Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPod Amazon.com starts video download service

Pricing

The pricing is way off. None of the movies I've seen are really new. There are a large number of movies that are $19.99. "Walk the Line" is just one of those movies at $19.99.

It appears Amazon allowed movie studios to make up their own prices. For some reason, "Do the Right Thing" is $35.99! Why would anyone pay that price. :confused:

With those prices, I'll stay with DVD's.
 
This is seriously fudged up.

Just wait till PC users complain that none of it worked b/c of M$ OS is poorly programed :D I'm pretty 100% sure someone will hack it and you will be able to keep "rented" movies forever. :D

My main concern is... does it come with English subtitle? If not, fudge them. I hope Apple will include subtitle.
 
I have looked up online via amazon and it said nothing about subtitle or anything like that. Ah well. This is big challenge for Amazon and Apple.

I NEED SUBTITLE!
 
I'm usually a big fan of Amazon, but I'm not happy with this download service. No Mac support, no iPod support, no DVD burning, very limited selection, prices all over the place...

Guess I'm going to hang onto my Netflix account a bit longer...
 
Media Library

balamw said:
More info from the site:




The Media Library bit is a nice feature since it saves you from having to back up and it has been a complaint about iTMS.

B
Click to expand...
Having purchased digital content from Amazon once before, I never would again. The Media Library is a joke. I purchased a couple of e-book because I needed them now, not in 3-5 days. So after purchasing said books, installing the latest Adobe Reader, I could not activate the files. One suggestion from Amazon was to just download them again from the Media Library, but they were not there. I contacted Adobe to make sure the DRM was cleared. It was. After about a month of unanswered emails and phone calls, I finally got a hold of a person, who say all the correspondence on the issue, and could not offer an explanation why it had been handled yet. I had to finally talk to that person's manager to get the physical books sent. All that for a couple of 10MB e-books. I'll never buy an intangible from Amazon again.

EDIT: Corrected spelling/grammer
 
Give us DVD extras!

What I want is a duplicate of the DVD experience... I want to hit play and see the DVD menu, scene selections, extras... unfortunately I doubt even Apple is going to give us that. But without it... I'll probably just stick to DVDs.

Although if they could actually deliver HD... well they'd trump Blu-ray and HD-DVD from the start. (Not that they won't be popular as well, being actually physical).

I wonder if these downloads have the super annoying unskippable FBI warnings and studio logos that DVDs have? Every time I pop in a DVD and can't skip those I start swearing about how I'm going to start pirating just so I can edit that shiz out. Seriously every time. Nothing makes me angrier.
 
Amazon isn’t intentionally locking the iPod and Mac market out - After all, why would they want to? Microsoft DRM is pretty much the only viable option for content distribution for all companies (Except Apple) unless content owners will allow stuff to be distributed with zero restrictions... And that isn’t about to happen over night.

Microsoft wont allow DRM to run on OS X, and Apple wont allow third parties to hook into FairPlay for the iPod. So, there is little point in bitching about it as Apple wants to lock you in so you have to buy content from them - I'm sure Amazon would love your Dollar/Pound/Euro/Yen.
 
haha, talk about taking sides....it's like a slap in the face, paid for by microsoft and delivered by amazon. i hope the iTmovieS can do something!

of course, it's probably not that. thats what it looks like though. :)
S
 
So, they're selling and renting movies for roughly the same price as the physical DVDs, only you're completely restricted to playback on a computer for the full quality version (I hate watching movies on the computer), and not even on a Mac. Plus, do you get any of the extras? Multiple audio tracks?? Subtitles??? Just what is the appeal in this?!
 
DeSnousa said:
So I'm guessing the video files are Windows Media Video (WMV) :rolleyes:

Can't wait to see what Apple does on Tuesday :D
Click to expand...
Only the portable versions, the DVD quality versions require Amazon's unbox player.

B
 
codo said:
Amazon isn’t intentionally locking the iPod and Mac market out - After all, why would they want to? Microsoft DRM is pretty much the only viable option for content distribution for all companies (Except Apple) unless content owners will allow stuff to be distributed with zero restrictions... And that isn’t about to happen over night.

Microsoft wont allow DRM to run on OS X, and Apple wont allow third parties to hook into FairPlay for the iPod. So, there is little point in bitching about it as Apple wants to lock you in so you have to buy content from them - I'm sure Amazon would love your Dollar/Pound/Euro/Yen.
Click to expand...

We all know WHY Amazon's using Microsoft's DRM. Doesn't mean we can't complain about it.
 
apfhex said:
So, they're selling and renting movies for roughly the same price as the physical DVDs, only you're completely restricted to playback on a computer for the full quality version (I hate watching movies on the computer), and not even on a Mac. Plus, do you get any of the extras? Multiple audio tracks?? Subtitles??? Just what is the appeal in this?!
Click to expand...

Speed. Downloading's not exactly instant, but it has progressive playback.

For those of you who hate going to the rental store (long lines, bad selection, having to get up off the couch) or using Netflix (speed hindered by mail delivery times, "throttling," difficulty obtaining new releases), downloading might b the best option. But Unbox has plenty of its own drawbacks.

That said, it's good to have a competitor, if only to push Apple to greater heights. My main problem with videos from Apple is the size; they need DVD-quality video for me to even consider using it.

EDIT: Sorry, double post. I expected this thread to be busier...
 
balamw said:
Have you browsed the store? It doesn't seem to be up to you if you rent or buy, and the terms of the rental are pretty harsh, I mean DIVX harsh. 30 days and 24 hours to complete viewing.

The restrictions on the Amazon files are also pretty harsh compared to iTMS. 2 PCs and 2 portables as compared to Apple's 5 computers and unlimited portables.

B
Click to expand...

sounds very similar to movielink.com which has been up and running for a while now. This a great service for notebooks taking a movie or two on a long flight. But otherwise, I don't sit in front of my computer to watch a movie.
 
The Bitrate seems a little high. Is WMV format that inefficient or did they have a 5 year old encoding the movies? H.264 could do DVD quality at less than half that size.
 
apfhex said:
So, they're selling and renting movies for roughly the same price as the physical DVDs, only you're completely restricted to playback on a computer for the full quality version (I hate watching movies on the computer), and not even on a Mac. Plus, do you get any of the extras? Multiple audio tracks?? Subtitles??? Just what is the appeal in this?!
Click to expand...

To the consumer, not much. To the studio - save money on packaging, printing, media, etc...so higher profit margins.
 
So I could buy the download a "DVD Quality" version (2.2GB) of Matrix for $9.88 or I could buy an actual DVD (way more than 2.2GB) for.... $9.88. With Amazon Prime (yeah, I'm that stupid) I get the physical DVD in two days, but usually one day. Download would probably take a day for me.

Same price. Same shipping time. One of them is actually DVD Quality, one isn't. One works on hundreds of portable DVD players, thousands of home DVD players, PCs and Macs; the new hotness only works PCs and a small handfull of expensive portables.

Genius!
 
200mb!

I like how the minimum requirements state you need at least "200 MB of hard disk space". In regards to the Matrix it's either 2.2GB or 520MB depending which version you get. Surely customers will be pissed when in the middle of downloading they get a hard drive full message. :D
 
termite said:
So I could buy the download a "DVD Quality" version (2.2GB) of Matrix for $9.88 or I could buy an actual DVD (way more than 2.2GB) for.... $9.88. With Amazon Prime (yeah, I'm that stupid) I get the physical DVD in two days, but usually one day. Download would probably take a day for me.
Click to expand...
And with the physical DVD you could resell it on Amazon.com Marketplace & recoup some of your cost....

(Or you could have bought it used there first for $1.75 +s/h).

B
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back