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Starz, RealNetworks Offer Movie Download Service
Mz6 writes "The
New York Times and
others are reporting that RealNetworks and the Starz Encore Group will introduce an online service today that will let high-speed Internet users download and watch many of the movies shown on the Starz cable channel. This report is just on the heels of
TiVo's announcement to stream from the Web. This move is another early attempt by Hollywood to build a business out of downloadable movies and head off the sort of piracy that has hurt the music industry. The new service, called Starz Ticket on Real Movies, will cost $12.95 a month, and subscribers will be able to download and watch 100 or more movies each month, using Real's media player software, but only if you have a 600Kbps connection or higher."
The wide availability of 600k to coincide with Realplay finally not having buffer issues eh?
Neat trick.
Or is 600k just the streamspeed they've been aiming for the whole time.
G
...when it gets down to fundamentals, do what you have to do and shed no tears. Dr. Matson in Tunnel in the Sky
So it states ....
"Each film will have an expiration date that coincides with its last showing on the cable station. The movies will be encoded so that they cannot be played after the expiration date."
Any estimates of how long it will take to crack this encoding?
For the price and quality, I'm thinking Netflix is a better deal...
...and you run and you run and you can't stop what's been done...
Lets see, either get a 50 dollar TV out card (which admittadly isnt perfect) or get a 1200 dollar projector (which is awesome, and way larger than your TV). find a nice blank wall, or put a cheap white sheet on the wall, and you have an awesome 8' screen.
I would MUCH rather download what I want, when I want, rather than wait for it to show up on TV, surrounded by brain-rot commercials. (unless its the one with christina agulara in it singing "dirty", then I will watch it)
No I didnt spell check this post...
If most DVD's are 4 gigs, what quality will there be in a 20 minute download. At 200 k/second, can you even get a full gig in 20 minutes? I wonder if these movies will be at low resolutions. And at 12 bucks a month, I would like to be able to use the computer to play it on my 36" TV. But I know how much worse a movie can look just by doubling the window size on my 17" monitor. I can't imagine it would look good on a TV.
RealPlayer 10 and Helix DRM Provide Highest Quality and Security
What kind of DRM will be included in this? Can I download the movie and watch it on my laptop while away from a network connection. And what will stop someone from recording what is on their screen. I can't help but think this product/service is going to suck. Plus, ever since RealPlayer invaded my privacy years ago I have never trusted them. I do not like a company where I have to search and search and search for a setting that will disable sending reports back to the company about how I use my PC.
How about getting back to where people can buy and own stuff? Like back when VCR's came out and if I taped something, I could watch it anytime and anywhere. I hear iTunes lets people download their product and use it as they wish. Why dosen't the movie companies do the same thing?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
We get about one DMCA notice a week (usually from Paramount) at the university I work at. Either they suck at tracing other methods, or they only focus on BitTorrent, because every single notice is someone sharing on BT. Beware!
" Because it's "on demand", whereas on TV you have to wait for something to come on."
actually, no you don't. I don't know how widespread it is, and what the exact requirements are, but on my digital cable I have HBO on Demand. It's "free" for HBO subscribers, and gives you access to a whole load of on demand programming. Most of the big hits HBO is showing that month, usually the current + past season of HBO's original series, all their specials, etc. I haven't used it for watching anything other than a comedy special, but it's fairly slick. Nice menu driven, downloads fairly rapidly, and you can play/pause/ff/rew just like it were a vcr/dvd. granted, it'll never be as extensive to have random movie from 3 years ago you want to watch, but it's still a nice step in the right direction. I imagine all of the big premium cable channels are going to go this way...
Why not pay per movie like iTunes, and save to disk? Pay once, download once, take it with you places and enjoy.
:-)
Of course, many people don't want to watch a movie too many times, whereas they will probably keep listening to the same song, so the reusability is of less value. Perhaps in that case a subscription model is better. But I always like small per-unit charges more -- it's the UNIX mindset I guess
Ha ha! Too bad it's Real Media! I hate that thing... repeatedly crashed under Win 2K, couldn't turn off its auto start/integration/advertising, had trouble uninstalling it. It was fine when I first used it back in the Win 3.x days but since then it has bloated into, quite possibly, the ugliest media player I have ever seen.
Show me a service that works with WinAmp (and on other non-MS platforms too) and I would gladly open up my wallet. Seriously.
600Kbps is what is needed. Little 'b' makes a big difference. In Cincy, a $25 a month DSL connection would do nicely.
Of course if you can't wait there is Road Runner Premium. 6Mbs dl, so you can hit 600KB/s. $75 a month.
Same here. Its not so much DRM that bothers me, but Real. I used to love them when I first was able to listen to streaming radio stations on the internet with a 28k modem. Last time I had it installed there was so much shit it did I didn't like, I've avoided it like the plauge since. Besides, does Real even look good at 600k? Give me HDTV movies for $12 and I'll sign up.
another reason for people not to leave their PC. That blood clot disease, DVT, scares the crap out of me. While I think services like this may add value in some ways, I cringe at the thought of having another reason to spend time in front of the computer.
Right now, work, personal chatting/websurfing, coding and now movies. The point of sitting in front of a computer 20 hours a day(justified) is slowly becoming a reality.
Music is mobile. Movies are sedentary. lose
Well, I signed up for the free trial and am downloading 'Night of the Living Dead' and 'Welcome to Sarajavo.'
Anyone know what the quality is? I notice that Night of the Living dead is around 450 megs or so. I realize it's black and white and not the greatest quality to begin with -- so I expect that to be small. But I'm curious if the newer films -- 'Punch Drunk Love' for example -- will have DD51 soundtracks. Doubt it. But we'll see.
I'm a obsessive movie-watcher, so this -- combined with Netflix for the more obscure stuff -- really interests me. And, yes, Real is evil, but I noticed that their newest player just installed with a minimum of fuss and intrusiveness. So maybe they're trying to redeem themselves.
Dunno. We'll see.
yeah, they told me 5149kbps is too slow too =p
Someone can't tell the difference between Greater-Than and Less-Than in their code, looks like...
Divx/Xvid looks better since it is usually encoded at a higher bitrate (about 0.2bits per pixel or 1200 Kbps) versus a typical real clip encoded at 128kbps. Obviously it is going to look like crap
If you follow video compression (look at the forums in doom9.org (http://forum.doom9.org) and you will realize that real is quite comparable with any other MPEG4 compression.
I have quite a few of my home videos compressed with DIVX and later with Real (since it is more common) at 400kbps and it looks fantastic on regular TV
Real trying (successfully too) to monopolize my machine, is another story. but there are ways around that if you know where to look.
A little Real annoyance I recently had. I have an old Win 98 machine at work. I use an older version of Real, because it crashes less. The other day after viewing a link, Real One screen popped up and said "We've detected an older version of REAL, we will upgrade your software unless you click cancel in 20 seconds" Talk about sleazy. Of course there is nowhere to turn off these little "helpful" reminders.
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
If you use User Agent Switcher you can convince the website that you're running IE on Windows. Has anyone used this technique, and then tried the demo service on Linux?
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Actually the quality of Reals 10.0 encoder is arguably as good as divx (arguably is the ultimate point as would can tell the difference if you look very closly, but its still quite good)
Could the movie industry create a market where the rights to own copies of movies are sold ? The rates should be like $1-$2 for movies that are currently on premium channels. Sure, that is a lot less than a DVD, but no real product needs to be produced with all the overhead that goes in producing it, only an abstract one that is the right to own a copy. The customer can burn a DVD from the content if they want.
That way people can legally download something using bit torrent or other file-sharing technology and content providers don't need massive infrastructure to provide storage and bandwidth required for downloads.
Of course a lot of people will download movies without purchasing the right, but some will. And the movie industry doesn't have to provide anything other the selling the right to download to profit from this. They can even take legal action against some the "theives" to encourage people to buy the right first than risk fines if they are selected for prosecution.
File sharing isn't going away despite the efforts of the *AA's. Various protection schemes are always circumvented one way or the other. The industry's only option is figure out how to make file sharing profitable for them.
Hey, never underestimate the power of B movies. There's quite a large and diverse cult following out there... :)
<grrr>
and they are turning away potential business because of it.
I just went to their Starz! Ticket site to check it out, and was informed by Real, "sorry, but you can subscribe to our service, you don't have a minimum of 600k of bandwidth". Then it shows me a box that says I have 300k of bandwidth.
Problem is, I've got a 3000k leased connection, so it looks like they are making a math error somewhere. Their scripting errors are going to cost them just the sort of customers they are trying to attract: people with fat net pipes and disposable income.
What a galacticly stupid idea, putting a hokey bandwidth meter on your website to sort out your ideal customers from the unwashed masses. How typically Real.
OK, I had many "flamebaited" posts defending real against windows media but this one isn't the case.
To purchase, you must
Reside in the United States (OK, its MPAA guys, got it but still stupid)
Have Windows 98 or newer (?!!? How hard is it to develop cross platform while RealMedia SDK IS crossplatform)
Have a Broadband connection rate of at least 600 Kbps (What happens if a guy uses 300 kbit and wait 2x? isn't it his/her choice?)
Also, DivX AC3 capability, yes I know. The 5.1 surround thing can be done with ac3 divx'es but its HARD for average user to find files over p2p and install necessary stuff. The point I want to make is... If you compete with "pirates", give users a plus thing. Realone has 5.1 capability for 3 years now! Yes, including Mac version. Give them 5.1 stuff if they want.
Funny about those services not offered for macs... Let me speak straight. Mac users has more money than average user and they have tradition to PAY for stuff they use/watch. So you open a drive in theater and you don't allow Mercedes or BMW cars in. Simple as that, if it sounds spoiled its your choice to understand as that. If any Realnetworks people read this post (I am sure they do) check the percent of Mac users vs. Win32 users for paid services. You won't see traditional 5% figure I bet.