DVD’s were great, but I think their time has come and gone. And no, I’m not talking about Blu-ray discs as the next big great thing either, because they have the main flaws of DVDs. Allow me to elaborate.

When VCR’s first invaded people’s homes, they were a revolution - not only could you record things off the television, but you could watch theatrically-released movies in the comfort of your own home whenever you wanted to. This is something we all take for granted now, but at the time, it was a pretty big deal. With the advent of DVDs, we got a huge bump in quality and durability of our movies, and the benefit of being able to jump to any chapter without the annoyance of fast forwarding/rewinding through the entire tape was a great improvement. And then the special feature was born, which allowed for all kinds of additional content to be added onto the discs for enthusiasts. Blu-ray further amps up the quality of our video and allows for even special-er features, but it fails to deliver a profound leap forward for the medium.

Here’s what I want: I want to be able to buy a movie or TV series and watch it wherever and whenever I want. DVD’s are portable, and can be watched on most computers or on portable DVD players. But portable DVD players tend to have pretty short shelf lives. (I consider myself an authority on this matter, especially after yesterday when not one, and not two, but THREE portable DVD players busted on me in a single day. That’s got to be some kind of record.) But that shouldn’t be enough - I should be able to watch these movies on my portable media device, my cell phone, or wherever else I want.

But wait, you say! I CAN do that - if I buy movies on iTunes, I can watch them on my computer and my iPod. But here’s where that model fails: if I want to watch them on my TV, I have to buy their AppleTV peripheral. And what if I don’t have an iPod - those files aren’t playable on other kinds of players. And what if I already have the DVD - why should I have to buy the movie a second time?

Of course, it is possible to take a DVD that you already own and get it to play on your iPod or PSP or any other device you have, but it requires some work. Think about how easy is it to take a CD and rip it and turn your music into digital files that will play anywhere and on anything. Why is it so much harder to do the same thing with movies?

I’ll tell you why. Because with audio files, there is a common file type that everyone accepts and uses, the mp3. Apple has pushed their own company specific format, but the DRM backlash has been strong, and now that they face competition from many other major outlets such as Amazon, even the iTunes store has started selling DRM-free mp3 files that are playable anywhere.

But even still, the music business has suffered, and so the TV and movie studios are awfully nervous. They want to keep their customers shelling out the bucks for their properties, and they hope that people will buy the same movie on DVD, UMD, Blu-ray, and on iTunes. (And worse, sometimes they do.) But isn’t there a better way?

Let’s use The Simpsons as an example. The first ten seasons (so far) have been released on DVD, and being a big fan, I have bought them all. Which is great, but what happens when I want to watch a marathon of Season Six? Every six episodes, I have to get up from my couch, open up the DVD case, take out the last DVD, insert the next one, wait for it to load, and then be told six times that copying DVDs is illegal, that the views expressed in the commentaries don’t reflect the actual views of anyone, and oh yeah, seriously, copying DVDs is a crime. Now I ask you, isn’t that analogous to the annoyance of having to fast-forward a VHS tape?

What if I could have every episode of The Simpsons ready for me to access straight from the couch? It should be easy to watch entire seasons straight through, to skip ahead, to rewind, pause, to switch on commentaries or to select bonus features, all from my remote control. But that’s not all. If I start to watch an episode but am interrupted, I should be able to continue the next day on my commute by watching on my cell phone, my iPod, or my Zen, or any other player that I have.

This could easily be done by having all of the media stored on a server, and instead of buying physical discs, you buy access to the content. You could then have access to said media from any product that is registered to you, i.e. a TV, portable player, cell phone, computer, or whatever. Easy. Oh, and if you’ve already purchased the content before, say on DVD or Blu-ray or whatever, you should be able to still get access to the same thing digitally.

Now don’t get my wrong - I want the studios to make money here, and they still would. The fundamental difference is that their business model would have to evolve from treating their customers as chumps who will shell out cash for anything, and instead treat us as valued fans. Look at how many movies have been released countless times not only on different formats, but just on DVD. (Scarface, Princess Bride, Terminator 2, and many others have seen countless “special” editions be released over the years.) The old model says that if you put the same movie in a new box, and maybe add a special feature or two, people will buy it again. Then the studios can repeat that formula on any new formats that come out.

But in my new model, you only buy the content once. Getting back to my Simpsons example, I should have access to the first ten seasons digitally (because I already paid for them on DVD), and then if I wish to buy subsequent season, I can do that. And then if Fox decides to make a high-definition copy of old seasons available, instead of re-buying what I’ve already purchased, I could just upgrade for a fee to 1080p. (And then again in a few years to 2060q or whatever comes next.) If they want to make new featurettes on anniversaries or whatever, those too would be available to purchase a la carte. Die-hard fans will keep buying upgrades and additions, and causal fans won’t. But the studios stand to make even more profits by completely cutting out the manufacturing and shipping costs associated with discs. (This whole thing is a lot more environmentally sound, too.)

You may say I’m just dreaming, and that this is just a pipe-dream that is many years away. But it shouldn’t be. If the content is good, people will pay for it. But we shouldn’t have to pay for it over and over again. Nowadays watching media just at home or just on the go isn’t enough, and it’s about time the people controlling the content accepted that.