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Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions
sg3000 writes "Fans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, rejoice! Reuters is reporting that Apple will provide monthly subscriptions to two of Comedy Central's most popular shows. One question, as TV shows become available for sale on the Internet, will this make it harder to share clips online, such as through Google Video? In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true."
I just subscribed to the Daily Show. I don't have cable and the video quality is better than the files I've found on YouTube or other places online. The "subscription" title is a bit misleading - this is more like subscribing to a podcats - iTunes automatically downloads new episodes as they are made available. You can opt-in to an email notifying you that a new episode is available. It's more like a magazine subscription than a music service subscription since you get to keep the video files you've downloaded even if you don't renew the subscription. Kind of like buying an album on iTunes where they send you a song a week automatically. The DRM is the same as for any other song or video you buy on iTunes. Not a bad model for my needs.
This isn't a "subscription" like the all-you-can-watch-as-long-as-you-pay-your-monthly- fee, like with Yahoo Music. Nobody is renting the shows in this case, all Apple is really doing is pay-in-advance discounts. You buy the shows a month's worth at a time, and they are your to keep like any other iTMS video purchase.
It's really more like a magazine subscription.
Please show me where I can download the entire show, as it aired on a given night, as a single unbroken clip, at either of those links.
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Sigh, I was waiting for this to hit the Slashdot front page.
This is not "monthly iTunes TV subscriptions." It's a standard pre-order. You pay the full price for the season, and as each show is made available, it downloads it in iTunes. The same thing happens when pre-ordering an album, which will automatically download when it's available (often with bonus tracks). The only difference here is that an entire TV season of The Colbert Report obviously won't suddenly exist at once but will be filmed episode by episode, and so each show downloads as it becomes available.
Nothing to see here, please move along.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You're partly right in that it's not entirely new. But it is new.
Unlike traditional TV, preordering a show on iTunes allows the producer to gauge interest and demand. It's not the standard television "push" model that spends lots of money up front only to find that no one really cares after the fact. By attracting funding in advance by selling subscriptions, the production cost of the program can be partially offset. And you KNOW that you'll have an audience.
Admittedly that's not what's happening now. These shows weren't created FOR iTunes, and they became established the old fashioned way. But theoretically this model could be used to create targeted programming. To use an old Slashdot (and personal) favorite, how many people would subscribe in advance for a new season of "Firefly"? How much would they (and you) be willing to pay to make it happen? Just as musicians are viewing iTunes as a potential model to cut out the middle man record labels, independant video producers might find a similar benefit in directly reaching their audience.
Actually, chiropractors who focus on actually helping patients are "quacks" from the perspective of mainstream chiropractic, which believes that all disease can be cured by fixing subluxations. The quacks run the show, and the people abusing it are using good information and doing hard work.
English is easier said than done.
I was about to buy the 16 episode plan, but I previewed the episode and noticed that both TDS and TCR both have problems in the encoding. The videos are are 320x208 resolution, which is horribly non-standard and causes the stretching of both videos (well, more accurately, squishing, but they have the same end effect), making everyone look fat. I have a blog post with picture comparing Jon Stewart's head in the video with how it should look.
Normally I wouldn't do this, but after seeing about 20 /.ers comment on these words, nobody yet (at least in the comments I've seen so far) have realized this is a tongue-in-cheek homage to the king of sarcasm himself, Stephen Colbert , of the Colbert Report.
Colbert totally rocks, I look forward to his show more than the Daily Show. For those that don't know, Colbert basically pretends to be a right-wing egotistical fact-ignoring pompous talk show host, but everything he says is either cleverly sarcastic, dripping in irony, damn funny, or all the above. So as per the original poster, some of his trademark lines are "I'm not a fan of facts" or "I don't like books, too many words". And of course, his consistent number one threat - bears.
In fact, I'm surprised more /.ers aren't a fan of him, as he was a total geek when he was younger. He played D&D alot, loved LotR and Sci Fi, and sometimes works this geekiness into his show. For example, once when he introduced a guest who's a poker champion, he said "Now, I've never played Poker, but if its anything like Dungeons & Dragons, I'll be up to my baldrics in scimitars before you can say, 'Cure Light Wounds!'". Also, back when he was on the Daily Show and Viggo Mortensen was on, they had Colbert backstage reading Aragorn's family history and list of aliases in a total geeky way, it was pretty funny. And of course, who can forget his epic Sci-Fi novel (still looking for a publisher) "Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure"
So yeah, sorry to have to explain the tongue-in-cheek joke above, it's never funny that way, but seeing how many people didn't catch it was a Colbertism, it needed to be done. Wikipedia has a good list of funny lines by Colbert.
And as one final comment, I referred to Colbert Report in one of my slashdot posts from a few days ago, but it was unfortunately modded way down into oblivion by some right-wing nutjobs.
make world, not war
I know that in Australia, technically it is illegal, but no one will arrest you or fine you for it. same with ripping CDs. legislation is coming so that these two will be legal.
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
Too bad the TV shows are US only.
I've gotten tired of hearing the constant stream of "So-and-so is now selling something-or-other on iTunes" announcements lately, when absolutely zero TV shows are on the Canadian store.
I don't get why Apple only has permission to sell stuff only in certain regions - like lots of albums in the US store that aren't in the Canadian store. With physical media, it's not like if I zip across the border into Washington, the people at the store can't sell me a particular CD because they don't have permission to sell it to Canadians, so why is it the case with iTunes?
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Want to add background music to your home videos? I hope you didn't buy your music online.
Using Apple's iMovie and iDVD, I'm entirely able to do this with purchased iTMS music without jumping through any hoops. So granted, I'm not using Windows, but I fail to see what you're griping about.
As for DRM ending fair use: why do you say that? There are ways to get "fair use" clips from purchased video without breaking the DRM; video screencaps comes immediately to mind (an approach that is awkward for converting an entire 30-minute show or 90-minute movie but quite reasonable for a 40-second clip).
Fair use is a right, not a privilege. There's nothing written anywhere which says that media companies have to make it easy for you to make fair use of their media. That does not in any way outlaw software makers from providing ways to do so, or give the media companies the right to end fair use in the courts. You're making a big fuss over losing something you never actually had in the first place.
"In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true".
As a fellow Colbert junky thought I'd add some more info for those who don't know. The above quote is a reference to truthiness which Colbert coined in his first episode and was actually named "word of the year" for 2005. Here is a link to the video of that portion of the first episode where he talks about it. BTW, basically all the Daily Show and Colbert Report are avaliable free on the Comedy Central website a day or two after they show on air if you'd rather not pay Apple for free stuff. Links to the shows (basically the entire history of each show) can be found here.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Re: Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure
He has two chapters from the book up on his website. SciFi doesn't get much better than this...
This guy's the limit!
The reason this price is acceptable has little to do with Steve Jobs or his blessings.
Yes, any way you slice it a DVD is a better deal (high res, six channel sound, extras, etc.), but some consumers don't want to 1) buy a DVD or record a TV show on a DVR, 2) rip it, 3) encode it, 4) move it to their iPod, just so they can watch in while they're sitting on the train to work.
For some of them, amazing as it sounds, paying a buck or two an episode to instantly acquire a commercial free version for their iPod is worth it: even with the low res and DRM.
We live in an instant gratification world now, and that's why this price is perfectly acceptable.