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Chris Jacob
I don't get how this makes sense... why not buy the On Demand version, watch it instantly, and be done with it. If I've already watched the movie, why do I want to have the physical media forthcoming? Bring the price down, keep it in my "Amazon Video Library" and let me stream it when I want, and forget shipping the physical media... it's a dying medium. Streaming is the future, it's about time we actively move towards it.
@triggerx:
This is a feature offered for people who want to buy the physical media but don't want to wait for it to arrive.
As for what you suggest, you want to pay less for the content, cost them more whenever you decide to watch the movie, and expect that this is a business model that they'll be eager to jump on? The reason downloads are less expensive than physical media is that you can sell the same copy to everyone, you don't have to manufacture that one copy, you can store a bunch of downloadable "items" in a tiny little space, you can strip the thing down to the bare bones, and piping it through the internet is considerably cheaper than shipping the physical copies to everyone. That does not mean that serving up a streaming copy is a cost-free process, and in the case of movies it could easily end up becoming a business model that's not unlike storing nuclear waste. You could end up at a point where your ability to sell new services is outstripped by your expenses from dealing with the stuff you're stuck having to deal with for years to come. With a physical copy, your expenses are generally done the instant that disc walks out the front door.
That's not just a cool idea, it's how it should be. Regardless of DRM or streaming quality, it's a fantastic bonus to be able to watch instantly while waiting for your physical media. Amazon's video quality has been great for me. I purchased Batman Begins from Amazon Unbox and was happy to find that I could put it on all my computers, and I could play it through my Roku as well.
They also provided a "portable" version of the movie (as an additional free download), but unfortunately it has "PlaysForSure" restrictions, meaning it won't play on my G1 (at any given time I have two or three movies, or several TV episodes to watch on my G1 during flights). If they can fix that, or better yet, offer an Amazon Unbox app for Android, like the Amazon Store and MP3 apps, I'd be ecstatic.
@drstein: No problem! Go to your Amazon menu on your Roku and follow the prompts to add your Amazon account. Once you have, any movies you've purchased via Unbox should appear. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, and also how smooth and sharp the playback was.
I don't know if these "bonus" digital versions will be added to Unbox (or Roku) but it would be great if they were. I'd definitely start buying all my DVDs via Amazon if that is the case.
I wonder if Amazon still allows you to cancel orders before they are shipped for a full refund. If that's the case, you can order a movie, watch it instantly, then cancel the order and get a refund.
@PurpleMonkeyDishwasher:: The T&C on Amazon's web site say if you return or cancel the DVD purchase they will bill your credit card for a VOD purchase of the movie, so no free lunch :-(
@PurpleMonkeyDishwasher:: If they were any kind of smart (and they probably are), there'd be maybe a two or three dollar fee for cancelling an order (especially the running time of the movie after you placed it). Which would kind of suck for someone who uses the 1-click shopping and accidentally ordered Beowulf in 3D (the precise reason I don't use 1-click ordering).
Or they may (shockingly) take the loss that some (but not all) folks will game system and accept the rest of their income because implementing counter-consumer measures would harm legitimate customers in the process and that's just bad PR.
@PurpleMonkeyDishwasher:: I don't agree with the spirit of the method, but it is an important consideration. I would hope that they'd amend a rental charge to the order to account for the streamed media, or at the very least, revoke the license to stream it.
@todgettys:
I'd been wondering something similar (but not enough to actually check on it), and I have to say that this actually makes sense. I mean, if you look at it from the other side, it's effectively a means by which you can rent a movie with the option to upgrade to physical media. If you watch the download and like it, you get billed for the DVD (which then ships). If you hate it, cancel the order and all you've done is rented it to watch once.
It would make a lot of sense to people who want to be able to access their DVD collection remotely - if they travel a lot, have a weekend home, etc. I don't purchase a lot of DVDs, but with this I might actually do it more.
@njdevil: Actually, I can think of one (and only one) good reason to own a Twilight DVD.
I will likely end up owning it (because that mess is hilarious). The never-ending struggle of explaining to people why it's in my DVD collection might just be worth it.
So if I buy a Blu-ray on good old Amazon that includes a digital copy, would this mean I could watch that movie on my TV, iPod AND computer without having to convert, hack, chop, or Handbrake anything?
The dawn of one-price-for-media is upon us.
(NOTE: I'm gleefully ignoring the inherent limitations of DRM, US-only, and other lockdowns for this brief moment of cinegasm.)
(POST-NOTE: I'm copyrighting "cinegasm" as of now, and yes, I understand the irony of copyrighting on the same post where I lament the state of consumer media ownership rights. Here's to irony.)
Wait...so, if I have a computer with an HD graphics card capable of full 1080p but DON'T own a bluray player, I could buy a bluray movie and be able to actually watch it in 1080p via streaming?
@whiteflea: "What is the quality of the Amazon Video On Demand version?
Disc+ On Demand includes the Amazon Video On Demand standard definition version. The video quality we deliver will depend on your internet connection. We'll automatically detect your connection speed and send you the highest quality stream your connection can support. The steam quality will be displayed on the video player."
@whiteflea: I don't think any streaming service in US right now is capable of matching the quality of a bluray movie. Even if they stream 1080p, it'll be compressed like hell.
The last time I tried Boxee, it was very buggy. Keep in mind that this was a very early release, so I'm bound to try it again soon and hopefully with much more positive results.
@fryhole: I'm interested to hear if anyone in the beta has any thoughts on this as well.
I use Plex for nearly everything my television does, and after making the adjustment to RSS feeds the program has allowed me to drop my satellite subscription.
I only have two gripes with Plex:
1) Online content via apps can take incredibly long to load. Sometimes upwards of 10-15 minutes (I let it just run a couple of times to see if it was an infinite stall or just slow; turns out it was the latter.)
2) Content is disparate. Some episodes of your favorite show are in Netflix. Some episodes are on Hulu. Some are on the network's own site. Some episodes you may store locally. While Plex makes all of these episodes available via their apps, Boxee will compile all of these sources under the name of the show, putting the horse before the cart. If this works as well as it sounds, then I may be sold.
Of course, Plex is open source and has a strong support community which also offers new skins you can use to change the user interface and quick fixes to bugs when there are software updates (for instance, like when Snow Leopard came out). It also has it's official 1.0 build coming out soon (possibly by mid-2010) and will no doubt be influenced by Boxee's slick new UI.
I personally didn't care for Boxee Alpha, but the Beta build shows great strides and if it all works as well as it sounds then it has no reason not being on my television screen.
@Odin: They HAVE to. They don't have the rights to broadcast outside the US. The way TV shows are licensed, that's about the best that they can do, for now.
Blame the people who grab the licenses to rebroadcast the shows in your country for not having a similar site (or working a deal with Hulu).
And I'm not even going to begin discussing the value of viewers to advertisers being less if they're distributed internationally, since you can't focus your ad campaign nearly as tightly...
The problem with abandoning Hulu is it's the flagship product for online TV. If it fails we most likely wont get something better...content providers will simply call it a failed experiment and keep all their content locked into their little TV boxes.
@grimdeath9740: Unfortunately, I think given the multiple failures in this concept, that conclusion was already reached. Streaming of any video content on the internet has been, at best, an interesting experiment. The closest things to success are YouTube and NetFlix. YouTube is successful, but a financial disaster (so far). NetFlix give streaming movies in a sub-DVD quality with limited (but, admittedly growing) choices.
It could be that ultimately NetFlix may have their own "current television" subscription program to watch your favorite TV programs shortly after they air. But, that seems like a concept down the road, at best. And with the latest news from Hulu, it looks like we are heading in the wrong direction. Frankly, we had not even solved issues such as watching live sports in HD on the Net, so this experiment still has a ways to go even if Hulu survives in the current form.
@Monty: Where do people get this idea that netflix streaming is poor quality? I use netflix everyday and it looks great, at the very least DVD quality and more and more often 720p-ish. Granted, I have a regular TV and not a 50 inch monstrosity.
@pevans34: Note that just because you are streaming 720p, that does not mean it is better than a DVD at 480p. DVD upconversion can take a DVD to 1080p, but that does not make it comparable to a Blu-ray disc, either. Resolution is lovely, but the "quality" of the image is what is important, and streaming video does not compare well to disc technology - today. They have to dramatically compress the video, and on a high-end TV, it just does not look as good. Some day, when we are all running 50 mbps connections at home, maybe they can reduce the compression ratio and we could talk about a comparable picture quality to disc technology, but it has not happened yet.
@Monty: just to reiterate, I said Hulu was the flagship for online "TV"...while Youtube is more user generated videos and Netflix is movies. Though Netflix has a good library of TV shows the majority of them are not available as early (next day in Hulu's case).
I think the hold up with Hulu is they have not found a way to give the users what they want (full power on the media center pc, even with third parties) because of the content providers lack of knowledge of acceptance that people do not want to sit at a computer and watch TV. Users and content providers opinions seem to vary wildly in what "internet tv" is.
I subscribe to digital cable via Time Warner for an exorbitant fee. And I pay for the DVR - neither service works well without the other. How much more do I have to shell out before I can just watch those fancy moving pictures on t.v.? You know, the ones that I want to see (i.e., not Home and Garden Television or the Prayer Network)? I am cancelling cable at the end of this month, by the way. I need more time to dedicate to video games, anyway. Speaking of, is anyone in the circle of Giz in-the-know about the release date of Starcraft II? Just wondering...
@seriously, saycarramrod: Haha, it's awesome that you found this. It's time for me to save my soul by saying "I always liked her, though." Did it work? We'll find out.
@nachobel: Check out the links these guys posted below, I scoped them out, apparently 2012 is for the expansion packs. The actual game to be released the first half of 2010, so says the blogs. That would be fricken sweet, as it it has forever been an incredible game, since I used to play it via dial-up with my friends in the neighborhood. Dial-up...
This is really to bad I love using Hulu, along with Netflixs. I find Hulu a great way to catch up on what I missed and the commercials do not even really offend. I even understand the revenue needs but at the expense of your users seems a bad model. The pulling of the ability to watch shows via Bokee or similar set top boxes seems to be losing the bigger picture. They seem to believe they are losing control of their content when they are opening the shows to a wider audience. Also if I am not mistaken the ads come with no matter how the content is streamed. If they don't then they need to figure that out and the revenue stream can continue and the client base increases very happily.
12/10/09
12/10/09
This is a feature offered for people who want to buy the physical media but don't want to wait for it to arrive.
As for what you suggest, you want to pay less for the content, cost them more whenever you decide to watch the movie, and expect that this is a business model that they'll be eager to jump on? The reason downloads are less expensive than physical media is that you can sell the same copy to everyone, you don't have to manufacture that one copy, you can store a bunch of downloadable "items" in a tiny little space, you can strip the thing down to the bare bones, and piping it through the internet is considerably cheaper than shipping the physical copies to everyone. That does not mean that serving up a streaming copy is a cost-free process, and in the case of movies it could easily end up becoming a business model that's not unlike storing nuclear waste. You could end up at a point where your ability to sell new services is outstripped by your expenses from dealing with the stuff you're stuck having to deal with for years to come. With a physical copy, your expenses are generally done the instant that disc walks out the front door.
12/10/09
They also provided a "portable" version of the movie (as an additional free download), but unfortunately it has "PlaysForSure" restrictions, meaning it won't play on my G1 (at any given time I have two or three movies, or several TV episodes to watch on my G1 during flights). If they can fix that, or better yet, offer an Amazon Unbox app for Android, like the Amazon Store and MP3 apps, I'd be ecstatic.
12/10/09
12/10/09
I don't know if these "bonus" digital versions will be added to Unbox (or Roku) but it would be great if they were. I'd definitely start buying all my DVDs via Amazon if that is the case.
12/10/09
12/10/09
12/10/09
Or they may (shockingly) take the loss that some (but not all) folks will game system and accept the rest of their income because implementing counter-consumer measures would harm legitimate customers in the process and that's just bad PR.
.....Yeah, ain't-a gonna happen.
12/10/09
12/10/09
I'd been wondering something similar (but not enough to actually check on it), and I have to say that this actually makes sense. I mean, if you look at it from the other side, it's effectively a means by which you can rent a movie with the option to upgrade to physical media. If you watch the download and like it, you get billed for the DVD (which then ships). If you hate it, cancel the order and all you've done is rented it to watch once.
12/10/09
12/10/09
2.wait for DVD of Twilight to arrive.
3. Upon arrival, publicly throw unopened DVD in the trash as if making a point.
4. ????
5. Break even.
12/10/09
I will likely end up owning it (because that mess is hilarious). The never-ending struggle of explaining to people why it's in my DVD collection might just be worth it.
12/10/09
So if I buy a Blu-ray on good old Amazon that includes a digital copy, would this mean I could watch that movie on my TV, iPod AND computer without having to convert, hack, chop, or Handbrake anything?
The dawn of one-price-for-media is upon us.
(NOTE: I'm gleefully ignoring the inherent limitations of DRM, US-only, and other lockdowns for this brief moment of cinegasm.)
(POST-NOTE: I'm copyrighting "cinegasm" as of now, and yes, I understand the irony of copyrighting on the same post where I lament the state of consumer media ownership rights. Here's to irony.)
12/10/09
12/10/09
12/10/09
Disc+ On Demand includes the Amazon Video On Demand standard definition version. The video quality we deliver will depend on your internet connection. We'll automatically detect your connection speed and send you the highest quality stream your connection can support. The steam quality will be displayed on the video player."
Looks like no, unfortunately. :(
12/10/09
12/10/09
Most HD downloads can't even match the bitrate of a standard DVD. So no, nowhere close to the resolution offered by physical HD media.
12/10/09
12/10/09
12/08/09
12/07/09
12/08/09
I use Plex for nearly everything my television does, and after making the adjustment to RSS feeds the program has allowed me to drop my satellite subscription.
I only have two gripes with Plex:
1) Online content via apps can take incredibly long to load. Sometimes upwards of 10-15 minutes (I let it just run a couple of times to see if it was an infinite stall or just slow; turns out it was the latter.)
2) Content is disparate. Some episodes of your favorite show are in Netflix. Some episodes are on Hulu. Some are on the network's own site. Some episodes you may store locally. While Plex makes all of these episodes available via their apps, Boxee will compile all of these sources under the name of the show, putting the horse before the cart. If this works as well as it sounds, then I may be sold.
Of course, Plex is open source and has a strong support community which also offers new skins you can use to change the user interface and quick fixes to bugs when there are software updates (for instance, like when Snow Leopard came out). It also has it's official 1.0 build coming out soon (possibly by mid-2010) and will no doubt be influenced by Boxee's slick new UI.
I personally didn't care for Boxee Alpha, but the Beta build shows great strides and if it all works as well as it sounds then it has no reason not being on my television screen.
11/25/09
11/25/09
Blame the people who grab the licenses to rebroadcast the shows in your country for not having a similar site (or working a deal with Hulu).
And I'm not even going to begin discussing the value of viewers to advertisers being less if they're distributed internationally, since you can't focus your ad campaign nearly as tightly...
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
It could be that ultimately NetFlix may have their own "current television" subscription program to watch your favorite TV programs shortly after they air. But, that seems like a concept down the road, at best. And with the latest news from Hulu, it looks like we are heading in the wrong direction. Frankly, we had not even solved issues such as watching live sports in HD on the Net, so this experiment still has a ways to go even if Hulu survives in the current form.
It is all very sad. I need some alone time.
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
I think the hold up with Hulu is they have not found a way to give the users what they want (full power on the media center pc, even with third parties) because of the content providers lack of knowledge of acceptance that people do not want to sit at a computer and watch TV. Users and content providers opinions seem to vary wildly in what "internet tv" is.
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
@valkilmerisawful:
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
Thanks for the links!
11/24/09
11/24/09