Movielink.com: Nice But Not Ready For Prime Time 185
We had just a couple of references here on Movielink.com and some comments but no reviews. Well, I have tried it and here are my thoughts on it.
For those not familiar with that, they call themselves an "IP based movie rental service". You basically rent movies by downloading them to your PC (as of now, only WindowsMedia or RealPlayer formats) for watching at a convenient time.
The media files have about 512Mb which in my case (AT&T cable modem) takes about 50min to download. You register using your credit card and they don't ask for too much information there.
The price varies with an average of $3 and the selection is OK, not great. You can see some titles that have been just released for PPV channels. There's no search function, so you have to browse using their categories (action, comedy, blah, blah). In some cases you can see a small trailer for the movie.
They have their own download manager that looks a little bit like those p2p programs. You can see the progress of the download and can launch the player at the end. You have a period of 30 days to watch the movie BUT, only 24 hours to watch it once you hit "play". Of course you can pause or watch it again but only within the 24-hour period after the first play. I think they should give you at least 5 days for that.
The quality is OK, not great but quite alright to watch something for fun. I think it's something around SVCD. My greatest complain is that they only have full screen versions of the movies. No widescreen.
Once you download the movie you have to be connected to start playing it. That's because you have to "authenticate" yourself. So, another bummer. You can't download something to watch on a flight for example. Well, I guess you may be able to start playing at home and then stop it and start again on the plane, but I didn't try that. That would be one advantage over a DVD since you wouldn't be using the DVD-drive thus saving some battery time.
I had problems playing the first movie and had to call support. They gave me a code to rent the movie again but after 3 tries they though there was something wrong with the movie! Bingo, other customer had the same complain. Then I decided to try another movie and had to call support again, which by the way was quite knowledgeable and attentive. I could not download the movie. Here's where I decided I would not use the service again: they recommend that I disabled my firewall (ZoneAlarm) to download it! Even after I did that, it didn't work. The problem seemed to be that I was on my home network on a LinkSys router. They asked me to bypass the router, hook the computer to the cable modem directly and it worked! Here's my complain: I never had to do that for anything, from my company's VPN to my other download services. So if I have to tweak my network/router just to use their service, they've lost a customer. Well, maybe that was just me!
I really liked the idea of being able to download a movie and watch it on my PC, without having to wait for it to come in the mail (NetFlix) or drive to my local video store twice (to pick up and to drop off). I watch the DVDs on my computer anyway, so it doesn't bother me that I don't use a big screen.
But they need to at least work on that download issue and enhance their website (at least include a search button) before I could use their services on a regular basis.
Hope this is helpful to you folks!
Slashdot welcomes reader features and reviews -- thanks to Ismenio for this one.
I have an answer to movie distribution! (Score:4, Funny)
*cough* kazaa *cough*
Re:I have an answer to movie distribution! (Score:1)
Not ready until... (Score:5, Interesting)
A good application for MiniITX and LinuxBIOS? [mini-itx.com]
Re:Not ready until... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not ready until... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a non-IE friendly site, though
Re:Not ready until... (Score:1)
not supporting mac os x is sucky (Score:5, Insightful)
Off topic?!!? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Its a valid critisim about the service which is reviewed.
linux realplayer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:linux realplayer (Score:1)
Unless maybe you can DL it with the windows client and then play it through linux, but from what he wrote, that seems unlikely as well...
Trust Us! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like they need to upgrade their spyware.
Re:Trust Us! (Score:2)
(hint: start checking
I did some research on their video quality (Score:5, Informative)
Bottomline is:
320 x 240 video resolution in Real Video 8, 700 kbit/s constant bitrate, thereof 64 kbit/s for audio - JUST DOESN'T CUT IT.
A DivX of the same movie had something like 584x304 in resolution and was only 25% larger in size.
Nevertheless their download manager worked flawlessly for me and I got download speeds of 250 kbytes/sec. The movie had arrived after 35 minutes.
Video quality was fair, even though the low resolution killed some details.
Bottomline is: Whoever they hired for video encoding just doesn't make the job right.
For comparison... (Score:2)
Duration: 1:49:43
Audio Bit Rate: 190k
Video Size: 720x480
File Size: 1 gig (1,079,824,384 bytes)
Re:For comparison... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me guess. You added the original AC3 soundtrack
to the DivX?
Is it REALLY necessary to go beyond the size of
an 800 Meg CD-R ?
Re:For comparison... (Score:2)
Re:For comparison... (Score:2, Insightful)
AHMEN Brother!
Who wants to download an 800 MB movie whose quality sucks a** just because someone wanted to save 1-200 MB to squeeze it onto a CDR.
Ok, some of you do. I don't.
.
Re:For comparison... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then why don't you use Vorbis -q3 audio instead? About 128 kbps and comparable quality to 192k MP3.. For a movie I think q3 might even go down to an average of less than 100kbps while keeping the same quality because many parts are almost silent and very easy to encode compared to music.. MP3 is outdated and sucks... You can also gain quite a few bits by using OGM instead of the bit-eating AVI and get faster and more accurate seeking at the same time..
Re:I did some research on their video quality (Score:2)
Certainly 700kbit is sufficient for DVD resolution, with reasonable artifacts.
You're right. Whoever made those encoding decisions, (codec, resolution, audio bitrate) was stupid.
Re:I did some research on their video quality (Score:2)
What? Does that mean you can't stand watching VHS movies then?
Sheesh. 320 by 240 is quite watchable, despite popular belief.
Bandwith (Score:1)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/23/171
I'd pay $3-4 for new releases via web, but not PPV fodder.
Just slightly off-topic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:1)
Worked great, though I loathe the (at the time) 1.00/ticket "convenience fee." Haven't used it since because of that.
-Robyn
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:3, Informative)
They made you pay more for it?!? That pretty much kills it in my books. I use my toner/ink, my paper, and save them money (less employees), and they CHARGE me for it?
As we say in Canada, "Fuck that noise!"
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:1)
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:1)
I don't like the $1.00 fee, but it's useful when you want to see a new movie that is selling out.
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:2)
Paid for the tickets, took them to the theatre. At the theatre, they told me that I hadn't actually paid for the movie on MovieTickets.com (and I was foolish enough to believe them - maybe they only processed the service charge?).
Anyway, ended up paying twice. Later, I checked my credit card online; I'd paid twice. I went back to the theatre, said I'd been charged twice. They said, "We need to see your credit card statement." So I waited till the end of the month, and then took it back in. "Sorry, we also need to see the MovieTickets.com receipt you printed." So I went back a third time, theatre was closed that afternoon. A fourth time, no manager.
Finally decided that in addition to the $20 that the theatre "stole", I'd wasted half a dozen hours trying to get it back.
Won't use MovieTickets.com, even though it wasn't really their fault. I get back at the theatres by bringing my own food now.
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:2)
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:2)
I WANT RESERVED SEATS! I do not want to have to pay $12 for a ticket to a popular movie only to find that I need to get to the theatre 90 minutes or more before showtime if I want a 1/2 decent seat.
I want to be able to get to the theatre 20-30 minutes before the show starts and get the prime seats that I paid for/reserved.
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:2)
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:1)
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:2)
Even if you just paid by kiosks the only advantage is if, ironically, the method of payment is a brutal failure. If it isn't a failure then you'll have the same lines just transposed over to bar code scanner while some granny with a dot matrix printer tries incessantly to get it to read her smudge print (well I suppose that would be more the realm of inkjets).
Definitely silly idea in my opinion. I have no doubt that they're gushing money out on those ads, and getting very little response.
Re:Just slightly off-topic (Score:2)
With that trick, you can probably even skip the web site.
At least in at the Union Station megaplex in Washington DC, there's always a long line for the ticket windows, and never a single person using the pay-by-credit-card machine. Just walk up, stick in the card, grab your ticket - which looks exactly like the one you get from the long-line window - and saunter on in to the theater. Buying the ticket then and there just takes three more screen pokes than collecting a pre-paid ticket - surely less effort than the web site. And there's no $1 fee. Unless you think the movie is going to be sold out more than 15 minutes prior to showing (which in a sleepy burg like DC is what, opening weekend from 7-10pm?), there's no point using the internet.
So, uh... (Serious questions) (Score:3, Insightful)
Once you download the movie you have to be connected to start playing it. That's because you have to "authenticate" yourself.
So, when the service goes away and there's no one out there to do the authenication, then what? And, if the file you downloaded and paid for is corrupt, do you get your money back or are you told, "Oh, gee, that's a bummer, sorry"? Do you pay once for unlimited views, or is this a one time view per download? If you only get to watch it once per pay, do they let you just pay again or force you to download all over again?
Re:So, uh... (Serious questions) (Score:1)
What I want to know is, so what? If you use the service, chances are pretty damn good you have cable/dsl/t1, and have an always-on connection in the first place.
What? How can you ask that? (Score:1, Informative)
Plus he made it clear that the file didn't work several times, and the customer service was excellent. Your second question is already answered.
Re:So, uh... (Serious questions) (Score:2)
Some more info... (Score:4, Informative)
Router Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, it's a pain that you have to tweak things for software to work, but you really need to know what you're getting into with things like routers and firewalls -- with security comes the loss of features.
Instead of connecting the modem directly to your PC, you can set your router to have your PC as a DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) host. Basically, this forwards all ports to your computer. Once you have a connection, you can take a look at what ports are being used, and forward just those. The problem is that some software, such as ICQ, use random ports for connecting.
Nice idea (Score:1)
Re:Nice idea (Score:2)
Why does this sound so much like the typical windows usage, trying to hit 90% of the market?
Ooops, can't say the "W" word, I'll just say "transparent crystalline structure for viewing"
Meanwhile I *might* continue to purchase VHS videos if/when Hollywood puts out something that I feel is worth it.
What investors need to know before they invest: (Score:5, Interesting)
You forgot: (Score:2)
If it's a viable business, VCs won't find it "risky" enough, therefore no "potential". This is just how they work, and it's why there's an awful lot of office space available on Sand Hill Rd right now.
I refuse to believe we're in a recession as long as there's still money around to throw at this kind of thing.
No Such Thing As Protected (Score:1, Informative)
Re:No Such Thing As Protected (Score:2, Insightful)
> or a movie that can only play once. If you can
> play it, you can use a screen capture program to
> capture the video.
Not entirely true for high resolution. Your AGP port simply won't allow to capture the video in realtime.
An AGP benchmarking utility for read performance is available somewhere on the site www.seriousmagic.com
The easiest way to capture the video would be to route the video-out of your graphics board into a capture card. That's an analog solution, but it works.
DivX? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DivX? (Score:2)
Re:DivX? (Score:1)
Re:DivX? (Score:2)
Shaw (Canada) has the $h17 (Score:4, Interesting)
And at the beginning of last month (Octobre) they opened a new service called shawondemand (www.shawondemand.net) where you can order a movie by the internet and as long as you have internet and digital cable through them (I know... *cough* monopoly). You can order a movie online, and watch it through your calbe box hooked up to your TV INSTANTLY. It has play, pause, rew. ff. and all the basic features, you also get it for 24 hours to play as many times as you want.
The only quams (sp?) that I have about the service is the lack of new titles they have (sure they got LOTR, Blade II, 40 days/nights/ and bunch other titles, But you watch a movie a month, and that's all on there list thats appealing. oh, also all the adult you can imagine, that rivals there normal movies), and the lack of widescrean. But all in all, it's a cool service here, also you can watch music videos, trailers and stuff for there videos for free.
It'll be nice to see how there new revisions are the service go.
CowboyNeal ROCKS!
-isolenz
Re:Shaw (Canada) has the $h17 (Score:2)
That's where all the money is made. For a regular movie, revenue is $4 or so, and it takes two hours, so about $2/hr. For an adult movie, revenue is $6 or more, and average watching time is _about 15 minutes_. => $24 per hour, or 12X what they make off Hollywood pictures. In addition, the cable operator pays a smaller share of that $6 to the content provider than they do of the $4 to Hollywood. Once again, pr0n leads the way.
Re:Shaw (Canada) has the $h17 (Score:2)
Well shit. I'm moving back to Calgary next month. I'll have to check that out. How's the quality?
Not for all, but not bad (Score:1, Interesting)
So MovieLink may not be for all, but it serves my occasional purpose.
This is a good step forward (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is a good step forward (Score:2)
Embracing it? Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't see them as 'embracing' it. I think what they're doing is a half-assed attempt to make a business, then when it fails blame 'piracy' for it. I mean seriously: If they were really embracing it, they'd make a more serious effort to provide what we really want. Instead, they're still locking it up as if we're all thieves.
I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but if the interent were truely embraced as a media delivery channel, then none of us would be interested in owning a DVD player anymore. The internet is an awesome medium to tell a story on. To be honest, I'm stunned that none of the big name moviemakers have jumped on board and blown us away.
This is just the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
Movielink.com doesn't have it quite right yet. Neither does shaw.ca (cable provider) which is starting to do the same thing over your digital-cable box. They have problems with limited selection and play time. Can't say anything about the technical side, as there hasn't been anything I've wanted to see to bother trying. Price is not an issue, they are trying to get people to try it by charging only C$2.00, a real deal when rentals are in the C$5.00 range.
What is needed is selection comparible to a video store, with a reasonable view time (at least 48 hours for new releases, and 7 days for old stuff to mimic the video stores). Quality has to at least equal VHS. As long as the price is competitive, going to the video store is going to become a thing of the past for all but the completely unconnected.
Re:This is just the beginning (Score:2)
Once they get to that stage, bye-bye Blockbuster (unless they're the provider, of course
Re:This is just the beginning (Score:2)
This is just stupid. It's like building a car that uses reins and has a horse head in the front for steering.
In ten years I'm going to have enough storage on my laptop to keep all movies released since 1929. Why would I want to stream stuff and waste bandwidth, or get digital copies that disappear after few days.
A better business model is needed for selling digital works - I'm willing to pay, butI don't want to be subjected to insane control restrictions.
For all I know, not implementing these DRM things will save more money (think, no MS license fees), than would be "lost" to copyright violations.
* You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (Score:1, Troll)
Cons: Only supports Microsoft users
You will need to adjust the following:
You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
The site movielink.com is running Apache/1.3.20 (Unix) secured_by_Covalent/1.5.4 on Linux.
(noted from netcraft.net)
What a bunch of hypocrites they run linux but we cant
Re: * You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (Score:1)
Of course, it just stops while 'checking the selection', presumably because moz/phoenix doesn't support ActiveX and VisualBasic..
(i mean, who really uses <script language='VBScript'> anyway? sheesh!)
Re: * You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (Score:2)
And for a new service it's probably just not cost effective to build a client for 5% of your potential client base when 95% of your potential customers already have the software necessary.
I don't think hypocrite really applies here - they aren't saying "go forth and use Linux" while they use MS. Plus they expect your client to Windows and I'm sure their clients and most workstations are Windows - I doubt if they've gone and built themselves Linux clients just for their use. Linux is their *server* here.
Re: * You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP (Score:2, Informative)
If it makes you feel any better, this is what I get:
Re:Insightful my ass. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Too much too early (Score:4, Insightful)
I was a tester for Movielink... (Score:5, Interesting)
The client purges files 24 hours after they are first viewed or after 30 days of sitting on the hard drive. The process that actually performs the deletion is designed to look like a Microsoft application in the task manager, which I thought was pretty sneaky. However, it's very easy to bypass the deletion by simply killing the process, copying the file, or playing around with the system clock. The client tries to hide the files by giving them random names, making them invisible, etc etc, but as you can imagine, it's not too hard to find a 500 mb file sitting on your hard drive.
Movielink is putting all their money on the DRM that is enabled with each movie file, which supposedly is smart enough to know when the system clock has been messed with. We didn't have any movie files with DRM enabled, so I can't say how well that works. Hopefully for Movielink it performs better than the client itself. Has anyone here who has played with this service also fooled around with the DRM? How fool-proof is it?
Re:I was a tester for Movielink... (Score:2, Insightful)
So even if you bypassed their auto-deletion mechanism, you can still watch the clip only within 24 hours.
So I'd say it is a reasonably secure solution. However one profound DRM hack can make the system obsolete pretty quickly -- that is until Microsoft or real counter with a mandatory client upgrade several weeks later.
Snake oil (Score:1)
You forgot to add ".. on the player that respects license restrictions". No matter how they protect the movie (encrypt it with a key that must be fetched from the movielink server or whatever) it will be unprotected right before it goes into the codec or at some point inside the codec if the codec implements DRM. Anyhow, it will be possible to capture raw data and save it for 'the future use'. Requires varying degree of effort, but it is always doable.
It is all snake oil. If they are not being able to control the data on your machine, they will never be able to control it at all. Period.
That's the main driving factor for shoveling trustworthy computing down the customers throat. Either swallow it, relinquish control over your own hardware and rent movies online OR don't rent movies... Hmmm
Not available to me (Score:2)
cut to the chase (Score:5, Funny)
Check it out. This "reviewer" has 1) a computer, and 2) a broadband connection. As far as I'm concerned, he's a copyright-infringing pirate. I could imagine having one or the other, but BOTH? Put a parrot on his shoulder and you're done.
And he uses something called a "VPN"
Almost as bad as those stinkin' Mac users. They think all you have to do to copy a file is drag & drop. More like Drag & Steal.
If he wants to enjoy digital movies, he should go to a movie theatre.
sounds good, but... (Score:2)
Great idea doomed to failure (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Quality, quality, quality. DIVX is good, but by no means near DVD (or even a good quality VHS). From what I understand, this uses a lower quality compression then DIVX.
2. Co-branding with service providers. As it stands, the movies are delivered to from a remote IP address and the actual transfer of data runs over your pre-existing ISP. With more and more ISPs trying to cap large data transfers, this spells doom for both the consumers and the movie service. On the other hand, there is tremendous untapped bandwidth between the local office of the provider and the end user, espically for cable. Place a good server with a terribyte hdd filled with movies at a C.O., and you end up getting the information to the end user faster (or with better quality) without the added expense of having to run outside to the Internet.
3. Usability. They would have to either a: make it very, very easy to use whatever propritary viewing/authentication scheme, or b: allow the user more flexibility in choosing a media player and authentication system. Somewhere along the line they need to develop a system where you can download the movie and play it whenever the user wanted without having to jump through excessive hoops.
4. Value. At present $3 for a movie for 24 hours, even they could increase the playback quality signifigantly, can't compete with the added features of a DVD or the typical 3-5 day rental period.
5. Selection. If the average consumer were to turn to the Internet to rent movies, they would have to be able to compete by providing a selection of movies that would rival the catalog of a mail order rental service or even a well stocked Blockbuster. (15,000 - 30,000 titles would be a good start).
If somehow they could address all of these issues, I could certinatly see more interest in it, but as it stands now, I doubt we will see anyone getting rich renting movies online, or seeing your local video shop going out of business any time soon.
Re:Great idea doomed to failure (Score:2)
Uh, that's a little excessive, and 30k films probably exceeds the film catalog of all the studios combined. Even Netflix [netflix.com], that wonderful resource of current and classic films that DVD rippers worldwide love so dearly only has 12,000 titles.
I'd like to see more selection as well, but asking for every film ever made two weeks after the service launches is a bit much,
Re:Great idea doomed to failure (Score:2)
Hm, well that's just saying MPEG2 is inferior to MPEG4 which most knowlegeable people might not agree with. Subjective, not into arguing that. I have seen some development implementations of MPEG4 that are amazing, and might be better than MPEG2 (subjectively) but none in current use AFAIK.
But leaving that aside, exactly when have you seen a DIVX that didn't go through MPEG2 compression first? Only example I know are the amazing HDDM (High Def Digital Masters) that you can get on IRC, but I wouldn't say they are markedly better than a DVD...about the same to my eyes.
Your experience of Divx is probably one of these: a SCR (Divx compression of a TV cap or VHS), DVDSCR (been through MPEG2 already), TS/TC (not even in the same league) or a DVD Rip (again, already been MPEG2 compressed.) Where have you had the opportunity to compare a Divx encode and an MPEG2 encode of the same asset?
If you have a $150,000 Digibeta machine and are referring to Digibeta cammed stuff, then maybe you have an argument. But the only Divx I ever saw that was slightly better than the equivalent DVD was the HDDM of Vertical Limit.
What i thought (Score:3, Interesting)
Prices: Compared to DVD rental at blockbuster... movielink is sometimes more expensive. You dont even get close to DVD quality. There is a convenice factor in the price and i expect that.
Quailty: Movie link is really poor. i dont like movies that are 320x240 standard. I did email them about this. they told me that in the near future they will make available widescreen movies. Hopefully at a res higher than 320x240.
Serivice: This is probably where they score the highest. I had no trouble paying for and downloading the movie i wanted to watch. I had mistyped my email address when i signed up and customer service made it really easy for me to fix that.
So in the end. I really think that movielink has potential. If they get less afraid that someone will copy thier movies.
Quality really sucks (Score:1)
A decent first attempt, actually (Score:3, Insightful)
The problems that have been mentioned are encoding quality, audio quality, picture size, proprietary up the wazoo, and limited viewing time. But for their first attempt at this, we really shouldn't have expected anything more, so I actually give this first shaky effort two thumbs up for the try. A few things that we can reasonably layout for future attempts:
- Limited viewing time: This isn't really bad at all. Maybe the 24-hour window is (why not 48 or 72 hours?) but remember that you only get a few days at Blockbuster/Hollywood Video too. This is a standard rental model. They're not going to let you keep the movie indefinetely for $3, folks.
- Proprietary format: Whether or not you disagree with proprietary formats and copyright in practice is one thing, but pragmatically speaking, I don't ever expect the studios to release movies in an unencrypted format, especially not with the cheap price of CD-Rs and DVD-Rs now. This is here to stay. That's not to say, however, that a Linux and Mac player couldn't be built, or that the player source code (minus the decryption codecs) couldn't be made open...
- Quality: The Slashdot crowd has access to lots and lots and lots of bandwidth, unlike most of the rest of the world. As such, the ~200K streaming rate they're talking about is all most people can sustain right now.
In summary, I think this is a great first-try for the movie studios. There's much room to improve, but we ought to at least congratulate them on starting to embrace the Internet as a viable means for content distribution, and not simply a ship full of pirates.Re: Quality comments (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, but this doesn't have to mean bad quality. Take a look at the VP3 codec [vp3.com] (that's being wrapped into OGG as we speak) at 200k/sec, and you'll see you can get really close to NTSC quality with 200k/sec. And that's full screen, widescreen will look even better because there's less vertical picture information to compress.
Re:A decent first attempt, actually (Score:2)
Pissing ISPs off (Score:5, Insightful)
Boy, this should really piss off American ISPs who complain about a small percentage of users using up most of the bandwidth.
I maintain that businesses such as Movielink won't be able to really take off until they have the blessing of the major ISPs. ISPs need to either say "use all you want" or "you're being capped: be frugal".
No Mac OS X or Linux support? (Score:2)
That would be the US... (Score:2)
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/29
Re:No Mac OS X or Linux support? (Score:2)
So, in short, they are a lame company, and it shows.
Let me add my reasons why this will fail... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bandwidth ? (Score:2, Interesting)
My Movielink rant/review (Score:3, Interesting)
Last night I felt like watching a pay-per-view movie. So I switched on the tv and there was nothing but crap on. Then I thought of what movie I should download from kazaa but that wouldn't be done for a couple days at least. So then I figured I would give Movielink a try. Its a service that lets you download new movies for $4 a pop and old ones for $2.
So I download and pay for We Were Soldiers. The download app informs me that I have 30 days to start watching it, and then 24 hours to watch it once I start it. That's a decent amount of time for a pay per view price. So every thing is smooth up till I start watching it. The video and audio quality is worse than most downloads from kazaa. The sound is sometimes tinny and is very quite when its just talking, extremely loud during action scenes. The video quality also blows. Its very blurry if your sitting close to your monitor, it looks ok from 6 feet but not perfect..
Bottom line is that its not worth $4 for shitty movies that you have to sit in your computer chair for 2 hours to watch.
More Downsides... (Score:2, Informative)
First of all, not everyone has broadband. There are still alot of users (me included) that are stuck on dial-up due to lack of speed by Comm companies to get the ball rolling. I was once told that DSL would be available within three months by Verizon. One year later, I'm still waiting for DSL. And while Adelphia has done a better job with their PowerLink cable service, it still hasn't reached my town (but is available five miles away: anyone know where we can get some cheap WiFi repeaters?) yet.
The second big deterrant is the fact that this service is limited to Windoze. Can you say DRM is a bad thing? I can. The fact that this service isn't available to *nix, MacOSX (not sure about 9.x and below) or BSD users. Screw that. It's about freedom of choice.
Then there are the network troubles mentioned in the article. Even with broadband, we're expected to compromise our network security and configuration just to download a movie? BS. For the 50 minutes (give or take) that we would have to sit there waiting for the movie to come down, our networks could be compromised. I'm sure alot of us aren't willing to sacrifice the security and structure we spent money and time to build up.
The watch limit is horrible. Just 24 hours? I'd rather drive to my local movie shack and rent a VHS copy which I can keep for a few days. The reccomendation of 5 days in the review would be much better, and worth the pains taken to download it.
Having to connect to authenticate is a bit of a pain, especially for mobile users. After all, you're not going to go WarDriving or pay for special access to a WiFi network just to watch a movie. That adds to the cost, something we economically-minded users don't like. Even open WiFi networks aren't that sound of a notion, because they're not quite available everywhere. While it may be a necessary evil to prevent piracy, it's also a pain in the arse...
I don't think I'll be renting movies from this service anytime soon, if ever. I'd much rather wait for a DVD release and shell out $20 to own it for the rest of my life. Wany my opinion? Screw this...
Picky picky picky (Score:5, Insightful)
We're all the equivalent of Mac users, and when people snap back "Macs are only 5% of the userbase, who the hell cares about them?" you might think of
Think for a moment how hard it is to build a service like Movielink. Many posters have discussed the technical aspects. Divx or MS/Real? Well, most PCs can play the latter, only geeks play the former at the moment. Jeez, Divx wasn't even legal till they got rid of 3.x code.
What about bitrate? The developers had to balance quality vs download time. Yeah, I have a huge pipe, so gimme a 1.5gb DVDIVX or SVCD, I have no problem waiting. My Movielink download took 15 minutes. But many don't have the bandwidth many
I won't even get into the DRM swamp. Yeah, all DRM can be hacked, no shit. But the question is, how do you make a relatively painless, somewhat protected experience that won't encourage mass copying and trading by people who can't hack a video driver or run screen capure video software to a gigantic drive?
Then add another few dozen issues: delivery architecture, bandwidth costs...how about windowing? Know what that is?
Movies are released in 'windows:' the first being Theatrical. Forget about seeing VOD in the Theatrical window anytime soon. Too many political issues to deal with, and besides, no one wants to fuck with box office revenue.
Lots of other windows, Airline, PPV, Home Video (Movielink's window), HBO (when no other entity other than HBO can show the film), Broadcast.
So, if you were planning Movielink, how do you offer content that is in a window that appeals to most people, but doesn't piss off your business partners ? (HBO, MSO's, Wal-Mart, etc...) Not so simple.
And remember, Movielink is not a single entity, but a joint venture of five Hollywood studios. Do you have any concept of what it must be like to get five studios to agree on anything? Remember, every movie encode has to be approved by the studio, plus the director, producer and talent. A fucking nightmare scenario. Add that to five sets of movie execs, each who want to put their own stamp on the business, and increase their own revenue.
Now, build a technology that all five sets of movie execs approve, that all five sets of movie execs agree will generate revenue, that all five are willing to commit their most precious resource: their intellectual property.
Now, make it so that the geeks on
Anyone remember what AOL looked like as they changed from Quantum Link (C64/128 only) to a mass market business? It sucked. Remember the first weeks of Amazon and all those 404s? Every business has growing pains and Movielink will have more than most.
Give it a chance.
My test results (and attempts at circumvention) (Score:4, Interesting)
In summary: not very. As someone mentioned previously, the file (along with the DRM license keys) sits in a folder (the default location is C:\Program Files\Movielink\MovielinkManager\data\content). But be careful! It has a warning in this folder - "_Please_Do_NOT_Delete_Or_Change_Any_Files_From_T
Once I found the file I copied it to one of my other drives, RAR'd it, and then burned it to a CD-R so I could "play" with it after it expired.
Flash forward...24 hours are up...the file in C:\Program Files\Movielink\MovielinkManager\data\content is deleted automagically by their client app. I attempt to play the file - no love. Of course, since they use DRM which requires a "phone home" to play it, it doesn't work. I tried setting the clock back - no love. All is lost? Well..maybe...I did some googling and all I could come up with was an app that removed DRM from WMA (A for Audio, not V for Video) files that use DRM version 2 (it was written by "Beale Screamer" back in Oct. 2001)...I queued up the app (FreeMe.exe) and unfortunately I didn't have any luck...the new keys are longer and Microsoft has since fixed the "bug" that FreeMe.exe exploited at that time.
In the end...I was thwarted...I could only watch my movie for the 24 hours I paid for ($5 to boot, arrrr!)...I guess it is back to NetFlix / DivX
Amusing: Clockstoppers preview. (Score:2)
Movie buff... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would never go for a deal like this, even if it supported MacOS X.
I have gotten to the point where I only rent a movie a few times *a year*. Owning is far easier. Blockbuster is slowly catching on to the idea that the used DVD market is going to be huge, similar to the new VHS market (and the VHS rental industry as it used to be). New DVD sales are also going to be large. Walk into any Bolockbuster and notice the growth in their used and new DVD for sale sections.
I buy most of my movies on DVD for about $8-$10, and most of my movies on VHS for $3-$6. Compare these prices against a one-time watch fee of $3, with quality that probably approaches VHS on my nice television.
My thoughts - I would rather buy a movie for 2x-3x what it coest to rent provided I have a decent notion that the movie is watching more than once. If that is the case, the cost to buy competes directly with renting it ($8 to buy a DVD, or rent twice for $4 each time).
(As far as watching movies in the theater goes - I justify that since the theater has things to offer than I cannot get at home - a huge screen and an atmosphere of being at the theater)
An answer to online distribution.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course this will never happen, because Hollywood is sickeningly corrupt and gluteonously wealthy enough to pay for laws that make them richer. So there's only one option left: boycott.
Vote with your dollars.
Re:An answer to online distribution.. (Score:2)
I don't quite understand what Hollywood's large rear ends have to do with copyright law, but I agree with you. I guess.
B)
Re:An answer to online distribution.. (Score:2)
The US can sell those movies many times over, and if screwing "The World" gets you more than screwing "Your Countrymen" then the bozos have a case.
Cinemanow is better (Score:2)
Not true! (Score:3, Insightful)
HELLO? The downloader/player program is software running on open hardware. All copy protection schemes for information are inherently crackable, but these kinds should be easy for a competent software engineer with access to good debugging tools. I can't wait for these to start appearing on the net, in ogg multimedia containers no less.
Netflix Killer? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This seems like a general trend... (Score:1)
Re:This seems like a general trend... (Score:2)
Although I agree with most of what you have to say about braggarts, I think your argument holds a lot less water than it would if you used proper grammar. Don't be so quick to judge.
Hate to tell you this... (Score:1)
Re:Only for Americans (Score:2)
Maybe instead of determining eligibilty via IP address, they should ask "who won the world series in 1940?", like they do in those old war movies, when they're trying to determine if someone is a spy
Hmm, you're in Japan, and you're a Marine..
Who DID win the world series in 1940?