John August's terrific blog has had several posts the last couple weeks discussing the move from physical to digital media.
My biggest concern with the inevitable migration to rentals and downloads is the poor user experience currently available with the various streaming methods and downloads. I love extras. I like commentaries. Listening to Steven Soderbergh and Lem Dobbs talk about The Limey; David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin on The Social Network. Kevin Smith and his gang are often funnier than the underlying movie. I like the behind-the-scenes footage and documentaries. What happens to the 20+ hours of extra footage on the Lord of the Rings boxset when you are just streaming them on Netflix?
Even more minor - I like chapter stops. Watching a 30 Rock marathon is a lot less annoying when you can hit a button to skip the credit sequence. As far as I'm aware none of the existing streaming services offer anything beyond Start, Pause and FF.
There are certainly technical ways the offering could be improved - it would be trivial to emulate a dvd .iso file within the download framework. I can see how streaming may be more difficult, but I'm sure some smart people could figure it out. I'd even be happy if most of the standard dvd content migrated to websites although there is no substitute for watching on the large screen tv.
The bigger problem is that someone has to pay for all that extra content, and I have a bad feeling that if the studios can get away with Not offering it, they will opt not to. How much extra would it cost to buy an "enhanced" movie on iTunes with three commentaries and a documentary? Would they even convince the filmmakers to do them?
For me the addition of extras to DVD was a revelation better than the enhanced quality. I learned more from Robert Rodriguez' "10 Minute Film School" snippets than half a dozen books. If the future of online media means all that disappears I'm going to be very disappointed.
