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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.
... the reason they opted for this was supposedly having discovered a way to create a DVD that can be played in a DVD player, but cannot itself be copied. How is that even possible? TFA has no information.
I think this thing is just like all the other "downloadable movie"-sites. It's purposefully broken (in this case overpriced) in order to drive customers off, either to the traditional go-buy-a-disc-at-walmart or go-download-some-warez. Because most customers want convenience, they'll of course scoff at this offering and continue to download Xvids from the local bittorrent-tracker.
Hence, MPAA et al can claim that "our potential customers WANT to pirate movies, we tried but it didn't work, woe be us!" and the retarded justice system will let them continue their crusade against evolution, since the industry has "proven" that downloadable movies "don't work".
It was the same with the other sites that offered "downloadable" movies. The movies were heavily tied down with DRM (which prevented them from being burned to DVD or moved to another computer), customers were expected to provide the bandwidth for the other customers, and the movies were horribly expensive - usually twice the price of a dvd in the bargain bin, but without the flexibility of a DVD, without the extras, and with lesser audio/video quality.
*adjusts tinfoil-hat*
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
Even if they did bring the prices down to a competitive level (cheaper than buying the DVD in a store), they are pretty vague on the format. Would this be a ready-to-burn .ISO file? Would it be sized small enough to fit on a single-layer DVD-R (which likely means viewer extras, languages, etc) or would it be a duel-layer .ISO file requiring a dual-layer burner? Technical questions, yes, but these are the things that would make or break this idea in my mind. well...assuming the even did become competitive price-wise.