BT has signed up for Universal's movie download package. The deal will allow the telco to sell PC-only full-length films online from the end of this month. It's essentially the same package UK online video reseller Lovefilm.com announced in March this year. Some 150 Universal titles will be made available to downloaders, who can pay to receive not only a PC-friendly copy but a PMP-formatted version too. A copy of the original DVD will be sent to them through the post.
View: The full story
News source: The Reg
View: The full story News source: The Reg
I really can't see the point of this, paying a premium for a DVD just so you can immediately receive a DRM'd WMV. Would anyone else here use it?
I guess there must be plenty with all those itunes subscribers out there. Not for me though, I don't mind waiting a couple of days for a far cheaper method.
Can i stream high quality videos and watch them?
Can they really give me a constant high speed connection?
Films get distributed through their own software, and both the PC and the handheld versions get downloaded at the same time, but you can stop the download of the handheld version if you don't want it. Each film will cost between 8,90€ (catalog films) and 16,95€ (new films). They're DRMd and will only work on one PC, the one you downloaded them to. Windows XP and WMP9 required to play the PC version, and an Archos AV500/AV700 or a Creative Zen Vision and WMP10 for the handheld one. They said that a full-length movie will be downloaded in about 2 hours with a 1Mbps connection, but you can start watching them after 15 minutes, while the rest of the movie is still downloading.
The first film available will be King Kong, and will cost 16,95 € for the film only. The collectors' edition version (2 DVDs with lots of extras) costs 18€, so IMO this download service is way too abusive. You get a low quality DRM'd copy of a film for the same you can get a boxed DVD.
I don't know if it was clear in that article, but we don't get the DVD using this method. That article seems to refer to Lovefilm.com when talking about getting a copy of the retail DVD.
Last edited by xose on 26 Jul 2006 - 14:18
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