The present disclosure is related to a system of receiving prerecorded media discs from users.
Movies and videos games, collectively, “media,” increasingly come in many formats of optical discs, with DVD and Blu-ray® being two examples of common movie formats. These media discs are purchased by consumers in ever larger quantities. Frequently, consumers tire of the movies and/or games they have previously purchased and desire to dispose of the used media discs. As a result, a used movie and game industry has developed based upon purchasing or buying-back used media discs from consumers and reselling those used media discs. This industry in essence recycles the used media discs. The user selling a used media disc is given a credit that often encourages the purchase of a new movie or game to replace the used movie or game sold back. The purchaser of the used media disc is then able to sell the used media disc to a new consumer.
Buying back used media discs from consumers has been challenging because of the difficulty in verifying the identify or content of the used media disc. The value of a media disc is determined by the content of that disc and as such the purchaser must correctly identify the disc in order to offer an appropriate buy-back price to the consumer. Errors in identifying the content of a used media disc are therefore very costly to those purchasing the used discs from consumers. As a result, the used movie and game industry has often required employees to manually identify the content of each used media disc so that an appropriate buy-back price could be offered to the consumer. This manual effort increased the cost of buying back used media discs and expands the likelihood of substantially increased shrinkage or theft of the bought back discs. There continues to be a need for improved systems and methods for receiving prerecorded media discs from consumers in order to reduce costs and streamline the buy-back transactions.
Presently disclosed is a system of receiving prerecorded media discs from users comprising a control system having a processor capable of accessing a library associating a native bar code with the content of a prerecorded media disc, receiving the identification of a native bar code of a prerecorded media disc from an optical disc identification system adapted to read a native bar code on a prerecorded media disc, identifying the content of the prerecorded media disc read by the optical disc identification system by the native bar code when in the library, directing a disc transfer system to store the prerecorded media disc in a selected location of a disc storage system, and storing in a memory of the control system the selected location and content or native bar code of each prerecorded media disc; and a user interface system operably connected to the control system and adapted to receive a prerecorded media disc from a user, and including a buy-back activator and at least one browsing and selection station operable by a user, the user interface system capable of receiving from the control system an identification of the content of the received media disc, communicating to the user a buy-back price provided by the control system for the received media disc, and directing credit of a user account for the buy-back price of the received media disc.
Also disclosed is a system of receiving prerecorded media discs from users comprising a control system having a processor capable of accessing a library associating native bar codes with content of prerecorded media discs, receiving the identification of a native bar code of a prerecorded media disc from an optical disc identification system adapted to read a native bar code on a prerecorded media disc and receiving the identification of the content of said media disc by a disc drive capable of reading at least part of the content of the prerecorded media discs, identifying the content of the prerecorded media read by the optical disc identification system and the content of prerecorded media disc identified by the disc drive, comparing the content of the received media disc identified by the native bar code with that identified by the disc drive, transferring information to a user interface when the identified contents do not match, directing a disc transfer system to store the prerecorded media discs in selected locations of a disc storage system, and storing in a memory system the selected location and content of each prerecorded media disc; and the user interface system operably connected to the control system and adapted to receive a prerecorded media disc from a user, and including a buy-back activator and at least one browsing and selection station operable by a user, the user interface system is capable of receiving from the control system an identification of the content of the received disc, communicating to the user a buy-back price provided by the control system for the received disc, and directing credit of a user account for the buy-back price of the received disc.
Also disclosed is an optical disc identification system comprising a disc holder adapted to support a prerecorded media disc to expose a center hub of the media disc, a light source positioned to illuminate at least a portion of the hub of the media disc in the disc holder, a sensor capable of capturing a digital image of at least a portion of the hub including a native bar code on the media disc, and an image processor capable of reading the native bar code from the digital image.