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Google Video Store Announced
acid06 writes "Engadget and BusinessWeek covers Larry Page's talk at CES regarding the much anticipated Google Video Store. The rumours proved to be true and they're really going online with CBS to sell commercial-free episodes of their series. Deals with NBA, Sony BMG and Greencine.com were also announced." From the BusinessWeek article: "The video providers have the option of offering content on a download-to-own or download-to-rent basis. In a sign that content owners will likely pursue different approaches through Google Video, the National Basketball Association will sell broadcasts of its games one day after the event for $3.95. Meanwhile, public television staple Charlie Rose will post his interviews the day after a broadcast, allowing a free streaming for the first 24 hours then making it downloadable afterward for 99 cents each. Meanwhile, CBS is selling episodes of its popular 'CSI' and 'Survivor' series at the standard iTunes price of $1.99 per download."
Welcome to the REAL cable a-la-carte, where I don't even need a connection to watch my favorite shows, just download them for 2 bucks a pop. If you normally watch 5 or 6 shows with any regularity, over a full 22 episode season, that comes out to 264 bucks a year. How much are you paying for cable yearly?
It isn't clear what the resolution is. The big problem with iTMS is that their resolution sucks. I can't imagine paying for those videos.
Info here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Can people please stop linking to the front page of weblogs? It makes the link useless after a day or two, when the next article is posted on the weblog. See that link that says "Permalink"? It's a fundamental part of weblogs. That's what you link to. It stops linkrot.
"Surprised no one is complaining about the variable pricing. Now the greedy music/movie industry can rip us off with variable pricing and they now have a competitor to threaten Apple with. Hope things don't go that way!"
Variable pricing makes sense. Why should a company like Apple or Google have the power to decide what a video or a song is worth? The content provider owns the material. That person has the exclusive right to charge what he thinks a song or video is worth. The ditributor only has the right to tack on his fee in addition to the content cost. Apple claiming that every song is worth $0.99 is the essentially price fixing. They're leveraging their monopoly in the online music distribution market to dictate the value of songs they didn't even create.
Vote for Pedro
Granted it's free and all (well, for 6 months anyways), still Norton Anti-Virus is practically the WORST anti-virus software on the market (corporately I had to replace it with AVG because Norton missed WAY too many viruses that even the free version of AVG found on 'NAV protected' computers). Detection of spyware, ditto goes for Ad-Aware. Both were fine products in their day, but both have been religated to collecting dust on a shelf as they fail miserably to meet current computing needs.
Back in the day, we called these sort of packages 'shovelware'.. shovel as much useless crap to make it seem more valuable. The only difference with this is the price tag is non-existant.
While I do see Google's DRMed videos as a step in the wrong direction, I don't think you will find any studios willing to sell there works without it. Unfortunately content restrictions are the wave of the future. Economic Darwinism will find the closest balance between the restrictions the studios feel will earn them the most money, and the amount of BS consumers are willing to put up with.
We got a taste if that with DVDs and most people didn't care... now it's time for round two. Without a strengthening of the public domain and fair use portions of copyright laws this will be a quick battle with a grim end.
It seems odd that just one post ago we were debating the future of digital media, and now we're talking about downloading TV shows from the internet, and will then have the ability to burn them to DVD.
So, who still cares about Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD? I know that what little inkling of opinion I had before doesn't really seem to matter anymore. As long as I have the source programming that I've downloaded and paid for, I can put it on whatever media I want to - or don't want to. Guess I'll have to build my own media PC now... instead of buying a new HD / Blu-Ray player. I'm very ok with that.
hi mom!
If anyone can possibly make a good and fair DRM system, it's Google.
I don't know if they'll end up screwing this one up and end up just playing along the content providers game but there's a chance that a new breed of fair DRM will emerge from Google.
I think that the DRM concept isn't necessarily the problem. The problem lies in its current implementations.
Well, at least, most of them.
It comes to me that a very nicely implemented sorta DRM system is Valve's Steam. It actually adds value, IMHO. I don't know its innards but it seems to provide some kind of developer platform which abstracts content loading, so that it can be downloaded on demand. A direct consequence of this is that I don't ever need to worry about losing the game disks of a Steam powered game. I can always download them again. I find this pretty neat.
I think it's in Google's best interest to ween (sp?) people off of windows kind of like how they're doing with firefox.
If there's anything Microsoft is good at it's catching up. They don't even have to be better, just good enough because they can just toss whatever it is on top of windows. (Internet explorer, media player, etc). All of a sudden there's no significant reason to seek out a solution. [Normal] Users don't go looking for browsers and video players, if they click a link at it works they're happy.
So, from Google's perspective, MS is in a strong position to compete, even if they're late to the game. If Google doesn't take steps to lessen the OS advantage MS can still win with an inferior product.
Or, I could be wrong and Google has a name that will keep it on top (though does anyone know if the last xerox machine they used was a xerox?)
Hmm. 22 episodes at $2 each works out to $44.
I have a number of DVD box sets that I bought at $35-60/season. Apparently there are consumers who'd consider $2/ep an acceptable price if you get to keep the episode and play it on any machine you want.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
With DVD's you're getting much higher quality video than most streaming services currently offer, a permanent backup copy of your information, and nice boxart to you onto your video shelf. The DRM on DVD's is also so trivial that it's virtually non-existent. I'm guessing whatever they use on this will be more annoying.
DVD's could simply be seen a more "long term" purchase, whereas if I buy a download copy I probably just want to watch it a few times and delete it (of course, that decision should be mine and not some DRM restriction).
IMHO, pricing it at $0.50-$1.00 depending on the show would be much more reasonable. Online songs would be better off around $0.25.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Avast! looks horrible. Just like Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player, and all so-called "media" applications, the Avast! developers decided to make a window look like something other than a window. What the hell does an anti-virus program need an eject button for? Can I click on "Scan local drives," etc., or do I have to click on the options themselves? In the Quick Scan drawer, which is selected -- 1 or 2? How do I choose another option in that drawer or close it?
AVG may be unimpressive visually, but almost all the time I simply see a tray icon. The rest of the time it looks like a Windows application, albeit one developed by people who spent a little too much time using Lotus Notes.
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