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Sony Begins Selling HD Movies On Its PSN
itwbennett writes "Sony on Tuesday 'rolled out the ability to buy HD movies from the PlayStation Network,' writes blogger Peter Smith. Sony claims they're the first service to offer HD titles to own from all six major movie studios. Smith runs the numbers on 'standard' pricing for titles ($19.99 for new releases; $17.99 for older movies), file sizes (ranging from 4 GB for Zombieland to 7.5 GB for 2012), and resolution (720P as far as he can tell)."
To "own"? Let's not kid ourselves here... there's no real ownership involved unless there is a way to get DRM-free files in 720p off the device using anything other than your eyeballs. I seriously doubt there is, which makes this just a really expensive rental service. I'm sure there are already lots of services which feature renting movies from all 6 major studios while taking your money and laughing about it.
Let's see:
-Lengthy download instead of a trip to the store.
-Price comparable to a Bluray off of Amazon.
-Quality less than Bluray.
-Limited to watching it on my PS3.
Sounds like a real winner, Sony!
With a measly $2 reduction for "older titles", one wonders why they even bothered having a tiered pricing scheme.
You can get Zombieland on blu-ray at Amazon for $23.49. It's yours, you can loan it, sell it, make backups (shhhh), etc. Plus it's in full 1080p. Who the frick would buy a "virtual" copy for nearly the same price?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Lengthy download instead of a trip to the store.
A trip to the store can take more than a day if you happen to want a movie on a day when the city buses are not running. In some cities, buses don't run on Sundays or about six major holidays.
Lengthy download instead of a trip to the store.
A trip to the store can take more than a day if you happen to want a movie on a day when the city buses are not running. In some cities, buses don't run on Sundays or about six major holidays.
That's nothing. A trip to the store could take weeks if you get taken hostage by an arm gang on the way and released later after lengthy negotiations by Jimmy Carter. Of course we always take this sort of scenario into account when deciding whether to download or buy from the store.
If public transport is such a mess in your town, you should invest in some form of personal transportation. I suggest a bicycle.
Don't forget download size, some of us have download quotas.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
So how did you manage to get hold of a PS3 then?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I don't buy movies anymore - I rent them. I know it's a (slightly) different comparison to what you were complaining about, but renting HD movies from PSN makes a ton of sense. I hate going to the rental store to pick up a movie, only to have to drive back a day or two later to return it. My wife & I prefer to pick a movie on Thursday evening (when new stuff gets posted to PSN) and if anything looks interesting, we rent a movie to watch on the weekend. It's like $4 to rent an HD movie from PSN, about the same (or less) as going to the store.
So... what happens to the downloaded movies that you've "bought" once the inevitable PS4 comes out? Would you be able to redownload the films or simply move the old hard drive into the new device? For all we know, Sony's license to distribute the films may not cover successive devices.
Of course, then there's the matter of downloaded content on other systems like the Xbox 360...
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Points 2,3 & 4 I completely agree with. I'd add that the potential for the DRM to self destruct at some arbitrary point in the future further devalues the purchase.
I disagree with your first point, though. If they sort out DRM issues and pricing I'd find downloads to be a very convenient way of purchasing movies. Even going on a 7.5GB file size and allowing for network congestion that's a 30 minute download on my connection, and 50Mbps is not that unusual any more. Even living in a big city you're doing well if you can manage a round trip to the shops in that time. Add to that the fact that downloads are available 24/7 and I think it's a definite winner in convenience terms.
So how did you manage to get hold of a PS3 then?
One buys a console far less often than games or movies for that console.
I have a bike, but its practicality depends on the weather.
Ha! That's nothing. My dad went out to buy cigarettes 20 years ago and still hasn't comeback... At least, that taught me not to smoke.
And your point is what precisely?
Surely the purchasing mechanism that you used for your PS3 is scaleable to the point where it can be used as a similar mechanism for the purchase of games and movies?
I also find it difficult to believe that anyone wakes up in the morning in their own bed and says "Oh shit! I just realised that public transport links to my home are not suitable for my lifestyle."
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You wouldn't last a day in Copenhagen
The Playstation network has been DOG SLOW lately... I don't think your fast connection is gonna help much.
Have you ever downloaded and watched HD movies off Usenet or torrent sites? These are typically 4-8GB for 720p, and 8-16GB for 1080p. The quality is in no way anywhere as bad or low-def as DVD, and most viewers will probably never notice the difference between these compressed files and the full Blu-ray versions, unless they watch them simultaneously side-by-side. If you have an HD set, these downloads are well worth it compared to plain DVD. Even when I have the chance to download the full Blu-ray, I opt for the compressed file.
The best thing of course would be to have a choice! I still think the old Russian AllOfMP3 site set the standard for media webshops in that regard: a choice of compression rates and file formats, or the raw uncompressed file, priced by the MB. I'd like online movie stores to offer downloads in formats suitable for portable players, DVD, HDTV (720p and 1080p), with or without compression, etc. And of course, no DRM and download to own. If they offer that, I'd stop bothering with Usenet or torrents, and I'd happily pay close to the full price for movies ($20-25).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You can get [some movie] on blu-ray at Amazon for $23.49.
The disadvantage there is you wait a week for "super saver shipping".
I've converted a bunch of 1080p BR movies down to 720p at a bitrate of around 5000kbps. I've tested all sorts of different bitrates and I can't notice a difference between 5000kbps and 8000kbps - 9000kbps etc. (other than in a few specific scenes). At 5000kbps, all of the files that I've converted have been between 3.5 GB and 5 GB. I'd say that 7.5 GB will look fine and probably a lot better than DVD. I know all of my rips look much better than any DVD that I've compared them to.
DVD uses MPEG-2 video compression. This comparison shows that for standard-definition material, H.264 looks as good at 1 Mbps as MPEG-2 looks at 2 Mbps. This should compensate for the HD picture (1280x720) being over twice as big as DVD (704x480).
When it cuts out the shipping and manufacturing cost for them
Internet bandwidth and server maintenance still cost money.
Actually, for most of us, this is a limitation common to Bluray as well.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Cruel, but ultimately fair.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Good thing I just slapped in that new 500GB hard drive to my PS3. w00t w00t.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
The only weather that stops a bicycle is hail*, and even then just invest in a suit of plate armor and that won't even matter.
* OK, a hurricane or tornado might also make matters difficult.
Lengthy download instead of a trip to the store.
A trip to the store can take more than a day if you happen to want a movie on a day when the city buses are not running. In some cities, buses don't run on Sundays or about six major holidays.
That's nothing. A trip to the store could take weeks if you get taken hostage by an arm gang on the way and released later after lengthy negotiations by Jimmy Carter. Of course we always take this sort of scenario into account when deciding whether to download or buy from the store.
That's nothing. It could take months if you have your PS3 in your boat and you are traveling near the cost of Africa while testing your new satellite Internet link. While you might think that a short trip to the coast to take some pictures, meet some people, sightseeing and buying that new BluRay you heard about in some store could be interesting, you can also get kidnapped by one of those pirates gangs and spend months while someone put (a lot of) money on the table to take you back. This could specially apply also if you ship oil for a work on a large boat, or move large amounts of people around, or you do some high level fishing.
Of course we always take this sort of scenario into account when deciding whether to download or buy from the store at the shore.
We have similar bad transit in my city. I'd make a day trip to buy a Console because I only have to do it once. I wouldn't take the same day or half day to go rent a movie for a couple of reasons.
1) You never know if the movie you want is going to be at the store. Wasting a half a day, a few hours there and a few hours back, to go to the store just to find out the don't carry or don't have the movie you wanted in is a major frustration. Before I spent more time downloading then renting I'd try to call ahead to reserve movies. I'd be told, "sure we have that, I'll put it aside for you.", I'd get to the store and the movie I wanted was gone.
2) You have to return the rented movie. Meaning you have to make the same trip back to the store often the next day or the day after or pay the late fees. So if you want to rent a movie you better be sure you have the time to make the initial trip and you better not be doing anything the next day either.
I like Sony's idea, I'd pay the same prices to "own" (by Sony's definition) a movie that I'd pay to rent them from a store (up to $5). Seeing as how Sony is charging the same price I'd pay if I actually bought the movie; I don't think I'll be using their service. Fortunately for me I live in Canada so I don't think I even get the option to pay outrageous prices for their crap anyway.
The only weather that stops a bicycle is hail
Would you recommend cycling in a thunderstorm?
I don't like walking in the rain either, but I still have to do it to get to my car and into the store. It sounds like buying movies is the least of your trouble.
At $17.99 for older movies, it's WORSE than buying a Blu-Ray.
Most older movies have gotten down to $10-15 at Wally World, and I managed to even find some 2-packs (admittedly of made-for-TV movies) for $10.
I worry that this might affect Netflix streaming to the PS3 though - Netflix's prices blow Sony's "rental" prices away. A 2-disc Netflix sub is only slightly more expensive than two "old release" HD "rentals".
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Yes, but server maintenance is a fixed cost, not a marginal cost, and bandwidth is cheap. How cheap? Will, according to some digging I've done, in San Francisco (near the center of many tech businesses in the US) bandwidth for large companies in 2008 was around $10-$14 per Mbps per month for a 1GigE connection. For a 10GigE connection, the price was around $4 per Mbps per month. Assuming they are always sending out at peak capacity, this comes out to a cost of about 3.7 cents per GB (with a 1 GigE) or 1.2 cents per GB (with a 10 GigE). Assuming Sony has a 10 GigE hookup, that's about 5 cents for a 4 GB file. Not zero, but pretty close.
Actually, I take back some of what I said - here in the UK there aren't that many places where you're truly "out in the wilds" and miles away from any civilisation; however, I hadn't considered a place like Canada where I guess it's still possible to be living many miles from anywhere.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Given a choice between a $4.50 "old release" HD "rental" and a $1 new release RedBox DVD (oh, and some RedBoxes have Blu-Ray), I'll take the $1 DVD for instant gratification.
Given a choice between two $4.50 "old release" HD "rentals" and a 2-disc Netflix plan - I'll take the Netflix plan, which will easily get a lower "rental" price per month, plus there's Netflix Instant Streaming.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Yes.
So... what happens to the downloaded movies that you've "bought" once the inevitable PS4 comes out?
I imagine these downloads are treated like all other content on the PSN, they are linked to your account. You are allowed to activate your downloadable content on up to 5 devices so I imagine you could simply sign into your new PS4 when it comes out and re-download your content.
On a similar note, two other friends and I have all activated our PSN accounts on all of our PS3s and we share DLC all the time. I'm saving my other two activations in case my PS3 goes bad or the day I say "Hey look at my new PS4!"
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I tried this on the xbox and hated it. First you have to download about 4gigs which takes time, that's 4 gigs coming off your own internet connection if you happen to have a monthly limit. For xbox once you start watching the movie you need to finish it in like 2 days or it auto-deletes. That's right you can just watch part of it, go do something else and be like "oh I have to finish that movie I paid $$$$" for only to find out it's disappeared.
The deal breaker is the price. at 17.99$ might as well just buy the dvd/blueray and own it.
did you forget to take your meds?
You can't download snacks.
server maintenance is a fixed cost, not a marginal cost
Storing movies to be served costs per title, and encrypting each copy sent over the wire costs per concurrent user just like bandwidth does.
Assuming they are always sending out at peak capacity
I don't see the reason behind such an assumption unless Sony promises overnight delivery in the background. People don't tend to start a download going while at work or asleep.
Uh, most of us are limited to watching blu-rays on our PS3s, anyway. Not that I'll do this, because I like owning the discs, but...
Plus, I can just download the 720p ripped version and play *that* on my PS3, if the movie isn't worth it or I haven't seen it yet.
So I agree there that their pricing is dubious.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
Snacks are more fungible than movies. If I'm out of ZonePerfect candy bars, for example, I can use whatever Sun Chips I have left. One movie doesn't substitute for another nearly as easily; otherwise, free movies would substitute for major-label movies just as Firefox has been substituting for IE. Besides, I can stock up on snacks for a month at a time during a normal scheduled trip to the grocery store. With a movie, on the other hand, I have to get in early before everyone starts spouting spoilers.
But wait, there's more!
-Quickly fill up your PS3 hard drive.
-Wonder what happens if your hard drive crashes or if you want to switch to another console.
-No more saving money by selling a movie or by buying movies used.
-No more borrowing movies among friends.
Each time I do PS3 firmware or game updates, it takes forever to download close to 200 MB; something like a FULL HOUR. So, if I download a full movie from those servers, I'm not going to be able to watch it before a few days?
Sony, upgrade your canadian server park!
Every place I have ever lived, there has been a movie rental place either closer than, or the same distance as the grocery store (and that's in Canada!). If you seriously have problems renting a movie, how do you buy your groceries?
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Hey, he's a pirate. If he wants to continue doing what he's doing, he's going to have to deal with people getting pissed off at him.
And why shouldn't we be pissed? Piracy does no favours for us. It allows the pirate as much entertainment he can get his greedy little hands on, while honest customers have to sweat the higher prices and increasingly invasive copy protection measures. Fuck, it's gotten to the point where the DRM on Assassin's Creed 2 (which I wouldn't mind playing) has made it literally impossible for me to play the game where I'm living right now.
And that's not even mentioning the draconian laws being pushed through at the moment, on the backs of all these pirates.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Not even just being out in the wilds. I've been to London and their transit system is infinitely better then what we have here in Dartmouth, Nova Scota. Then again, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any place with worse transit.
Sure I can walk or take a bike, but if you've ever been to Halifax or Dartmouth, you'd know the cities are made up of hills, hills on hills and more hills.
The advantage is I'm in great shape. I was at a bachelor party for a friend of mine about a year ago. He had friends from Alberta visiting and we spent most of the night waiting for them to catch up to us as we moved from bar to bar.
The other issue with traveling without transit is the weather. This last winter was pretty good we only had a couple of snow storms, but normally from about mid January to about mid April there's snow on the ground. Sometimes well over a meter, but normally at least a half a meter. Summer's not too bad and I welcome a nice walk on a warm sunny day, but when it's warm I'm outside until it's time for bed and rarely spend time watching movies.
For more about Halifax/Dartmouth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz88kJSdT6Y This may NSFW unless you have headphones.
* OK, a hurricane or tornado might also make matters difficult.
Nonsense! those are bike express lanes! They are MUCH faster (provided you dont care where you end up and don't mind some self-reassembly upon arrival)
Miller Lite tastes like water that's somehow managed to rot.
I'm just amazed your scenario doesn't involve aliens.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is any HD movie worth a 50% premium over SD? $2 more (to rent, $3.99 SD, $5.99HD)?
When I first saw the Matrix on a very low-quality rip, it was not substantially changed by the DVD version, or even my current Blu-Ray version (thanks WB for the HD/BluRay swap!) . It is rather appalling when Netflix is on the same system and you get streaming movies for $8/mo. That's what, 2 SD rentals? If Sony priced the HD rentals at SD rates, they might actually compete with the value proposition of Netflix.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
We're working on that...
Salesman: "Is getting up off the couch to put a movie into your PS3 to much of an ordeal?" "Do you get out of breath walking to your car to go to the store?" "Do you enjoy the stunning quality of VHS movies?" "Do you have more money than commonsense?" "Well then we have the perfect product for you!...."
Do not blame murderers for death penalty laws, blame the individuals that made those laws.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Don't Bluray disks usually come with a "downloadable" version of the movie anyway?
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
I can easily get around 30 mbit from PSN. More than enough for streaming a movie both HD and SD. Depends on where you are I guess. I am in Norway.
1) what price?
2) gouge them
1) what?
2) let's see what the market will bear
1) not a little excessive?
2) if it works it'll pay off big
2) and besides we can refuse to sell to anybody who undercuts us
1) no B-movie bargain bin at walmart. sweet!
Video rental in HD and SD on PSN have been available since mid 2008. Seo Sony already has that covered. Whats new here is that HD movies may now be bought. SD was available day 1. These movies can be shared with a PSP so it could happen that they will also be transferable to a PS4 if that ever comes out.
You're comparing a few minutes in the rain to what could be HOURS.
plus there's Netflix Instant Streaming
Bleck. I tried it; its crap. Heavily compressed, and stereo sound. And it STILL would do the "buffering" thing throughout the movie. I have a 20mb connection (love my cities fiber network!), so that wasn't the issue.
No, it makes more sense to blame the murderers.
Well, at least with a Bluray you can take it to a friend's house.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
how much would you be willing to pay for this?
Personally...
$9.99 Digital [new]
$7.99 Digital [old]
$19.99 Digital + Hard copy in the mail.
it does, who do you think the pirates kidnapped, a native? >^_^<
I'd pay a $2 premium to have the movie watchable right then AND shipped to me as the true blu-ray version.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
If you have to ride your bike hours to get to a DVD store the rain seems like a minor inconvenience compared to the realization that by the time you get home from your epic ride you wont have time to watch the movie anyway.
If I'm in Africa, I'm the alien.
$20? Yoiks. That's a whole lot, though I can see it for a new movie, if I really wanted to see it, and ended up missing it in the theater, and have lots of good trusted reviews in favor. (The recent Sherlock Holmes movie is in that general category, for me -- but not many movies are.)
Otherwise, well, at least for me, there are many hundreds of movies I'd like to either watch or rewatch that are available for much cheaper (incl. no-additional-free, such as at the local library, and used, and on sale), and I can't imagine paying $17 in 2010 dollars *by default* to watch a movie, even if it's a rewatchable download. The occasionaly one, Yeah, maybe, OK, sure, perhaps -- and maybe the cost'd seem more reasonable if I lived in a more rural place. (In a city -- and I live in one -- there are more options for entertainment, recorded or otherwise, I realize.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
you can also get kidnapped by one of those pirates gangs and spend months while someone put (a lot of) money on the table to take you back.
See, that's exactly why Sony includes DRM on the movies, to prevent exactly this sort of piracy.....
The point is moot.
All law abiding people will agree that murderers should be punished for their crimes but not all of them will believe that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I tried streaming to my PS3 for the first time last night. No buffering problems, no obvious compression artifacts.
Yeah, it was limited to stereo, but so are half my TV recordings until I can fix a small bug in MythTV. (5.1 channel AC3 is being misreported in the stream info as 2 channel for Fox and NBC recordings, causing the PS3 to decode it and output it as PCM instead of passthrough.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
My TV is a 46" 1080p, and I clearly saw the artifacts. DVDs look better than the netflix. And I even tried it both ways (I could stream though my PS3, or directly to my TV which has an 100mb network connection to my local network). I didn't invest in a receiver and speakers to only have stereo when I watch movies. I'll be sticking with Bluray for now.
I don't see how riding for 2 hours (one each way) would be an "epic ride" that robs of you of time to even watch a movie. Especially when you'll typically be able to keep the movie at least overnight after rental.