Microsoft Kills Movies and TV Storefront on Windows and Xbox (windowscentral.com) 21
Microsoft has shut down its Movies & TV storefront on the Microsoft Store, ending the ability to purchase new entertainment content on Windows PCs and Xbox consoles. The company announced that as of July 18, users can no longer buy or rent movies and TV shows through Microsoft.com, the Microsoft Store on Windows, or the Microsoft Store on Xbox.
Customers who previously purchased content from the Microsoft Store can continue accessing their libraries through the Movies & TV app, which remains available for download. Microsoft will not offer refunds for recent purchases. US customers can use the Movies Anywhere service to sync their purchased content to other compatible platforms.
Customers who previously purchased content from the Microsoft Store can continue accessing their libraries through the Movies & TV app, which remains available for download. Microsoft will not offer refunds for recent purchases. US customers can use the Movies Anywhere service to sync their purchased content to other compatible platforms.
Now remove the entire Microsoft Store (Score:2)
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I hate anytime I am forced to use the Microsoft Store to download anything - usually Microsoft tools for the most part. They want to take their 15-30% from every transaction like Apple so badly. If they could get away with making it so you couldn't install anything from anywhere else like an iPhone I'm sure they would.
Microsoft already tried to do that a few years back, when most new PC's and laptops preloaded with Windows defaulted to "Windows 10 in S-Mode" -- which didn't let you install anything except things downloaded from the Microsoft Store. To disable that and revert back to "normal" mode and regain the ability to install regular 3rd party windows software, it required you to create a Microsoft account and sign in to the Windows store (which involves verifying your email address and phone) to download their "dis
Why DVDs are better (Score:5, Insightful)
I know there are people who will grumble and whine that DVDs are sooooooo outdated, but this is another example of why they are superior. You never have to worry someone else will take it away from you.
You bought it. You own it. Unless someone breaks into your home and takes it or your home burns down, it is yours forever. You can watch it as many times as you like whenever you want. You are not restricted to someone else's schedule. Nor do you have to worry about it breaking up because the signal got botched.
Further, DVDs don't change. No one can alter the movie with "new and improved" scenes or added "features". Han will always shoot first.
That Microsoft has told users there are no refunds is further justification why DVDs are better than streaming.
Why not bluray? (Score:2)
Why go all the way back to DVDs when Blu-ray discs are still produced and sold?
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Why go all the way back to DVDs when Blu-ray discs are still produced and sold?
Probably because the demographic that's most likely to still be using physical media probably has a DVD player rather than a Blu-Ray player. Things get even weirder on the music side of the market, where there'll be an entire aisle filled with... vinyl records. But in that case, it's not because there's a bunch of holdouts still using their gear from the 70s, rather that it's somehow become trendy among the younger folks to own a turntable (which surprisingly, have resumed being produced as a currently ma
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DVDs are still around. They're still making up the majority of purchases of physical discs - Blu-Ray and UHD Blu-Ray are a minority.
DVDs are cheap to produce and to keep producing - they are easily something you can MOD. (You can't do it as easily with Blu-Ray on purpose).
They're also better quality - Blu-Ray and UHD-Blu-Ray have nothing on streaming - they're higher bitrates (Blu-Ray is around 25Mbps for 1080p - most high quality streams top out around 5Mbps. UHD-Blu-Ray is 125Mbps, while the top of the li
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Fine. DVDs and Blue-ray. Regardless, the point stands. It's a physical medium you own.
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Because Blu-Ray discs can have their keys revoked, even if the player never goes online. New Blu-Ray discs can update your player's cryptographic key list to revoke past titles.
And it isn't theoretical, new disks often include revocations and sometimes they make mistakes. Which can't be corrected.
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While I appreciate the benefits of DVD that you highlight, I couldn't in good conscience recommend it as a solution. There's just too much unnecessary waste to deliver media/software via physical media. The DVD itself plus the packaging and then additional pollution from distribution (and driving to the store to buy it).
One thing that could help with many of your complaints is to drastically shorten copyrights.
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You bought it. You own it. Unless someone breaks into your home and takes it or your home burns down, it is yours forever.
You know.. these scenarios are also a problem. What might be even better than a DVD is video files either ripped from a DVD or obtained through Unofficial channels and saved on a NAS backed up to the cloud.
Movies anywhere doesn't work with TV shows (Score:2)
FYI: Microsoft's suggested solution would work with Movies but not TV.
I'm not sure why exactly, but It's something I found out a long time ago.. You can use their service to sync your purchases across multiple online services, but it only works with actual movies or movie DVDs, and not TV shows, or the DVDs which are Seasons of Television shows. Those aren't included in the program with other media for some reason.
US customers can use the Movies Anywhere service to sync their purchased content to othe
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a consumer helping potential use of NFTs to track license purchases; but the companies would rather you have to rebuy.
Good (Score:2)
Movies Anywhere (Score:2)
Microsoft sold movies and TV? (Score:2)
All 7 subscribers are gonna (Score:1)
...be very pissed!
Better than last time they did this. (Score:3)
When Microsoft gave up on and abandoned their oh-so ironically named "Plays4Sure" music DRM scheme in 2008 (4 years after launching it), the only options they offered were either: "Authorize your your playback license for each purchase before the shut-off date and that specific device will be able to continue to play it while it still functions and while you don't reset it, but it can't be transferred to another device or activated anywhere else anymore " or "You can remove the Plays4Sure digital protection by burning your purchased Plays4Sure music to CD and rip it back as MP3 by following these 17 easy steps. Better hurry and finish before , though!"
IIRC there was just a two-month (?) window between their initial announcement and the deactivating of the license servers altogether, if you missed that window all your music just became expensive digital dust.
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Best part about that brouhaha was the name of DRM involved. It was utterly hilarious to have a DRM scheme that implied that it would play no matter what, and then have it function in such a stupid way.
I don't buy movies, been 20 years since last time. (Score:2)