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I have to vent this particular topic and spread awareness....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/03/23/movi ... index.html

The movie industry just keeps getting greedier and greedier in my opinion. Who here would pay $35 for one movie that you can only watch on your computer? When you can buy a new movie for 20 bucks and an old movie for 10 bucks at Target, who would pay these ridiculous prices?

Its no surprise the project is being spearheaded by AOL, who has a long track record of overpricing a service that allows its privileged users to view lots of ads before they can read email or get on the net (no offense to AOL users).

I think downloading movies is a great idea, but I don't think it will become viable until 1) the internet becomes synchronized with our televisions and 2) it is cheaper than buying a regular DVD.

Or we could keep doing it the same way we have been and download them for free, see if they are worth paying for, then use personal judgement whether or not to spend money on a real copy.

I refuse to pay for crap. If a company won't let me try something before I buy it, I will do it anyway, and buy it if I like the product. Thankfully, with movies, renting them for $4 bucks isn't too much money to waste if the movie turns out being bad. I've also gotten to the point where I will ask for my money back at a theater if the movie is horrible. A bad movie should not be rewarded.

DivideOverflow wrote:Or we could keep doing it the same way we have been and download them for free, see if they are worth paying for, then use personal judgement whether or not to spend money on a real copy.

Shhhh, they don't know about that yet!

Well from what i have read about it, you will be able to download the movie, but it will be in 2 copies. It will allow you to have a copy on your computer, and the other download will allow you to play it on a portable device e.g laptop, dvd player.

A quote from the bbc website

Fans will pay £19.99 for a DVD of their chosen film plus two digital copies to keep indefinitely - one for their home computer and one for a portable device.

However users will not be able to burn copies of the films to DVD themselves and the files will be compatible only with PCs and Windows software.

That means they cannot be viewed on Apple iPods or Macs.

Now, just say you have a hard drive crash, or a virus on your computer. That would erase your digital copy on your computer so if you had 100 odd films that is alot of money gone to waste.

If you can't make a DVD yourself, then the only option is to copy your second "copy" of the film over to the portable device. That is just a pain in the "O Ring" as what device will be able to hold more than one film let alone 20?

Plus it only works with windows software so if you are a sad owner of a MAC, then you can't use the service. I think that the buyer should be able to burn a copy to a dvd at least once as a back up. You are allowed to do that to other software and if you lose your harddive then you at least still have a hard copy of the dvd. il be keeping an eye on this, but unless the service opens up more, becomes cheaper and allows me to make a backup then im staying far away from it.

Its all about digitial rights management (DRM) and its starting to pi$$ me off rightly. I pay for something, then i god damm own it. Not, you pay fo something but you will only own it until we change our minds.

// me goes off to rant some more.

Mmmmmmmm.....Limewire......

lime wire?

Yes, my friend.....LimeWire!

cough bitorrent

Sevulturus wrote:cough bitorrent

Indeed...but they've been in the news a little too much lately. I thought their server was shut down?

Anyway, I used to use WinMX, then switched to LimeWire. I fired-up WinMX a few days ago and it appeared to be dead.

Bitorrent doesn't have a server anywhere. There are a vast number of websites where you download "torrents" which are basically 2mb files that tell your computer where to get the rest of the file. The program then uses the file to talk to other peoples computers to download portions of the files as they become availible. After 100% is downloaded it's reassembled into a complete file.

The websites get shut down occasionally, but new ones always pop up.