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Warner Bros: New Program To Digitize Your DVDs
shoutingloudly writes "Warner Brothers has just announced a new 'Disc-to-Digital' program to convert your DVDs into digital files that you can play on your internet-connected computers. As the helpful Public Knowledge graphics demonstrate, all you have to do is find a participating store, drive there, pay again for your movie, wait while it's ripped for you, drive home, and hope it works. This will surely have tech-savvy movie fans saying, 'Brilliant! I've been looking for an excuse to uninstall this free, 1-step DVD ripper that I can use in the comfort of my own home. This is much better than DMCA reform.'"
In exchange for paying a bit more you might get a higher resolution copy (DRM encumbered and stored in "the cloud"). The launch process is absurdly cumbersome, but: "Later on, Internet retailers like Amazon.com will email customers to offer digital copies of DVDs they previously bought. Eventually, consumers will be able to put DVDs into PCs or certain Blu-ray players that will upload a copy, similar to the way people turn music CDs into MP3 files." Will the video distributors ever offer DRM-free files that you own? The music industry doesn't seem to be any worse off than they were when they insisted upon DRM.
Wow, what a deal.
Seriously, who the hell is in charge at Warner Home Video these days? When DVD first came out in 1997, Warner was one of the leaders in DVD's. They offered the best extras, were the first to make anamorphic DVD's their standard (meaning my first Warner DVD's still look pretty good even on a HDTV), and were real cheerleaders for the format back when a lot of people were saying things like "Why would Joe Sixpack want to give up his VHS tapes?" and "Laserdisc looks so much better" (I kid you not, those were prominent arguments against DVD in those days).
But in the last few years, their home video department has went to shit. Their support for early HD-DVD and blu-ray was weak. Their blu-ray discs these days are almost as annoying with the upfront/unskippable trailers as Sony. Even their extras seem weak these days.
You used to be cool, Warner.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
DVDShrink, VLC media player, MakeMKV...take your pick.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There are analog DVDs?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I didn't see Handbrake on that page of search results from Freecode so I thought I'd offer this up as well. Fairly simple interface, runs flawlessly on Windows 7 and Ubuntu for me. Open source and easy way to get DVDs into m4v format. Plus there are preset resolutions for things like iPhones, iPods and I found the resolution for a PSP. So basically I spend my flights with circumaural Sennheisers and Futurama or MST3K playing on my PSP -- the worse part about that setup being that Sony's memory card cost me a ton. So far it's ripped the blu-rays I've put in just fine as well.
Rip them to m4v and host them with PS3 Media Server and then they're good to play over your network to your PS3 or XBox 360 (and probably any other UPnP compliant device).
Do I feel guilty that I have shelled out $35+ for each of the 22 sets of MST3K and each season of Futurama and then violated copyright to move said shows onto any device capable of playing video? Not one fucking bit. Go ahead and do your little song and dance, I've got my shit figured out (thank you open source!).
My work here is dung.
Let me guess -- deCSS is for criminals, because it allows people to rip DVDs on their own, without paying for the privilege, and without requiring an Internet connection to watch?
Palm trees and 8
then why am I allowed to watch it as many times as I want? It seems like being able to have unlimited free viewings of the movie would infringe on some sort of DRM protections. I'm surprised they are not arguing that I need to pay per viewing as if I kept going back to the theater. After all, those who own a DVD of a movie will not go back and buy more copies, thus taking business away from movie producers the MPAA studios honest hard-working people.
"The music industry doesn't seem to be any worse off than they were when they insisted upon DRM."
Yeah... because don't use it anymore. At least, most of them have wised up and have dropped their DRM schemes. Where they did have DRM, they lost money.
Now if only some of the game makers would similarly wise up. Like you, Ubisoft.
And all this time, I thought the first D in DVD stood for "Digital". Apparently, I was wrong - it probably stands for DRM.
Heaven forbid the target market for a service should get to voice complaints about the service being marketed to them. What a day to run out of mod points.
This idea ranks right up there with the "Jump to Conclusions" mat. Nice job Warner Bros.
DVD's are already digital. No "digitization" is required.
...people who own standard DVDs will have the option of getting a high-definition digital copy for an extra fee.
Oh right. "HD." Is that upscaled-DVD "HD" or barely 720p "HD"?
Eventually, consumers will be able to put DVDs into PCs or certain Blu-ray players that will upload a copy, similar to the way people turn music CDs into MP3 files.
Yes. That already exists. Except they want to put it in the cloud, so the movie you bought, then paid extra for to have in non-physical form, can still be completely controlled by them. Sure, that'll work. /sarcasm
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Will the video distributors ever offer DRM-free files that you own?
It is the position of the movie industry that you are renting viewing rights with any movie purchase and nothing more. So no, they will never, ever offer files that consumers "own". Some people will actually take them up on this "offer" but it won't be very many.
...but they just can't kill the beast (that is the extant movie industry).
Anyone remember when you could get self-destructing DVD's that had an oxidizing layer that only made them good for a few days? That flopped, then IIRC Disney bought and tried to resurrect the tech.
Anytime these somebody at one of these companies gets an idea on how to put a fence around their users, they try it. The general idea seems to be if you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it is bound to stick.
Every time I hear of one of these crackpot schemes I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I do get an image in my mind of Daffy Duck going "mine, mine, mine, mine" as he shrinks away.
The music and television references in the above are there because I want them to be. Issues a takedown if you must!
Silence is a state of mime.
No Thanks...
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
"Warner Brothers has just announced a new 'Disc-to-Digital' program to convert your DVDs into digital files...
It's already digital.
Yeah... here's the rest of the sentence you only got halfway through:
...that you can play on your internet-connected computers.
Ah... now it's all clear!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You would have wasted mod points on an AC post? And here I thought Warner Bros was the idiot of the thread...
Just how much bandwidth do they think we have? Almost all home internet packages are capped, and don't get me started on how long it would take to upload a Blu-Ray. So in addition to paying their extra fees, I might have to pay for the extra bandwidth needed to upload my own movies as well... It's a nice idea, but not thought through very well.
Yeah, I know this post really adds nothing new to this discussion, but I just have to say it. Fuck you, Warner Bros.! I'll rip my DVD's--you know, the ones I paid for--on my own computer, in the comfort of my own home, on my schedule, and I'll watch them anywhere I please. And you know what, if I take a notion, I'll even set up a media server and stream them all over my house. And you won't see one extra penny from any of this.
Oh, and I'll show others how to do the same thing.
You guys had a golden opportunity here. You could have offered digital copies of the movies people already bought for a reasonable price, maybe as a streaming option, but no, you not only decided to charge them, but you went out of your way to make it more inconvenient than it would be if they simply do it themselves. You really are a bunch of geniuses. Please tell us where you got your MBA's so we can all go there and develop the acute business acumen that you obviously possess.
What part of you don't OWN anything just refuses to get through anyone's head around here?
You do. You own a copy. You don't licence it. It's yours.
You don't have the right to copy it but that has nothing to do with ownership of the copy. This is a legal restriction whereby copyright law gives exclusive rights to copy to the copyright holder.
You can do want you want within within the law. You can watch it, you can watch scenes out of order. You can watch it with friends and you can even sell it on. No licence agreement can prevent any of this because none of this involves making a copy.
The MPAA and RIAA have been playing the shell game of leasing and owning content with consumers for years. They might have finally stuck their foot in it.
The RIAA is currently going after digital music re-sellers with the argument that consumers licensed the music use and do not own the asset for re-sale. Recently musicians have taken notice of the case because they get a one time payment for each sale. Treating the sale as a license means they are being grossly underpaid.
Now Warner is going to legally re-define your DVD from a sale to a digital license. I have a feeling many of the hundreds of people involved in creating each film will have an opinion about this.
If I own a copy 5GB of data, I'm NOT going to re-download it every time I want to play it. What if my internet access is capped?
I pay when:
I buy the DVD
When they rip it for me
When I download it
When I download it again
When I download it again again
When they want fees for hosting it for me (betcha they will)
Can someone remind me whats in it for me?
So what they really mean is Disc-to-some internet connected computers.
Well of course they don't support the technology: It's only fourteen years old, after all. What did you think this was, some sort of cutting-edge technology news site?
Liberty in your lifetime
I don't think so. I bought a movie on VHS, paid full price for the same title on DVD, then they want even more for a Blu Ray edition. Same with music, I've bought albums on vinyl, then CD, doubtless they'll have their hands out again if 24/96 files ever get released. Yet, they complain about piracy. I'm not adverse to paying a small fee for an upgrade in quality but I'm sure as hell not paying full price over and over again.
Here all this time I was using handbrake and clicking the encode button!
Judging from Sony's Rootkit fiasco and the content industry's push toward pay-per-view, tethered content, and self-destructing media I no longer trust any application or service from content providers.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
apart from very recent films, all dvds come originally from an analogue master, doesn't make them any less digital.
Blazing Spiders
I've always been bothered by the needless complexity of a lot of disc ripping software. Sure options are nice, but seriously: storage space is dirt cheap these days (minus a certain flood induced shortage) just give me a damned rip button that rips a file of similar quality to the original. Thus I recommend MakeMKV. Extremely awesome software. I have no idea where they get off trying to charge $50 for it, but you can use it for free forever as long as you don't mind reinstalling it every 30 days.
Let's see here. Rather than takes Valve's approach to things (they are actually successfully competing against 'free,' which is the technological equivalent of making a river flow upstream), they instead take the most ass-way possible to providing 'backups' to customers.
It's like they have some form of a powerful character disorder, where they can see others profiting (legally) through content distribution systems, but can't quite grasp the concept that they need to deliver the content, with minimal fuss, at acceptable pricing, to their customers in order to get some green. Their attempts to create 'new' systems compares favorably with the "Supervisor" sketch from AQHF -> they aren't really new, but for some reason the people creating them think they are. "That's it boys, the problem with the previous system isn't that the customers hated being treated like dogs, it's that the interface wasn't shiny / restrictive enough!"
Allow me to help you with the right DRM system design, since you seem to be suffering from an inability to figure it out yourselves. 1.) The customer should be able to access said content in an off-line mode, without having to provide a fingerprint / urine analysis, 2.) the content should be downloaded to the customer's machine (f*ck streaming), 3.) (and this is key) ensure that you actually keep said content updated (studio releases a change to a scene, because they left a mic visible somewhere? automatically send that out), 4.) ensure pricing (monthly, seasonal) deals (actual deals, not the pathetic jokes that you wish were deals); why? because it undercuts the people who might be setting up factories to stamp out that stuff on DVDs (because you know from finance & accounting, that you can erect a barrier to entry to a market by ensuring that any new players will never be able to recoup their investments; and you can even do that without having to pay off DC), 5.) do not piss off the customer, do not piss off the customer, do not piss on the customer, 6.) while I am sure that you have many other wonderful products you think that customer might be interested in, do not make them mandatory to watch before the customer can watch said purchased content (if you haven't heard the amount of b*tching that goes on whenever you sit through 30 minutes of previews at the theater, or 15 minutes on a DVD, you need only open your window...).
I am John Hurt.
I don't think they intend for anyone to use this. It seems to be there to legally counter the argument that "there is no legal way to format shift our content" that proponents of DMCA and copyright exemptions might make.
That I've only bought a license to the media that I've bought then what is the point in buying it? If they're insisting that all the media I've paid money for I don't really own, that I have to use it on their terms then why the fuck am I spending money on any media at all?
Think about it this way, if you lost the ability to use the internet (Mobile or otherwise), what would you do?
Watch a movie? Well no because Time-Warner have put your movie collection into the cloud.
Listen to some music? No because you've subscribed to an online streaming service, or put all your music into the cloud.
With movies, music and other media. People simply want to own their collection. After all, they paid top dollar for it, some people get pretty boastful about their media library, they like the idea that in their theatre room there are thousands of movies, television shows, documentaries and what-not on tap ready to watch. How far are these media cartel group have their heads jammed up their own arses not to come to this basic realisation? Consumers have been afforded this luxury for almost half a century in one form or another, why would they want to backtrack now?
If you want to make your product economically unviable and restrict the ways in which a paying customer can enjoy their purchase, then piracy will always be the better option and if you want to hang on to these bullshit notions of licensing and rights managements, so be it but I won't afford this cartel and iota of sympathy when profits turn to losses and jobs turn to redundancies.
Do you geeks ever stop crying about anything? If you already own it and find the service unsatisfying just don't use it.
(first world) Problem solved!
Right, because it is perfectly legal to make digital copies of your own media for personal use.
Wait, actually it IS legal, except companies like Warner Brothers have been trying to make it illegal via laws like DCMA.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
At first, I thought this sounded like iTunes Match, but for movies - load disc copy of movie into PC, receive rights to the original high-definition video file stored on Warner's servers. An easy and painless way to "launder" your collection of DVDs, no questions asked, with the kicker that each digital file is going to be DRM'ed and watermarked to prevent you from seeding it to The Pirate Bay. I'm sure most users would consider this a fair trade, even with an associated yearly fee, as they are getting something of value for very little effort - but it turns out I was wrong, and this is the most retarded idea they've come up with yet.
If they want to charge a buck or so for the labor of digitizing the DVD, burning it onto a new memory stick, handling all the plastic, etc., that's fine. I probably won't use the service, but it's reasonable. On the other hand, if they want to charge me a higher price for a license to view the intellectual property that I've already paid for, no, that's Piracy and I want no part of it :-)
Meanwhile, I've bought DVDs that have some stupid Macrovision copy protection on them, and I can't play them on my Tivo's DVD drive because my TV has a built-in VCR, and something about it triggers the copy protection so the picture keeps dimming in and out. Is there any easy way to get rid of it by ripping it onto my PC and then burning a DVD myself, or does the copy protection slip through that?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
There would be a lot of folks interested - as there were many shows and movies put out on VHS that have never made it to DVD. Though actually I would want them converted to DVD not to cloud, as I prefer to have my stuff, not visit it.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield