Real Network launches legal movie download service

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Thanks Waqas. Could it be under the influence of the supposingly successful iTunes music store that pushes Real Network to come up with a $12.95/month service for full-lenght film downloads?

Hoping to repeat with movies the success it has enjoyed with music, RealNetworks Inc. today is expected to announce a $12.95-per-month subscription service that allows downloading an unlimited number of recent, full-length films to laptops or PCs.

The new service, called Starz! Ticket on Real Movies, offers 100 movies at a time, chosen online using RealNetworks' RealPlayer 10. Subscribers can download any number of movies at once, to as many as three computers.

The movies remain playable for up to six weeks, after which they automatically delete themselves from the computer's hard drive. About 25 new movies become available each week, as 25 others go out of circulation

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News source: Seattle PI

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(3 replies) #1 HoochieMamma on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:32

Why dont they take a hint and just DIE, nobody likes their crappy Real format. DivX/XviD all the way

#1.1 bangbang023 on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:38

Go troll somewhere else. There are people who like RealPlayer.

#1.2 raid517 on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:39

Well it possibly might not be too long before someone defeats whatever DRM management scheme they are using anyway - then it really could be DIVX and XVID all the way - if that really is what you prefer.

GJ

#1.3 rogerroger on 14 Jun 2004 - 18:30

QUOTE

No there's not. I just shot him!

#2 bangbang023 on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:39

This is definitely interesting. Really, while you don't get to keep movies as long as you do with NetFlix, this is alot more convenient. The only thing that bothers me is that movies don't stay available to download and eventually get replaced.

#3 offroadaaron on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:53

hate real so much other crap that goes with it

(1 reply) #4 YaZoR on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:57

BUFFERING...

#4.1 Jugalator on 14 Jun 2004 - 14:01

80% complete...

90% complete...

100% complete...

- As you can see, we've had our eye *chop* on you for some time *chop* now, Mr. Ande *chop*

Buffering...

10% complete...

20% complete...

#5 cork1958 on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:59

Another last ditch effort from Real to save their rear ends. They know they're sinking fast. If it wasn't bundled with everything from AOHELL, it would already be dead.

#6 Tartan on 14 Jun 2004 - 12:59

Someone will come up with a converter which will resave it indefinatley...ie no six week deletion etc.

(1 reply) #7 nexx on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:01

"No adult-rated movies will be available"

Whats the point then?

#7.1 betax on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:09

I feel your pain man.

(2 replies) #8 NeoSoft on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:02

Come on, they deleted themselves after six weeks? What the hell? Hope Apple comes out with something that will counter this, but doesn't deleted itself after a period of time. Once we purchase a movie, we should be able to keep the damn thing!

#8.1 betax on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:08

Its like a subscription rental service with no rental fees and the movies automatically 'return' themselves. Its not like you pay-per-film.

#8.2 NeoSoft on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:58

I know that, but I never rent a movie ... that's pointless and expensive! Why rent a movie for $4 everytime you want to watch it, when you can buy it for $15 and watch it every day for the rest of your life?

And besides that, RealNetworks' sucks! So it will be a terrible service for more than one reason!

#9 aaron901 on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:11

if there's no that "self destruction" thingy i'd join it in a heart beat.

#10 Fragaday on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:17

On the face of it this doesnt seem to be a bad deal at all, when you think about it. Download as many as you want, six weeks later they stop working, ok, presumably this is to stop people just collecting everything as they rotate the selection... I assume that at the end of the 6 weeks, if that movie was still in rotation, it could just be redownloaded immediately...

Now if only it weren't Real

#11 georgi55 on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:36

Still buffering...

(1 reply) #12 TheReaperMan on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:53

... your copy of real player is outdated please update..... still buffering....

#12.1 georgi55 on 14 Jun 2004 - 13:54

QUOTE (#12.0)

Did anyone notice that now RealPlayer actually says communicating....than buffering?
At least it did on mine when I tried (and of course failed) to watch some 1 minute clip.

#13 belto on 14 Jun 2004 - 14:34

Not available to you at this time. I live in Europe and I have RealPlayer Super Pass. Every other service they offer is restrticted to linving in the USA. Yes, I forgot only the USA watches movies! Sorry. I am also a US Citizen!

(2 replies) #14 bangbang023 on 14 Jun 2004 - 14:44

Sometimes I wish the age limit of this site was raised to 18, just to get rid of half you prepubescent banwagon whore trolls who try to compensate for your lack of manhood and maturity by going around bashing every piece of software that someone, along the line, also hated.

#14.1 theLANDofSMEG on 14 Jun 2004 - 15:41

It's not about "manhood", It's about a company that piggy-backed on Microsoft, who back in the day included RealAudio with Windows 95, and at the time was a revolutionary idea to use buffers to stream content consistantly without jutter over a network, and then after content providers jumped onboard to Real's server side technologies and licensing, Real Networks expanded to RealVideo all merry and well, and then stabbed everyone in the back.

They stabbed everyone in the back by:

- Lacing their client-side software with Spyware that monitors media content that is created on the local machine and then tracks it with it's Media Library fuctions,

- Adds a 'Real Message Center' which is a component that runs on an unsuspecting users' computer at startup, with not even a system tray icon, and that pops up 'Service Messages' which is code for Spam every 2-3 hours and is very unclear to disable from within Real Player... and if you find the option to disable it, it will give you a scary warning that you won't recieve blah blah blah.

-Changed every media format that Real is capable of playing's extensions to be associated with real on a default install, and a custom install made it very time consuming to manually have to untick all the formats without being able to use keyboard shortcuts, and any format that didn't have an associated format anyway was associated with Real regardless, and all the icons for even unticked media files were changed to Real icons.

Now all while having their client side software laced with not only spyware, spam sending devices and File hijacking, it had adware all over the application (referring to Real Player 8 here) to just about every premium content provider out there and ads to upgrade to 'Real Player Plus' and 'Real Player Platnum' on every click you did. Granted, I hear that their Real Player Plus and Platnum players arn't that bad, dispite that buying them means you've lost because Real have achieved their objective- Annoy you enough to pony up some cash into their already fat from licensing pockets- and you've lost to a very shady company.

Now do you know why it's not about "manhood" but rather a company that nobody trusts because of these issues? Now you know not every decision revolves around gender assets.

#14.2 bangbang023 on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:27

Have you used Real 10? They know they screwed up and their latest release shows that they are willing to learn from their mistakes. Half of these kids here go around bashing AOL, MS, Real, and whoever else they see someone else bashing with no actual basis for their beliefs.

(1 reply) #15 MK. on 14 Jun 2004 - 15:36

The price sounds good, but the fact that it's all in Real format does not. They'll probably only have second-rate new releases anyway.

#15.1 FuhrerDarqueSyde on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:03

yeah, and the lack of good conversion tools sucks too

(1 reply) #16 realmccoy on 14 Jun 2004 - 16:04

Has anyone given the service a try yet?

#16.1 psykil on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:06

"RealNetworks Inc. today is expected to ANNOUNCE a $12.95-per-month subscription service"

(2 replies) #17 mrk on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:02

buffering? ive been on 600K cable and now 750K cable for some years now and have not seen reaplayer (now version 10) buffer anything spontaniously at all since switching from 56K - some of you guys musthave bad connections or at least not have RP copnfigured properly, its a nice format and streams very well from my experience

Now if these movies delete themselves after so and so weeks then the easy thing to do is to simply use video out or an external recording program/hardware to record it to another format such as xvid or a dvd :p - then just rip it back to the pc

#17.1 FuhrerDarqueSyde on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:04

also depends on load of server and internet line conditions in your area and the area of the server

#17.2 georgi55 on 14 Jun 2004 - 18:20

QUOTE (#17.0)

at least not have RP copnfigured properly

configure? Why? All other streaming players I know never need any kind of configuration, even Apple's quick time that I hate as much as real player

#18 realmccoy on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:43

How can you get buffering problems if you download the file to your hard drive?

Article quote:
The movies remain playable for up to six weeks, after which they automatically delete themselves from the computer's hard drive.

(3 replies) #19 jadkins on 14 Jun 2004 - 17:55

I am trying the two week trial right now. Oddly enough, I hated Real until trying RealPlayer 10 and have fallen in love with it. I have downloaded Pirates of the Carinbean so far and am about to play the movie to see what the quality is like. So far, so good though...

#19.1 bangbang023 on 14 Jun 2004 - 18:00

Thank you for at least rtying it out before bashing it. Shows a level of maturity that is hard to find around here, at times. Report back with more info.

#19.2 jadkins on 14 Jun 2004 - 18:03

The quality seems like digital cable quality almost. Try out the tial yourself though, don't take my word for it. I already have Starz on satellite so I may end my trial after 14 days, but if I didn't I would for sure subscribe at about $13/month.

you also get access the the Starz channel (live) through RealPlayer 10 as well. Some things aren't viewable, but most are.

#19.3 bangbang023 on 14 Jun 2004 - 19:13

I might just give it a whirl. I'm just not much of a movie guy since of my unofficial A.D.D. lol.

#20 bilbobaggins on 14 Jun 2004 - 18:27

I don't like the idea that somebody I don't know (well, just another company) makes a sw (one of the many) which I can't trust (knowing nothing about its internals, yes its the linux guy speaking) which after sime time deletes some stuff from my drives.

Reads like some really spicey malware to me

Whatever, I will never pay to noone who wants full write access to my hard drives to delete what it wishes. Not that I wouldn't want to use a similar service. I just wait for someone who can offer me what I am willing to accept.

What I would really much like to see and use is a pay/view online movie watching service on broadband. That would be something I would pay for.

I don't want to keep those darn movies, I just want to watch them. The DVD's are what I collect, I don't care for divx/xvid/realvideo/wmv/etc rips, that's for amateurs and warez l33ts.

#21 DJNeuphoria on 14 Jun 2004 - 21:16

The site certainly looks good. I can't see the problem with REAL to be honest. Just got their latest player installed after using Real One and there is a fair bit of good free content. The short interview with Quentin Tarantino I'm watching atm for example.

I've just hooked up with a new 0% CC in the UK so I might try this out when the card arrives tommorow!

#22 virtorio on 14 Jun 2004 - 22:27

Half the fun of buying a DVD is to put it on your shelf so it can gather dust.

But I am sure some people will use it, and be more than happy with it. I just hate watching movies on a computer.

I personally perfer recent RealPlayer releases to QuickTime.

#23 chacho on 14 Jun 2004 - 23:24

wow, i could have guessed what most of this thread would be like just from seeing the Real icon...

"just die"
"nobody likes you"
"buffering"
"hey, real10 isnt that bad..."
...and then the few intelligent posts.

#24 deiong15 on 15 Jun 2004 - 05:52

ill wait until its in another format.. Real POS streams are so pixelated and fuzy and huge files seizw wise its pointless to bother. buffers twice as long as it should. plus there media player is teh most bloughted pos on the market.

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