Downloadable Movies from Amazon? 71
StrongGlad writes "Screenshots of what could be an Amazon.com video store in the making surfaced Friday on the Web. Alan Taylor, who claims to have worked for the online retailer more than two years ago, said he discovered the screenshots while poking around an area of Amazon.com used by developers. The screenshots can be seen on Kokogiak.com. The pictures show a service called 'Unbox Video' that offers first time users a free TV show or $1.99 off the first movie they download. Instructions are given for downloading the player and buying movies and video that can be played on a PC, TV or portable media player. Amazon.com has declined to comment."
Great.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:DRM :( (Score:1)
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You mean like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have H.264 and no DR... oh, wait. Or the way the iTMS music files are AAC and no DR... oh, wait again. While your answer is technically correct, the odds of them offering videos for download without a DRM wrapper around H.264 is slim and none and Slim is missing, presumed dead.
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Re:Great.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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This will change everything! (Score:2, Funny)
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apple (Score:5, Interesting)
They still don't get it. (Score:5, Interesting)
But these guys are making the same mistake as movielink. They are charging retail and in many instances for older movies more than retail. Sure you'll make money because some people have plenty of money and would rather not run out to the video store. The rest of us will only use these services when they are cheaper than the video store or they have movies that you can't find anywhere else.
Re:They still don't get it. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Unless of course you could do something completely else with that time... or the video would start playing as soon it had downloaded enough that it'd finish before you.
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In crap quality. That's far from reasonable 0.10 would still be on the greedy side, depending on the format.
Format? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only thing I'm worried about is how proprietary this is gonna be. What's this downloa
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I don't know...it only takes one person to download the paid version, then they can share it out on Bittorrent or whatever.
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However, I know the reason why I'm tempted to download 'illegally' isn't that I just wanna stick it to the man. I mean, these are people that are doing work, just like me, and I can understand why they wanna be paid for it just like anyone else. I just can't afford to pay what they ask most of the time. I know, personally, that if there was a service out there that let me get an original, DVD-quality download at, I dunno, half(?)
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Why would that be? I mean, in theory, yes, without the hassle of the transfer being illegal you can more easily transmit large amounts of data. On the other hand, while on P2P networks, the transmission cost is shared among all peers, a single distributor has to pay for all (or rather half) of the costs. Are the songs from the ITMS of higher bitrate than the typical scene releases? The TV episodes you can currently buy
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So it is dead from start (Score:2)
Mac users are A+, A and AB class in terms of marketing. Anything ignores Mac is not to be taken serious at all. Especially paid media.
Remember iTunes was a huge success while it was Mac only. It is not a co-incidence. Mac user community pays for arts. They even donate to those "system themes" large amounts of money.
For people who got tricked b
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Link from Screenshot (Score:3, Informative)
whats with the prices? (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus they have "Batman Forever" listed for $10. I seriously hope this is just a mockup using current video pictures/prices or that they are considering paying me $10 to watch that movie.
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Uncompressed would be the film masters. That would be cool.
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Just as long as they don't run out of stock? (Score:1)
I have no doubt that Amazon will do this service, however I seriously hope 5GB is not enough to store all my downloads (though if they stick to Windows 0GB would do).
Generic /. moan (Score:1)
Related news .. (Score:2, Informative)
From a WSJ article, 8/3/06 (Score:1)
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I'm not interested in your software, Amazon (Score:2)
Stick to selling the movies. We'll use mplayer or xine or something to play them.
Oh, we can't? You mean these are in a weird new format, or have DRM? Sounds like you're getting out of the "actually selling something that people want" business before you start.
I'm overreacting, I guess. There's no real evidence that they're crippling it before they start, but the mention of a player, combined with "can be played on a PC, TV or p
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Mirror (Score:1)
Mirror (Score:1)
Bring It On (Score:2)
Going about this wrong... (Score:2)
DRM, therefore DOA (Score:1)