Typically, both LED displays and video players alike are built to last a considerable amount of time. After all, it can be incredibly frustrating to set up a display system or video wall only for the content itself to be unreadable or unusable.

However, one company thought otherwise and, encouraged by the then-booming video rental market, created an optical disc that was designed to be disposable and be completely unusable within just a couple of days of being opened.

EZ-D, more famously known as Flexplay, was launched in 2003 as an alternative to video rental services such as RedBox, Blockbuster and the first incarnation of Netflix (before they pivoted to streaming video).

The issue with many video rental services for many small retailers was administration; loaning out DVDs and videotapes was simple enough, but getting them back would involve monitoring a database, chasing up late fees and sometimes having to deal with restocking.

Flexplay, along with the similar-in-concept DIVX format, would attempt to get around this by creating DVDs that were intended to be disposed of, although the methods they would use were entirely different.

DIVX, released in June 1998 and discontinued exactly a year later, used a dedicated DIVX (short for Digital Video Express) player that connected to a phone line, scanned barcodes on the burst cutting area of the disc and would not play any expired disc unless a user called to extend the rental time.

Whilst the format received significant studio support, low sales and a backlash accusing the format of spying on consumers as well as encouraging wasteful disposal of otherwise perfectly usable discs ended up being disposed of, torpedoed the project, with DIVX being discontinued in 1999.

Flexplay took the concept further and used a chemical mechanism to cause the disk to oxidise over the course of two days, rendering it unplayable within 48 hours.

Initial test marketing was exceptionally negative, and despite several attempts to relaunch the format as late as 2008, Flexplay never found a market, and by 2011 had been discontinued.

Due to a flaw in the vacuum packing process, none of the Flexplay discs that have ever been made will work, even if they are still vacuum sealed.