DVD or Download?

In a move to increase awareness and promote the sales of an upcoming DVD release, the producers of the documentary ‘Leading to War’, a summation of the steps to the invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration, are offering a 72 minute Quicktime download of the movie. The 440 MB file is being offered free of charge, and is promoting sales of the disc release. Also available is the ability to view the entire film online.

This seems counterintuitive, as many will certainly download the file, and watch at their convenience. Others will watch online, avoiding the space taken on a local drive. But why would anyone then purchase the DVD?

The site, LeadingtoWar.com, has no word on whether the DVD, offered through Amazon, will have any special features, or investigative files not included in the movie. The ability for the easy worldwide understanding has already been provided, as the subtitles are available in 19 different languages.

from itwire.com

They say their strategy is  “pushing the boundaries of film distribution beyond the new media strategies of even the most forward-thinking Hollywood studios,” and claim that “This is a far more powerful distribution system than is possible in theatres, as this release is available on demand, around the world.”

They describe their business model as being: “what noted venture capitalist and blogger Fred Wilson named ‘The Freemium Business Model’,” namely: “Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.”

In this case the premium offering is the movie on DVD, available for purchase from Amazon.com, which provides a higher viewing experience. The producers expect that DVD sales will be significantly increased by the higher viewership and awareness  resulting from free availability.

The movie, ‘Leading to War’ runs for 72 minutes and can be either watched in streaming mode or downloaded as a single file (440Mbytes in QuickTime format). In conjunction with the movie, a companion website, www.LeadingToWar.com , “examines the strategies and rhetorical techniques used by Bush officials.” The film and website together are claimed to “create the most comprehensive online resource about the build-up to the Iraq War.”

Leading to War is available with subtitles in 19 languages and, according to producer, Lewis Wheeler, “Within days of LeadingToWar.com going live, the film was viewed in each of the 19 subtitled languages, and within two weeks the site was visited from 142 different countries… We are amazed at the initial results.” (However he does not disclose the number of downloads).

To optimise the online Leading To War the producers are using the Akamai content delivery network which has 20,000 edge servers worldwide. This, they say “improves the quality of the streaming as well as the speed of download in virtually every country.”

Leading To War was directed by Barry Hershey and edited by two-time Emmy Award winner Marc Grossman. It has been constructed from selected news footage.

 

I personally believe that if the content was more entertaining, and less disheartening, the purchase of a DVD would be assured. The thing is, no one really wants to see this more than once. It does point to the fact that content producers are thinking ahead to downloadable content, certainly fee based, and getting a look ‘at the lay of the land’.

Certainly many will eschew the purchase of a hard copy, thinking that the packaging, including any notations, additional information, and printed pictures are unnecessary. Should I feel inclined to see this again, I would certainly purchase the DVD, in the same vein as musical content - downloading the (possibly adulterated) material is simply not enough.

Perhaps the producers are not crazy after all.

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[tags] downloadable content, DVD release, Quicktime format, additional features, Leading to War [/tags]