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Hollywood Backs Swedish Movie Streaming Site
paulraps writes "Forget Spotify and Skype: the latest strangely-named-but-hey-it's-free service from Sweden offers users streamed on-demand movies free of charge, has deals with two major Hollywood studios, and is called Voddler. Since its launch two weeks ago, the service has signed up a quarter of a million users and has almost the same number queuing for an invitation. After signing deals with Disney and Paramount, the company provides access to thousands of films, which are shown uninterrupted after a barrage of ads. The target is the file-sharing generation: 'Our customers can be sure that Voddler is totally legal, secure, and that there are no risks of computer viruses infecting their machines from downloaded files,' says executive vice president Zoran Slavic."
Here's what happens when you access their site.
First you are presented with a very sparse page with a couple areas you can put your name and email address to "register".
Next, if you are so inclined, you enter your email address and name.
Then it says "Thanks for your interest in Voddler!"
Then you receive an email informing you that actually you didn't actually register since the site isn't actually open yet.
I suppose it was a good idea to use a throwaway account for this.
You're an idiot. This is not a phising site, this is a completely legit site, and those who are with the ISP "Bredbandsbolaget" can already use the service. It's the same type of business model that spotify uses. And frankly, if you ever get your fat ass out of the US you'll see how many services aren't available for the rest of us. Not everything comes instantly, jackass.
I have been using voddler as a beta tester for a few weeks now and it works quite ok after the last client upgrade. The first mac client was crap, nothing happened when I tried to login and it went fullscreen mode when started plus the program froze so I had to shut down the computer with forced shut down. After the latest client version I was logged in when I started the program, Voddler client is built on XBMC Media Center and you can only use the keyboard to navigate which can be quite annoying when navigating.
Browsing the few movies they have at the moment is fairly easy (only about 500 movies or so). First I get a commercial and then the movie plays nicely on just 10-12Mbit adsl line. I have heard that there was commercial breaks in the movies, but I haven't seen any commercial in a movie so far, just the commercial just before the movie starts which can be 10 minutes long or so.
For a beta I think it's a nice product which works quite well for me. Especially since the last update on the client which allows you to go into windowed mode which I forgot to mention further up in my text.
I believe that Voddler can be great once the new movies pop in and the beta goes into full product. The client has only crashed on me once and when I started it up again and found my movie I was looking at I could start where it ended.
uninterrupted barrage of ads
Why, oh why do they insist on this selling point of "no risks of computer viruses".
I'm always concerned that "legitimate" sources will contain a dodgy driver or a rootkit. No such concerns with the latest aXXo rip.
A Swede was caught and fined for speeding on the autobahn.
As Americans, we sometimes willfully ignore facts, as most Americans believe the Autobahn to be this magical road where speed limits don't exist and every can drive as fast as they want.
They are. Just not ALL of them...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Do I need to pay for Voddler? You will have the choice of advertised movies and pay per view. In the beta version only advertised movies are available.
It is not phishing.
I got an invitation via my ISP Bredbandsbolaget.
Voddler works fine, but has currenly only budget movies to show. But that will change now with the Hollywood deals :).
It also works as advertised; see a few commercials (time to pop the popcorn), and the movie is played without interruption... as long as your network connection is ok :-).
One of the reasons I stopped going to theaters to watch movies was that after I paid to get in, I was sitting through commercials (not just trailers, but commercials). I decided that I might as well stay home and wait for the movies on non-premium cable.
Well he is also calling it a phishing site, which is just to troll and throw this articles comments offtopic. Even the summary notes that theres tons of people waiting for invitation, so its kind of stupid to think you're just gonna get account like that from their main site.
But interesting note from About Voddler site is "Finally an alternative to illegal downloading is available on the Swedish market.", which makes me think if Voddler is available elsewhere too (atleast nordic and european countries like Spotify has). It might even be that this is specifically developed for Swedish market (at least first), since so large percent of people, specially young, pirate movies and music.
That being said, if this anything close to "Spotify for Movies" I'm really interested. It's been an year that I've used only Spotify for my music listening and it's even more convenience than downloading mp3's and everyone I know is the same thing. Been a premium member for months too.
How exactly pirating movies will boost business?
I know there's lots of people on slashdot who like to justify their pirating with all these "open", "bad bad record labels" etc bullshit, but truth is that people just want stuff for free and conveniently. As surprising it is after all the years of fighting from industry, it was really surprising that Spotify actually offers legit service that is a lot better than downloading warez. And with both free and paid, all-you-can-eat models. Spotify really changed things around here in Europe - it brought lots of people that download mp3's or send them between friends to a legit service.
And I love it.
Free isn't the big issue. Convenient is.
Welcome to the rest of the world.
It's often that us non US-people only get a sparse page with a few fields to enter your data in, only to find out that the service you thought you were registering for doesn't work yet in your country.
Call it phishing if you like, but it's par for the course. It's just that you US-ians don't notice it as often.
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Yeah I agree on that tho. I buy pretty much all games from Steam too because its just so much more convenient than walking to store, and comes with extra features like friends lists, community stuff and the ability to always download the game again when you need to.
Free model is a plus in this.
And the AC answering with "you're an idiot' and "jackass" is informative... that is more of a flamebait I think...
It's not an insult to say a dead man is dead.
But how many Ingmar Bergman films can anyone watch?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I was very excited about Voddler (I'm a Spotify premium subscriber, and a big movie buff, so it was just what I'd been waiting for), until I read about how the mac client works.
When installed it takes root access (in beta? how can that be safe?), and the server part never shuts down. That's right, when you're not watching a movie, you're still uploading. When you're out and about with your laptop and on a 3G tether, just checking your email and paying for data transfer, you're still uploading. When you have some real uploading to do (for work or whatever), the only way to turn off the Voddler sharing is to uninstall the server part, and then the client and player stops working.
No thanks.
Welcome to the rest of the world.
What is this rest of the world you speak of? Do you mean Mexico and Canada? Is Sweden a Canadian state? I think I've heard of those places. Do they get the internet there?
mmmm...forbidden donut
And it is also not an insult to say that a jewish persn is "Jew"... it all depends in how you say it.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Between pirating and DRMed adware delivery. How about these digital content guys try to sell their stuff at some low price that reflects the reality that making digital copies is incredibly cheap, that we have had bona fide tech advances that make this possible, rather than sticking to now ancient history "per unit" pricing models? Instead of a buck for a song, how about a buck for a download movie and five cents for a song? Something like that. Figure out what bandwith costs them, double that, and offer their stuff legitimately at that price.
People really started pirating about the same time it became apparent to just about everyone that any legitimate way to get content was blatant price gouging. People looked at plastic disks and went "hey, how come I can make a copy with my home equipment for 25 cents, yet these big places with even better equipment, who can do it cheaper at wholesale rates, want 25 bucks for a copy"? And when it comes to pure downloads, it was worse than that.
What these big content guys kept trying was "digital prohibition", if I can use this analogy, just like the government tried with booze and failed at, and that is just never going to work. The black market moonshiner rates and "home brewed" and "bath tub gin" methods just routed around obvious market inefficiencies and stupid laws.
The ad method won't work for them in the long run, people will figure out how to skip the ads, or just ignore them. Just offer the product way cheap with at least some profit in there (that's why I like a clean "double the bandwith costs and no more" method, easy to figure out and still a cheap price), and try volume sales instead. There are potentially six BILLION customers out there who ARE willing to buy things if the price is right and not blatant price gouging.
...that argument works, because your customers can't tell data formats (like MKV or AVI) from executable files.
Unfortunately, I say FUCK streaming! I'm not falling for that "you actually don't own shit" strategy!
Either I own the unencrypted file on my hard drive, of you can just right GTFO.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.