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Unbox Too Restricted and Too Expensive?
abb_road writes "Businessweek takes a first look at Amazon's new video service and walks away unimpressed. Between the high cost of downloads, the sometimes-poor video quality and the restrictions required by movie studios, they're not predicting a huge hit. From the article: 'Amazon finally launched its long-awaited online video service on Sept. 7. But it's no sure thing that it will catch on with the masses. The service, called Amazon Unbox, offers downloads of movies and television shows, as well as digital movie rentals. But like all its rivals, it's shackled by a raft of viewing limitations imposed by movie studios.'"
Not Mac compatible. No good. I'll wait for Apple. It'll be a more elegant solution anyway.
...so I'll pass on this one. Just like I'll pass on Blu-ray and HD-DVD (unless pirated). Dignity > watching the latest movie.
If they offered files for purchase, I'd happily buy them. But I don't like streaming crap, digital restrictions management crap, propietary codecs and formats crap, etc. If I buy something, I must be getting a simple [b]octet-stream[/b]. No magic, no "final format", no "copy protections", no crap. That's the only format I accept.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
"If they had an itunes-like client I already used which could download at bittorrent or even segmented multi-part speeds. I would be all over it"
;) and recorded TV or movies could be torrented to other such players so you could download shows from other iTunes DVRs saving Apple bandwidth.
Exactly. This sounds like iTunes all over again. For years there were sketchy mp3 downloading services charging outrageous prices for songs or free p2p programs battling with MPAA.
Then Apple came along and changed everything. They found a way to sell mp3s at a price people were willing to pay and with the power of the iPod became the 800-lbs gorilla of the whole internet music provider service.
I predict Apple will do the same thing again. It'd take very little effort for them to come out with a iTunes enabled DVD media player with hard drive for ~$199 that connects directly to your TV and has built-in wifi to connect to your existing broadband router that enables the downloading of full movies for a few bucks, or at least less than what Netflix and competitors charge (cheapest plan = $5.99/mo, 1 dvd at a time, limit of 2 a month). You can also transfer them to your iPod and watch them on the go.
Might even be DVR capable, or that could be the $299 model
This would be huge and carry Apple far beyond just a music provider, now they'd be in control of viewable media too, a new content provider, and with a direct broadband connection they could insert their own commericals at the beginning before playing movies, etc.
Apple would be unstoppable.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The problem is copyright law, not individual idiocy (although that contributes greatly to the current media problem). Modern copyright laws are like a shackles binding slaves in a sinking galley. They keep trying to row their oars harder and harder -- because that's all they know how to do -- but the ship keeps sinking because it's the wrong solution to an existing problem.
It's obvious that intellectual property laws are severely hampering innovation and progress in the arts and sciences. We need to completely rethink intellectual property laws in the digital age, or corporate greed will continue to bring the rest of us down to the bottom of the sea.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
DVDs *are* DRMed. It's just been broken for so long that folks don't think about this. In fact it's an incredibly restrictive DRM. One wonders had DVD Jon not cracked this how well DVDs would be doing now.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.