Movie studios finally get their act together.

[Nintendork]

Uptake of broadband is pretty good, iTunes has paved the way showing that people are willing to part cash with a digital copy of a record and movie studios are starting to listen.

 

In a new deal with AOL Universal will be offering King Kong for £20 on DVD, and you'll get on that disc a high resolution digital rights management copy for both a portable media device and also for playback on the computer.

 

There will be no filesharing or burning of the DVDs, seems pretty fair to me.

 

Wont be working on macs.. so it's not incentive for me to buy but I think it's a great step forward.. it kinda pisses all over Sony's new £28(ish) packs of DVD/UMD discs.. because now you'll be able to just rip it straight from the DVD onto your PC then transfer it to the SD card of your PSP at a significantly cut price, while also preserving battery life.

 

I think it's a good idea.. though it needs to work with both iTunes, Quicktime and iPods because they're the most popular devices that people would want to take advantage of this media on.

 

Though it should be noted the video iPods battery only lasted 2-3 hours for video playback so you'd be limited to one movie on a full charge more than likely.

 

What's your thoughts? Personally I think the idea of paying £20 for a UMD to play only on a PSP (why did they call it universal media disc again) is worth it.. but I totally think that giving people choice to enjoy their media however they want.. on the PC or mobile device is great, and will to some extent stop movie downloads.

 

I am old fashioned, I think movies should be enjoyed in high resolution DVD format on a TV in the dark.. as the director intended, just because our PSP or iPod can playback this content does it mean we should take advantage of it at a high price?

 

I think the DVD is here to stay, it is 'good enough' quality by my standards and don't welcome the UMD, blu ray, HD dvd or piss poor quality download standards as an alternative to the DVD, just merely complimentary.

 

BBC story

[Mr_Odwin]

I think it's kind of a step in the right direction but it is rubbish. I was on some site the other day (http://www.lovefilm.com) and they offer film downloads for rent, so that the download expires within a set number of hours and you can no longer play the file. It's really cheap: For example

http://www.lovefilm.com/dvds/Action/Batman+Begins/53421.html

That's Batman Begins for just £3.50 at decent quality. So, it's feasible to set up a download service for films and not worry too much about the bandwidth costs, etc, so why don't they?

It's stupid that the way we use the media we buy is restricted. I want to download a film (I'd pay more than just a few quid) and have it DRM free so that I can burn it onto a disc, stick it on an iPod/whatever media player I have, and watch it as many times as I like without ever having to connect to the internet again. Is that too much to ask? It annoys me that it is assumed we are all criminals that will upload our purchases to others via P2P as soon as we get them. Isn't the customer always right?

In this case it is better to buy a normal dvd then rip it to your HDD (under the laws of fair use) and encode it to whatever you want.

[RoadKill]

Piracy is more convenient and easier for the consumer who needs portability in their media.

 

It will only get worse.

[Ashley]

Piracy is more convenient and easier for the consumer who needs portability in their media.

 

It will only get worse.

 

The large portion of DVD viewers wouldn't know how to go through the illegal routes and I know most people with portable media devices would, but with iPod now getting a video counterpart there'll be a rise in everyday people with portable media devices.

 

I think it will do okay, but won't rock the industry or anything. Its a decent price. Take a look at Serenity (its also included, along with some other Universal films), £16 for the DVD in most shops, so £20 ain't that bad.