Personally I've believed releasing the film to DVD as soon as it is released to cinemas is the best solution to piracy. At the very least it takes away every excuse possible and removes any real sympathy anyone might have had for pirates.
Assuming it's also combined with a world wide release that is...
Cinema chains believe doing this will destroy a large percentage of their income. Companies never like it when you take their monopoly away are they?
I like going to see movies at the cinema and prefer to see many movies there first. Mostly because of the large screen and the ability to watch the film without distractions as they are played in soundproof and lightless rooms.
However, the reasons I often avoid going to the cinema are numerous.
I've had many cinemas stuff up the showing on the film. Bad audio, bad film, film shown at the wrong aspect ratio, cutting the end of the credits, rude cleaners.
Often the other cinema patrons, much like those at concerts, appear to have only come into the cinema for somewhere to go for a couple of hours. They can't possibly be there to see the movie when they're too busy talking or playing with their phone to watch it.
And lets not mention the 40 minutes of adverts before the movie even starts. Where else in this world do we put up with being forced to watch 40 minutes of ads before we get to what we paid for?
And of course the price. The cost to see a movie once is almost as much as it is to buy it on DVD. More if you're paying for two people. As a result I expect my experience of seeing the movie at the cinema to be pretty damn good to compensate. Usually it isn't. See above.
Cinemas should address these many issues and concider providing a better product before blaming competition for their decline in patronage.
I wonder what effect Blue-Ray and HDDVD will have on cinema. The only thing left that cinema can provide that the cashed up home user can't get is image quality. A DVD, when shown on a home projector, is terrible quality and cannot compare to the cinema (with a new clean unscratched copy of the film anyway). Blue-Ray and HD-DVD will take away this advantage.
Personally the best experience I ever had watching a movie was when we went and saw Undead and no-one else was there. A completely empty cinema to ourselves.
If the cinema could somehow provide private showings for one or groups of people I would be very happy to pay the premium price we pay now for such service. Probably more.
The other option is to market only to those cinema goers that enjoy the "crowd" experience. Teenagers. Those that go to the cinema for the people experience, not to see films. Those that like a bit of noise and chatter in a cinema.
Let the place get a bit run down, the sound system get old, the screen get covered in gum. These people don't care.
Yesterday my regular train was cancelled. The next train was full. Usually in such cases I'm happy to wait for the next train to avoid the crush. But then that was cancelled. Three missed trains.
The next train to arrive was one of the old trains and was again very packed. I'd assumed all the old trains had been turned into scrap or sent as gifts to obscure royalty but I guess they've all been hiding on other lines or in storage.
By the time the train got to Richmond station to attempt to pick up the tennis crowd it was so packed people would fall out when the doors open and have to crush their way back in again.
The tennis crowd who had now had four trains effectively cancelled or unusable all swore at once and started walking off, speaking in angry tones into their phones.
The whole way I seriously concidered getting out and waiting for the next train, but I expected the next one might have been cancelled to.
Also, due to the time of the day and the angle of the sun, there was no shade on any of the platforms. I wasn't about to deliberately wait in 30C+ heat in the sun for a next train that might not even arrive.
Over two hours to get home. Apparently on other lines it's like this all the time.
In a bizarre twist of fate the bus turned up on time, didn't drive off on passengers and was clean, comfortable and air conditioned.
On a similar note, Chocolate and Vodka talks about the need for more, or the right, information when something goes wrong with public transport.
When my first train was cancelled and the second one arrived almost full, it would have been nice to know at that point that the next train was also cancelled so maybe we should cram onto this one, or make other arrangements to get home. The habit of most companies is to keep problems quiet until they cannot be ignored.