Movielink, Did they beat Apple to it?

[wPod]

I saw this on cnn.com and was surprised not to find in in the forums yet.

what catches me by surprise

Six studios said they would announce Monday that sales will begin through the download Web site Movielink. The site is jointly owned by five of the seven major studios.

So while apple was the first to have a sucessful music downloading site, will they be the first with movies? Does this mean that the major movie companies have not signed with Apple?

The article goes on to say

Only films from The Walt Disney Co. will not be available

Which makes me wonder about the link of Walk Disney and Apple through Pixar.

Hopefully this means Apple will have a big movie announcement soon, hopefully with the hardware to go with it!

 

[ecwyatt]

Yeah maybe they "beat" apple to it but according to their site:

Sorry, but as of May 2, 2005, Movielink no longer supports Windows 98 and ME operating systems.
Movielink also does not support Mac or Linux.

In order to enjoy the Movielink service, you must use Windows 2000 or XP,
which support certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies.​

Everyone in the news industry is making a big deal about it but it only supports One operating system (two if your technical) In todays society thats just stupidity.

 

[mcadam]

Yeah maybe they "beat" apple to it but according to their site:

Sorry, but as of May 2, 2005, Movielink no longer supports Windows 98 and ME operating systems.
Movielink also does not support Mac or Linux.

In order to enjoy the Movielink service, you must use Windows 2000 or XP,
which support certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies.​

Everyone in the news industry is making a big deal about it but it only supports One operating system (two if your technical) In todays society thats just stupidity.

Well, that might be so, but that would still account for perhaps 80% of their possible customors...

I think their big problem will be that the service is not integrated in iTunes, hehe...

A

 

[gekko513]

I think their big problem will be that the service is not integrated in iTunes, hehe...

A

Their big problem is that a movie will costs $26. And you can't burn it to DVD or watch it on anything but your computer.

Pricing will be "competitive" with DVD, which is to say that pricing will be expensive for what you get. Classic movies like The Big Lebowski will be priced at $13.99, with some movies being priced as low as $9.99. New movies will be all over the map. King Kong, for instance, will sell for $19.99, compared to $14.96 + shipping from retailers like Amazon. The Bad News Bears (2005), on the other hand, sells for $26.00 online at Movielink, which is essentially the same price Amazon is carrying at the moment.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060403-6509.html

 

[Queso]

Movielink are about to learn just why the iTMS became dominant. iTMS cut it's teeth as a Mac only service. Not only did this give it massive publicity amongst Mac-using journalists, but Mac users trust Apple as a known quantity, so were happier to hand their money over. Once the brand was established, Windows users started clamouring for it, and all Apple had to do was open it up.

Movielink won't get the free advertising from the press and doesn't have an existing group of customers to launch the service with. On top of this they have a major disadvantage in that their potential customer base all own iPods already and are aware of the iTunes brand.

 

[irmongoose]

Movielink is not a competitor to Apple, per se. It isn't a company that has managed to strike off groundbreaking deals with the big-boy production companies. Movielink is the production companies. That's why the service is everything but what consumers want: less DRM, low prices, ability to watch on TV. It is only until a company like Apple comes along and grinds it into the head of the dolts running the production companies that they need to do this, nothing is going to happen.




irmongoose