Tesco and Microsoft plan virtual DVDs
MICROSOFT AND TESCO are working together to launch virtual DVDs.
Starting this Autumn the virtual DVDs will come packaged along with real DVDs, but thanks to the intervention of Microsoft's Silverlight will grant buyers access to an additional range of movie extras that can be viewed on a PC or a Mac.
In order to view the enhanced version of the film, purchasers will have to download a new copy which presumably is only really free if you have a large and flexible download allocation with your ISP.
Meanwhile the extras sound mostly uninteresting and avoidable, ranging from film trailers to ringtones and networked games. It's probably safe to assume that they will also feature anti-piracy warnings and pitches for grocery purchases, but we cannot guarantee this.
Gabriele Di Piazza, senior director for the Media and Entertainment business in the Communications Sector at Microsoft said, "We believe this alliance will offer consumers the opportunity to download a digital copy that is truly the equivalent of a physical disk (sic) - with the same package of navigation, bonus features and director commentaries."
Which is a bit odd when you remember that you have to buy a physical disc in order to get your hands on the virtual one. We think it's all just a daft scheme to make people use Microsoft's proprietary Silverlight streaming video format and will fail miserably.
Selected DVD and Blu-ray titles with the extra features will go on sale in Tesco shortly. According to a Microsoft statement they will include a 'similar' level of video quality to real DVD discs. µ
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So while everyone screams for downloadable content, this is their answer. go to ehe store anyway to buy it then download it?
These directors and there stupid ideas are absolutely pathetic.
Time for them to realise, until they solve the downloadable content, peeps will do it by torrent/newsgroups.
Who in the world would want to stream the same content when they already own the hard copy?
So now I get to keep a useless pile of plastic keys in order to unlock my online content.
Truly evolutionary.
This helps me how?
I rip and convert all my DVDs to DivX so I can take them anywhere and play them on almost anything. Both my component and portable DVD players can read my FAT32 1TB hard-drive and play any movie in my collection by remote control. M.S. can't do that for me. NO DRM scheme can do that for me.
M.S. needs to take their DRM and all it's associated poo & poo-people, pack them into a nice hand-basket and go to straight to hell.
SilverShite
"...thanks to the intervention of Microsoft's Silverlight will grant buyers access to an additional range of movie extras that can be viewed on a PC or a Mac."
Is anybody actually interested enough to bother about that sh1t? It smacks of some marketing drone trying to justify his/her existence withouht having the foggiest. Hey this will be so cool, dude! Everybody will want this." Sure...
This isn't cheaper than piracy and this isn't easier than piracy.
Well piracy means free advertisement, no wonder why they encourage it so much.
People don't tend to go to torrents because they want to steal stuff, it just tends to be more convenient.
They need to come up with a torrent system where the show and movie makers come up with "approved" torrents, maybe avis or something with little frame tags that trigger commercials at some point, unless you own the content. No DRM, because that's the reason most people discovered torrents in the first place. You might download a gig or three of commercials when you first sign up, and they'd get updated periodically to suit what's going on at that time. You wouldn't have to upload back, but you might get 1 or 2 cents of cash for every gig you manage to upload of the content. And since you wouldn't need to encrypt most of the stuff, they could improve the system to where the client would try to download and upload to someone nearby, maybe even on the exact same node in town.
That would be absolutely wonderful and would work great. And that's the precise reason it's not going to happen.