Good news in the Los Angeles Times this week in the decision from HP and Sony to make Sony’s motion picture library available on demand for DVD purchasers.  This follows up on HP’s Oct. 2007 announcement of an agreement with “30 digital content providers” for on-demand DVD delivery, allowing content with limited market appeal to become available for sale.  The LA Times piece specifically notes the likelihood of “classic science fiction movies” becoming available for the first time in decades.  I’d love to see a list of all those films, ranked by genre and the number of times they been purchased; and then buy three never-purchased sf or fantasy films, just to see how bad they are.  It would make a nice background distraction at a summer lawn party.

What I’m really hoping for, though, is the next stage in this technology, when we’ll be able to build our own DVDs from the digital content.  All my favorite swordfights from classic films: Basil Rathbone and Danny Kaye in The Court Jester; Carey Elwes and Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride; Aragorn and Lurtz in LOTR; interspersed with all the light sabre scenes in the Star Wars saga, for example.  Now that would be entertaining.