- Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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You have to pay eternal attention to developments that could become a 10X factor in your business - Andy Grove - Only the Paranoid Survive
Ghostbusters released on USB stick
MEMORY STICK MAKER PNY has come up with a cunning plan to help flog more of its rapidly-aging 2GB USB key stock, by teaming up with Sony to pre-load it with the classic movie Ghostbusters.
A few other movies have been pre-loaded on to removable media before – mainly on SD cards and bundled with mobile phones – but this is apparently the first time a full-length studio movie has been (legally) sold on a USB drive.
At first glance this seems like a great idea, the 1984 blockbuster is a brilliant movie and having an extra 2GB of storage dangling on your keyring is always useful.
But then, in a move reminiscent of the PSPs UMD movie range, someone decided to DRM it to the eyeballs and try and charge £30 for the thing. Suddenly the idea loses some of its sparkle.
The DRM system thoughtfully allows you to copy the movie to your computer, but you still have to have the USB key stuck in as the DRM key is built into the drive.
According to PNY, even with the movie on there, there is still enough spare capacity for 1,080 images, or 12 hours of MP4 video or 33 hours worth of MP3s.
Perhaps this is meant to be for all those new kneetop owners who now have nice portable computers with no optical drives in them. Still, at £30 a pop, we can imagine its going to be taking off in a hurry.
If you're still interested you can pick up the gizmo at Argos.
Alternatively you can get Ghostbusters 1 & 2: The Special Editions on DVD for £8.99 and a 2GB USB stick for £5.49 on Play.com and save yourself around half the cash, get the second movie and have a usable memory stick to boot.
Who you gonna call?
Not PNY, that's for sure. µ
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Yah, a difficult choice indeed. Just goes to show ya that the Hollywood types have even less understanding about reality than the computer industry.

First thing I do when I get a new memory stick is take all the pre-loaded crap off it. I buy 'em it for storage, not for the freakin' malware.
This has been the inq community service for the day, we now get back to endorsing paying websites. Good job on the last part, way to stick it to them.
*clicks the confirm order button on Play*

w00t! £9!!

*happy dance*

Thankyou Inq!
Something Like 2 gb stick with 2008 Olympics on it, well maybe bit bigger. notice how use term 1080, making public smile at how cool 1080P is. Thank God I'd Say they got over 1080i,(whats Point?), then churn up 200 Hz Sets, So NO Matter, Public always wants MORE, Clever Stuff for living room. If you want Chuckie goes for The Gold, it should be sales enhancement & then add to media drive. This is More Choke, due to Unreasonable Cost. P.S. 1984 was over 23 years ago & Ghyosts Have NO Life.(Only Breathe)
drashek
Well said Rich.

You buy a piece 'o' memory, then have to spend about an hour of your own life [that you cannot reclaim from the makers...] finding out where to d/l the papware removal tool from on their site.

If I want an app, I go out and buy an app. If I want DRM, I buy a copy of Vista and sign up to iTunes. If I want a movie, I go out and...... I think you get the idea.

shonky.
If the flashdisk has the movie as BONUS and have one simple way to delete the movie than why not. If we pay the movie, than no thx......
Were I to plug this in at my office, I would violate about 5 NDA's and have IT all over my ass for loading unapproved DRM in the corp environment.

This thing needs a DRM warning label.

Hollywood is in fact clueless.
If this was actually a "bonus movie" and with it being Ghostbusters, I may have been tempted to buy this USB stick over another. However seeing as it's £20 extra for this "bonus", it makes it simply a stupid purchase.
DRM aside, they're not even using the full 2 GB of space. Let's assume they're only using 1 GB; that's what, just over the quality of a video CD?

If anyone still has some of those laying around, pull them out and watch them. You'll be surprised to be reminded just how awful they were.
So that's two pieces of Ghostbusters news today, this is one and the other is the new movie (http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=48564)

Shame this thing has restrictions and a high price tag :\
Yeah, but it's not going to encoded as mpeg1. I assume it'll be WMV or something.
first it came out on beta max
then the vhs after that it was 
laserdisc years after that on dvd
following by umd and now on usb
whats next in store for the movie
on the next stage up in digital the entertainment foodchain on an digital keyring and don't forget
soon to be on bluray.


frankie smales

(the daily krypton)