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IBM Patent in DVD Advertisments

By Robert | January 9, 2008

IBM recently filed a patent that is going to make a lot of individuals that enjoy renting DVDs very unhappy. Just picture the concept! You are standing on your couch and watching the movie you just rented. Just as everything becomes interesting the movie stops and a commercial starts. You can not skip it and you are forced to watch it until the end so that the movie will resume! There is a big chance that this will take the fun out of watching the movie you rented with the certainty that you will be hooked and have a lovely night!

This is exactly the concept behind a new patent application filed by IBM. It is basically a scheme that will entitle people to either rent or purchase any movie at a standard rate or a special version. The bad news is that the standard rate will come with commercials included. The DVD player basically checks to see what kind of DVD you put in and if a commercial filled version is found, it will connect to the Interned and download some ads to embed in the movie or will load previously set up embeddable ads found on the disc.

The question we need to ask ourselves is whether or not the movie industry will take this option into account. If they do, the new technology will be hated by people. Nobody wants to purchase a DVD that is filled with embeddable ads although it will come cheaper than a regular one that is commercial free. There is also the possibility that such a technology would prove to be filled with benefits for both the user and the movie industry. We could save some dollars on each DVD that we purchase with commercials included but do we want to risk their appearance exactly when we are hooked and lose our enthusiasm?

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