Slashdot Mirror
The Movie Studios' Next Step in Online Movie Delivery
Con Zymaris writes "Here's another piece on the how the movie studios are trying to co-opt the movie delivery mechanisms of the 'counter-culture' set, but instill major restrictions such as IP-address range verification to ensure country of origin, and maximum 24-hour-play lifetime for each downloaded movie."
Downloading movies in any decent quality over the internet, simply for viewing it, is a joke.
Even with a very fat pipe, downloading 700mb for an ok-quality divx or 1400mb for a good quality DivX is still a very long wait. Streaming a pixelated mosaic still sucks over broadband, too.
Besides, if you have a broadband connection, chances are you live in a town with a Blockbuster video, and you can afford a $50 DVD player -- it's still by far an easier solution.
The media companies should just give up these crappy pay alternatives to piracy, as the capitalist model does not work in the digital world where there are no laws and the ability to mass-duplicate any form of media, unless the draconian Palladium takes over -- which will be over my dead body.
It'd just be easier to sell cheap DVDs and CDs ($10/DVD, $5/CD) with a business like newegg, where you get everything in 2 days and the prices are rock bottom. More people would actually buy their music and movies at full quality instead of downloading them if their prices weren't exorbitantly fixed.
How can they justify such a high price, whereas for cheaper you can rent a DVD:
-with a sound and image quality far superior
-that you will get in less time that it takes to download it
-that you may be allowed to keep longer than 24h
-that you can watch on your home theater and not on your 17" computer screen
Do they have customers for this service at all?
have you been defaced today?
It's the time limit. If it was a week, it might have a better chance, but think about it. How long does it take you to download an iso? When does that 24 hour period start? After you have the whole thing downloaded? Or when it starts getting sent from the server? You don't really get 24 hours in the latter case.
Not to mention...$7.50 a movie? come on now. I'm not so lazy that I'll wait 6+ hours to download a movie at twice or more of the price of a dvd at the blockbuster or hastings or hollyvood video, all within 10 minutes.
I appreciate the effort, but it's just not gonna be pleasant to use. People download movies because they want to keep them and watch them when they feel like it. How about me being able to download a movie for $7.50, or even $10, and keep it for an unlimited duration? Heck, even if I have to put in a credit card number each time for verification (ala e-books) it wouldn't be bad at all.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Joke?
Just because you're not aware of the big leap coming in streaming video...the joke will be on you, me thinks.
The liscensing is being worked out now....
I don't see how 700 MB downloads, for $4 and expiring after 24 hours, are worth it for anyone? They are trying to compete against Blockbuster, which is both cheaper, higher quality (DVD), and has much more bandwidth:
Remember, if it takes you 15 minutes through BlockBuster and back, with a 5 GB DVD, you are getting a nice 5 MB/second transfer.
Test your net with Netalyzr
no way an open source product will support the format... and not because they don't want to. think about it.
if they're enforcing a 24 hour playable window from time of download, this can only be enforced via software control. you can't throw in some downloadable atoms that will explode after a day. so that means if an open source program can play it, it can also be recompiled to disable the 24 hour restriction.
I was actually reaching for my wallet. I have wanted something like this for a long time. The internet offers the promise of more choice than the still choice limited and time restricted movies available through cable TV pay-per-view--like that advertisement, "every movie, in every language, ever made, ever." Truly refreshing--even my local Blockbuster doesn't have that.
And I even have the latest Windows Media Player installed--so I'm good to go, right? But oh--no Mac support, irregardless that I got WMP from a legally purchased copy of Microsoft Office for OS X. I guess Windows media isn't Windows media, so I'm back to Netflix as my best option. Too bad. My wallet is back in my pocket, and another company loses me as a customer due to a short-sighted market penetration strategy.
--
$tar -xvf
Region-encoding on DVDs is completely unjustifiable, save from a monetary standpoint.
Say Australians will pay the equivalent of $25 USD, but Japanese will only pay the equivalent of $15 USD. Region encoding allows them to market to both areas at the price people will pay there without allowing Australians to pay less. It's called price discrimination. If you take economics and study the supply/demand graph for estimated purchases vs. price, you'll see what I mean. Basically it's a method for a company to charge a higher amount for people who are willing to pay more, while not losing those customers who are unwilling to pay the higher price. It's not illegal to do price discrimination, (witness how cell phone companies charge more for minutes during the business day...people who need those minutes during the day will pay more, because, well, they need them.)
However, the method the MPAA has chosen to use does infringe on Fair Use rights.
-Terralthra...
If you consider self imposed restrictions on availability on an otherwise world wide network 'convenient', then I guess maybe it is.
It's just like DVD region coding. A convenience to the people who are lucky enough to be in the right locale, and an artificial hindrance to others.
Ray