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Downloadable Movies

This was such a terrific bit of snark from my favorite tech blog, GMSV, that I had to reproduce it in total:

Only Hollywood in its 20th century box could conceive of a digital distribution model for films that bleeds away all consumer advantage and  convenience while preserving the economies that guarantee the industry higher margins.  Facing intense pressure from Apple and others eager to distribute online, the major Hollywood studios have finally embraced digital distribution.

Today, Movielink and CinemaNow, tinsel town's two movie-download services, will begin offering us the ability to download and own films from the Internet on the same day that they are released on DVD.  But those films will cost significantly more than their DVD counterparts (newer releases on Movielink are priced between $20 and $30) and they won't contain extras that are typically included on the disks. Worse, the downloads can't be burned onto disks that can be played on other devices, such as DVD players and gaming consoles. Sure, you can burn a backup DVD of the movie and keep it for as long as you care to on your computer. But if you'd like to watch it on your TV, you must connect the two, which can be a real inconvenience when the devices are in separate rooms. Nice, eh? Leave it to Hollywood to offer consumers less while charging them more for it.

Of course, Hollywood doesn't see it that way. "This really is a transformative moment in the distribution of filmed entertainment content," Paramount Digital Entertainment President Thomas Lesinski said. "Hollywood has finally made a real commitment to sell films online and embrace the digital consumer." The Internet really has come of age, hasn't it?

And the downloads will be extra slow to simulate waiting in line . .  .

via GMSV

Tuesday, May 02, 2006 | 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (1)
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Comments

Idiots. Yeah, I'll pay more when I can stroll down to WalMart and get a better, more useful product for less money and much faster than waiting for the download, plus pick up some cheap chinese plastic trinkets while I'm there, stop by the liquor store on the way home, and play it on my widescreen LCD tele instead of a 19" computer monitor.

No single person can be this stupid. This has to be the work of a committee.

Posted by: Alaskan Pete | May 2, 2006 6:50:53 PM