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Disney Close To Unveiling New "DVD Killer"
Uncle Rummy writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is close to releasing a new system that will sell permanent, multi-device access to digital media. The system, dubbed Keychest, is being positioned as an answer to consumer concerns about purchasing digital media that are locked to a small number of devices, and thus as a way to finally shift media sales from an ownership model to an access model. They claim that such a service would reduce the risk of losing access to content as a result of a single vendor going out of business, as purchased content would remain available from other vendors. However, they do not seem to have addressed the question of what happens to customers' access to purchased content if the Keychest service itself is discontinued."
I mean, does the solution here have to be complicated?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
MPAA sues Disney over new "DVD Killer"
Or what if Disney itself goes out of business?
If I buy it as a DVD as it is now, I don't have to worry about vendors, like Best Buy, to go out of business.
Why try "fix" something that isn't broken? What they need to fix is their prices. Maybe if it was cheaper and worth buying, people wouldn't copy so much?
So basically this is not permanent at all, just subject to the whims of yet another overlord.
It will be backed by Flooz.
Some non-copyrighted character's nose is growing.
They continue to try and convince the world that THEIR problem is actually the world's problem. No. People LIKE owning. We don't like 'accessing'. If I want to own a movie, I pay the cost to watch it no more than 3 times. If I want to 'access' a movie with a huge screen and fantastic sound, then I go to a theater and pay less than 1/3 that cost. If you want to charge for access instead of ownership, without the enhanced screen and audio, then you have to charge a lot less than ownership. If Disney's new system is going to be priced like ownership, no one will use it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
... of whatever Disney is smoking!
There is a war going on for your mind.
So, "any device" means anything running a supported OS with supported software and access to their cloud.
Which means any device other then something I would want to use to watch a movie while on an airplane. More or less the same problem I have with current "digital copy included!" DVDs on the market. They don't actually work with anything I want to use.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
This coming from a company that puts movies in the vault for a decade to increase demand. How do they reconcile the two philosophies? Maybe it's a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, but the cynical side of me thinks they are counting on new file formats (.avi->.dis) being introduced in the future that will not be compatible with Keychest. In any case, Disney thinking in the best interest of the customer does not seem to be what is happening here.
This sounds pretty much exactly like Valve's Steam service, extended to other forms of entertainment. Seems like a lot of people have little problem with Steam, so not sure why they'd have a problem with Keychest? I guess one concern I could come up with is that, I suspect Valve is a *lot* more committed to Steam, than Disney might be to Keychest. While Disney themselves is probably at little risk of going out of business any time soon, I wouldn't be overly surprised if Disney tried this, then a year or two later decided to pull the plug and try something else, when the service doesn't instantly make them hundreds of millions of dollars.
Watermarked content can be played on unlimited number of devices, but can not be posted to thepiratebay. Pirates can attempt conversion, but by the time you are sure you stripped all possible watermarking techniques, the video is so blurry people will buy a legit version anyway. This currently works for Apple/Amazon audio with zero issues. It's too sad that Disney wants both legal and technical special treatment to keep protecting Mickey Mouse.
If they are competitive, that's welcome news...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I saw the WSJ article on this. The only thing it solves is the problem of storing large media files on low-capacity hardware. In all other respects, it's an industry solution in search of a consumer problem. Given a comprehensive set of easily-followed instructions on how to convert and load media files on different platforms (PCs, phones, etc.), this "solution" solves nothing for me. If I'm sufficiently technically savvy to convert a movie so it will play on my iPod, why do I need this?
Shifting media sales from an ownership model to an access model is the major "customer concern" with DRM. All other "customer concerns" are really just derivatives of this one.
Although the idea of getting music, films etc off the net is good in terms of availability (nothing goes out of print/gets `deleted`) etc, there are concerns like the company going bust, or downloaded software being stolen/burnt/failing etc. So whatever solution - permananent, long term solution that is, not `solution` meaning `this weeks stupid idea` - has to allow for the user burning multiple copies onto whatever the current media is (cd/dvd/blu ray/hard disk/tape etc). And I'm just not sure that the big media companies are happy with that idea yet.
Don't you mean "when"?
Technological, economic and political factors will ensure that the Keychest service will go away. It is a certainty, not a probability.
And users who pay real money for "access" rather than content will get hosed. Again.
Personally, I'm willing to pay for perpetual access so long as I get back a fraction of my money equal to the fraction of "in perpetuity" left when the service goes away.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Why do I have this feeling that the unit is going to either be a knock-off of Netflix's Roku box and/or one that will download only content from such trusted partners as Viacom, Sony, Paramount, or others from the big media cartel?
really, is disney ANY kind of friend to the consumer?
what's the deal with this so-called 'vault' of theirs? its artificial market manipulation to create fake 'shortages'.
and the US law that keeps extending copyright is known as the 'mickey mouse law'.
disney dvd's also tend to be CHOCK full of ads, with the 'you MUST watch' flag set.
disney has lost many of us with their shenanigans. I trust MS before I trust disney!
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
" However, they do not seem to have addressed the question of what happens to customers' access to purchased content if the Keychest service itself is discontinued.""
Obviously Disney is too big to fail.
More direct-to-video "animated" sequels?
crazy dynamite monkey
If I can't get a physical copy of something, then I'm not interested. If I don't want a physical copy of something (i.e. something I only want to see once) then I'm perfectly happy to rent it. I don't need or want so-called "solutions" like this, it's just another way to get me to part with my hard-earned money and give me nothing in return. GTFO.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
...the Holy Grail of the "content" industry.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You purchase a key that allows you access to the same media in different formats from different vendors (if available) and the files need to be downloaded each time you want to play the media on a given device?
How is this better than selling media in a standard format and letting the consumer transcode the file to whatever other formats they choose?
Knowledge Brings Fear
Can a Keyblade be used to crack open this Keychest?
I don't particularly like owning films. I own quite a lot, but I haven't bought many in the last few years (and those only from charity shops when the DVDs were really cheap). They take up a lot of space, and I don't watch them very often. I rent a lot more. There are few films I want to watch more than once, or maybe twice, and, given the choice, I would much rather watch a new film than one I've seen before.
And that is Disney's real problem. The thing that they have of value is the ability to produce new films. They need to stop fixating on trying to sell copies of their films and focus on how to persuade people to pay them to make new films. That is the kind of innovation the industry needs, not new forms of DRM.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
and nothing of value was lost.
Really I do not care for the company, their products, and ABC which they own.
This doesn't effect me.
I don't understand what you're getting at... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnochio
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Disney is going to start selling a Microwave Oven? Will it be better than my EasyBake?
assume this wont work.
1. you were never meant to keep these 'treasured classics' forever like a book. this hurts the business model and prevents releasing such wonderous hits as Cinderella 4.
2. if it isnt open source, it wont be worth a damn. Proprietary encoders and decoders once obsoleted are nearly impossible to reconstruct or reverse-engineer for playback without finding yourself hauled into a Texas courtroom for patent infringement. the 'final solution' they tout will likely involve nothing but closed source players interwoven so closely, you'll forget to question it being a bad idea in light of historical defiance between them.
3. If its a DVD killer, and you own a majority of DVDs, why would you buy it? youve obsoleted the very thing you seek to keep indefinitely?
my theory is there will be a transition. first we had purchasing movies, now we have licensing movies to DVD, and finally we will have with Disneys 'killer' the ability to license limited viewing rights. the content may remain available in a unary format forever, but a recurring cost is introduced and you lose in the end the ability to watch a movie without being monitored for content infringement of "intellectual property" rights. inevitably movies may be retired from the collection, rerendered to lower or higher formats at disneys whim, or require suddenly a new television or provide new advertising content not originally found in the obsolete version you saught to keep. "authoring rights" will be expanded and more buttons on your remote will do less things when you want them to (example: skipping 'dont download a car' scaremercials.)
there is also another possibility entirely: Disney develops this device to lure customers into parting with books and DVD classics, then retires the device in ~8 years to ditch the poor suckers who believed in it as a viable alternative thus driving up sales in existing media for the time as a sort of 'umbrella' in case of stormy economic conditions. user ditches device, goes to walmart, buys latest instalment of Cincerella 5 and another copy of Cinderella 4 because that one is dead now, disney cash registers ring.
Good people go to bed earlier.
holding out on blu-ray in macs??
You know, that annoying little detail in the copyright law that states once the copyright lapses the content becomes public property?
The price we are supposed to get for our taxes paying for the protection of their rights?
Oh, they didnt think of that? Their intention is for us to never own the content? Hmm.....
Although the DMCA has tried to remove that 'right' already, of course through making it illegal to be able to remove such protection.
It seems to me that media companies see DRM as a printing press on which they can print their own cash.
And seem sore when they find out no one but them seems to value their funny money.
If they really want us to see value in it, they need to back it up with a gold standard... put copies of the movie in some DRM-free format in escrow.
Your technology goes away; we get DRM-free version of the movies we purchased.
Requiring your DVD player to be connected to the 'net anytime you want to watch a movie... how exactly is that is big win for consumers over what we have now?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Nonsense! Just look what a roaring success Circuit City had with this "They don't really want to own it" model.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Because I'm pretty sure "consumers" don't do any of that with DVDs.
Some consumers do. For example I have to remember that when I buy a DVD in the UK I cannot play it in my Canadian DVD player wen I get home....at least not without ripping it and rewriting it first.
If you bought into any of these, you're a sucker. They don't work any more.
Next, Disney.
1) You're in a minority, being technically savvy enough, and being willing to go through that effort
2) This should be easier and faster than ripping yourself. The masses want simplicity and convenience.
A few comments ago I talked about an aunt and uncle that worship Disney. They are not alone in the Disney cult, the Disney cult has millions of members worldwide. Despite anything we say about "DRM IS BAD KTNX" the Disney cultists will follow their leaders into DRM hell, just to show the world that faith is believing.
All those folks that drive around with Mickey/Minnie vinyls on the back of their windows, all those people that go to Disney 5 times a year, all those people that own every Disney movie ever made will buy into this. They won't care about being locked in, all they're going to care about is that it's Disney.
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
I agree with the parent. I trust the Disney corporation about as much as SCO or anyone involved in investment banking. I completely distrust DRM schemes, and anyone involved in them. Why would I want anything to do with some stupid plan Disney has for wringing a few more bucks out of consumers?
This press release is irritating me to no end. I'm going home to pirate a few crappy Disney films out of general spite.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
See personally, I disagree. Part of my problem with current online digital media is that they're focusing on "owning" rather than "accessing". Take iTunes, for example. I can "buy" a season of a particular show, but I can't just pay to watch it once. Not only does "buying" theoretically increase the price to watch a show once that I'll probably only want to watch once, but it also puts me on the hook to store and maintain a copy. Sure, I can throw it away if I really only want to watch it once, but then I've payed "buying" price for a "rental".
Personally, I wouldn't mind paying for most TV shows and movies per-viewing, so long as it was cheap and I had the option to buy. Further, what I'd really like to do is buy free access to downloads in perpetuity, regardless of new/improved formats. What I mean is, I might actually be convinced to spend $20 on a movie on iTunes if I knew that I could re-download it whenever I wanted (if the original file was lost or deleted), and that if they release it in 1080p in a couple of years I could download that copy, too. And then if they released it in whatever replaced 1080p, I could get that free too. That would be my preference as a consumer, that they quit trying to force me to re-buy the same movie over and over again.
Still, I would agree that they're really trying to solve their own problem instead of the consumer's problem. The "consumer concerns about purchasing digital media that are locked to a small number of devices" is entirely caused by two things: selling less-than-ideal quality versions so they can sell you better versions later, and locking users in with DRM. I know everyone knows what I'm talking about with DRM, but movie studios are selling DVD quality movies on iTunes even after the Bluray has been released. Hell, there are even cases where they'll let you rent the 720p version (meaning it's on Apple's server) but will only let you buy the DVD-quality. And that's only 720p. Why should I spend $20 on a 720p version when I know a 1080p version exists and there's no predefined upgrade path.
Unfortunately...that's not quite true. Steam, and especially Valve's games, have done quite well, despite the customer not owning the game.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
"This coming from a company that puts movies in the vault for a decade to increase demand. How do they reconcile the two philosophies?"
It's simple. Anything worth a shit you get to access one year in ten. You do, however, have the right and ability to watch Chicken Little as many times as you want for as long as their servers operate.
The system, dubbed Keychest, is being positioned to lock our customers into a DRM system, so that we can squeeze every penny out of them...
There, fixed that for you Disney.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Buy 2 or 3 from different retailer under different name and a different CC. Then look at WHERE the difference are. It does not matter if you udnerstand what the data is (encrypted) or not, all you need is to remove or garble it. And they can't have a very big watermark in *All* frame changing msot of the frame, can't they ? For that reason, I doubt watermark can ever work on a digital content which is not DRM protected.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's called Hard Disk.
And Keychest would allow movie studios to dictate how many devices, connected to which distribution networks, a given title can be played on.
So it is permanent for as long as they say it is permanent.
THANK YOU! That's exactly how I feel. Sell me a physical piece of media and leave me alone!
Extra, extra, read all about it. Disney sells fluffy fairytale DRM that likes to cuddle and sing.
It's not news. It's hype. Disney has always sold fairytales. Disney has always aggressively used DRM. It's the same broken set of ideas that is DRM, packaged yet again for a gullible public. I pay about as much attention to these "announcements" as I do to Nigerian get rich quick spam. No thanks Disney, I don't want to send you my financial details or buy that fairytale bridge that'll make me rich.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
...that aren't yet served by adequate high-bandwidth Internet access this is not going to work. According to the WSJ article:
Then how does one view the movide? If the movie doesn't need to be downloaded, the only way one can view it is to, um, download it. When you want to "access" your movie it's still being transferred from the remote storage to your viewing device. I don't care if you call it downloading or streaming. It still has to move across something with a hell of a lot of bandwidth. (Silly me for thinking that someone from the WSJ would pick up on that.) Sure I wouldn't have to store it on a computer or in/on a phone but -- and maybe it's just me -- I suspect that most people don't save movies on hard disks (other than those they've saved on their DVR's hard disk). When I can get a computer or a phone with a 57" screen, then maybe I'll consider watching movies on something other than my TV.
Want to bet how much your cable and/or phone bill will increase once you start "accessing" that movie you supposedly bought? And those folks who don't even have sufficient bandwidth to stream crappy YouTube videos? Imagine watching an entire feature-length movie in five second chunks. Boy, that's entertainment.
I have to agree with those posters who mentioned that this is a solution in search of a problem. A Rube Goldberg answer from entertainment industry engineers in response to a question posed by the company legal department.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
DOES Disney create new films? I thought they just recyled stuff that was already out there, tweaked it a bit, then released it as "Disney's 666th film". The last truly original thing they did involved a cute, but very elderly by now, mouse, and a duck with a speech problem.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Seriously, this consumer is not interested in buying into a system that relies on the continued external support of the access controls. I'm sure their glib answer is "Disney is huge, and won't go out of business" - but Walmart is even bigger, and they still made the decision to terminate support for their DRMed music store.
#DeleteChrome
SHUT UP! The user is not supposed to think about that until they launch keychest 2!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
What they come up with may or may not last, but it is the way things are going, so get over it. Pandora is awesome (and you should pay for it if you don't). Netflix streaming- also awesome. Disney wants to get on the subscription bandwagon, so be it.
So naturally the ghost of Divx rises from the graveyard?
...let them call the tool that hacks this "Keyblade".
That would be my preference as a consumer, that they quit trying to force me to re-buy the same movie over and over again.
I know it's retarded to reply to yourself, but I just wanted to explain more why I suspect this has become an issue that costs movie studios a lot of sales. Once upon a time, I suppose you bought a record and just expected that to be your copy of that music for a long time. I remember buying VHS tapes and imaging that I'd keep that tape collection for the rest of my life.
Now it seems like the technological progress is accelerating and that, paired with media companies trying to exploit these new formats for additional sales, has turned "ownership" into a less appealing prospect. Even in cases where I'd like to own a movie, there's no format that I feel I can trust to be future-proof. I don't want to buy Bluray discs partially because I want to be able to rip them and put them on any device I want, but partially because I suspect I won't want to have to own a Bluray player in 5 years. What happens if I replace my PS3 with something that doesn't use Bluray?
I could buy DVDs and rip them, but then I have to deal with the fact that they're low-resolution. iTunes offers HD movies, but not for all movies (it's seemingly random which movies are available to rent and which are available to own, which you can buy in HD and which you can't). Plus, their HD is only 720p and DRM encumbered. If I knew that they'd come out with iTunes Movies Plus in two years, offering to upgrade my movies to 1080p and drop DRM for a couple dollars, I might consider it.
I just don't want to spend the money to buy movies only to have to re-buy them in a couple of years when they upgrade 1080p to 2160p or 1080-3D or whatever. So I'm holding out, waiting for this stuff to resolve itself, and using Netflix for the time being. I suspect I'm not alone.
I never get why people want to rent movies electronically.
If you were 'renting' the TV season, you'd still have to download it (in the same quality as the 'buy' version) and play it. So the only real difference, in the electronic-delivery world, between 'buying' and 'renting' is in the latter you need a complicated DRM scheme. (Even more complicated than a normal DRM scheme.)
So, it actually costs the company more to rent it to you. Selling it to you, even if you only play it once and then delete it, costs both the company and you less. Or at least it should.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
If it wasn't for Disney et al, it would be as easy as dropping your latest DVD purchase into your computer, and clicking the Copy To Computer/copy to ipod/copy to video game system/copy to another DVD button. But since they insist on making it illegal to copy your own discs for your own private use, we have to resort to convoluted methods of making those copies. Think about how easy it is to copy a CD to your library in iTunes. It should be just as easy for a DVD movie, but I don't think that Disney, or anybody else would stand for such a simple to use, widely available method of doing this.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The thing that they have of value is the ability to produce new films
I have to disagree. The one thing that Disney can do like no one else, and which is therefore their primary value, is merchandising the crap out of existing content. When was the last time you saw a good Disney movie (Pixar doesn't count)? When was the last time you saw Disney produce original content that even its current target audience won't cringe at in a few years?
For crying out loud, they're releasing a double-feature of Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D now! Creatively, Disney is dead. Their saving grace in that department is Pixar. And Disney knows that - which is exactly why they're focusing so much on merchandise, 3D, theme parks, copyright protection, and now this scheme. They know they can't create new content. That's why they're coming up with a million ideas on how to sell you old stuff again. And again. And again.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Nonsense! Anyone with a PC/mac/whatever will already know how to rip dvds with 1 click solutions if they want to. It's not about tech knowledge, it's merely them asking someone else how they do it.
I don't care what the ads say. The only thing that will matter is what's in a legally-binding contract. Not a TOS that Disney will doubtless reserve the right to change, but a contract. And in case you're wondering about the possible limitations that will likely come along, let me throw out a few:
1. Sure, you get perpetual viewing rights, but they only last for as long as the Keychest service does. Anyone who bought DRM'ed music from MSN or Yahoo got a taste of what could happen if the DRM servers are taken down. And, as someone else already pointed out, there's nothing to stop Disney from pulling the plug if profits aren't to their liking. Does that mean you'll lose access to all the stuff you bought? Yes, but here's a book of discount coupons so you can save a few bucks on all the DVDs you're going to have to buy to rebuild your movie collection.
2. Would you like to sell that movie you've grown tired of? Not with Keychest, you can't. Suddenly, used DVD sales go away, which is something the studios have wished for for quite a long time. See, wishes can come true!
3. It's a fact that studios love trailers and commercials. Actually, trailers ARE commercials, and a service like Keychest allows the ads to get changed out at any time, and I'd be willing to bet that you won't be able to skip them. Are there no ads before that movie you just bought? Maybe not now, but they could appear any time down the road.
The thing is, Keychest is meant to solve the studios' problems, not mine. I have no problem with the ownership model, thank you very much. I also have no problem with playing the movies on my shelf in any device I want. If I want to load them onto a laptop, I'll either burn a copy to a blank disc (so the DVD can stay safely at home) or rip it and load it on the hard drive. Does that violate the DMCA? Maybe, but it solves my problem very nicely, it doesn't distribute the movie to anyone who hasn't paid for it, and I don't need a crippled service like Keychest to accomplish it, so I'm just fine with it.
I don't care if Disney sees this as a DVD killer. They may want to kill the DVD, but I don't, so they can go pound sand for all I care.
The movie studios understand this too. There's a damn good reason their ads stress "Own it now, on DVD and Blu-ray." It's what people want to hear before they put down money. If an ad said, "license it now on keychest," their sales, er I mean licensing revenue, would plummet. For all their suicidal tendencies, even Hollywood isn't trying to lose quite that fast.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Actually, figuring it out on the Mac for instance is a pain in the arse. When I was looking in to it, nobody was wanting to tell you to install VLC, nor which version, to get access to lib DeCSS. Everybody was saying using Handbrake or Mac the Ripper, or something, but nobody was saying you needed to decrypt the movie, and how. And then on top of that, it takes bloody ages to rip a disc. No thanks, too much effort. Too time consuming, too annoying have the laptop overheating and going slowly all that time.
Give me the BBC iPlayer and that level of convenience thanks.
This.
Disney Corp. is now much more about managing a stable of properties. Which is not a sin, professional management is valuable. But by itself it'll only take you so far. Buying Pixar helps with this problem, but you can't keep making Toy Story movies.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
If by DVD you mean "a physical medium upon which DVDs are sold", then no, this isn't a DVD killer. In fact, this format seems to INCLUDE DVD, but more importantly if given the choice between owning a CSS-encrypted DVD and a Frankensteinian monster like "Keychest", I'll choose DVD any day. Well, at least until the brilliant people behind DeCSS invent "SkeletonKey" and ensure me access to what I've paid a license for even when Disney loses interest in the model and discontinues it.
If by DVD you mean "a movie that is sold for home consumption", then, yes, this is a "DVD killer" for sure. If this is the only format purchase-for-home-use movies are available in, then my collection will stop growing immediately. Not that it grows a lot today...
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Yet every disney DVD ad on tv states.... "OWN IT TODAY"
If they hate the ownership idea, then why do they push it with their false advertising?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This bears repeating.
If not for Disney, you would already be able to take home your Bluray of Snow White
and suck it straight into iTunes where it would be immediately accessable to any of
your AppleTV units.
Similar non-apple solutions would exist including one from Microsoft and one from Tivo.
Any "barriers" to your grandmother having Desperate Housewives ripped to the rediculously
oversized hard drive in her clone crapbox PC are artificial. Technology really has squat
to do with it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You have to put up money to cover maintenance for the life of the plant and cleanup.
If you host a DRM scheme, I submit that you should be required to hold in escrow funds to keep that system running until the content secured by the system falls into public domain. I would further suggest that Disney should suck it, and finally reap what they have sown.
1 - not really, ripping takes exactly 12 seconds of my time, the computer can be my slave for the rest of it, hell even a modest current PC is not slowed down when it's ripping and converting.
2 - If the masses want simplicity and convenience, then Apple TV and netflix already fills their void.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This sort of scheme already fits with how Apple has trained everyone. iTunes videos are authorized on up to 5 machines, all of which are supposed to be in your immediate control. The Apple TV and your iPhone/iPod don't count as devices, because they're somewhat locked down. Only computers need authorization. Devices are auto-synced, and by default are considered trusted devices.
Expand this to your tablet mac/media pad, throw in the content delivery people, and suddenly you have a DRM ecosystem that works. Loose DRM that's traceable back to you if you want to work at it, just like real DVDs. Just like it's difficult to watch 5 copies of a DVD at once, you won't be able to watch more than 5 copies on an untrusted device (or something like that).
It's fairplay for content. Maybe verisign, etc will sign on as key management providers?
You're going to whine about the resolution of DVDs and then hold up iTunes as a counterexample?
You've got to be kidding. Do you even read those specs on iTunes? Do you have any idea how large a proper HD film in h264 is?
What iTunes is selling simply doesn't have the capacity to be proper HD.
You're probably much better off with the "low resolution" DVD.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
any media distribution system that takes distributor's concerns into account will fail. distributor's concerns are orthogonal and sometimes hostile to what consumers want. therefore, addressing these sideshow concerns winds up designing a media distribution system that is suboptimal from the only concern that really matters
what concern is that? you determine the media distribution system that will succeed based on... drum roll please... this amazing newfangled metric called GIVE THE CUSTOMER WHAT HE FUCKING WANTS. END OF FUCKING STORY
i swear, is it a job requirement for being a media executive to be tone deaf? pun not intended: these assholes are seriously conceptually tone deaf
perhaps previous job experience such as "grave digger" is germane as well?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Renting TV is much like watching TV if you are doing it electronically.
You don't have to bother about the rental store or physical media and you can do it at your own pace.
Netflix (usps version) is a nice approximation but it has it's limitations.
OTOH, you can do it all for free on Hulu if you can stomach the commercials.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"However, they do not seem to have addressed the question of what happens to customers' access to purchased content if the Keychest service itself is discontinued."
Oh that's easy. The consumer can just purchase it again through any number of convenient venues. :)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Brilliant.
Meet the Robinsons
he's more machine than mouse now.
You don't have kids, do you? Disney has a TON of value in their old films. Kids will watch the same movie hundreds of times, until they can quote and follow every single line. And then they'll watch it again. Hell, my wife still has Aladdin pretty much memorized. They want these laws because they realize that they can rake in the cash and not have to do any work other than bitching to Congress about the evil citizens wanting copyright to not be forfuckingever and a day, and copying things like they're part of the culture instead of Disney's sole property.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
wait it takes you 12 seconds to rip a dvd? could you elaborate?
Ehhh... Valve has promised to completely unlock the games should Steam ever go under. It's not a legal commitment, but I trust them a hell of a lot more than I trust Disney.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
You are not alone. I feel this way about my TV as well as movies. It used to be that you could expect a television to be around for a while. Now they are expected to break in just a few years and no one complains as it is an excuse to buy the newest shiniest tech.
Once the upgrade path settles for a bit ( which is in no one's interest) I have no need to purchase my collections again and again, just to keep up with the ever changing hardware.
Truthfully, most of the corporations within the "content," industry need to be.
They wreck and subvert the legal system in order to support their own greed, and they avoid any form of real creativity in the material they produce, as much as possible. They are staffed by the usual evil, soulless bean counters who don't want anything other than generic, white box assembly line product year after year, purely in order to make consistent profits.
They only profit from human stupidity, and the fact that those of us who care about how badly they treat everyone else, are the minority. If the majority didn't insist on being so unrelentlessly brainless and avoidant of personal responsibility, we might be able to generate support for these companies simply being rendered insolvent.
Unfortunately, however, the mainstream sheep just keep standing there, mindlessly, sleepily chewing their cud, waiting for the slaughter.
Your MacBook doesn't get really hot and the fan really loud for quite a long time when you rip a DVD?
You can rent movies on iTunes, probably can't do it for a TV show because the cost would be so low its not worth their effort.
And you are paying a price thats lower than most rental fees anyway, so you aren't paying more for less. You are paying less for more, on iTunes.
Who replaces your DVD now when it is lost or scratched, for free, forever?
Oxymoron, does not compute.
With this system, there is no motivation for them to ever provide a higher quality version. There is no additional income from doing so. They would never bother releasing a higher quality version.
So don't buy it. They are not required to provide you with anything, and you are not required to buy it, welcome to capitalism. Wait for the 1080p release if you want that format. You always pay a few to be the first adopter, get used to it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The logical place would be the library. Too bad most libraries are stuck in the stone age.
Another place would be a kiosk at grocery stores. They already have video rental kiosks, just extend them to connect with DisneySteam to verify rentalship and and purchases.
And that is Disney's real problem. The thing that they have of value is the ability to produce new films. They need to stop fixating on trying to sell copies of their films and focus on how to persuade people to pay them to make new films. That is the kind of innovation the industry needs, not new forms of DRM.
Another poster here talks about Disney's new system as being "an industry solution in search of a consumer problem". What you've proposed is a consumer solution in search of an industry problem. DVD sales are a huge cash cow, and they'd be fools to give that up easily. Making new movies is a risky, expensive undertaking. Selling DVDs is a cheap, reliable revenue stream. There is increasing consumer demand to move away from physical media towards downloaded content, and Disney is sure as hell going to try to find a profitable way to make that switch.
/...
When was the last time you saw Disney produce original content that even its current target audience won't cringe at in a few years?
Is this supposed to be a thinly veiled criticism of the programming on the ABC network, ESPN, and several networks partly owned by Disney such as A&E, Lifetime, and History?
...a company that was renowned for giving us stuff to watch is now going to start telling us how we can watch it?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Yes, put in DVD, click rip, walk away. Unless you have some weird computer that launches out shackles to hold you there watching, you can do other things while it rips.
I ripped a new netflix this afternoon while I ate my lunch, talked to my coworkers and surfed the net.. total time spent by me is 12.2 seconds anyDVD+handbrake script = zero effort DVD ripping to xvid.... I accidentally pressed eject when I inserted the disc so it took longer than normal.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I get my tv through comcast. I'm renting access.
(I do wish it could be a bit more á la cart)
I drank what? -- Socrates
Um, I believe Apple is would be among the "et al' of which you write. I know you're a fan boy and all but just put your rampant Apple adoration on hold for a moment and use your fsking brain before you post.
The CEO of Apple Inc. sits on Disney's board of directors. Watch Apple announce support for Keychest in a Time Capsule firmware update.
I think I'll continue owning, thank you very much.
I don't care if you call it downloading or streaming. It still has to move across something with a hell of a lot of bandwidth.
Comcast is in on this. If Comcast runs a caching proxy for Keychest users on its High Speed Internet and Digital Cable services, it can get the bandwidth cheap.
I suspect that most people don't save movies on hard disks (other than those they've saved on their DVR's hard disk).
Exactly. Keychest users would be able to stream any unlocked video to their STB.
When I can get a computer or a phone with a 57" screen
Most HDTVs support PC video formats. See Cable finder for details.
Really? I mean, when was the last time something labeled as a "killer" actually was? It is about as exciting as calling the next singer "The Next Hannah Montana". I'm tired of companies and media calling things "The iPod Killer, The Facebook Killer". It makes the product sound like more work was put into PR than actual product development.
I can tell you without a doubt that iTunes HD videos look better on my HDTV than DVDs that have been upscaled by my PS3. DVDs look blurry by comparison. Of course it depends a bit on the content and source.
Tell me whatever specs you want, but sit in front of a TV and watch, and you should see what I mean. Of course in dark scenes sometimes you see some minor compression artifacts, but I'm not claiming iTunes is anywhere near as good as Bluray.
It's called "Telecine". Use a cinema-quality digital camcorder, and genlock it to the TV's refresh signal. The warez scene can afford this.
OTOH, you can do it all for free on Hulu if you can stomach the commercials.
Don't forget Flash. I can stomach the commercials, and I can even tolerate 480p. What I can't take is being forced to watch it on a computer using Flash instead of being able to put it on whatever I want.
the simplest solution to this self identified dvd portability "problem" is to stop preventing consumers from ripping their purchased films to hard drives. once that occurs they can stream movies either in house or globally via the net, to all or any device they prefer. take my run of the mill my $65 1TB hard drive. it holds nearly 250 single-layer films as uncompressed isos. that's over 300% more movies than the average american household owns now. next year that 65 bucks will buy me two gigs and storage for almost 500 films, or nearly 3000 with the proper compression. i live in conn but sometimes watch my movies in mass either by net or by drive. it's simple and free of technical issues. in other words it works.
this disney maneuver can't be as much about solving practical problems consumers have with player compatibility (legal ripping software will take care of that) as it is about solving perceptual issues consumers have towards content cartels and their draconian efforts at digitally restricting media.
free the dvd/blu-ray. they may sell more too. or not, but the problem vanishes.
- js.
Let's say I have knowledge, gained in some way, that certain people have been encoding HD movies, without DRM, in near perfect quality at as low as 2 gigs of information. Let's say they've been doing this for a while, and quite frankly it already allows unlimited access, to unlimited media devices as is. Now Disney's plan, it seems to me, is to make something worse than this and then charge more for it. I'm sure this business plan made all kinds of sense in the boardroom where it was concocted.
I would much rather watch a new film than one I've seen before.
Ah, but I assume you are not a child aged 2-11. Disney's movies get played over and over in households with small children. Over and over. Disney would make a fortune selling per-view subscriptions to families. Over and over. Did I mention that kids watch the same movies over and over?
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
You do own valve games, you are not renting them and if you do go to the store you gets discs to have. Steam is awesome but to say steam is a "rental" of the game is downright false. You can continue to play games that you owned via the steam system forever, with no monthly fees. That is more ownership than you get with most physical things these days. Don't get me wrong, steam is doing awesome but it isn't what you are claiming it is.
I never get why people want to rent movies electronically.
It's not complicated. I want to watch a movie, but I only want to watch it once. I don't particularly want to "buy" the movie because I don't even want it to take up space on my hard drive.
Therefore, if the person who owns the copyright is willing to let me pay 1/4 of the price I would normally spend to "buy" it and I get exactly what I want out of the deal, why shouldn't I want that?
We can go round and round on the DRM thing all day, but my chief objection to DRM is that when I "buy" DRM-encumbered media, I haven't really bought it. I've rented it, and I can't count on having access to that media over the long-term. Now if those terms are clear to everyone and everyone is happy with the arrangement, I don't particularly have a problem with it.
... a USB stick?
Yeah, and now CIrcuit City is one of the richest companies in the world.... No, wait....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I think he meant 12 seconds to pop the DVD in the drive, fire up his ripping software of choice and click enough buttons to make the computer take over and do the hard work of actually doing the ripping. He did elaborate after the second comma of that sentence.
His point is that it will stop the lay-person from doing it. Just because it is easy for us, doesn't mean it's easy for everyone, even with instructions. Secondly, because of the DMCA, it is illegal to do it. So, because of Disney, grandma can't just drag-and-drop a DVD to her computer.
"They claim that such a service..."
Well, they can stop right there. Given past experience with DRM, no, I'm not buying something that can be spontaneously and remotely revoked after I've bought it (for valid or false/mistaken reasons), or where the company can disappear. I'll stick with plain DVDs where the only risk I will lose the value of the product is if I accidentally break it, or if I want to sell it to someone else.
If they want to sell it as a service then put it on TV or radio. At least there I know what I'm buying is temporarily viewable.
This thing is as likely to take off as DIVX.
is considered a "troll" now an days
Ah, but I assume you are not a child aged 2-11. Disney's movies get played over and over in households with small children. Over and over. Disney would make a fortune selling per-view subscriptions to families. Over and over. Did I mention that kids watch the same movies over and over?
Agree. I am thoroughly convinced that my eldest daughter's bone structure is knitted together in crystalline patterns analogous to the sound track of Dumbo. She says she doesn't remember any of it, but all I have to do is quote half a sentence of any part of the film and she'll be humming the rest of the movie, in sequence from that point on. She knows this, and throws things at me when I do it. Unfair, really...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
When was the last time you saw a good Disney movie
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?
Or does that not count either because it was a good, like the Pixar movies?
When was the last time [insert any movie producing company here] produced a good movie ([insert all their good movies here] don't count)?
Personally, I wouldn't mind paying for most TV shows and movies per-viewing, so long as it was cheap and I had the option to buy. Further, what I'd really like to do is buy free access to downloads in perpetuity, regardless of new/improved formats. What I mean is, I might actually be convinced to spend $20 on a movie on iTunes if I knew that I could re-download it whenever I wanted (if the original file was lost or deleted), and that if they release it in 1080p in a couple of years I could download that copy, too. And then if they released it in whatever replaced 1080p, I could get that free too. That would be my preference as a consumer, that they quit trying to force me to re-buy the same movie over and over again.
Well you can... It's called Netflix.
And you are paying a price thats lower than most rental fees anyway, so you aren't paying more for less. You are paying less for more, on iTunes.
HD movies on iTunes are $20 a pop. TV seasons are $60. Those aren't lower than most rental fees, especially if you compare to the possible value of Netflix.
Who replaces your DVD now when it is lost or scratched, for free, forever?
The difference is that DVDs actually cost money to produce. If I go to Best Buy and buy a new DVD, I have to at least pay for the material costs, shipping costs, and the costs to run a factory and a Best Buy. For a high-volume online service like iTunes, providing an additional download doesn't cost much more than the cost of the bandwidth, which is pennies. Plus they can verify that I actually purchased the video in the first place with virtually zero overhead costs.
Physical media isn't the same as online downloads. That's the point. Media companies are going to have to stop pretending that they're selling physical copies.
So don't buy it. They are not required to provide you with anything, and you are not required to buy it, welcome to capitalism.
Yeah, but the media companies want me to buy it, and I want to buy it. So the million dollar question is, why is it that I'm not buying it? (me just being one among many people who aren't buying movies anymore)
Now if you're not interested in the topic of conversation, might I suggest that you go find something that does interest you, rather than sitting around here welcoming people to capitalism?
Sheesh. You realize that's a book adaptation, right? Not to mention that it was profitable, but not exactly a blockbuster? Also, I exclude Pixar because Pixar was bought recently. The only movie that has come out since the buy-out was Up, and was fully done with the complete Pixar setup. Disney corporate contributed nothing but marketing, merchandising and distribution. That's not creative.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Bolt was good. Don't forget that Disney also owns Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Miramax Films. They also own ABC (and so Disney is "responsible" for Lost and other good shows). The Narnia films were great. The first Pirates movie was good. Disney is making a lot of good movies (they also put out a lot of not good movies).
He is on the board of directors. And I believe he may be the largest individual shareholder. Both of these as a result of the Pixar sale.
I totally agree with you on the TV shows thing. I mean, if I could get a show from iTunes to either "watch once" or "watch for a week" for, say, 1/2 or 1/4 the cost of owning it, I totally would do that.
But it's not likely to happen, because if the cost of a season of, say Mad Men drops to $10 or $15, then suddenly a cable bill of $60-$80/month just to be able to watch your 3 or 4 favorite shows on the networks' schedules doesn't sound so great. Actually, with a season going for 3-4 months--13-15 weekly episodes--a full year's worth of 6 shows at the low end of my suggested price range is one month of your average cable user's bill.
It may be the right way to go, but some very rich people would sooner do [something awful] than let that happen.
The CB App. What's your 20?
You need to add "(Studio Ghiblhi movies don't count, either)", as Disney is the U.S. distributor for those. That said, the only good, recent Disney film that I can think of is "Bolt". Before that, it was probably "The Lion King", or "The Nightmare Before Christmas", or "The Little Mermaid". (I forget the order in which those came out.)
See above.
I don't see that as bad. Both movies have good story lines (they ARE Pixar films). Since they were originally computer-animated films, there's every reason to expect that there's a lot of 3D information in the computer model files that just plain gets lost from regular live action or flat animation. (And consider that the 3D version of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" turned out well, despite the fact that the "work products" for that movie were 2D.) Now if you want to induce a cringe, mention the 3D guinea pig movie ...
Simpleanswer: You *do* own the DVD. Just not anything on it.
When was the last time you saw a good Disney movie (Pixar doesn't count)?
I'm guessing what you actually mean is what was the last good Disney traditional animation film, in which case you'd have to go back to the first half of the decade, before Eisner dissolved their cel-animation studios.
Now that they've restarted their efforts things seem promising, and the upcoming animations "the princess and the frog" and "rapunzel" are highly anticipated, with names like Ron Clements, John Musker or Alan Menken who were crucial to some of their successes in the 90s.
Oh c'mon, it's not about online movies. This is yet another try at switching users from purchase to long-term rental, in the face of clear evidence that consumers do not want this. Disney clearly hasn't learned anything from DIVX and the 48 hour self-destructing DVD. They seem to think that all they need to do is find the right technology and the right marketing technique, and they can continue to depends on rebuys for a significant part of their revenue stream, despite that business model being dead since the VHS days.
When I purchase a movie, I don't want the content to be out in "the cloud", depending on services that will inevitably go TU some day, or depend on "phoning home" for permission to play the media I have purchased. I want a physical, non-encumbered archival copy, else it's just a high priced rental, competing unsuccessfully against dirt-cheap rentals like Netflix.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Another silly attempt by disney to control all of the media all the time. They tried this with the "DiVX" DVD format and failed miserably. Disney, guess what, I already have a fool proof method of keeping all of the media that I BUY, FOREVER, its called DVD, and if I want something to be digital I can by an MP4 or other digital media file. Keychest will fail.
Umm no thanks.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Don't forget too, with all this push to 'online distribution', is that the big providers are now starting to limit bandwidth usage since we all got used to trying to use what we were sold. Making this even less appealing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Better read your Valve Subscriber agreeement - it says the EXACT OPPOSITE:
According to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam's availability is not guaranteed and Valve is under no legal obligation to release an update disabling the authentication system in the event that Steam becomes permanently unavailable.[49]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(content_delivery)
The only movie that has come out since the buy-out was Up
I somewhat agree with your previous point, but Disney bought Pixar in 2006, and since then there have been 4 Pixar movies. Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up.
It may be 7 digits, but at least it's a semiprime
I stick it to the man- I take the kids to the dollar movies and it is six dollars for the three of us. We always get to see new movies and it costs less than a dvd.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Why do they keep saying "buy" when what they really mean is "rent"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Pirates are also in the minority...
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Instead of going to such lengths to protect 80-year-old films, why don't they put that effort into producing some decent new titles?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"Please trust our servers."
Give me one good reason why I should.
I've seen even the most trusted brands screw their customers with digital distribution.
After Sony-RootKit, Amazon-Kindle-1984, etc., it's clear that NO brand can be trusted.
No, I will not trust your servers. Your fellow industry players have ruined it for all.
And kiss goodbye its main target audience - pre-16 teens and younger kids.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
for wally world's sake
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Your spelling deserves to be rediculed.
Google proves it
We'd better listen to him guys. He has FOUR DIGITS in his user ID!
We're not worthy! We're NOT WORTHY!!
You're right - my bad. For the purpose of this discussion though, we can also ignore Cars. Disney would not have had any influence on any production aspect of Cars in the weeks that were between the completion of the acquisition and the release of Cars.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Software is not the same as movie and music content. The consumer expects the music and movies they buy to be playable on a wide variety of devices for the foreseeable future, and to be able to lend it to a friend or family member. Someone buying software expects it to work on a particular computer OS version or console platform, often tied to a serial number or service account that can only be used by a single person at any given time, and they expect that it will cease to function within a few years. It's dangerous to compare distribution schemes for these two widely divergent content markets.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Thus Disney is in the problematic position of having
a durable physical medium that may cause an eventual
saturation of their target market.
Durable medium, my SFF (or the letters on the keys right next to them).
Have you ever seen what a 4year old can do to a DVD!?
Yes, I realize it was a book adaption. Most of the "old school" Disney animated films were adaptations, too... :)
Bolt was pretty good.
> Have you ever seen what a 4year old can do to a DVD!?
...that is what backups are for of course. '-)
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
this doesn't just apply to disney. it applies to all things digital. we must realize that when things can be copied near infinitely, the value of said items declines rapidly. no amount of false scarcity will change that. if we were able to reproduce, say gold, the value would plummet. if only one person made movies and they were shown in just one location, once a year, then the value of movies would would be rediculously high. if everyone , everywhere could make movies and they could be traded, copied, distributed anywhere, anytime, the value of movies would be zero. i don't know. maybe i just think the idea of "intellectual property" is unnatural and artificial. copyright was supposed to bring balance to the force, but instead it joined the empire and started controlling more and more star systems. where do we go from here?
If I were publishing an article in The Journal, you might have a point.
As it is, you are just engaging in a pointless fixation on minutia.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
DVDs are standard definition material. Of course there should be a marginal
improvement between a 1.5G DVD encode and a 3.8G encode. OTOH, a proper BD
encode is on the order of TEN TIMES LARGER (and the same codec).
At a certain point you just run into a basic math problem. ...also: all upscalers aren't created equal. I would hope the upscaler in the
PS3 is respectable but I have seen some really crap upscalers. OTOH, the HD
demo material they have accessable at the Apple store does nothing to cast
their HD material in a good light.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Did you even read the part where I said "It's not a legal commitment"? Are you that fucking retarded?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Precisely. :)
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Seriously, the dvd-killer has been here a long time. I wish they would just put movies on USB thumb drives. Durable and scratch-resistant.
they could still apply their current encryption techniques to the USB drive. software and hardware player have to be made to look for it there. If they wanted to get real secret-squirrel, they could embed 'hardware keys' into the USB drive the same way some software packages look for a USB key.
OTOH, the HD demo material they have accessable at the Apple store does nothing to cast their HD material in a good light.
You mean the previews in the iTunes store? The previews aren't HD, even if the purchased content is.
But it's not likely to happen, because if the cost of a season of, say Mad Men drops to $10 or $15, then suddenly a cable bill of $60-$80/month just to be able to watch your 3 or 4 favorite shows on the networks' schedules doesn't sound so great.
But let's look at Mad Men as an example. Season one on iTunes at 720p is $34.99. I can buy the Bluray version from Amazon for $23.99. What kind of sense does that make? No, $60-$80/month for cable doesn't make a lot of sense.
It may be the right way to go, but some very rich people would sooner do [something awful] than let that happen.
Yup, that's been my thinking for a while. The challenge is not to come up with a service that serves consumers or that consumers are willing to pay for. I don't think the challenge is even to come up with a viable business model for providing those services. The challenge is to come up with a good service that doesn't hurt the bottom line some already-existing and powerful business which uses an old, stupid, wasteful, overcharging, obsolete business model.
Plus, their HD is only 720p and DRM encumbered. If I knew that they'd come out with iTunes Movies Plus in two years, offering to upgrade my movies to 1080p and drop DRM for a couple dollars, I might consider it.
It might only be 720p, but the quality is excellent. It's superior to 720p and 1080p encodes of TV broadcasts, only raw captures really compare but they're also many times larger. You might want to make a comparison to a BluRay and see if you can tell a difference at all, it's definately there if you go up close but real tough to see from a distance. If so it doesn't matter they'll release it in 2160p, and unless there's some magic involved non-3D shows will never become 3D. And as usual the DRM is only a problem for buying customers, which I can't be anyway because they're not selling it here. I agree, iTunes Movies Plus - at least the DRM part but I won't say no to 1080p - and make it available in Norway.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"The rollout of the new technology comes at a critical juncture for the movie industry. DVD sales, once a financial mainstay for Hollywood, have fallen as much as 25% at some studios."
/weebit cringes.
It's there fault. What do you expect when Disney doesn't make DVD's the same as everyone else!
If I can't burn it to DVD, then they might as well hang their bright idea up. It wont go far. I am not going to depend on a few services, not to have problems, just when i want to sit down, and watch a movie or two. What happens when you change providers? Computer crash? So much is dependent on a few services to deliver. I would lots rather go to the local DVD store, and purchase the DVD, and store it in my collection of DVDs. Disney doesn't even make compliant DVDs, I have to play their DVDs in a cheap older DVD player because it wont play in the Sony which is a very expensive system. Sheesh.
Plus I picture in the near future people crying foul because of Keychest. They don't use a iphone, or have that certain cable service, or dish. Or they don't get their Internet with AT&T or verizon.
Quite possibly they don't want their computer tied up for hours, just so the kiddies can watch a few Disney flicks. And the cell phone is off limits. I can see the bill now.
Disney is dead, indeed. Walt Disney that is - the creator, and the original creative force behind it all. The innovator, bringing animation to a new level. I always loved how smooth and natural looking the animations of Disney are, compared to virtually all other studios. Animals walking like animals, moving naturally and so. Mighty expensive to make of course: having real animals in the studio to study their movements when making a movie. Only now that computer animation reaches the same level for cheap, the rest of the world catches up on that.
But indeed in the last couple decades nothing really original or new came out. They still make beautiful movies, though more and more are based on old fairy tales and so.
Walt Disney was to his company what Steve Jobs is to Apple. The company can survive without him for a while but will whither and die in the long run. It's simply stagnating.
The last truly original thing they did involved a cute, but very elderly by now, mouse, and a duck with a speech problem.
Apparently a speech impediment is not the duck's only "problem". "donald duck" ride fail [images.google.com]
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
We already have a multi-format permanent access to media.
It's called "no encryption".
It relies on people buying your stuff, which is a problem for many in the entertainment industry, though...
How do they know that you want to copy for your own private use and not for giving copies to your cousin, your aunt, your friends and your neighbors, for example?
Knowing that most people have pirated one or two programs in their life, it's highly possible that this whining about 'not being able to make copies for private use' is nothing more than an excuse for copying and sharing stuff. 30 years ago that software/media came on tapes, everybody was pirating stuff. 20 years ago that software/media came on floppies, everybody was still doing that. 10 years ago that software came on CDs/DVDs, stuff was widely pirated as well!!!! How the hell can media execs be convinced that suddenly, the average Joe has become a good citizen and no longer pirates stuff?
Personally, I am not convinced at all that people really care about 'making copies for their private use'. They only care about creating huge collections of stuff they never watch or listen more than once, but they can be proud of owning every piece of film/music under the sun.
And the excuse 'I want to make copies in case it is destroyed' is an absolutely poor excuse, for the simple reason that between the time a CD/DVD is bought and the time it is destroyed there is plenty of time to watch/listen to films/songs over and over, until you get bored with it.
Technology really has squat to do with it.
actually, it does have a lot to do with it-- the copy protection also counts as technology..
Exactly. Those of us that pirate will do it anyway, because no matter what technological hurdles the content industry tries to throw up, they're simply no match for the great unwashed masses out there.
So the only thing these schemes accomplish is to piss off the people that actually paid good money for the product. I honestly, truly want to buy Mass Effect 2 when it comes out. But I just know EA is going to implement some sort of shitty DRM solution that'll make playing the game a pain in the ass. Net result: the pirate release is a far superior product.
As for the whole copying for own use aspect, many many countries have laws on the books that no matter what the copyright owner says, we're allowed to make backups and in some cases even share a copy among friends.
And the excuse 'I want to make copies in case it is destroyed' is an absolutely poor excuse, for the simple reason that between the time a CD/DVD is bought and the time it is destroyed there is plenty of time to watch/listen to films/songs over and over, until you get bored with it.
Let me guess. You're single and never have family with kids over to your place(assuming you have a place to call your own)?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
You left out the part that your daughter is now 34 and goes into a trance like state when you start saying those few lines from Dumbo. Had you programmed her to kill the commander in chief, instead of merely throwing books at you...
it's called netflix or blockbuster. pay the monthly fee and either watch it online or rent the physical media. choose, watch, return, repeat. i mean really your so-called problem has been solved for god knows how many years.
In 2025, there will be high-frequency Really Efficient Diode Lasers, which will go by the acronym RED-Ray.
This is exactly what I want. We should pay for permanent access to content and be able to watch it in whatever format we want as they become available.
www.ArionsHome.com
The government didn't renege on the promise of gold for dollars, they just privatized the system. Take your US dollars to a private gold seller and he will exchange some gold for each of those green rectangles.
Of course, the rate of exchange has been privatized as well.
Hannah Montana
Disney fired their CEO and promoted the head of their Franchise making depart to be the new CEO. The new Disney model is merchandising. You can't make money on movies anymore and Disney knows this. What you can do is create an awesome two hour commercial and get all the kids to buy the merchandise. A physical product that can be protected, enforced, confiscated, etc. The future of Disney is free distribution of its digital media and then merchandise the hell out of it. Selling a parent a $20 DVD one time and having the parent resent you for it isn't making you money. Selling billions of princess toys, comforters, wall paper, bed sheets, t-shirts, etc is where the money is at.
Speaking of Apple...
You do know that one of Disney's largest shareholders is Steverino, right?
What do you want to bet that he's finally found the golden goose for AppleTV?
AppleTV v2.0 will include Keychest as a big new feature.
You might want to make a comparison to a BluRay and see if you can tell a difference at all
I haven't compared directly to Bluray, but I've seen some compression artifacts on iTunes stuff that I would guess aren't in the Bluray. The compression artifacts are relatively minor, but it's enough to turn me off of the idea of buying stuff. It's good enough to watch, but not good enough to sit in my collection for 10 years.
DVDs are fragile, it doesn't cost too much to break them. Just drop them from a certain height and they're done.
And if you want to make sure, any hammer will do the job.
Where's the merit there, Disney?
Dead on delivery
Only the uneducated masses will buy this for the first year. Myself, those who are educated on the subject and those who've experienced a year of problems will avoid it like the plague.
I'm confused about what we are arguing about... hehe.
1. Disney went too far into the "appeal to silly teenage girls" movies.
2. Disney decided to try to keep making money off of their old films (including awful "sequels") instead of coming up with good new films with the same creativity.
3. I think part of the reason their newer films weren't as good is that the old films were actually "family" films. The newer ones tended to be... meh, not as good.
4. Pixar has been producing good films after being acquired by Disney.
5. Disney, when they decide to NOT put in all the stupid stuff, can make a good film. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a pretty good film. Prince Caspian was nowhere near as good... they started trying to make it modern, I guess? Insert teen girl romance, mess up Peter and Caspian's characters by making them get upset at each other and proud, etc. Those sorts of stunts seem to be pretty common with screenwriters these days (another example is Faramir in The Two Towers ... screenwriter said that you just "can't" have a "static" character like that on the screen).
Durable medium, my SFF (or the letters on the keys right next to them).
your ADD?
Their saving grace in that department is Pixar.
Their other and even more saving grace is Miyazaki, whose films they now distribute.
No, that's what tough love is for. Sorry, you broke that DVD. It doesn't work any more. Maybe Mommy and Daddy will buy you a new one for your birthday. You have to watch something else or do you want Daddy to turn off the TV?
Granted, it doesn't get my 4 year old to treat the DVDs any better but having him change the DVDs rather than asking Daddy to (and getting the occasional lesson in consequences to boot) means letting him touch the DVDs. It's not like I want to see Wiggly Wiggly Christmas, AGAIN.
... nothing; atleast I didn't get any offers yet to buy my low uid, maybe it's because I registered after you...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Try to restore from the Steam backup sometime. You will find that you are unable to do so without first installing Steam, and then logging in to your account to verify that you have purchased the game you are restoring. You may even find that you cannot let someone else, using their own account, restore a game from your account's backup, even if they own that game.
The main benefit of performing the backup is to prevent having to download the game in its entirety again. In my experience at least, it in no way reduces the need for internet access.
I'm thinking that was the joke that you either missed or captain obvioused... Thanks for playing though.
The subject line sums it up rather simply. Instead of worrying so much about trying to re-sell old IP to customers again and again, put out NEW content to be bought.
So, should we already walk towards the white light ? ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
She's 23, and a multimedia student. I'm lucky if it's books.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Neither. The original joke was that it was successful with that concept when it actually flopped. I was taking the joke one step further by joking that the company was doing well as a result, when in reality, it was dissolved due to insolvency. And by saying that, I think both I and the post I replied to were further implying that Disney is next.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Works less well, when the 4 year old is the baby sister of the 8 year boy old who got the DVD as a birthday gift. Of course, he is going to practice his own form of tough love, but stil.. just saying
Mine doesn't. The optical drive gets loud, but the macbok only gets hot when I am re-encoding it, not during ripping. Unless you were including that in the term "ripping".
You're both a little confused. What you are more likely to see is an effect of Pixar on Disney's own branded films than vice versa, since they were specifically bought with that in mind. Lasseter runs the Disney animation Studio now.
I've sat and watched and I see what you mean and still disagree. Apple's "HD" films do have somewhat more detail than a good DVD, but they have a lot more artifacts as well, certainly not only minor compression artifacts in dark scenes. I don't even bother to rent movies from them in HD because of that. If its a movie I want to look good, I buy the blu-ray. If not, I rent Apple's SD version.
A 5 GB file doesn't cut it for real HD. Even with h264.
And that doesn't get into the laughable bit rates for audio they use, which even DVD handily trounces.
What I will grant is that its all probably more than good enough for the ubiquitous "most people" everyone cites.
Well I'm probably one of those "most people". I can't tell the difference between a 160kbps MP3 and a WAV file even on my best days. The only real problems I've seen with Apple's HD encodes are in dark scenes (as I've mentioned) and I've seen some banding with gradient color, and in most cases I'd rather see that then the blurriness I notice from upsampling (though I suppose that's a subjective choice). If there are other artifacts, I don't think I've picked up on it, but I don't rent movies from iTunes very often.
The Blogosphere reports that the Internet is close to giving birth to a new society that will create permanent, multi-artform sources of creative entertainment. Once the Internet has grown up to its full potential, the need for old-world media companies will vanish, taking, amongst others, Disney with it.
There, fixed it for ya.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
To all media companies:
I refuse to buy anything containing DRM. You can "innovate" all you want with DRM-laden products. But I won't spend any money on them.