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Legal DVD Burnable Downloads Launched
rogabean writes to tell us that Hollywood studios have taken a large step into the future by launching their new program with CinemaNow which allows users to legally download and burn DVDs. While the current of offerings seems to be just the dregs, studio execs hope to expand the list quickly and offer a new way to find niche or older films that are difficult to locate.
101 titles, but I don't know how much they cost because... Well that's great. Guess we can rule out smart windows users and linux users. Apparently
"The first part of the burning process is Converting the file into a format that can be burned. This can take anywhere from 2-5 hours and happens as you download the file."
5 hrs during/after the download... think I'll pass. O, that and I'm a Linux user : P
noobcake or noobmuffin? It is the same price...
Just looking around their site, you can't do anything of substance (even find out how much the movies are) without IE 6.0 (or greater - yippie). Well, that isn't working too well for me. Be gentle, though - they seem excited about their new and shiny business model.
- Tash
Yippie - hybrids!
Until the telcos deliver on their 6+ year old promise that I was supposed to have a 45+M/bit sync fiber connection by now; I think I'll pass and just drive to the store and buy the movie instead (it would be quicker). It would be nice however to be able to download some old movies like 'Quatermas and The Pit'. But if Hollywood still insists on crippling it with DRM/CSS I'll just go somewhere else.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Just to pick an example from the article, Walmart's web site offers "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" for $5.50. Others will cost more obviously, but downloading this one yourself will be $9 minimum, plus the cost of the DVD.
Have you read my blog lately?
From what I recall, the reason "MST3K: The Movie" went out of print was due to the rights to "This Island Earth" expiring, which is essentially the film within a film. It's not about stamping the discs in this case, it's about forking over more dough for rights to This Island Earth, a movie that actually is regarded as a classic bit of Science Fiction history.
As for The Movie, it's likely still floating around on bit torrent somewhere. I know it used to be.
Folks need to realize the compression on some of these movies is going to be horrific.
Most users out there burn DVD +-R dvds, no dual layers. One of the first things I do when I backup my copies is to remove all the crap like menus, FBI/Interpol warnings, Featurettes I couldn't give a rat's ass about. Then I have a movie that needs little to no compression.
Also, I concur with the Walmart bin comments. Downloading and burning DVD's is a mid to upper level computer task. Gram and gramps at home aren't doing these things. Do they assume that people with this level of computer knowledge will not be smart enough to shop around and compare prices on these crap movies?
Ok. The technology they use is FluxDVD. http://www.fluxdvd.com/ Perhaps more information about the copy protection system can be found there.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
You can use any DVD +-R discs in your own burner.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Just came over from CinemaNow and it does not play well with firefox.
No joke
Firewall with Harrison Ford, which has never really peaked my interest to see yet, is listed at $19.99. I guess the 'future' of DVD buying hasn't arrived, as CinemaNow.com states on their homepage. You can get this film from Amazon for
For a second there... I thought they might actually be competitive.
Cheers,Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Walmart's web site offers "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" for $5.50.
I still think that's too much money for that movie...
I don't like to sit. Sitting is for people who like to sit.
So you've made the consession that you'll pay their distribution costs.
No, I haven't. I still expect them to provide the bulk of the bandwidth, but I don't see any reason at all not to use a little of mine to help make sure the downloads are as fast as possible. I also don't mind paying shipping costs when I order DVDs from on-line retailers, and I don't mind buying a car, fuel, etc. to drive to the store.
Now why shouldn't they try to get you to agree to serial copy management.
They can try, but what makes you think that I'd be willing to accept that? I insist on the freedom to do what I like with the movies that I buy, within the bounds of copyright law (and I reserve the right to ignore egregious and imbalanced copyright laws the media industry may buy).
Or maybe watermarking.
I don't care about watermarking as long as it's completely invisible/inaudible. If it degrades the quality in any way, I won't pay for it. If it's completely unnoticeable, doesn't affect durability, etc., why would I care?
Or a proprietary codec that plays an ad each time you load the driver?
I won't accept ads, which is one reason I play DVDs with open source DVD players, which allow me to skip whatever I want to skip. And proprietary codecs are unwelcome, and not only because they're unlikely to work on my machines.
And it'll just get worse from there...
Bah. I know what I care about and what I don't care about. What I care about is my Fair Use rights, quality, convenience and price. As long as they offer me convenient access, decent quality at a reasonable price and don't limit what I can do with the media I buy, I'll buy it. To the degree they fail in any of those categories, my interest decreases. Especially with fair use limitations, assuming I can't easily work around them.
BTW, you do know that the "slippery slope" is generally categorized as a logical fallacy, don't you? Invoking it weakens, not strengthens, your argument.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
$5.50 from Walmart's website + shipping/handling... probably wouldn't be driving to the intarweb ;)