Details of Initial "Disc to Digital" Program Emerge

MojoKid writes with an excerpt from an article at Hot Hardware: "Walmart's burgeoning partnership with the Ultraviolet DRM system backed by major Hollywood studios and their plans to 'assist' customers in registering DVDs with the Ultraviolet system, made headlines not long ago. Walmart has also since announced additional details to the program and it's a clever attempt to drive more users to Vudu, Walmart's subsidiary movie streaming service. Here's how the service works. 'Starting April 16th, 2012 in more than 3,500 stores, Walmart customers will be able to bring their DVD and Blu-ray collections to Walmart and receive digital access to their favorite titles from the partnering studios. An equal conversion for standard DVDs and Blu-ray discs will be $2. Standard DVDs can be upgraded to High-Def (HD) for $5.' Anyone who doesn't have a Vudu account will have one created for them as part of this process. That's part of the genius to the plan. If customers embrace the offer, Walmart signs up hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people for Vudu. Even better, from Walmart's perspective, is that first-time users who pony up $2 for a digital version of their DVDs are effectively paying to create Vudu accounts."

Comments

Possible High "Parental Factor"

[ossuary]

I can see this being aimed at tech-dumb parents/grandparents. Might be huge for my "business-smart but tech-dumb" bro-in-law who doesn't mind paying a fortune for a mobile data plan. I don't see how this gives any halfway tech-literate person anything better than what they can do on their own with a good ripper and a NAS. If they also provided a local DRM-Free file for home/traveling non-streamed viewing when you take your disc in, I could see it being more popular, but as is, I am not interested in the slightest.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[CastrTroy]

I'm not so sure... I got a couple big hard drives and started ripping my stuff and storing it on a NAS. It's pretty time consuming. I got about 30 or 40 movies done, but haven't done any in a while. There's a lot of messing around that I had to do to get it work right. I find that I have to use separate programs for ripping and conversion, because many discs have bad sectors (intentionally) to try to throw off less intelligent ripping programs. Not only that, but I found I got varying results. Some videos have audio out of sync even if I used the same settings that worked for all the other discs. A couple bucks a disk isn't that much when you consider how much work is involved. A technical person who also happens to make a lot of money (not uncommon) who doesn't want to waste a ton of free time converting DVDs could easily go for this. Although I'd think it would be much more palatable if you could also bring in a hard drive and get copies of the movies for your own use, and not restrict the viewing to online only.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anon-Admin]

You must be using windows to try to rip the movie.

I set up a FreeNAS server to share the drive. I then set up a second system to do the conversion.

Both my desktop and the conversion server (Linux) use dvdbackup to backup the dvd to the NAS. I can share it as is, but it takes a lot of space to store the whole backup (4 to 8 gb) So I queue the backup for conversion to xvid/avi on the conversion server. The xvid conversion is done with omgrip http://ogmrip.sourceforge.net/en/index.html

It processes about 10 dvd's a day with no cropping and no down scaling of the movie and the file size fixed at 1024m. I can fill the drive holding the dvd backups in an afternoon and have it rip the whole week with out adding to it. I have no sound sync issues and only a small number of really new DVD's will not read and backup. I have reported the errors to dvdbackup so I assume they will get it fixed.

I have 169 of my dvd's ripped and still have 580 to go.

All in all, I spend my spare time on Saturday doing dvdbackups (About 7 hours total for the day) and then spend about an hour a day moving the completed movies to the Movie directory and removing the dvd backup once it is done.

With those two pieces of software I have almost no messing around to do, simple set up a profile to set the xvid size, audio settings (Dolby 5.1), and turn off cropping.

All of my streaming is done to a Boxee Box.

Simple, easy, works almost every time (Total failure is about 10 dvd's so far.), no 2$ and no need for the internet connection to watch a movie.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jedidiah]

Very few DVDs have extra copy protection that something like mplayer can't handle. For the rest, stuff is pretty simple actually. Movies are especially trivial.

A "technical" person should be embarassed to consider this service.

A non-technical person would likely find trying to use the associated online services to be outside of their comfort zone.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so sure... I got a couple big hard drives and started ripping my stuff and storing it on a NAS. It's pretty time consuming. I got about 30 or 40 movies done, but haven't done any in a while. There's a lot of messing around that I had to do to get it work right. I find that I have to use separate programs for ripping and conversion, because many discs have bad sectors (intentionally) to try to throw off less intelligent ripping programs. Not only that, but I found I got varying results. Some videos have audio out of sync even if I used the same settings that worked for all the other discs.

Or... you could just download the scene releases of the movies you've already paid for, and take advantage of someone else's already having gone through that hassle. But of course that's illegal (even though you're ending up with the same damn movies on your hard drive), and of course they refuse to provide a legal equivalent.

Really, it shouldn't be surprising by now... just when it looks like they're getting it, and addressing one of the use cases for piracy, of course they botch it up by tying it to some streaming service, because that's what arrogant oligopolies do.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anonymous Coward]

All in all, I spend my spare time on Saturday doing dvdbackups (About 7 hours total for the day) and then spend about an hour a day moving the completed movies to the Movie directory and removing the dvd backup once it is done.

I think this quote reinforces GP's point - why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you? My Saturdays are probably my most precious resource, I am very careful about how I spend them, as I'm sure most working people are.

I mean seriously, 14 hours per week simply to amass a collection of video files you probably don't have any remaining free time to sit down and watch? You're mad...

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jader3rd]

I can see this being aimed at tech-dumb parents/grandparents.

It could also be for parents who don't like re-purchasing DVD's. I've never had a DVD break in my household, but periodically it'll be in a story I read that some poor mom has to keep on re-buyin her kids favorite DVD because they keep on stepping on it (apparently that's what kids do to things they love). So they pay $2 to get something that can't be stepped on. Now instead of paying $60 for a movie over a three year period, they've paid $22.

Now I know what you're thinking "She should just rip it and burn copies." That requires extra hardware and software, which she may not have, and therefore would be an extra expense. Plus the time it takes her to do the ripping, storing, and managing, may be worth more than $2 per movie to her. To me it's not, but I realize that different people in the market have different costs than I do.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[QuasiSteve]

Why are you converting, though?

Storage is pretty cheap - I've got 200 ISOs of full DVDs (ripped, only things stripped are the region codes, etc.) - and that's not counting the ones that are just the files not stuck into an ISO container yet (no need, VLC will play them back regardless).

Conversion might make for smaller files, but you also incur a loss of quality - and more often than not you'll lose things either because you choose to or because the program chooses for you (where'd my DVD extras go!? - what do you mean the only subtitles are German? why is this movie in the French dub rather than its original Japanese that was on the DVD!?).

In addition, converting video takes a long time without a dedicated piece of hardware (yes, GPUs can help - dedicated hardware, on the other hand, blasts through it).

This is also what makes me wary of the initiatives in this story - so I pay $2 for content that I already have, in lesser quality, with less stuff - for the convenience of not having to rip it myself? I think I'll save the $2 and just occasionally swap DVDs after the software is done ripping it (can continue working, gaming, whatever while it's doing that).

Maybe if the $2 was an upgrade to HD material for the main movie, at least... then it might be more attractive.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jedidiah]

...or you could just feed disks into the machine whenever.

If you're talking about movies then that's the single biggest issue. Even with TV shows, most of your time "wasted" is going to be spent swapping disks.

Beyond that, if you are spending a lot of time on this sort of thing then you are simply using the wrong tools. Once a movie is a file on your hard drive, things like Handbrake and mencoder should be doing all the work and they can run unattended for as long as the task takes.

Of course a big pile of disks is going to take time. It will also take a non-trivial amount of money if you decide to take them all to Walmart.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[QuantumRiff]

Thanks for this.. I need to look into doing this. I have a two year old that loves Shrek (and all her movies) so much she carries the discs around the house...

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[oldmac31310]

Sounds like you may as well just use bit torrent.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[DrgnDancer]

I wouldn't use this particular service (the streaming requirement is simply a deal breaker), but for the time invested I'd totally use something similar that gave me viewable files. It's took me days to rip the 50 or movies I have done to a hard drive. I'd much rather have been doing something else and paying someone to handle it. I could have been hiking, or jogging, or watching a movie, or.. well.. lots of stuff. It takes just long enough to rip a movie that you can't really just leave it and go. Not if you want to achieve any level of efficiency.

Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/951/

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jedidiah]

You can do either depending on your preferences and the content in question. For something where the quality matters, you can just plain buy the BD and rip that. For other stuff, the degredation gained by re-compressing in a more modern format may not be such a tragedy.

If you can get more stuff on one disk, then that simplifies storage management. Plus, you can just have more stuff.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. I just use the free version of DVDFab HD and rip to the hard drive without conversion (just removing the stupid FBI warning and previews) - one folder per disk. VLC plays the folders just like a real DVD, menus and all. Almost no time required beyond dropping in a disk and hitting "rip."

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[webheaded]

Honestly, I don't see the issue with this. Especially if you aren't torrenting (which requires you to share). If I hop on Usenet and download a copy of a movie I own...all I'm doing is taking advantage of the scene ripping the movie FOR me. Hell, they're better at it than I am anyway so there we go. The funny part here too is that it takes me less time to download a digital copy than it would to rip it. The only times I have to rip my own media is when the thing I'm looking for simple isn't on the internet (example: Drinking show called Three Sheets...I got the DVDs and had to rip them myself).

The only really illegal thing I see there is people downloading things that they don't own and the scene people getting busted for making it available, but I hardly see what that has to do with ME. :p

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

(About 7 hours total for the day)

Goodness... I don't know how many Saturdays that is, but your whole collection of 580 movies would be done for $1160 (if they were really all worth scanning). At $25/hr you'd make that in 46 hours of work. That's under 7 of your 7-hour Saturdays.

And of course, now you need to buy server hardware, drives, and pay for electricity to keep the movies. And of course you have to back all of that up or lose all your time when the drive or server crashes.

I guess us hourly guys just think about our time differently!

As an aside, it is too bad that hard drive prices went up. Pre-Thai-flood, you could have had the 8TB array needed to redundantly hold the original DVDs at full-res (assuming a mix of single and double sided/layer disks) for under $300.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jedidiah]

What does "efficient" really matter? What's your rush? So what if the physical ripping part takes awhile just because you do it "whenever" and don't "dedicate time" to it?

You are sabotaging the process and then complaining that it's not working.

Until any of these services can offer me what Target plus a DVD ripper can, then the whole point about "my time is valuable" is entirely moot. I can't buy a suitable replacement at any price.

I get something I can take anywhere and play on any device.

I get the largest selection of content available.

I get all of that stuff at competitive prices because you have multiple merchants selling the exact same item.

I never have to worry about companies going out of business or coupons "expiring".

I can copy this stuff at will and keep it forever.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anonymous Coward]

$22 assumes their internet connection is unlimited and cheap.

With tendency to introduce limits shown by ISPs, it might become less interesting: "No, kids, you watched it this month already, mommy's data plan ran out"

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anon-Admin]

It would if it was 7 hours of just sitting there. However, I put the dvd's in start dvdbackup, go back to what ever I am going that day then return in 20 min to swap them out. No different then when I converted all my CD's to MP3 several years back.

Once all the conversions are done, that is it. Adding a new DVD is simply starting the rip to the HD then later adding it to the rip queue.

This is a one time process that, IMHO, pays for it self 1000x over. The ability to simply pull up a menu from any TV in the house and select the movie you want to watch it great!

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jedidiah]

Server hardware? Who needs "server hardware"? Just put drives into any PC that you happen to have lying around. You're intentionally trying to make this harder and more expensive than it needs to be just to prove a point.

That might make you feel smug or something but it really has nothing to do with reality.

If you really are an "hourly guy" then you are in no position to throw money around. All of your "my time is valuable" rhetoric is just wishful thinking and nonsense.

Compressed, that amount of DVDs will fit in your pocket on a single 2.5 inch bus powered USB hard drive. A large Archos will be able to store half of them.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[JWW]

why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you?

Three letters D. R. M.

They can take their digital conversion service and stick it where the Sun don't shine.

If I can't play the file you get from this on any device I want whenever I want, connected to the internet or not connected, then no thanks.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[elrous0]

Actually, at $2 a pop, I might use it if it's fast, decent quality, and available in a centralized place on my Xbox 360 (like Netflix). Would be a handy place to stream DVD's on my Xbox without having to deal with discs. Of course, those are a lot of "ifs" and it would need to work pretty much exactly like Netflix's streaming on my Xbox.

I can see that being useful for titles not available for Netflix streaming (again, assuming that it's as simple as and of similar quality to Netflix). $2 a disc is a trivial cost to me for that added convenience.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[FictionPimp]

I've always just used handbrake...

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[ThatsNotPudding]

I mean seriously, 14 hours per week simply to amass a collection of video files you probably don't have any remaining free time to sit down and watch? You're mad...

Yep; mad. And free.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

Server hardware? Who needs "server hardware"? Just put drives into any PC that you happen to have lying around. You're intentionally trying to make this harder and more expensive than it needs to be just to prove a point.

LOL, sorry didn't mean for it to read that way - by server hardware I indeed meant a regular PC that would now become your basement server. I have the same thing in my basement: an old HP workstation (for the ECC RAM) loaded with four drives.

If you really are an "hourly guy" then you are in no position to throw money around.

Nonsense - I make good money as a consultant, and I could make even more if I worked weekends. While I don't "throw money around", I'm not so poor either. Time is indeed money for me, as I can trade one for the other freely.

Compressed, that amount of DVDs will fit in your pocket on a single 2.5 inch bus powered USB hard drive. A large Archos will be able to store half of them.

Minimum size for a compressed DVD to xvid is about 700MB, so you are about right. I'd go for 1.5GB each to account for action scenes and codec weirdness - but that would still fit on a single 1TB drive. Of course you'll want to buy two of them so that all your hard work doesn't go "poof" with a drive failure. My basement runs zfs (thus the ECC RAM), but that's to catch bitrot and random corruption - not things you'd be worried about with a media server... who cares if you get some corruption in one of these movies since you have the originals and you probably wouldn't notice it anyhow. Still, you are dropping a couple of hundred bucks on hard drives, even if the server is "free" - though I'd argue that even a free server isn't free since it has value that you could trade towards the cost of paying someone else for the conversion.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Rasperin]

While it takes 7 hours to do this, I'm sure you can do other things while this goes on. You don't just have to sit there and wait, you walk off and clean or program or setup another geeky setup. It's up2u, the only thing you need to do is periodically put in a new disc and click a button (heck! you could even walk away for a few hours and MISS a whole disc change over by several hours and your day still isn't ruined!).

Moving to use car work as an analogy due to the fact that it requires constant time, not broken time and you can't do anything else while working on it (typically).

As a "hourly concerned person" I'm sure you don't do your own car repairs. However, are you able to work and get paid during those hours? Do you have work that would pay you to do? If so, by all means use the mechanic! But, if you aren't able to get paid for the time then you are still losing money by paying these other people.

How about as a hobbyist? Do you own a non ubuntu linux box? How many hours did you spend learning the command prompt, how about setting up x.org? Sure once it works and if you don't update it to new libraries, everything works great forever and ever and ever. But once you update to a major revision prepare to spend hours figuring out why it's looking for libboost.so.14 and you have libboost.so.15.

Moving back to my car analogy in case you are a windows or mac user whose smart enough to avoid noticeable viruses, do you like to mod your cars? Do you like putting a turbo on your car? Do you think it's fun? I mean what you might spend thousands of hours rebuilding a classic car from scratch when you could have just bought one for 15k-30k (don't believe me, look for a 1969 Stingray on ebay motors average price is about 30k). But at $25/hour and let's say 3500hours you spent 87500. Hell let's say you were able to get one in great shape buy higher miles for 15k and it only took 1000hours (for an absolute full body restore, engine rebuild etc etc, for a professional mechanic it's going to take between 1 and 3 thousand hours to do this) you still spent 10,000dollars too much.

Let's see, we've covered actual time it takes, true cost loss vs assumed cost loss, hobbyists, what about the myriad of other reasons someone might choose to do this themselves, like weird binding agreements, tos, copyright, digital rights, legal, forced into a service, loss of data at any time, bandwidth costs, the time you have to spend at Walmart (or the mechanics shop, it takes me 30minutes to do my brakes but it takes me 30minutes to drive to and from (plus I have to wastes my wife time to take me home) from the mechanics. Ontop of the 30minutes I wasted of my wifes, ontop of picking my car up later, or wasting another hour just waiting for them to finish it anyways...). The waste of gas, etc, etc, etc, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I think of time in the way of hourly cost, but you have to analyze far more than just that, and what about the other costs associated? And did you really save money? I think another great example would be mowing, I own half an acre, but I pay someone $40/week to mow it for me. Why? I don't have work with my current contract typically on the weekend, and so it's a pure loss of $36/week after gas cost, assuming that 40weeks/year are mowable weeks living in Kansas I lose $1440/year! However, I just HATE mowing with a passion so it's a good enough reason to waste money.

But hey, it's easier to insult than to think clearly, so continue on. I must be new here.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Dahamma]

Ever hear of opportunity cost? For a busy person with a good income, that could be worth the equivalent of $1000 of labor just to rip a few dozen DVDs. Unless you really do have no life and nothing else you'd rather be doing than babysitting a computer on your weekends...

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you own a movie on VUDU it is available on a ton of devices (Xbox, PS3, lots of TVs, BD players, iPad, PC/Mac, etc). You can download it on some devices that have HDDs (PS3 I know at least) but you still need an Internet connection to play it. I think on the PC you can download and play offline, though it's only SD.

So it does have its advantages and disadvantages... but if you look at where it is now feature-wise (1080p "HDX", 7.1 sound, 3D, etc) vs. 4-5 years ago when they started, they have done a pretty good job of improving it over time, so who knows. At least now that Wal-mart owns them they will probably be around for a while...

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

While it takes 7 hours to do this, I'm sure you can do other things while this goes on.

Now THIS I can get behind... when I was working from home I would rip my CD collection in. Very little productivity loss just feeding the machine disks while I was working on it anyway. It took months, but no "real" time.

However, are you able to work and get paid during those hours?

I'm lucky enough to, yes. Or sometimes I'll use the waiting room time for a side project. However, I still have to consider the time it takes to drive to the dealer. I only do 2 services a year, and one of those is doubled up with state inspection, which I'm not allowed to do myself anyway. Mostly I use the dealer for regular service because I bought the extended warranty and want to have records of everything through them so that they can't cheat me on some technicality.

I can totally get behind the hobbyist aspect. I set up a FreeBSD zfs server in the basement, mostly because I thought it was an interesting project... there is no way I made out financially when they sell devices on Newegg for about what I spent that sip power more efficiently... but then, I didn't come to Slashdot and claim that every geek should build a server like I did instead of paying for a pre-built! :)

But hey, it's easier to insult than to think clearly, so continue on. I must be new here.

Woah, hey, where did I insult? My apologies if I did - I was definitely not trying to flame.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Abreu]

You could also use the time spent watching the movies popping a new disc into the ripping/converting station every time you sit down to watch a movie.

You will eventually convert your entire collection and it won't feel like a chore.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

Storage is pretty cheap

It probably was when you started, but hard drives are not cheap right now. When I put together my current zfs box, all 4 2TB drives were less than $300 combined. I wouldn't do the project right now because it would cost more like $500.

But yeah, in a month or so, I can't see any reason to re-compress.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Rasperin]

Ack, that last part (the insult) was my bad. In retrospect I'm not sure how I managed you response as insulting, sincerely sorry about that comment. :|

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Ihmhi]

I think this quote reinforces GP's point - why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you?

Why spend any money at all? Someone has already uploaded your favorite movie in your chosen language with your chosen subtitles in your chosen quality. The work was done probably before the movie was even out on DVD.

You've already bought and paid for the disc. Why would you have anything but a clear conscience in downloading a movie you've already purchased?

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[lightknight]

*shrugs*

The man must have a lot of DVDs, seeing as it takes only a few minutes to copy them to disk (copy, not encode).

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Abreu]

Really, it's quite simple.

Every time you sit down to watch a movie or a TV series, you pop in another disc for the computer to rip and convert while playing another file.

With current hardware, your computer should be able to do this without hiccups or other issues.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[kcbnac]

...and now take into account that you'll now be streaming the 200 DVDs on your shelf, using up your precious (now capped) bandwidth, in addition to the $2-$5/disc 'fee.'

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[The Great Pretender]

So how hours minutes are you engaged on burning the 169 DVD's and multiply by what ever you value your time at (go minimum wage or make it $10 an hour to make the math easy or use your work salary or make it a premium as this is your weekend), call this X. What is the cost of the equipment plus install and initial troubleshooting (install = time x hour value), Y. Take X and divide it by 169, this is your expected OPEX cost per DVD. Divide Y by 580, this would be your assessed CAPEX per DVD (in your current collection). Add the two. Is it greater than $2?

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[jedidiah]

The truth is that you don't have a magic money making machine that takes in time and spits out gold. No one really does. So all attempts to whine about "time not being free" are really quite assinine.

As far as "paying someone else" goes: there is no equivalent service. Even this thing at Walmart is rediculously incomplete.

The common man is probably far better off investigating iTunes.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Hawke666]

And at $400/hr you’d make that in less than three hours of work!

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

What are you, an IP lawyer??? :)

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

The truth is that you don't have a magic money making machine that takes in time and spits out gold.

No, but I do have a spreadsheet where I keep track of hours worked and then bill for those hours. I'm allowed to work on weekends. I'm allowed to work at 3AM. So literally every moment that I am not working, there is lost potential income. That said, I don't actually put in many hours because I value my time with my kids.

As far as "paying someone else" goes: there is no equivalent service. Even this thing at Walmart is rediculously incomplete.

Don't get me wrong, I know what you are doing isn't the same thing as what Walmart is offering. It's just that to a common person the end result is quite similar, but with much less legwork. I have a kooky project involving a FreeBSD server in the basement with zfs on it, and I can in no way justify it for cost reasons, but it does exactly what I like and it was fun to learn as I set it up. But I would never recommend it as a solution to anyone when there are prepackaged backup and media server solutions, both for on-premises and over your internet connection.

The common man is probably far better off investigating iTunes.

Yeah you are right. Or giving up on their DVD collection and throwing it in a box and just paying for a streaming service. Or buying from Amazon. Not many DVDs are worth the re-watch anyway, older movies are available for streaming, and new hits are on "OnDemand", iTunes or even RedBox.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Zebedeu]

Whatever happened to doing things for the pleasure of doing them?
I thought here in slashdot of all places there would be more appreciation for home-built solutions instead of going to the nearest store and buying it pre-packaged.

I thought he had an elegant solution to a problem he wanted to fix, and I bet that he had fun coming up with it -- I know I would.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[KhabaLox]

I 2nd this sentiment. I'm not tech-illiterate, but neither am I extremely savvy. I attempted a couple times to rip my kid's DVDs so we could load them on the laptop or iPad for vacation and found it a very frustrating experience (using Handbrake and VLC on XP). I gave up after a couple attempts and ~2-3 hours.

I would happily pay $2 per disc to get a ripped copy on my HDD. Online only doesn't work for me because I want to view them on the plane and in the hotel room (where wi-fi is spotty or non-existent).

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[cayenne8]

You've already bought and paid for the disc. Why would you have anything but a clear conscience in downloading a movie you've already purchased?

Because you still might get caught....if using something like BT that is.

And I'd dare say, most people out there don't know much about ***net groups.....and let's keep it that way.

:)

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[cayenne8]

No, but I do have a spreadsheet where I keep track of hours worked and then bill for those hours. I'm allowed to work on weekends. I'm allowed to work at 3AM. So literally every moment that I am not working, there is lost potential income. That said, I don't actually put in many hours because I value my time with my kids.

Ah....working for yourself...man, I miss that.

Hope I can get off the W2 gig and back to that kind of freedom again!!

And I agree...while time is money...the most valuable time is the time YOU spend doing what YOU want....I don't have kids (don't want them), but everyone has things they want to spend their time on....

There are things worth more than making money.....but as long as you make your bill rate high enough, all things even out.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[KhabaLox]

The truth is that you don't have a magic money making machine that takes in time and spits out gold. No one really does. So all attempts to whine about "time not being free" are really quite assinine.

>

No, it's not. I spend 50-60 hours per week "at work" (i.e. away from home/family). That I can't turn my weekends and evenings into money at the drop of the hat does not make that time "free." It's only free in the sense that if I didn't rip DVDs I couldn't get paid to do something else (though if I wanted and needed to, I could get a second job). But in reality, if I spend time ripping DVDs, that's time not spent with my wife and kids, not going to play in the park, not going to watch my kid's baseball game, not going out to dinner, not watching a show or movie, not playing D&D, or not doing countless other things I enjoy far more than getting the fucking encoder to work correctly.

Now, the benefit of having a DRM free copy on my HDD is much greater than having an online only copy locked up in Vudu, and the gap is probably big enough that I will eventually find the time to do it (especially since I'll be buying a new PC in the next few months), but it will be a very large opportunity cost when I do it, and that is precisely what has kept me from doing it up until this point.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[sootman]

> Why would you have anything but a clear conscience in
> downloading a movie you've already purchased?

I wouldn't, but the **AA might, and they have more money for lawyers and the law (bad as it is) on their side.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[KhabaLox]

Not many DVDs are worth the re-watch anyway, older movies are available for streaming, and new hits are on "OnDemand", iTunes or even RedBox.

For me, the biggest reason to rip DVDs is because my kids will re-watch videos scores of times.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

There are things worth more than making money.....but as long as you make your bill rate high enough, all things even out.

Careful with that, if you go too high they'll give it to some other guy! He'll screw it up and then you'll get the work anyway, but in the meantime you don't get as many hours :)

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

Whatever happened to doing things for the pleasure of doing them?

I agree that is a fine reason for doing something. I was responding to it as a practical alternative to the Walmart thing, not as a fun project. Don't we all have an electricity-gobbling server in the basement? :)

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[elrous0]

I already do that with Netflix streaming anyway.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[ThatsMyNick]

Apples and Oranges. GP gets to keep a copy of the ripped file himself and get to use it anytime he cares. With Vudu, you need internet access to stream and the quality of the video is not guaranteed. Not mention Vudu may be shutdown anytime.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[BoberFett]

And when the studios decide they no longer want to honor this particular license and shut down the service, you'll be out that $1160, have nothing to show for it, and be back to DVDs.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

Heh, yeah, but I can't imagine anyone having 580 movies that they really want to watch again.

But your point stands - the service is only as good as the company behind it.

Still, even some of the geeks I work with whose interest doesn't lie in the piracy arts would have trouble with the encoding procedure. These are guys who can get a late 90s game running on Windows 7, but start talking about codecs and bitrates and 2-pass encoding and container formats and their eyes glaze over in boredom.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[MightyYar]

Yeah, I cheated and downloaded a huge torrent with every Disney film ever made and the kids hit that constantly.

(An aside... Disney, if you don't want me to steal "Jungle Book", then freaking sell it to me. And no, I'm not going to buy a used or hoarded copy... the stupid thing is 40 years old! Shouldn't even be in copyright, let alone $40-75 on Amazon.)

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[mr_lizard13]

Unless it's an obscure title you can probably download a high quality version for free via a torrent site. You've already paid, after all.

That's what I don't understand about this Wal-Mart deal. Who do they think they are competing against? Their competition offers thousands of titles at no cost, DRM free, in a variety of formats. They would need to offer something compelling to justify charging.

I'm up for paying, but only if the service offers something that their free competition doesn't. Just saying "here's a DRM-infected digital file" isn't that something.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[rtechie]

WALMART IS **NOT** RIPPING DVDs!

again

WALMART IS NOT DOING ANYTHING WITH THE PLASTIC DISC YOU BRING IN!

The sole reason you bring in the disc is proof of ownership. What Walmart does is that they look at the DVD title, and then look in the Vudu database to see if it's available, and if so they add the Vudu version of the title to your account. If it's not already on Vudu, you don't get anything and (presumably) are not charged. You DO NOT have your own separate online storage with your own personal content.

Basically this service allows you to buy Vudu movies at a discount.

I'm not sure how they're going to deal with rentals or with (well done) pirated discs. I suspect they might keep the DVD after "converting" it.

Re:Possible High "Parental Factor"

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be using windows to try to rip the movie.

I set up a FreeNAS server to share the drive. I then set up a second system to do the conversion.

Both my desktop and the conversion server (Linux) use dvdbackup to backup the dvd to the NAS. I can share it as is, but it takes a lot of space to store the whole backup (4 to 8 gb) So I queue the backup for conversion to xvid/avi on the conversion server. The xvid conversion is done with omgrip http://ogmrip.sourceforge.net/en/index.html

It processes about 10 dvd's a day with no cropping and no down scaling of the movie and the file size fixed at 1024m.

10 dvd's a day? lol...

You must be using a smartphone to rip those movies.

Try a desktop with an i5 or an i7. It takes me exactly 30min to rip a standard length ~90min DVD.
On Windows. Processed to be able to stream to my smartphone or just carry on the 32G chip.

That's a 2 step process... it actually only takes 10m to rip the actual DVD to vobs, where I leave most of my collection.

DVDFab to rip to HD. http://www.dvdfab.com/ ~7-11m
At that point I decide if the movie is worth keeping at that format (action movies, or movies with elaborate sets/locations).

And if not, I queue up the ones that get turned into avi with Auto Gordian Knot. http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Auto-Gordian-Knot ~15-22m

Go thru 3-4 an hour... should be able to do a small DVD collection in a week, a large collection in a couple or so. But with the price of HD's
now, (flood notwithstanding), no sense really going beyond ripping. Even a pretty extreme DVD collection should be under 5 TB. That's $300.

And if you do that you should be able to do even a pretty massive collection in a week.

Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[Anonymous Coward]

Studios continue to charge again and again for the same media... Lucas pioneered this and we're sheep to continue to pay and repay for movies/music/etc.

Re:Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[chinton]

You had me up until "Lucas pioneered this". The LP->8-track->cassette train had just about the time Lucas came along.

Re:Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[ColdWetDog]

"This is gonna replace CD's soon; guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."

Agent K

Re:Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[cpu6502]

I have a copy of Star Wars on 70s-era videorecord (RCA CED). Then I bought VHS. Then rented the Laserdisc and copied it over to Super VHS.

And finally DVD (the original non-altered version). I decided to stop there because buying the same movie over-and-over sucked, and frankly I got bored with the story, plus making Lucas richer.

Re:Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[aaaaaaargh!]

"blue rays", "ultraviolent", "voodoo"... I can't really put my finger on it, but there appears to be something sinister about it!

Re:Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[jedidiah]

I stopped because I was not in fact buying the same movie over and over again. I was buying subsequent derivative works based on the same original movie.

I would have less objections if I could actually pay for the originals in new formats. I could go for BD versions of the special editions. I just have no interest in versions that were never released theatrically.

Re:Rebuy your media, now at Wal-Mart!

[elrous0]

Studios continue to charge again and again for the same media

I would agree with you if they were trying to charge $10 or $20 for this. But $2 for the added convenience is a pretty trivial cost. The amount of time I would spend ripping 20 DVD's is way more valuable to me that the $40 I could pay them to do it. And, since vudu is already available on my Xbox and vudu handles the quality, I don't have to worry about any conversion issues there.

Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll let me pay them for the privilege of watching something I already own in a different format? How magnanimous of them.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're charging a fee to give you access to a copy of the movie data that isn't dependant on that disc you already own. Yes, it's a rip-off, and everyone who has the basic know-how can get their own portable versions, with the cost of just a little time and attention.
The market is mostly people who don't know how to rip a DVD, but it's actually a smaller set of those who don't know how to rip a DVD and want to be able to watch the contents of their DVDs on some other tech toy.
Aside from iFans, I'm not sure what other demographics fit that more accurate scope.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[SuricouRaven]

And the set of people who could rip a DVD, but know that doing so is illegal and... what? I'm sure they must exist somewhere!

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the state of blu-ray drives/software on PCs nowadays? Can we rip those Blu-ray discs yet?

At least they're giving a discount for already owning the disc, rather than requiring payment in full like you need for upgrading from VHS to DVD or DVD to Blu-Ray

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Desler]

Why would an apple user use this? iTunes is leaps and bounds better in the content selection and availability across devices than this Vudu shit. Oh right, this was a "hurp durp apple users are itards" post.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Desler]

You've been able to rip blurays for many years now.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this tripe have a positive score? Ripping a DVD or BD is perfectly legal in the US, even though some of the software that helps with that has been under legal attack and libelous misrepresentation by Hollywood lawyers.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[gl4ss]

to save a few bucks because he already owns the movie.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[jedidiah]

It's illegal but it's not the sort of thing anyone is going to persue you over.

OTOH, there is a statue of limitations on it.

Some of my older rips are old enough for that to be the case.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Isaac-Lew]

It's not illegal to rip movies you already own (fair use). However, most tools to do so have been deemed illegal (in the US anyway).

Source (may be outdated): http://money.usnews.com/money/business-economy/technology/articles/2009/09/30/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-dvd

Re:Let me get this straight...

[elrous0]

It's $2. I normally hate these sort of schemes (was bad-mouthing Warner just the other day for a similar plan). But at $2, that's actually not a bad deal at all for the convenience.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Dahamma]

Better availability across devices!? Yeah, right.

iTunes: PC, Mac, iPad/phone, AppleTV.

Vudu: PC, Mac, iPad/phone, Xbox 360, PS3, a bunch of STBs, NAS devices, and almost every TV and BD player with a network connection.

And as far as selection, VUDU has pretty much every new release, and a bunch of stuff before it even comes out on DVD (or even in the theater). They also had 1080p movies for years, whereas Apple has had them for what, a week now? (and how many do they even have?) Do you have any source beyond your personal opinion that says Apple's selection is much better?

The difference here is Vudu doesn't give a shit where you watch their stuff - they just sell movies, so in fact they are motivated to let you watch it anywhere. Whereas Apple is motivated to make sure you can only watch it on hardware you bought from them. So, I guess an "Apple user" would use this if they wanted to be able to use whatever hardware they wanted (say, a PS3 instead of the shitty AppleTV), and not be stuck with whatever Apple tells them they need to buy.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[jseale]

No kidding, especially when you consider that doing this yourself is time/energy consuming and ILLEGAL. For that matter, I don't see how CoinStar didn't get the jump on this project. I'm starting to imagine UltraViolet conversion functions on the Redboxes. That'd be sweet!

So you pay for what you already own

[Anonymous Coward]

no point in doing this when you can rip your bought dvds at home for free.

Re:So you pay for what you already own

[tepples]

And potentially go to jail for doing so, at least in Slashdot's home country. Kaleidescape isn't even allowed to repair existing devices.

Re:So you pay for what you already own

[Desler]

This is nonsense. You won't go to jail for making private use rips. Stop spreading FUD.

Re:So you pay for what you already own

[jedidiah]

Just don't give Hollywood a map and a flashlight.

Re:So you pay for what you already own

[tepples]

That doesn't mean the person from whom I obtained tools capable of making private use rips won't go to jail for providing tools capable of making private use rips.

Disc to digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is only for analog discs? Walmart will convert my old Laserdiscs?

Re:Disc to digital?

[91degrees]

I get the joke and apologise in advance for a serious response.

There's actually no technical reason that they can't do this. It's not like they're going to actually digitise each DVD. They'll simply use the disc as proof of purchase and give you access to an existing copy. This could be achieved just as easily with laserdisc and VHS (even Betamax, UMD, VCD and HD-DVD).

I actually doubt they will do that, but the restriction is legal or policy based, no technology based.

can you download the digital copy to keep?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay $2 for that.

Re:can you download the digital copy to keep?

[VortexCortex]

I'd pay $2 for that.

Well, even if you could it'll be a $2 DRMed copy. You can keep the bits, your player software will just refuse to play it after the DRM servers go down. The Pirates are the only ones that offer non-DRMed copies that you can transcode and format-shift -- I wouldn't recommend doing business with them though: Pirates are known to rape, plunder and party.

You wouldn't want to end up in a Pirate Party now would you?

Re:can you download the digital copy to keep?

[JWW]

No. Why would they want to give you what they want?

Call me when...

[OliWarner]

... they let me trade in a DVD for a DRM-free 10-15GB h.264 MKV with the digital HD audio track. I'll happily pay money for that because it adds value for me. I could just buy the Bluray but this would save me filling up my house with those infernal things and would save me a fair chunk of transcoding time. I don't even care if you watermark the hell out of them (if the watermarks aren't visible) - just as long as they're DRM-free, so I can use them how I like.

I'm not going to spend extra money so I can trade one crappy format for another.

And just remember TPB offers this service for free. That's who you're competing against.

Re:Call me when...

[OliWarner]

To clarify - I hand them a DVD and some cash, and they hand me back a USB drive with the video on it. Bonus points for being able to give them a USB HD to fill up with DVDs you give them.

Re:Call me when...

[gl4ss]

they're not competing against tpb.

they're competing for the money of people who think it's a good deal to buy access to something you already have for two bucks. that two bucks is the business.

besides, the studios have a perfectly good reason why you can't be allowed to have the material without drm. because they're contractually obliged to keep the drm. by their own contracts. inked by them(wait what??).

Re:Call me when...

[gl4ss]

I can do that for you at two bucks per dvd, no problem.

Re:Call me when...

[crackspackle]

Hollywood has finally realized they stand a better chance protecting their content, even if only for a short while, by getting rid of all physical media and going with electronic distribution only. Yes, nearly every DRM scheme will probably be hacked but that doesn't happen instantaneously and when it does, all they have to do is change to a new scheme. What surprises me is that Walmart is charging for this service. They are simply authorizing your account to view a movie based on whether you own the disc. They should give you the best available HD copy for free on the likely chance you will start to buy or rent other movies through them. More importantly, people would probably use the service because it's "free" and that would help the studios make the digital only transition.

Re:Call me when...

[Anonymous Coward]

tpb also doesn't require spending time and fuel to go to walmart

Re:Call me when...

[MMC Monster]

Agree 100%.

I am currently in the process of ripping my DVD collection on a 3 year old computer. Every day when I get up I take 2 DVDs out of the computer and put in the next 2 DVDs. When I get home I take them out and put in another 2 DVDs. Wake up the next morning and the process continues.

Been doing this for over 6 months, and just now making a dent in my DVD collection. Slowed down my DVD purchases while I'm doing this, BTW.

P.S. : Thank God I didn't buy Blurays. I couldn't just put those in the system and just come back a few hours later. Too much hand-holding, according to where I read. Anyone know differently?

Re:Call me when...

[betterunixthanunix]

Hollywood has finally realized they stand a better chance protecting their content, even if only for a short while, by getting rid of all physical media and going with electronic distribution only.

Finally realized that they can try what HBO has been doing with satellite broadcasts for decades now? People used to receive free HBO broadcasts (which were being sent to cable company head ends for distribution to paying cable customers), until HBO encrypted everything and started charging for reception capabilities. Like most of what comes out of Hollywood these days, there is little originality in this effort.

Re:Call me when...

[greed]

Maybe I've got a lot of weird DVDs, but I don't batch transcode anything from optical media, I only batch rip. So, from my perspective, Blu-Ray just takes longer--it's the same process. (Except I have to use AnyDVD HD for the Blu-Ray, so I actually have to click things in the Windows VM. DVDs are ripped on media load and ejected when done.)

When I do have a bunch of DVDs or BDs that can be batch transcoded--say a season of a TV show--I do that from the ripped files, not from the original media. But I've got so many where the "right" audio track isn't obvious, even right "right" title isn't obvious, so I hand-set Handbrake for nearly everything.

Re:Call me when...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no. The price point suggests they are aiming at people who might download the movie from iTunes. Given the inconvenience involved though (you mean I have to drive to Wall Mart and deal with some insolent clerk?), I'm not sure how many people would think the extra effort is worth the savings. For those who are too cheap to use iTunes for such purchases, it's easier to either download the movie for free, or get it from someone who already has. So in a way, they are competing with TPB.

Digital access...

[ThisIsAnonymous]

Paying to gaining digital access to something that you already own in a digital format and already have digital access to is pretty ridiculous...If you mean paying for online access, well that is another thing. That being said, since you already own a digital copy on DVD, you should be able to make your own digital copies that you can play on your PC, iPhone etc. Of course, that requires a little more intelligence of the customer and our legal system. I don't see either of those changing.

Re:Digital access...

[Renraku]

According to fair use rights already in place, you can do this. There's a law (DMCA) that conflicts with it, but it is specifically against breaking encryption and not necessarily copying..even though breaking the encryption is a necessary part of copying the DVD in accordance with your own fair use rights.

It's kind of like saying that you can legally get gas for your car from any gas station, but it's illegal to put any brand besides Ford gas through the gas hole in your car. Also Ford gas is 3x the price of normal gas for the same product.

Re:Digital access...

[drinkypoo]

It's kind of like saying that you can legally get gas for your car from any gas station, but it's illegal to put any brand besides Ford gas through the gas hole in your car. Also Ford gas is 3x the price of normal gas for the same product.

But it's not like that at all, because the above behavior is expressly prohibited by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, whereas the DMCA is a law designed to deprive you of other legal rights.

I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

For as many problems as UltraViolet has I actually think this is a good idea. I would prefer $1 a movie as a token gesture, but $2 still accomplishes that. Considering I've paid $3 to $5 dollars for a large portion of my DVD's as outlets $2 is rather steep.

Ultraviolet has the potential to be the DRM system (they hate it when you call it that) that actually benefits consumers as much as it does the companies. It's hard to pirate an Ultraviolet movie - good for the studios, the movies are theoretically (though not in actuality see above link) accessible on everything you own, without lock in. The problem with the current digital copy system is you're stuck with Sony, Microsoft, or Apple with limited ability to copy/transfer in between the three. With Ultraviolet platform neutrality is the name of the game, except for Sony and Paramount. Sony refuses to allow Linux clients to log in, Paramount insist on Silverlight so everything but the last step - actually watching the movie - works.

I as concept don't like DRM, but if they address all the reasons I don't like it I don't have a problem with it since I'm not a pirate. I would gladly pay $2 each to have all of my DVD's accessible online so I didn't have to worry about storing the files or yet another theft. Ultraviolet comes close, enough people making fun of Sony might get them to fix their crap and Paramount to it's credit doesn't appear to be intentionally excluding anyone, it's just their crappy choice of streaming software.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[SuricouRaven]

You've still got the dependency issue, though: What is Ultraviolet ceases to exist some day? A lot can happen in a decade or two. Key companies could go out of business, a key member might break away to start their own service, or it might be shut down to push customers towards a successor service. When that happens, customers may well find their libraries vanishing, and what copies they have unplayable with the DRM servers disappeared. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

This thought has crossed my mind.

Ultraviolet is rather decentralized, as a whole that sort of strengthens it, but it doesn't stop branches from dying off, individual media companies doing crappy things etc...

If it becomes successful enough and they decide to terminate it they will have to address the issue for paying customers, way too much lawsuit potential. Yes there is potential to get screwed, but under this particular setup you still have your disk and you're only out $2 each for those. It's the ones you bought on Ultraviolet you have to worry about the most. As it stands I have two movies on Ultraviolet only, they were freebie bonuses from Paramount and Flixster for activating their services. In those two cases I didn't pay for them anyways.

Remember, it's not necessarily the movies that are the products of the service, but the customers that can be seen as products. The dependent customer base can be sold along with the movie rights to another company.

I'm not a DRM fan, and Ultraviolet has problems which I have gone into detail mapping out in my link, but it really does seem like they may have found the customer/company balance here, especially if they work the problems out.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

I apologize, it was Universal that gave me a freebie, not Paramount, though it was a Paramount movie I registered on Flixster that got me another freebie so I should have said Universal and Flixster or Universal and Paramount - I need to give credit where it's due.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[CanHasDIY]

...customers may well find their libraries vanishing, and what copies they have unplayable with the DRM servers disappeared. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

Indeed.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure, but it sounds like you are saying it's $2 to get a movie. It's $2 to get the DVD you paid $20 for to be copied to a file and locked into their service.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet what if you have a movie and they decide to change it? Such as maybe more unskippable commercials, remove a controversial scene, court order...? Cable TV was commercial free at one point (one of its main selling points). All of the things I mentioned are not pie in the sky. Some have already happened even with physical media...

Sounds like they are trying to upsell to existing customers (it is easier/cheaper to resell to your existing customer than make new ones). Many newer DVDs/Bluray are coming with 'digital copies'. If you look at them most are time limited (on the order of 6 months to 2 years). I have bought a couple where the digital copy was already broke as the key had expired.

I do not get the skizo way the studios are working its like they want to sell us something but then turn around and say 'oh not really, it was a rental'. Its like they are trying to put the 'buy a movie market' back into the 'goto the theater market'.

Someone who has 10-20 movies probably would not care if their library disappeared. It was not that big of a deal in the first place to them. Someone who has 200+ *WILL* care. Someone who has 200+ dvds will be spending 400+ dollars to do this? Plus whatever additional hardware they now need to buy (as their dvd player is junk now)... For someone with a small collection of discs this will be 'meh why not' for someone like me who has 1500 of the things I will be giving it a skip... I can buy a shit load of new material for 3k.

This system is Divx all over. Can you still watch your Divx movies? No, the severs are long since turned off.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[SuricouRaven]

I was thinking more Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Rhapsody, MSN Music Store, the Wal-Mart music store (didn't know they had one? Maybe that's why it failed)... probably a few more I'm overlooking.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[sglewis100]

...customers may well find their libraries vanishing, and what copies they have unplayable with the DRM servers disappeared. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

Indeed.

Excellent point! Although for me, DIVX worked out great! I bought a DIVX player on sale late into the experiment (just before they canned the whole thing) for about $40 more than a non-DIVX player. I paid for one rental, out of curiosity. Then they killed it all and sent me $100.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

FYI, I am one of those people with a huge movie collection. So far the bulk of my losses have come from physical theft. I had to start over after having my house cleaned out, at least in that case I would still have my online digital copies. When I got robbed my computers AND the backup disk were stolen.

I keep all of my movies on a dedicated NAS drive now. With Ultraviolet properly implemented I don't even have that to worry about.

BTW, less than five years after the great robbery I became an Ike victim. Granted I only lost two commercial optical disk to the salt water, the rest I hosed down, I still lost all of my cartridges.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[MMC Monster]

It's still a streaming service. Can't put it on a laptop for a trip.

I'm leaving the country in a couple weeks. Taking my laptop and a couple hundred movies on it. I'm not going to watch much, but at least I'll have a nice selection to watch from.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

I'm not sure of all the rules, but I do know you CAN download movies to played locally. I don't know if it's a call home DRM or not, but I do know in some cases downloading and playing back later is allowed.

That being said I still rip my own disks.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[elrous0]

I'd pay $2 just for getting it on my Xbox. It's a lot of hassle to rip a DVD and get it over to my Xbox (you have to stream it from a running computer and deal with conversion issues--and the quality suffers). I could put my whole regular catalog on there pretty cheap, never have to deal with the discs again, and stream it directly from their servers (like Netflix) with no hassles. I'm sorry, but that's actually a pretty good deal (for me at least).

Re:I actually like this idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

And they will one day change their policy without notice, then your stuck.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[CanHasDIY]

I was thinking more Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Rhapsody, MSN Music Store, the Wal-Mart music store (didn't know they had one? Maybe that's why it failed)... probably a few more I'm overlooking.

In that case, you're comparing apples to oranges; the thing about a streaming service like Rhapsody is, it's not technically your library - to the contrary, you're paying Real a monthly fee for the right to listen to music stored in their library. As it is their music (or rather, music they have paid for the right to stream), they have the right to add or remove tracks without user consent.

I can't speak for the other services, as I've never been a customer of them, but I know with Rhapsody you have the option to plunk down an extra dollar for DRM free MP3's of tracks. Once you download the MP3 (which Rhapsody makes a huge pain in the ass for some reason), it's yours to do with as you please.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[CanHasDIY]

About 6 months ago, I bought a milk crate filled with DIVX discs from a flea market for $5. I thought, 'surely by now someone has cracked the encryption for this long-defunct format!'


I would say the joke's on me, but 5 bucks isn't a bad price for an old school, sturdy milk crate, even if it was full of useless junk.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[rtechie]

Don't believe the lies. The explict purpose of ALL DRM is to orphan users and force them to repurchase content. This was the explicit reason written in the documentation for CSS, Apple's Fairplay, etc. This is the reason cassette tapes existed instead of consumer DAT (quality of DAT was too good and no DRM so users couldn't be forced to repurchase again). It's the reason for the format limitations on DVD-Video (DVD can do HD just fine). Blu-Ray's hideously complicated DRM system is one of the big reasons BD won over HD-DVD. etc.

If you buy anything with DRM your are GUARANTEED to be locked out of your content eventually. iTunes will not last forever and even if they do, they will eventually just "switch systems" and screw the old users. There has never been a DRM system that didn't deliberately orphan it's users.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[devent]

... DRM system (they hate it when you call it that) that actually benefits consumers ...

ROFL. I had a good laugh on this one. All DRM schemes assume that you are a filthy pirate and that you need to first authenticate that you own something that you bought. The only reason why people don't complain more, is that it is "digital" and is somewhat different. I would love to see people defending a DRM scheme as somethin

Re:I actually like this idea.

[qirtaiba]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Digital Personal Property, which the IEEE P1817 [ieee.org] working group has been developing for the last couple of years.

One of the main problems with DRM for consumers is that it offends the deeply-ingrained notion that when we purchase a book, album or movie – whether as a physical product or a download – we should own it, and use it however we wish within our social and family circles, without the oversight of the copyright owner. We feel this way while at the same time respecting the right of the copyright owner of a protected work to control its distribution outside our circle of family and friends.

This insight underlies the IEEE Standard for Consumer-ownable Digital Personal Property (DPP), that will allow consumers complete freedom to lend, copy, sell or give away the digital works that they have purchased, whilst inhibiting them from sharing with strangers. In order to achieve this, the work is encrypted – which is just what DRM does.

But unlike with DRM, the encryption does not prevent the work from being copied, nor allow its usage to be tracked or controlled by the copyright owner. It simply enforces two simple functions of every DPP-protected work: a “give” button and a “take” button. The “give” button ensures that every DPP-protected work can be shared, both by the original purchaser and by everyone with whom it has already been shared. The “take” button ensures that each and any of those individuals can take the work back from all the others, “collapsing” it, if you will, into the single unit that it was when purchased.

The main difference between DPP and Ultraviolet is that there are literally no limits to how many copies you can make or what you can do with them. In fact, the copyright owner has no way of even knowing how many times the work has been shared, with whom, or who currently owns the work. The concept of ownership and who gets to receive copies are determined by social constraints, not technological ones - who do you trust not to use the "Take" button on you?

The main problem that the Working Group faces at the moment, apart from buy-in from the major studios, is that it needs an experienced technical expert to take leadership of actually finalising the specification. If someone from Slashdot has any contacts who might be interested, please contact the Working Group.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the P1817 Working Group, representing consumers' interests.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

I wouldn't say I'm the experienced technical expert you need, but I have a fairly good sense of right and wrong and what's fair for both media companies and consumers. If you need another coffee shop philosopher I'm in.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[pecosdave]

An off-site backup and hosted streaming content is a benefit to the consumer. If you're like me you still have the disk to do with as you please, so there's no detriment to it - as in still free to make your own DRM-free rip.

In this case the consumer still benefits.

Re:I actually like this idea.

[toddestan]

Doesn't the Xbox have a DVD drive? Can't you just, like, put the DVD in the drive and watch it?

Pay Twice?

[multimediavt]

Even better, from Walmart's perspective, is that first-time users who pony up $2 for a digital version of their DVDs are effectively paying to create Vudu accounts.

No, users are effectively paying $2 more for the same content they already paid for. Eff You!

Re:Pay Twice?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long does it take when it is 2 dollars/month??. And that is the first step.

Brilliant Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if Walmart can tie Vodo to gaming consoles and content streamers (Roku), they will make a killing.

Bla bla bla, DRM'ed bullshit

[GameboyRMH]

Hardly news for nerds...

"Digital delivery" defined

[tepples]

I've come to believe that the term "digital" to describe paid downloads over a computer network is an extrapolation of the copyright law term "digital phonorecord delivery", as defined in 17 USC 115(d).

We're sorry for the.....

[3seas]

...incoinvience as we are currently suffering server cloudy day technical difficulty.

Hey, lets put everything in the cloud that way we can allow the authorities or hacker or the NWO powers that be control your life more than they do now.

Oops! Big sun spot at the same time we were under attack but military strength EMP cannon..... Can you show proof you ever existed in the cloud and did you make a backup you can send us to restore our service.... uh your account?

Anyone want to borrow my DVD collection so you can have digital access to movies you don't have?

Movie Studios: Why Are You So Stupid?

[TheRaven64]

Apple showed very well that allowing DRM gives a huge amount of power to the distributor, at the expense of the copyright holder. Why does the movie industry not learn the lesson that the music industry demonstrated? Requiring DRM does not do anything to reduce piracy, but it does do a lot to allow people further down the supply chain than you to control the prices that you can charge.

Re:Movie Studios: Why Are You So Stupid?

[Captain Hook]

Apple controlled the DRM scheme in iTunes, with Ultraviolet, it's the movie companies which own the DRM scheme and Walmart is just a service provider.

Re:Movie Studios: Why Are You So Stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

and Walmart is just a service provider

Walmart is "just" the owner of Vudu, providing the studios the service of access to "potentially millions" of customers. Can you say monopsony? If this digital conversion scheme isn't the movie companies' gallon of pickles (I can't imagine them ever agreeing to a discount conversion of a movie to a digital version!), then I can't wait to see what Wal-Mart does once it really does have those millions of customers and has weight to sling around.

Questions

[Gavin Scott]

So does their service provide every DVD and BluRay movie on earth, or if I go in with my obscure DVD collection am I going to be told "Sorry, don't have that one, sorry don't have that one, ...". I assume they're not actually ripping disks, just scanning the barcodes on the box or inserting the disc in a reader for a few seconds to ID it.

If you're too honest to download torrents, but not quite honest enough to pay full price, it seems as though there is a big opportunity to borrow your friends disc collections and stop by Walmart and get your own access to all of them for $2 each.

I wonder if their system can identify burned DVD and distinguish them from the real thing (image of dim Walmart employee happily feeding DVD-R disks with hand written labels into the system...

G.

Re:Questions

[omnichad]

I wonder if their system can identify burned DVD and distinguish them from the real thing (image of dim Walmart employee happily feeding DVD-R disks with hand written labels into the system...

Well, they'd likely be different. I don't know anyone that makes encrypted copies of their DVD movies.

What happens to the disk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does walmart keep the original disk or somehow mark that it has been converted?

Or for two bucks a disk can I get a copy of my buddies movie collection?

What a BARGAIN!

[msobkow]

You mean if I pick up a $10 DVD it'll only cost 20% extra for a DRM-encumbered streaming copy that doesn't actually reside on my hard drive and can disappear at any moment the studio changes it's mind?

I'm IN!

NOT.

I'd do it, with VHS tapes

[alispguru]

That would be an actual content upgrade, worth a token payment.

Re:I'd do it, with VHS tapes

[hemo_jr]

The case can be made that not providing this service for pre-recorded videotapes is discriminatory and perhaps illegal. Possession of the tape is proof that you have purchased the right to view the content. Wal-Mart is providing the upverting of dvd to blu-ray, why not videotape?

Or could it just be the greedy, money grubbing, SOPA-loving, fascist MPAA ass-holes just want to soak the public for all they can get?

So it's like Netflix...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but with worse selection, less convenient, a lot more expensive, and a few years too late...

Guess the middleman is thrashing around a bit on its way out.

Trying to derail the DMCA Exemption process

[ScooterComputer]

The timing on this is WAAAY too coincidental...that's because the studios rolled this out now so that they could tell the Librarian of Congress that there exists a commercial ability to rip DVDs to digital files for use in the iOS infrastructure and therefore Exemption Class 10 and the position of Public Knowledge is unnecessary. Read the comments and replies, you'll see.

Which makes this all the more insidious. They could have rolled this AGES ago, but they're doing it now to stop American consumers from exercising their Free Use rights for another 3 years...during which, I'm sure, there will be another shift in their business strategy that they will take advantage of to bilk consumers. Ironically, the reason they gave during the arguing of the DMCA for this provision was NOT anti-consumer; instead it was compliance with licensing of hardware manufacturers. How thin that veil was! Because now they're back transparently arguing against the consumer. This needs to stop NOW! The studios stood by and watched the revolution; their loss. Consumers have hundreds/thousands of dollars of DVDs and Blu-rays and capable hardware to do the conversions at their fingertips, just as with CDs and iTunes. Exempt the DMCA and give us the ability to exercise our rights without being labeled "pirates".

Sounds good to me

[cpu6502]

I can bring in my Star Trek TOS, Stargate SG1, and Gattaca discs to walmart, get the upgrade to high-def versions online, and then sell the DVDs on ebay for cash.

Free market == win.

Aside - On the other hand some things don't really look good in HD. I imagine seeing Spock throwing foam spears and plastic rocks really takes away from the entertainment. Maybe TOS is best viewed in blurry SD quality.

Re:Sounds good to me

[klingens]

No TV series. Only movies from selected Studios which are part of Ultraviolet.

Re:Sounds good to me

[cpu6502]

Ahhh. In that case maybe I'd be better-off with Amazon Prime's rental service (view as much as you want for $80/year). Probably cheaper than paying $5 per DVD to upgrade to Walmart Vudu's HD service.

Re:Sounds good to me

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not wrong about Spock in HD - Netflix Canada has the old Star Trek movies (as a sop to Canadians not getting TOS/TNG/VOY/DS9). You can see the pancake makeup on Spock in the whale movie.

Re:Sounds good to me

[jedidiah]

That's kind of stupid.

Ripping movies is trivial. You basically have ONE main features on a disk. Ripping TV shows is a little bit more interesting and involves mapping multiple titles on multiple disks with the associated episodes.

It's like CD ripping but without any of the nice automated disk metadata to take advantage of.

The whole "inconvenience" argument works much better with TV shows.

Original packaging?

[vlm]

Does the DVD have to be in the original packaging or can I bring in my burned-at-home (or someone's home, anyway) copies?

Its actually a semi-serious question, aside from the "I downloaded a .iso and burned it" piracy aspect, how are they deciding if a physical DVD brought in is legit or gray market or outright black market?

Re:Original packaging?

[Maximum Prophet]

Or the $1 rental from the RedBox right outside the store?

Are they planning to physically mark the disks, so you can't sell them used, and then the buyer gets a $2 digital copy?

Perhaps their business model makes money if there are exactly N physical copies, and lots of people paying $2 again and again. Crazy like a fox?

Re:Original packaging?

[tepples]

I'm guessing they'll go by the IFPI Source Identification (SID) code, or perhaps the CSS player key block, or the reflectivity (stamped differs from burned), or something else that a burner can't easily replicate.

Re:Original packaging?

[gl4ss]

yep, the business model is that if someone pays 2 bucks for nothing, they're going to be paying two bucks for nothing. it would be even a sound business to distribute dvd's if they knew that people were going to use those to bring in to pay the two bucks with. more is more.

Re:Original packaging?

[gl4ss]

well.. they're probably going to just scan the barcode from the dvd box, check if it's on the list of supported movies and bang two bucks kthxbye.

it's not like they're going to be doing actual disc reading at all you know, or offer this as a service to get your home dvd's to the cloud.

Re:Original packaging?

[vlm]

well.. they're probably going to just scan the barcode from the dvd box, check if it's on the list of supported movies and bang two bucks kthxbye.

it's not like they're going to be doing actual disc reading at all you know, or offer this as a service to get your home dvd's to the cloud.

Good point... I have some DVDs that are all scratched up and I would imagine they are not looking forward to dealing with those issues.

The good news is downloading scans of the package and UPC is a lot faster, cheaper, and simpler than downloading the entire .iso.

Also I can replace the UPC with a more "interesting" UPC. So Tomas the Tank Engine gets scanned, the UPC indicates its pr0n, tada I've got pr0n.

If they allow a "self checkout" then an app on the phone with a UPC generator might work too.

Another question I've been pondering is how do they know if its a library owned DVD or a DVD I bought at half-price-books from a library or a DVD the library sold as part of their usual turnover process? So essentially I've now got a copy of every library DVD for $2 each.

One odd thing is most of the people discussing this are probably like me. I'll watch a movie once. Then never again. So I actually have no use for a "collection" of movies. I can count on one hand the movies I've watched more than once. I don't own many DVDs... its not like they're going to do anything but take up space.

Even worse I have the technical skill and knowledge to "gain illegal access" to a large fraction of every movie that has been made. Really. I'm quite good at finding what I want to find. But most movies are so bad/uninteresting to me, they have a dollar value below zero, and a time value below the length of the movie plus the ten minutes it takes me to find it. That's the biggest problem with this service... what would I watch?

Re:Original packaging?

[TheGatesofBill]

If I had to guess, they stick the movie in a drive, it fingerprints it (similar to CDDB or something), and then unlocks that movie in your Vudu/Ultraviolet account. It's not that hard to have the system check to see if it's on recordable media or not as well, which would skip over burned copies and most bootlegs.

Re:Original packaging?

[Alyred]

Or, you know, load up your cart on the way in and back to the electronics counter where they'll undoubtedly keep the equipment to do this. "Sure, Mr./Ms. Wal-Mart employee, I bought these last week and just never opened them..."

For that matter, what's to keep Wal-Mart from claiming you did this on the way back to the counter when you bring in your collection?

Re:Original packaging?

[Maximum Prophet]

Ack, imagine they release a ton of movies for free, just left laying around various places. With the Last 10 Minutes Missing.

Re:Original packaging?

[91degrees]

My guess would be a simple barcode scan.

While it's possible to defraud the system, they'll probably just accept this loss. Despite their rhetoric, they know full well that there's not a 1:1 displacement of purchased copies, and in this case, people are paying them $2 a time to pirate their movie.

Copyright Laundering

[bfree]

You and your friends bring all your media to one house. Each person brings the stack to walmart (perhaps filtering out things uninteresting to them) to get them added to their account and then drop the lot off at the next persons house. To make it legal (possibly, T&C apply, IANAL etc etc) you all agree that you are giving the first person the disks (or sell them to them for 1c) and they give/sell them to the next person until finally all have their accounts setup and you gather again to get presents from the last person who now has more discs then they want cluttering up their home. End result you can buy a license to the parts of the collection you want for $2-$5 per disc.

Re:Copyright Laundering

[Maximum Prophet]

Perhaps this *is* the plan. That sold disk that you and your friends pass around is dead income, no more money is being made from it for anyone.
Say you have a disk you paid $18 for years ago. Now all your friends are paying $2 each for a digital copy, and they can measure usage. Not so completely insane. (Still probably won't work, but not as insane as DivX)

Re:Copyright Laundering

[PhilipMckrack]

From what I have read, they are planning on stamping the disks when you bring them in so they can only be brought in once. With what or how hard it will be to remove I don't know.

Can I bring in a friend's DVD's and say.....

[ip_freely_2000]

.....they are mine? nice relatively cheap way to add to my collection.

Re:Can I bring in a friend's DVD's and say.....

[gl4ss]

yes. but you're still going to be paying two bucks for something you already have access to. it's a win for them.

so a digital movie worth $5 now

[zeldor]

can I just give walmart $5 with no dvd and have them add a movie to my ultraviolet account?
not that I have one but it seems that the industry just claimed a digital copy of a movie can be bought for $5 in HD.

Re:so a digital movie worth $5 now

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems that the industry just claimed a digital copy of a movie can be bought for $5 in HD.

It seems that the industry just claimed a digital copy of a movie can be bought for $5 in HD along with proof that you already own said movie in disc format. Vudu movies typically go for $15-20 to "own."

Control over the downstream supply chain

[tepples]

it does do a lot to allow people further down the supply chain than you to control the prices that you can charge

The movie studios believe they still have more control over the downstream supply chain than the record industry had when iTunes Plus came out. And until Kickstarter financing of direct-to-video films becomes common, and until either "film festival" stops connoting snobbishness or there comes a better way to get indie films into theaters, they do have such control.

Re:Stop Hurting America: don't shop at Walmart

[cpu6502]

But being able to buy a computer for only $250 plus other lowcost items helps the people save their money for other purposes (college for the kids, or retirement for the parents). Would you prefer that Mac or IBM PC-compatible computers cost $4000* like they did in the 80s, and few can afford them?

*
* inflation adjusted

Walmart: Because you didn't learn the first time.

[The Moof]

Ignoring the whole DRM is bad/repurchasing argument that will be covered to death in these comments, why would anyone trust Walmart with this? Didn't they learn when Walmart shut down their audio DRM servers?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Fuck you!

[Anonymous Coward]

My DVD's are allready digital. And, as the MAFIAA keeps on repeating, i didnt buy the DVD, i did buy a "license" to view a specific movie, so screw you if you think i'm going to buy Terminator 2 an eleventh time.

Re:Walmart: Because you didn't learn the first tim

[KillaBeave]

... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

"Fool me once ... shame on ... ... shame on ... you. You fool me but can't get fooled again!"

- G-Dub

Not in the TFA

[Ollabelle]

Didn't see it in TFA, but I half suspect them of keeping the physical disks as they "upgrade" you to be able to see the streaming movie.

Re:Not in the TFA

[Dcnjoe60]

No, they don't keep the dvd, at least not according to the press release. It is used to verify that you actually own the dvd. Basically, you take your dvd's into Walmart with a list of the titles and the clerk enters the list on the computer after verifying that you have physical copies. It doesn't matter if those copies are yours, your friends or belong to redbox. The secret is to not have them in their original case, just a jewel case so they can be seen, but not the source that provided them (ie rental).

Re:Not in the TFA

[Existential Wombat]

Can you just take them off the shelf?

Re:Not in the TFA

[Dcnjoe60]

Can you just take them off the shelf?

That shrink wrap might give it away.

Great opportunity for us

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Sue them for DCMA violations - ripping DVD's and distributing them via the web
2) Intentionally lose the case and thereby setting a precedent for fair use

4) Profit

Aha! Ahahahahah! Bwahahaha!

[MacGyver2210]

Ahahahahewaaha bwahahahahaaaaa ! Hahahaha!Ehahahahahahah!

Oh corporations, you slay me...

Nobody is stupid enough to pay *even more* for content they already own in this way. You can't even make people buy the media you have now.

All you are doing is making pirating the videos that much easier than legitimately purchasing them.

"a digital version of their DVDs"

[Sloppy]

I'd like to upgrade to a "wheeled version of my car." To find out if there is one, I'll use a "search version of Google" on the "internet version of the web" viewed on my "visual version of a LCD" connected to an "electronic version of a computer" while I sip a "liquid version of coffee."

Re:"a digital version of their DVDs"

[Noughmad]

Bad analogies. The 'c' in "car" does not stand for "wheeled". The first 'D' in "DVD" does stand for "digital". So you're actually undershooting it.

Re:"a digital version of their DVDs"

[raivoraitis]

Also, why is a DVD usually called a "physical media". Like a the same content stored as a file in a spinning magnetic disk (or even flash memory or whatever) is somehow less physical? Both are round physical objects and the hard disk is even pretty heavy.

Place your bets

[ThatsNotPudding]

as to when the Ultraviolet DRM servers are shut down.

How is this different than the Kaleidescape fiasco

[KPexEA]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/stop-innovating-please-kaleidescape-loses-dvd-ripping-case.ars

Keeping the discs?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I thought when this story was first up. But now, in the linked cartoon commercial, they clearly show the customer getting the bag of physical discs back and carrying it out of the store. So according to that, you do get to keep all the discs.

Digital locks: don't buy, no problem

[sugarmotor]

There is hope the problem with the digital locks can be avoided through simple boycotting. Don't buy, and there is no lock to bother with.

CAREFUL!

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, bring your disks in so they can be registered, so we can get your serial number and more easily identify which ones have been used to make copies from so we can file legal action against you.

What other purpose could they have?

What's to stop....

[Dcnjoe60]

Walmart isn't actually ripping your dvds with this, you bring the dvd in as proof you have it. What's to stop somebody from renting a bunch of dvds and bringing them in a paying $2 each to include in their list? That would be a lot cheaper than buying new or even used dvds. Around here you can rent new dvs for $1.99 if you return them the next day. $1.99 + 2.00 = $3.99 per dvd.

Why would I want to do this?

[Dcnjoe60]

If I already have the dvd, why would I want to stream it from the internet to watch on my ps/3, xbox, computer, etc.? I already own it, I can just put it in the device. As for watching it on my phone, forget it, battery life is terrible and the screen is really small. Tablet, possibly, but if I have 100 dvds in my collection, do I want to pay $200 to digitize them (btw, aren't dvd's digital to begin with??) in case I might want to watch them on a tablet? Wouldn't it be cheaper to pay amazon to stream it to me for that occasion?

So, I ask, why would I want to do this?

Re:Why would I want to do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

"btw, aren't dvd's digital to begin with??"

Yes, but we are witnessing a language shift. Just like "solid state" never meant "no moving parts" (because then, vacuum tubes would be solid state), "digital" now means "a file on a computer".

hmm

[P-niiice]

hope they take verbatims, heh

Re:Stop Hurting America: don't shop at Walmart

[Anonymous Coward]

False dilemma.

Re:Stop Hurting America: don't shop at Walmart

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, Walmart is good because it lets people with Walmart-wages purchase stuff. There's a phrase for a situation like that...

a few reasons

[mu51c10rd]

1. Amazon/Netflix/Hulu/etc. don't have all (not even close) the movies that I own.
2. I prefer to not carry cases of DVD's when I travel, it takes up space and I don't have my full collection.
3. I don't have the hours of time each week to rip my collection to a digital format. Copying my VHS tapes to a digital format took a few months to complete.
4. I would prefer to not have to set up a separate NAS and machine to rip and save movies all day along. Also, if my house burns or is robbed, I don't want to lose all my movies.
4. I would like to have my owned DVD/Bluray collection available anywhere I go, not all of us go from work to home every day of our life. Some of us travel, vacation, visit others, etc.

That is why $2 per is a small amount to me. I already have a Vudu account, so I could see that that issue may not appeal to others.

Re:a few reasons

[Dcnjoe60]

1. Amazon/Netflix/Hulu/etc. don't have all (not even close) the movies that I own.
2. I prefer to not carry cases of DVD's when I travel, it takes up space and I don't have my full collection.
3. I don't have the hours of time each week to rip my collection to a digital format. Copying my VHS tapes to a digital format took a few months to complete.
4. I would prefer to not have to set up a separate NAS and machine to rip and save movies all day along. Also, if my house burns or is robbed, I don't want to lose all my movies.
4. I would like to have my owned DVD/Bluray collection available anywhere I go, not all of us go from work to home every day of our life. Some of us travel, vacation, visit others, etc.

That is why $2 per is a small amount to me. I already have a Vudu account, so I could see that that issue may not appeal to others.

1. This service will only work with those dvds that use ultraviolet drm, so most of the dvds you own probably won't work with it.
2. How many dvds do you watch when you travel and if just a few, it takes only 2 minutes to copy a dvd to a hard drive.
3. VHS would not be included in this and it only takes about 2 minutes to copy a dvd to the hard drive (VOB files).
4. If you house burns down, your movies are included in the content coverage, all you need is a list to set the values. If you are at home, why rip them at all -- why not just put them in the device you want to watch them on?
4 (sic). This sounds like a repeat of item 2, maybe you watch a bunch of previously viewed dvds when you travel? I know it is useful for the kids in the car, however, if I rip and decode them, I can fit about 8 movies onto a single dvd.

But, for your purposes, it probably makes sense. For me, though, I'd be spending $200+ to do this, assuming my dvds were ultraviolet. For that price, I can buy a used PC and install owncloud on it and have full control of my stuff from anywhere.

What about key escrow for DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

With services like this, as plenty of posters have already pointed out, problems arise in the case of the distributor failing to provide functional DRM servers.

Well, key escrowing is probably not so popular when it comes to private data, but what about e.g. forcing distributors by law that they hand over the DRM keys to a third party, which, if they fail to provide service for set period of time (e.g. 30 days) publish those keys and make the digital assets essentially public domain?
Obviously, the law should further redirect damage claims towards the distributor who failed to provide DRM access.

This could be a very large incentive to keep DRM servers running "for ever" (I always wonder, will they give out a way to remove DRM alltogehther in some hundred years when the asset's copyright legally expired? ;) That's another point which should be clarified by law, anyone who deprives the public from it's ability to benefit from the public domain in the future by encumbering data with DRM now, shall be forced to remove it upon demand once the copyright has expired, and take care that this duty can also be performed in his absence (escrow).)

Re:Walmart: Because you didn't learn the first tim

[Lando]

Hmmm, part of their terms and conditions

VUDU’s authority to provide Content to you is subject to restrictions imposed by the movie studios and other distributors that make Content available to VUDU (“Content Providers”). These Content Providers may designate limited periods of time when VUDU is prohibited from renting, selling and/or streaming certain Content to you, including Content that you have previously purchased. You will be able to again rent, purchase and/or view such Content at the conclusion of these restricted periods.

So even purchasing content it can still be taken away at any time by the studios. Don't sound like you are owning anything, just have the ability to view until they decide to discontinue the service or the studio sells the rights to someone else, or wants to put out a new version.

Might be worth playing around with, but not a major investment.

Re:Stop Hurting America: don't shop at Walmart

[cpu6502]

>>> Imagine, a typical Wal-Mart shopper saving money for their kids... for COLLEGE! HA ha ha ha

My parents did it. (Except in their day the discount chain was called K-Mart... same difference.) Not everyone is rich enough to afford a $10 coffee at Starbucks, or other overpriced goods. Discount stores help people stretch their money.

so is the endlosung here

[KingBenny]

to ban all writable and previously bought dvds from the market so the mighty cloudnet, which starts to look like skynets up and coming little cousin gets a hold and track of all that goes about. Or to ultimately criminalize the media since, face it, pedophiles use dvd's to burn their child porn on so it must be a illegal for anyone to use-kind-of-thing in the making ?