The price is right.

A potentially pretty darn big thing is going on with regard to the pricing of DVDs. Mark Boydell, writing for the UK's DVD Times, is one of many who've taken note that the French company Cdiscount has snapped up regional rights to oodles of films, some of them immediately forgettable, but others very interesting, and of those, several not yet available as Region 1 releases. The company then collects orders, possibly even before the DVDs are pressed, and simply produces according to demand.

Cdiscount's approach is not absolutely unique in the world, of course, but they do seem to be among the most extreme when it comes to pricing. DVDs can be had for as low as 2 euros a pop. Granted, the euro is soaring at the moment, but still. "The unnerving thing about these DVDs is that the quality is well above average," adds Boydell, who gets around Cdiscount's policy of not shipping to the UK via contacts in France (in his case, his parents).

Boydell also points out:

These are, of course, French DVDs, meaning that in many cases, though not all, the only subtitles on offer are French; fine if you know French, but even if you don't, that still poses no barrier for films in languages you do understand (e.g., English).

In the comments to the piece, he adds, "Cdiscount seem to have bought over Films Sans Frontieres back catalogue which features a shedload of Buñuel, Rossellini, Murnau and other classics all with English subtitles... and also at ?2 each."

There's always a downside, of course. Extras are minimal, so the open question is, what happens to the films for which they've nabbed the rights? Does the Criterion-like treatment remain out of the question, then, for these films for the foreseeable future?

"Finally, it also proves how cheap the production of DVDs really is... it remains an interesting future model for DVD production especially for the cash-strapped arthouse world."



Posted by dwhudson at July 14, 2003 9:11 AM