YouTube To Allow Video Rentals 215
poopdeville writes "Starting Friday, Google and YouTube will allow movie rentals. The first five films available to rent through YouTube will cost $3.99 for a 48-hour viewing period. Movie studios will be able to set their own prices, with rental viewing windows ranging from one to 90 days. YouTube will get an unspecified commission from each rental. Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuch expects YouTube to generate about $700 million in revenue this year, an estimated 55 percent increase from 2009. If YouTube hits that target, it likely will turn profitable, helping to justify the $1.76 billion in stock that Google paid for the site more than three years ago."
Indie films. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully, it won't be stifled by the big studios.
No thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is cheaper than pay-perview which would be the same type of audience.
Myself, I am waiting for my Wii netflix cd. I hate early advertising because it hurts my need for immedite gratification :(
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is refreshing to see alternative business models being marketed to the movive/music industry, but these schemes really need to involve the ISP if they are to suceed, especially since as internet usuage increases, availible bandwidth decreases - and they aren't going to upgrade the networks any time soon.
Oh yeah, and if I pay to download a duplicate that only
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, you have limited bandwidth and you
waste it here?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In this case he is also paying the moped and the fuel so I guess he has a point in there.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really, most places around here simply have a minimum order for delivery, they won't deliver a single small pizza but if you order a two medium pizzas or a single large pizza they'll happily deliver it at the same cost as they and others charge for eating in the pizzeria or picking it up.
I have seen a couple of places that had a "If you order for less than $AMOUNT then there's an extra delivery fee" thing, but those places that I've tried have been pretty crappy.
/Mikael
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
It costs them less to provide the service online. Each buyer provides part of the infrastructure. They avoid the expense of disks not returned, disks damaged, paying staff and maintaing kiosks. Fewer employees are needed per transaction to sell the product.
If it costs less to provide the price should be fall accordingly.
Pizza on the other hand costs more to deliver.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, here in the UK that's not generally the case, unless you include the "10% off on collection" and similar offers you sometimes get - but then of course you can't use any other offer at the same time.
What you do tend to get is a minimum order price for delivery, but with the prices of the pizzas that's never been an issue for me.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, here in the UK that's not generally the case, unless you include the "10% off on collection" and similar offers you sometimes get - but then of course you can't use any other offer at the same time.
What you do tend to get is a minimum order price for delivery, but with the prices of the pizzas that's never been an issue for me.
I've never seen (in the UK) the "10% off for collection" negated by other deals, because it's not a "deal" as such, in the way that "Thursdays: 2 pizzas for the price of one". They knock 10% off because not delivering is a genuine saving for them.
What Americans don't understand is that for food delivery, the closest we'd typically come to tipping in Britain would be "keep the change" if the total was just below a round number.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe I'm extending the usual "not to be used in conjunction with any other offer" too far then; I never collect so I've never tried to use both offers at once.
But yeah, I wouldn't even think of tipping a delivery person, and only tip waiting staff if the service warrants it. I really do not understand the "must tip" mentality.
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't feel that I must tip but I tend to tip rather well. I tip the grocery delivery person (in my area in the states, it is Peapod), the pizza guy, hair care professional, the person who makes my latte, as well as wait staff.
Although I get excellent service because they remember me and appreciate the tips, I think of it more as keeping my "charity" local. I make a very good living and know many people who worked service jobs. They work as hard for far less (usually a real salary not dependent on tips) as I do and an extra $10 in their pocket will be multiplied as they spend it with other local businesses.
Yes this is probably a phenomenon that is only prevalent in the states but I don't feel bad doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
I really do not understand the "must tip" mentality.
Especially in US hotels with the "this is your room, that's the bed, and that's the bathroom, and that's my empty hand" guy which serves no purpose whatsoever.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've never paid for delivery.
Delivery is included in the standard price.
I get the impression that in the US, collection is very much the exception.
Re: (Score:2)
"You're paying for convenience."
Not with torrent sites, you're paying to get ripped off.
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Interesting)
But those services that can be digitized, is normally cheaper online. Take my online bank for example, no fees whatsoever for doing things online. Do anything in a physical bank here in Norway these days? Expect a 1-5$ fee depending on what you're doing, and I'm not talking about any special service either. The iTunes store is much cheaper than retail CD stores. Online shops are in general much cheaper than retail sites, even if it's real goods sent by mail. The only reason pizza delivery costs extra is because they can't ship it out of a big server farm or warehouse, they must have people near you on duty on time to make it, which makes it cheaper to have everyone in the area come to you than you coming to everyone in the area. There's absolutely no reason an online movie store should cost more, except that the copyright holders got a monopoly on it and can set prices at will.
The real issue they have is that people overestimate how much distribution costs. Pressed CD/DVDs are cheaper pressed than burned, jewel/DVD cases cost very little in bulk and that printing press will print covers way cheaper than your home ink printer. What costs is shelf space in high-priced central retail shops, going with an online store the overhead is really quite low and the amount of unsold goods also much lower, unlike the retailer who sometimes have to do real bargain bin cleanouts that they have to take into their margins. Or maybe they underestimate how much a data file is, when it's not a tangible object. All the costs that went into production and marketing are already sunk costs, that 100,000$ scene doesn't become a 50,000$ scene just because you get it online rather than on a cheap plastic platter.
Quite frankly, I was hoping something like iTunes Plus would come for video (1080p/no DRM) or something like Spotify for music would take off, but so far the closest thing is Voddler which is nothing but a GPL-violating bandit shop (check their forums, and the comments on the allegedly "answered" questions) so I don't imagine there's much hope.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were deliverying DVDs to your front doorstep, you might have a point. Delivery pizzas has a cost to the business - assuming its their own car - car itself, car insurance (more expensive for businesses than personal use), gas, wages. Convenience costs there because they have costs providing it to you.
Here, the costs are minimal. Convenience itself shouldn't add to the cost of a product, it should be a
Re: (Score:2)
I was about to say, most of the places around here will deliver for free if you spend a decent amount on food...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on the culture where you live. In many countries a tip is for exceptional service. It isn't part of the wages.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you're a total tool you've still got to tip the dude delivering the food if you get it delivered...
Tipping is a US cultural thing I believe, it's not quite as common in other parts of the world where workers actually have to get paid a proper wage. In fact in some cases it's quite rude to tip, although I can't imagine a delivery guy being offended under any circumstances :)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not if the tool delivering it dumped it on the side and is 20 minutes late. The delivery asshat get's ZERO tip.
I stopped getting pizza delivered because the delivery guys are usually idiots and nearly destroy the pizza. That and most pizza places sell their caller ID logs to telemarketers. Dominoes Pizza is proud in selling their caller ID logs and customer database to marketing firms.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
50G would get you ONE full bitrate high definition movie.
50G isn't squat once you start talking about video.
Even if you make extreme compromises with compression, you going to eat up 50G quick.
International Viewing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:International Viewing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't hate it. I just read 'This service is not available in your country' as 'Please use Bittorrent'.
I agree. You might try tor for things like Pandora (Google "tor + Pandora"). If you were desperate for streaming US video, you could also try international VPN services.
Re:On "creativity needs funding" (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly do agree about shortening the duration of copyrights. The US constitution requires copyrights to have a finite length, but lobbyists for media companies simply convince congress to extend that duration by 20 years ever 20 years. We no longer see copyrighted work enter the public domain during the same generation it was created; it now skips three generations, and the copyright lobbyists are still not satisfied (I think they hate the constitution, since it limits copyrights and fails to mention profits).
The difficulty of designing good payment systems (Score:2)
Who said that we were going to stop paying people to make these things? We are talking about the idiotic and insulting attempts that these companies are undertaking to create scarcity where there is none.
Let us be sure we're talking about the same thing. You're talking about the limits copyright law places on people who want to make copies of films, correct? And the scarcity is the absence of copies people would make if the law wasn't forbidding them from doing that, correct? And the scarcity is artificial because we could set up a system where (1) all socially desirable* films exist; and (2) all the socially desirable* copies get made, correct?
* "Socially desirable" means that there exists some collecti
Re: (Score:2)
Making a two-hour film takes a significant amount of time out of many peoples' lives. Why would we expect people to do that if they're not paid?
I think we've seen that there is room in the market for high performing low budget films.
The Blair Witch Project is the first that I can think of.
"9" started out as an animated short (which the movie remained faithful to).
Paranormal Activity was a low budget winner.
People obviously want good acting and good stories.
Film makers seem more interested in spending tens if not hundreds of millions on adding a layer of 3D and sparkle.
Re: (Score:2)
I think we've seen that there is room in the market for high performing low budget films[: The Blair Witch Project, "9", Paranormal Activity]
I agree with you that you can make really good films on the cheap.
But, like you said: there is room in the market. There is a market. The films (and their tickets) get sold. At least tBWP. How about the rest, were they given away for free? How were the budgets recouped?
That was my point: making films in the quantity and quality people seem to want takes money going in the makers' direction. Doesn't have to be much, but it has to be non-zero.
Re: (Score:2)
People obviously want good acting and good stories.
Film makers seem more interested in spending tens if not hundreds of millions on adding a layer of 3D and sparkle.
This is exactly the point. The argument is that the layer of 3D and sparkle adds "value", whereas in most cases it adds "bloat". The bloat is often used to cover up something rehashed or badly written. It's exactly like software in that respect.
Since 200 years ago, when the UK and the US began copyrighting, the argument has been that giving a creator a monopoly helps society as a whole because people will have an incentive to distribute their new works publicly. Restricting freedoms for the bettermen
Re: (Score:2)
Us europeans pretty much always end up with the short end of the stick as well (when it's american companies providing the service, at best they'll provide their service to the US + UK (+ maybe France) but mostly it's just the US), but like Tanuki64 I just interpret Apple's silence regarding tv episodes in the iTunes store and Hulu's refusal to allow us swedes to use their service as "Please use Bittorrent".
/Mikael
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:International Viewing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think he meant state as in 'Nation State', not in the US sense.
His point about the EU is likely valid, though. There are rules that imply "all for one" when it comes to certain things like border crossings, prices, etc. I could see where licensing agreements should/would/could span the whole EU instead of being issued to individual member countries.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why France?
Just curious. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Big country, big market. Simple as that.
You already see it with shows and dubbing. You'll get shows dubbed in French and German, but rarely in Polish or Dutch. (except maybe kids shows). Everything else is subtitled.
Swiss residents so far benefitted from having a larger audience that just happens to speak the same language (French, Italian or German), so they got their dubbing "for free" because it was already done. It won't work for such deals I'm afraid where not the language but the country is the bar to
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They have plenty of porn (Score:3, Funny)
My brother in law, while on patrol, found that the universal constant of Islam is that every devout terrorist has a giant porn collection, and then will stand there and deny that it is his.
Wow (Score:2)
Piracy, the better choice (Score:2)
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the sad truth. I said it before a million times (even to the IFPI and other organisations, but they refuse to listen): Legal merchandise has to have a higher customer value than counterfeit or stolen goods.
It works for real goods and thus there's a thriving market for it. If you buy the "real deal" brand item, you get more than what you would get if you bought the knockoff. If I buy a genuine intel CPU, I get warranty. If I buy a genuine nVidia video card, I get support and downloads. Essentially, if I buy "honestly", I get more out of it than what I'd get from something that fell off a truck.
With content you not only do not get more from a legit purchase than you get from a copyright infringing copy, it's even worse. You get less from the legal copy than you get from the illegal one. When I download content from P2P networks, I can freely choose how to use it. I can put it on my server and stream it to the TV. I can extract soundbits or video snippets without loss. With music, I can convert it in any format I please and put it on any arbitrary MP3 player, play it in my car stereo or, again, put it on my server and stream it anywhere. In theory, even the net if I so choose. Technically, there are very few limits of what I could do with the content. This is not true for legally bought content. I cannot (easily) transfer the movie to my server for streaming, I have to use specialized software to do that rather "simple" task. I might have to go through a lot of hassle to create a copy of the audio CD to put it in my MP3 player and, unless I plan to use possibly illegal software to do so, I could end up with a loss of quality in the process.
The key problem is that legal content often has less value to me, as the consumer, than content ackquired through illegal means. That is the core problem today with content. And unless that's solved, more and more people will reach for the illegal channels. People enjoy having convenience. They want their stuff to "just work". And if the only way to get "just working" stuff is by P2Ping it, they will do that instead of buying. They would buy, no doubt. Because it's easier and more convenient. But they're learning that buying does not give them "just working" stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I said it before a million times (even to the IFPI and other organisations, but they refuse to listen): Legal merchandise has to have a higher customer value than counterfeit or stolen goods.
But they do. Pirated movies are all fuzzy and unclear, have bad sound, and frequently include footage of someone a few rows in front getting up to go to the toilet.
I know this is true, because they told me in the unskippable advert at the start of the last DVD I rented. Why would they lie?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:4, Insightful)
The industry has been lying transparently about piracy for at least 20 years.
In the 80s, the news frequently trotted out the claim that profits from selling pirate videos were used to fund drug dealers. It only takes a tiny bit of analysis to realise that drug dealing is a profitable activity in itself.
Just like the war on drugs, the war on piracy might be a bit more successful if it refrained from telling lies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
"Renting" digital media is the most
The big question for me is ... (Score:2)
... are they counting the Linux market as part of their revenue stream?
Re: (Score:2)
It is possible, though I suspect unlikely, that Google might not go down that road. The two big video DRM systems, at present, belong to Microsoft and Apple. Neither are Google's bestest of buddies, and Apple's isn't even for sale. Google could roll their own; but that would be a Sisyphean pain in the ass. If they could get enough video producers onboard(in practice, it'd be indies and maybe old stock only), they c
Interesting (Score:2)
My spending on DVDs will still be higher, but if they get it right then I would happily pay to watch a film online for the first time ever - if they ge
This will get interesting... (Score:2)
Considering that tons upon tons of people already use YouTube, I wonder how badly this will affect Netflix...I, for one, look forward to this.
Re:This will get interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all.
Youtube = watching on my laptop in low res (even their "hd" is low res.
Netflix = 720p HD on my Big TV.
it's no contest. Netflix wins. plus I can watch 60 movies for the price of 4 on Youtube.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just wait until it matures. I highly doubt that Google/YouTube will keep their movies as grainy as their other content.
And while movies are more expensive now, two things to consider:
And thanks to Big Content... (Score:2)
I will likely not be able to view any of them here in Finland.
(Not to mention that my Ubuntu desktop might not support whatever DRM they mandate.)
48 hours (Score:2)
Implies some pretty nasty DRM.
No thanks; but for several times that price, I might pay to download a video I can play permanently.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends how they do it. Sky let you rent or 'buy' [sky.com] episodes of House at £1.50 and £2 per pop respectively. That doesn't sound bad, and given that pretty much the only things me and the wife watch on Sky that we can't get on Freesat (free to air satellite) are House and Bones then it might work out cheaper than our Sky bill, even if we buy them.
The down side is that "buy" doesn't seem to be buy. It seems to be a still DRMed perpetual rental, so I'm getting the worst of buying (higher price and not
First five films (Score:4, Informative)
Bit more info on the first five films, taken from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8471635.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Summary: The first five films come from the Sundance Film Festival. The service will go live on 22 january, for US citizens only. The first five films available for rent are "The Cove," "Bass Ackwards," "One Too Many Mornings," "Homewrecker" and "Children of Invention."
Interesting excerpt from the BBC article: "Content providers will be able to set their own prices, with YouTube taking a cut of the revenue. All but one of the Sundance films is being offered for $3.99 (£2.50) each for users to watch over a 48-hour viewing period."
There are just 2 questions: (Score:2)
Location and limitations
Where do you have to be and what limitations will there be imposed? What countries will be able to use that service, and what software setup is required for their DRM to accept my box as a suitable viewing device? Can I stream it from my box to my TV (let's be honest, who wants to view a movie on a 19" screen when they have a 44" with Dolbi surround and all the jazz?)?
That's basically what will make or break it.
What comes around... (Score:2)
So now we have DIVX (not the codec, the video rental plan) without the disk, and without the embedded security of the DIVX player.
Cracked in 5, 4, 3, ....
Is this US only? Like HULU and all those? (Score:3, Interesting)
And will they make it available to small indie movies too?
There are MANY movies I have wanted to see, but the distribution channels just don't exist.
One recent film festival (Fantastic Fest, Austin 2008 I think) allowed you to stream the movies being showcased at the festival from anywhere in the world. It was great. I saw some excellent documentaries I would never have had the chance to see otherwise.
(Like the very disturbing "I think we're alone now" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152828/ [imdb.com] )
YouTube sails away from the people... (Score:5, Insightful)
...as it becomes a part of the movie industry.
YouTube is headed for Commercialization hell (which is a very real place!) and that usually means:
- More restrictions
- More censorship
- More forced Ads
- Less fun
- Less freedom
- Less randomness
The same reason GOOGLE was COOL - applies to services like YouTube, a place where you can search for - and find ANYTHING, as it becomes more and more commercialized, we'll see the increased restrictions on EVERYTHING, and YouTube will eventually just be another X-Factor/Americal-Idol & movie rental service, and ADVERTISING / Viral-videos outlet than the peoples no#1 info-video channel.
Oh well - it was fun as long as it lasted.
At least it should work on Linux (Score:2)
The yahoo article was light on details but since YouTube works just fine on a Linux box I can't think of good reason why the new rental service shouldn't play just fine on my Linux HTPC. Unless they do something stupid like require Silverlight w/DRM for the rentals. But if they are going to offer these rentals in a Linux friendly format I will definitely support that choice with rentals, especially if the XBMC or Boxxee teams release a nifty and stable YouTube movie rental plugin.
Cheers,
Josh
I'll tell you what I want as a service. (Score:5, Interesting)
I watch a lot of films, and I'm on a pretty tight budget, so it needs to really provide bang-per-buck for me to be satisfied. I'm actually on a pension for now, so not only is the budget really tight, but I have a huge amount of free time to try and fill each day and TV is not helping.
I've always been into alternative cinema far more than the mainstream films, but I tend to watch most things short of chick flicks and summer student films. I like my anime, Japanese horror, Korean cinema, and French films along with all kinds of other World Cinema - so my local store is never going to satisfy my desires.
At present I fan-sub what I can, pirate what I have to, purchase on DVD/Bluray as much as possible and every so often make a trip to the local cinema. Over time the divx's will be replaced with DVDs/Bluray or they end up deleted.
I divide films into several categories: see at the cinema, rent on dvd, buy it, download.
Putting aside the option to see it at the cinema there are three other ways that a single company could fulfill my purchasing needs.
On the day they release it to the rental places, they could also open up the opportunity for me to download a DRM copy that I can view at home for 2-3 days. The cost should be at least slightly cheaper than the rental stores because they have no overhead costs besides bandwidth.
On the day the DVDs hit the stores they should allow me the opportunity to download a copy with no DRM beyond that a normal DVD has - i.e. an ISO image I can burn to DVD and the covers so I can print both on the media and the slips for the box. Pirates working out the back of a shop in Chinatown can manage this, any decent company should be able to also.
The third way would be to make a DIVX/XVID copy available some time after release, and I really can't see them doing this or even being able to compete with the warez group - it doesn't make sense - so there are really just two ways to capitolise on me.
Now here's what grinds my gears. If I go to the cinema, or rent a DVD from the shop prior to buying, I still pay full price for the DVD. There is in fact almost no incentive for me to ever rent a DVD since they release for purchase soon enough after. The same applies to a cinema version - and with electronic ticketing and digital projectors there seems little reason not to propose this...if I paid you a whack of cash to see it at the cinema I should get a rebate on purchasing it to own.
Currently I might end up purchasing the "rights to view" a product three separate times. First it costs $22 AUS to view at the cinema, then $6 AUS to rent, then $30 AUS to buy to own. So on a really good title I have to pay a total of $58 AUS to see it at first release, then first home release, before finally buying to enjoy for the next few years.
So, what I want is this: Digital Rights Management - where I actually get "rights" and they are managed.
I want someone to whack up a pile of huge servers somewhere with plenty of bandwidth. When I pay my $22 for my cinema ticket I want that logged to my account and for them to offer me a modest discount on purchasing / renting the film in the future. When it's released to rental market I want that same site to let me know, and allow me to download the film. After I've seen the film I'd like to be able to indicate I want to purchase it on mainstream release, and get a decent sized discount on that. I'm a valued repeat customer, they should treat me like one and work hard to continue to do business with me. If for any reason whatsoever I lose a copy of a film I should be able to download it again at no cost. If a new print of the film comes out I should get access to this at minimal cost - why pay another $40 to buy the film again on Bluray when I already have a licence to watch it, and just want to see it in an improved bitrate/codec.
Currently I have to rent a film, just to see if it's even worth one watch, let alone the five or so watches that are required to break even on the cost of perhaps buying i
OK, let me pre-cache (Score:2)
I would use service even though I have netflix because I have Clearwire and therefore it takes 3 hours to watch a 90-minute movie. With netflix (and the daily show, and others), you can't just pause it and walk away until the video is halfway done loading- the silverlight or whatever halts the download when it gets a few seconds past the playhead.
It's already bad enough that some youtube videos download at the 20-40 KB/s range, while others download at 5 times that speed (it's not my connection- I've gone b
Why a fixed amount? (Score:2)
How about doing it like Magnatune or Kongregate?
Allow the uploader to choose a price range in which the viewer has to choose an amount.
And/or if no range is chosen (=free) there is a tip jar for quick payments.
Done.
Of course these all still are business models that ignore basic physics (that information is no real object, and therefore can not be a good / product. Ever). But it’s better than nothing.
In the long run, one can only ask money for services. Like performing the song. Or like letting people
FUCK THE MPAA (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
$2-$5 ? (Score:2)
The largest supermarket chain here rents most DVD's for $1.
Re:$2-$5 ? (Score:4, Informative)
The largest supermarket chain here rents most DVD's for $1.
Not everywhere. To rent a first run movie is about $8 AUD overnight for me, and I have to walk to the video library where it might be out. An older movie is $5 AUD for one week.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The largest supermarket chain here rents most DVD's for $1.
Not everywhere. To rent a first run movie is about $8 AUD overnight for me, and I have to walk to the video library where it might be out. An older movie is $5 AUD for one week.
I'm sure that is correct. I'm also (reasonably) sure that this will only be available within the US.
Re:$2-$5 ? (Score:5, Informative)
Which is nice for you, but everybody lives in a different market. It seems unlikely that I will be able to use this service as I use a non-windows O/S in a non-US country, but if they do offer this properly then I have three choices :
1. Walk 100m to a video store, rent a dvd for 2 euro a night. As a bonus I get to cache a rip of the dvd in case I want to watch it again.
2. Download a CD sized compression of the dvd. That takes about an hour on my connection on a popular torrent. The disadvantage of this is the illegality - and I don't really care about the legal/civil distinction as the odds of being busted for this are a million to one where I live. What does bother me is that the people who made the movie don't get any payment for their work.
3. So now there is (maybe) an online rental option. So it will be more expensive (2.66 euro is unlikely so we will end up with either 3 or 4 euro). Like option one some money is going to flow back to the makers so I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside while I watch the movie. Like option two the codec is probably going to piss me off while I watch the film.
So which will win? It's not a total ordering because cost is not the only criteria. Option two wins on cost and picture quality. Option three wins on getting revenue back to the creators. For now option one is my preferred compromise, but if the codec on option three is acceptable and it works here then I'll probably switch.
(The option of keeping a copy for a longer viewing window is irrelevant for me - I rarely watch a film more than once).
Re: (Score:2)
What does bother me is that the people who made the movie don't get any payment for their work.
Do you honestly believe that the people who made a film get any money at all when you rent it from your local video store?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's backwards in that the money you will be giving the people will be going towards the NEXT film, which could be worthless trash you don't want to pay for. The money that you want to give for producing a great movie has already been payed to the actors, directors, and producers, etc, the opening weekend the movie is shown.
Re: (Score:2)
If what bothers you is not paying them back, then the best option is real simple:
1) Torrent away
2) Every so often, order the movies you liked best on DVD/BluRay and let the postal service handle the rest. Make it so that it averages what you "should have" been paying.
Downsides: Slightly anti-environmentalism, somewhat poor distribution of the money
Upsides: Excellent convenience, that fuzzy feeling, more money to the movies you really like and a permanent copy for those few you might wish to see again*,
* Tho
Re: (Score:2)
He could achieve better parity between movies watched and those paid for by ordering every movie that he's downloaded after having watched it. Then he's actually achieving what he says he wants to.
Re: (Score:2)
You have to take into account the fact that a location cost 1$ a day for whichever movie you want, in either dvd or bluray format at a lot of places in all of the US & Canada.
Thus, if he rents it at that place, he's maybe generating 5 to 10 cents for the movie studio (and that's most probably a gross exageration) and as such if they get 30% of a sale, out of a movie sold for 20$, then he only needs to buy 1 movie in 60-120 to reach parity.
So, if he's buying as many movie only based on the amount of mone
Flash (Score:2)
It seems unlikely that I will be able to use this service as I use a non-windows O/S in a non-US country
Content access restriction already exists in Youtube and isn't currently handled at all by code running on the client. :
But code running on the server
the server only accepts to stream data to users...
1. Whose IP corresponds to a country where the content is allowed (somethings might be available in EU but restricted elsewhere)
2. Who are logged in and have access (adult content only goes to users with an open session and are flagged adults in their accounts).
Very probably the same mechanism will be employed
Re: (Score:2)
Average bandwidth keeps increasing ( ** except in some parts of the us from a report we had recently ** ), and with 6mbps you can view a 1080p (4GB, 1h30) movie in realtime. If you are paying for a limited monthly bandwidth connection, it's perhaps time to look somewhere else?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of these films are filmed at 24fps, so I don't see what the issue with this is really.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
24fps is the way to have it. 30fps makes movies look like cheap, crappy home videos.
That must be because you are used to 24fps, not because 24fps is better
Re: (Score:2)
Any money spent on adding DRM to another venue(and DRM definitely costs money) is simply being wasted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't feed the trolls, young padawan.