This is a fair criticism. The experience for a new customer who wants to convert their existing disc library to download is particularly inadequate, and we're painfully aware of that. It's something that I hope we can improve sooner rather than later, but our software team is heavily subscribed with other work and so it is unfortunately competing for scarce resources.
Having said that, I would like to point out that there are really two typical use cases:
- New Users buying a Strato/Terra system: For these users, their dealer can assist them in the one-time process of cataloging their discs so that they can do the disc to digital conversion. We have made Alto players available to dealers specifically for this purpose, so from the end user perspective, this should not be a burden. Now that the headend remembers these cataloged discs more durably, even if a title is not available in the store, or is later offered in a better quality, the customer will still benefit from the upgrade pricing.
- Existing customers who have a disc-based library: These customers already have their discs either cataloged or imported, depending upon the type of system they own. Their disc ownership is now durably recorded on the headend, so when they want to switch to a downloaded version of the movie, they can do so.
I absolutely agree that the particular use case that you have described, where there is an Alto in the system, and an end user is manually inserting a disc to execute a digital offer without cataloging the disc, is less than ideal. The headend really should remember that this disc was used for a disc-to-digital purchase, so that a later quality upgrade could benefit from that pricing. However, this is not a common use case.
I will make sure that our team reinforces messaging to dealers in case #1 that they should
catalog their customers' discs, and not just do a transient digital offer transaction.
Thank you as always for providing constructive feedback.