Vudu Set-Top Box Weds Legal P2P and HD Movies 121
prostoalex writes "The New York Times is running a story on a Silicon Valley company that is planning to revolutionize the movie business. It's no secret that the movie-going experience has been deteriorating, while the number of HDTVs sold has been rising steadily. A company called Vudu, run by a guy who started TiVo, is now building a box for peer-to-peer download of movies straight from the studios. That could enables the movie studios to make movies securely available to viewers on the day of release, and improves on the download experience offered by other shops, like Amazon Unbox, MovieLink and others: 'DVD sales began to stagnate because studios had finally plowed through their entire backlog of movies that could be released on the shiny discs. The success of iTunes was also proving that the digital transition was inevitable and that one powerful player, Apple, could control the market if Hollywood did not find other viable partners. And outlaw services like the pirate Web sites that use BitTorrent technology demonstrated that digital piracy, which had consumed the music business first, now posed a real problem for Hollywood.'"
Costs for the user? (Score:3, Interesting)
Something seems off here... (Score:4, Interesting)
HD Downloads (Score:1, Interesting)
It has already been pointed out that cinemas are on the decline, as we are forced to sit in pokey little multiplexes with peoples phones going off, talking through the movie and the cinema charging you a fortune not only to get in, but you need a credit card to buy a bar of chocolate. The video/DVD rental shops are also waning as the increase in P2P downloads and postal DVD rental diminishes the small shops. Even the likes of Blockbuster are starting to crumble.
What was once considered a pipe-dream to have a complete home entertainment and communications centre is rapidly appearing over the horizon.
Voodoo or Snake Oil? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. You have to buy an expensive box. Most services like this offer the device cheap or free. Satellite boxes, cable boxes, TIVOs, all are or can be free with service plans.
2. Peer-to-peer transfers. Sure, they say they are doing this to offer instantaneous availability of content, but it is just an excuse to shift the bandwidth cost to the end user. And, it doesn't just work exactly like BitTorrent. With BitTorrent, you are only uploading while the transfer takes place. This box uses every box as a source, all the time. If your box has a copy of a movie on it, it will upload it whenever someone else needs it. It doesn't sound like this service should be any more expensive than any other. If YouTube can afford to send me internet-quality video for the few pennies they get from my add revenues, Vudu can afford to send me DVD-quality video for the 10 bucks I'm paying them to buy their movie.
3. End-to-end DRM, vendor lock-in. This is why they're so popular with the studios. While freeing people from the "tyranny" of the computer, they simultaneously give up their best chance at circumventing draconian controls.
4. No DVD burner of any kind. This is the Achilles heel. They offer the option to "rent" or "purchase" downloads. For the 'rent' option, the file obviously deletes itself after a fixed amount of time. What about the movies I purchase? If it were on a computer I could make a backup copy on another hard drive or a DVD. With this, that option does not exist. The device's hard drive, however large, has a finite capacity. Once that fills up, whoops, what are you supposed to do? I guess you have to delete one of the movies you "bought." If they address this at all, they might let you re-download movies you delete. Regardless, it is at their discretion.
5. Bandwidth. Very few people have Ethernet jacks next to their television. For many people, this will leave wireless as their only option. With wireless, I would be skeptical of its ability to cope with the massive upload/download requirements. Even if it can cope, the necessity to either lay Ethernet cables down or configure a wireless network is completely antithetical towards the plug-and-play, instant gratification consumer they're targeting. They're trying to package a computer in a format your Luddite grandmother won't recognize as a computer, while simultaneously requiring her to configure a wireless network.
In summary, to use this system, I have to buy an expensive box, I have to pay for all the bandwidth, and I have absolutely no control over the files I download. This device is about one thing, control. Control of content and control of consumers.
As much as I would like to see no DRM, I will admit that Apple figured out how to do DRM right with iTunes. The basic principle they applied was, "we will make the new format no more restrictive than the old format." Like CDs, FairPlay lets you burn as many CD copies as you want of files. It also lets you back up your files to multiple computers. Vudu's box ties all of my purchases to the lifetime of a single piece of hardware, offering no backup solutions, total DRM, and a system that's designed to screw over the consumer at every single turn.
I hope this is not the way that the industry is going. I don't think the Vudu box will be a great success. However, they may still find enough people who want something that "just works" to find a market. Regardless, it will fall upon the usual legion, the modern fighters for freedom, the hackers and crackers to break the chains of DRM and vendor-lock in. It may be easier to crack something when it's on the computer, but being a stand-alone box hasn't saved the XBox, Playstations, and innumerable other devices from being opened in the same way.
Ultimately, the studios know this. They simply want the circumvention to be so difficult that 95% of users will not attemp
One major thing they overlook (Score:2, Interesting)
I feel that they are a bit myopic here. Nice that they are trying to innovate, but what if some family likes to watch several movies in a month. HD movies will not be small files by any means, and will be a natural progression of the service I'm sure even though the article does not specifically state that they will be offering HD content. What if you download/watch several movies which you legally paid for and then get your cable cut off by companies like Comcast for exceeding their "magical" and hidden data transfer limit.
Even if they offer regular DVD content (not HD) they will more than likely compress the files to the point to where it is degraded and is not the same quality of a DVD I can rent for $3 at the local rental store. Why would I pay more for less quality? If they do feed the actual DVD files (dual layer, not compressed like a file you might get from illegal p2p) that goes back to the problem of massive files being transfered over your internet connection and the risk of getting cut off.
This service will be dipping into the pay-per-view funds of some cable companies giving them even more incentive to drop you from their service. They want your money and will not let someone else take it from you easily. Unless the cable companies and/or ISP's get a slice of the pie, I do not see this happening. Greed kills innovation more often than poor planning from a technical standpoint.
missing the point (Score:2, Interesting)
Find DVD on shelf amongsth the 1000s of others
Open box, fiddle with little plastic thingy that keeps disc secure
Insert DVD -> wait for drive to spin up ->
Wait for the DRM Copyright notice to go away (PITA) ->
Watch Disc manufacturers logo ->
(optionally sit through dozens of equally annoying, piss adverts or trailers that you can't skip)
Wait for piss poor "animated menus" to appear->
Press the button you want->
Watch equally pointless animated menu ->
Watch starting logo: Universal, fox, dreamworks etc. Yawn ->
Watch film, then put back in box and re-file.
Forget about the 2 or 3 other discs in the pack that give you tonnes of extras you'll never watch - forget about the DVD commentary (for all but you most treasured films) - Forget about the "great" interactive games included on the disc.
When will companies learn: people just want to watch the fucking film.
Re:5,000 videos of rubbish (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a simple 800X600 projector (so movies are standard def) showing on a 7' diagonal screen, and it's nearly as enjoyable as going to the theatre. I can enjoy much better seating, all the treats I want, and not have to worry about random people ruining the experience. If I had the money for a nicer (1080p) projector and high definition movies, I can see going to theatres even less than I already do. Sure, it's not QUITE the same -- but the benefits outweigh the costs.
How can I afford it? The projector was under $1000 (3 years ago) and the screen is homemade. Not really that expensive.
Of course, from the rest of your post, I'm not sure we aren't arguing the same point.
on second thought, this is good (Score:3, Interesting)
But, come to think of it, if a service like this legitimizes large upstream bandwidth, we all win. One of the biggest threats to the Internet is still that upstream bandwidths become limited. So, from that point of view, I'm all for commercial P2P. I can still give its traffic low priority at the router.