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(Almost) Free Movies On-Line... Sorta

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the not-sure-if-I-trust-them-with-my-visa dept.

Snaller writes "See the latest movies on the net? Its possible - apparently the law in Taiwan says that for a movie to be protected by copyright law one has to apply for such protection within a month after the opening in the theaters. This rarely happens and as a consequence movie88 has opened a virtual movieplex: See any of their films for 1 dollar. The movie is streamed in a format that doesn't allow you to save it on the harddrive, but for that 1 dollar you can view it anytime and as much as you like for 3 days. The selection includes movies like "Shrek", "Legally Blonde","American Pie 2","Gone with the wind", James Bond and Batman." Yeah this'll last. Right. But it really demonstrates what TV will be like in the future when you have access to thousands of movies. And the buck a film rate strikes me as awesome. I'd watch a lot more movies if they were only a buck.

3 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. slashdotted? by mjh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe it's just my connection, but I can't seem to get to this site very well. If it can't suvive the /. effect, exactly how are they going to succesfully stream video ?

    --
    Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
    1. Re:slashdotted? by m_evanchik · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have the same experience. The web site is slow but the streaming video is maxing out my broadband at 1050 Kbs.

      This is pretty interesting. I guess they did a good job scaling their video servers but not a good job on the web server. Kudos to them for devoting the most resources to the most important application.

      --

      evanchik.net

  2. Re:O well by kimihia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For those interested in the dirty details, may I recommend:

    • wget
    • asfrecorder
    • Squid
    • Ethereal (+ tcpdump)
    • A plugin-equipped browser (eg, Mozilla)

    With that combination (and sometimes "strings") I can download ANY Quicktime or Windows Media video that I want to - permissions be damned. Plus, get this: mplayer on Linux does a better job of playing Windows Media files than Windows Media Player on Windows! (And at a higher screen res too!)

    BTW, the secret letter is 'm'. (This may become apparant if you have done the above.) I don't have time for a complete downloading HOWTO, but ... mov = wget, asf = wget, asx = asfrecorder, wmv = try asfrecorder then wget.