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Disney to Make Movies Available Online
musiholic writes "Disney has cut a deal with Movielink to make various Disney (and Disney subsidary) films available for 30-day paid downloads. Users can watch the film an unlimited amount of times before the movie expires. The movies requre Real Player or WMP."
Ah, a new hell for us parents:
"IS THE DOWNLOAD DONE YET?"
"No, 63% to go."
"IS THE DOWNLOAD DONE YET?"
"No, 62% to go."
"IS THE DOWNLOAD DONE YET?"
"No, 61% to go."
"IS THE DOWNLOAD DONE YET?"
"sigh"
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
Now if only the RIAA could follow this lead. I don't seen anyone hating disney - oh wait, they're not suing the youth of America.
find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
I can't believe Disney actually came up with this. But what prevents the people who pay for the movie to share it?
Users can watch the film an unlimited amount of times before the movie expires.
What's to stop me from using a screen capture program while I'm playing it to make an unexpiring copy for myself?
GMD
watch this
"Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following: You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP"
I was trying to find out if the Linux version of Real player was supported, but it blocks anyone not in the US.
Guess they haven't quite got the hang of the fact that the biggest advantage of the internet is it's worldwide reach yet.
Beep beep.
Should be fun, but I don't think the disney rental world is the best for downloaded time stamped movies. I know as a parent, the KID movies are the ones you end up BUYING, as they are most likely to be watched over and over and over again for the next several years... and disney is the most common of that genre. Though if it's not TOO expensive I would probably try it... and if they tied it into a discount if you purchase the DVD... hmmmmmm
wordtrip.com
This is closer to renting a movie than anything else, aside from the 30-day storage option. From the story: Customers will be able to store movies for up to 30 days. Over that span, they can watch a movie as many times as they wish in a 24-hour period.
Another article is more detailed: The movie files can be viewed on a PC or on a television connected to a computer, but customers have a maximum of 30 days to begin watching their downloaded movie. Once they begin to do so, the movie can be viewed only over the next 24 hours.If this is going to be targeting the broadband users, then why don't they use a better codec? I know I'm burning karma here, but I'd rather see the movies in mpeg4 or divx form.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
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"IS THE DOWNLOAD DONE YET?"
"No, 1% to go."
"IS THE DOWNLOAD DONE YET?"
"Yes! You can watch Monsters Inc 2 now!"
"I DON'T WANT MONSTERS INC ANYMORE I WANNA PLAY PLAYSTATION"
*twitches, vein in forehead pops*
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
While I may have a misunderstanding of Disney's market, I am under the impression that they primarily sell family entertainment, esp. movies for children.
Now, children's entertainment is a special category, in that kids watch movies OVER and OVER and OVER again - more often on VHS format than DVD, due to the relative durability of the former (though this may be changing). because of this, families tend to BUY disney movies (vs. renting); if they rent, it's to check something out before buying it.
Now what aspect of the above market does Disney hope to satisfy with downloadable movies?
- these movies will have to be accessed on the computer (not as easy as VCR/VHS, let alone half as childproof)
- these movies expires after 30 days
(not as permanent - and kids will obsess over their shows for far longer than 30 days...)
- the cost is $3-$5 dollars per download (cheaper than rental for the amount of time, but even considering an optimistic 1-hour download time, it's still going to be faster to drive to the store and back (for most US citizens) than to download - and (I believe) that there's still not much coverage for broadband in most rural areas...
d) Also, for those who don't mind waiting (or lack broadband), Netflix (and its competitors) offer a similarly-priced, keep-as-long-as-you-feel rental system.
Now I realize that Disney is not just a kids' movie company, but I still don't see how this system makes much sense.
OTOH, I am pleasantly surprised to see (even this much) innovation from a company with such a draconian distribution history.
This is lame, for the many reasons pointed out in this thread (too short expiration, buy vs. rent for kids, etc.) The interesting thing, at least in my mind, is that Disney is opening their intellectual property up a bit (granted, it's got DRM up the wazoo.)
What would happen if Apple/Jobs did a movie service like they've done with the iTunes Music Store?
They've got the inside connections in Hollywood (Pixar, editing suites, etc.)
They've got the technology (QuickTime, delivery mechanisms & bandwidth)
And they could make it easy enough for my Mom to use...
-ch
Now if only the RIAA could follow this lead. I don't seen anyone hating disney - oh wait, they're not suing the youth of America.
Disney has a music branch, Walt Disney Records that is a member of the RIAA, so yes, they are suing the youth of America.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Are you saying you don't want to watch movies on your computer screen? Don't you realize just about any computer's display is far better than analog TV? According to my communications book, NTSC analog TV is 428x339 60 Hz interlaced. Unless you're using an Atari 130XE, that's quite bad.
As to "they don't get it", they don't. I'm not paying money to a company who wants to take control of my computer. I don't want to pay money to a company who is trying to extend their copyrights forever, yet they will wait until the copyrights of others expire so they don't have to pay royalties. There are plenty of other nasty things they do.