streaming video beats DVDs

The other day my daughter wanted to watch a Disney movie on DVD. So I popped the disc into the DVD player, waited for it to boot up, then navigated through screen after screen of commercials, previews and FBI warnings before getting to the main menu.
It was a frustrating experience. And one I’ve been through hundreds of times before.
All I wanted to do was hit play and for the movie to start. But Hollywood studios see home video as another opportunity to sell stuff.
That’s why the experience of streaming online video, such as Netflix, is so much better. You find the movie you want, press play and the movie starts. It’s that simple.
The stark comparison reminded me of an infographic I saw a while back about why people prefer pirated movies to authorized movies on DVD. (See article on BoingBoing.) With the pirated version, you get to skip all the filler before the movie starts.
So I took that graphic and edited it to compare streaming vs. DVDs. (Click on the image above for a larger view.)
Enjoy.

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