Details of Initial "Disc to Digital" Program Emerge 201
MojoKid writes with an excerpt from an article at Hot Hardware: "Walmart's burgeoning partnership with the Ultraviolet DRM system backed by major Hollywood studios and their plans to 'assist' customers in registering DVDs with the Ultraviolet system, made headlines not long ago. Walmart has also since announced additional details to the program and it's a clever attempt to drive more users to Vudu, Walmart's subsidiary movie streaming service. Here's how the service works. 'Starting April 16th, 2012 in more than 3,500 stores, Walmart customers will be able to bring their DVD and Blu-ray collections to Walmart and receive digital access to their favorite titles from the partnering studios. An equal conversion for standard DVDs and Blu-ray discs will be $2. Standard DVDs can be upgraded to High-Def (HD) for $5.' Anyone who doesn't have a Vudu account will have one created for them as part of this process. That's part of the genius to the plan. If customers embrace the offer, Walmart signs up hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people for Vudu. Even better, from Walmart's perspective, is that first-time users who pony up $2 for a digital version of their DVDs are effectively paying to create Vudu accounts."
Possible High "Parental Factor" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Possible High "Parental Factor" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Possible High "Parental Factor" (Score:5, Informative)
You must be using windows to try to rip the movie.
I set up a FreeNAS server to share the drive. I then set up a second system to do the conversion.
Both my desktop and the conversion server (Linux) use dvdbackup to backup the dvd to the NAS. I can share it as is, but it takes a lot of space to store the whole backup (4 to 8 gb) So I queue the backup for conversion to xvid/avi on the conversion server. The xvid conversion is done with omgrip http://ogmrip.sourceforge.net/en/index.html [sourceforge.net]
It processes about 10 dvd's a day with no cropping and no down scaling of the movie and the file size fixed at 1024m. I can fill the drive holding the dvd backups in an afternoon and have it rip the whole week with out adding to it. I have no sound sync issues and only a small number of really new DVD's will not read and backup. I have reported the errors to dvdbackup so I assume they will get it fixed.
I have 169 of my dvd's ripped and still have 580 to go.
All in all, I spend my spare time on Saturday doing dvdbackups (About 7 hours total for the day) and then spend about an hour a day moving the completed movies to the Movie directory and removing the dvd backup once it is done.
With those two pieces of software I have almost no messing around to do, simple set up a profile to set the xvid size, audio settings (Dolby 5.1), and turn off cropping.
All of my streaming is done to a Boxee Box.
Simple, easy, works almost every time (Total failure is about 10 dvd's so far.), no 2$ and no need for the internet connection to watch a movie.
Re:Possible High "Parental Factor" (Score:5, Insightful)
All in all, I spend my spare time on Saturday doing dvdbackups (About 7 hours total for the day) and then spend about an hour a day moving the completed movies to the Movie directory and removing the dvd backup once it is done.
I think this quote reinforces GP's point - why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you? My Saturdays are probably my most precious resource, I am very careful about how I spend them, as I'm sure most working people are.
I mean seriously, 14 hours per week simply to amass a collection of video files you probably don't have any remaining free time to sit down and watch? You're mad...
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...or you could just feed disks into the machine whenever.
If you're talking about movies then that's the single biggest issue. Even with TV shows, most of your time "wasted" is going to be spent swapping disks.
Beyond that, if you are spending a lot of time on this sort of thing then you are simply using the wrong tools. Once a movie is a file on your hard drive, things like Handbrake and mencoder should be doing all the work and they can run unattended for as long as the task takes.
Of course a big pile of d
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It would if it was 7 hours of just sitting there. However, I put the dvd's in start dvdbackup, go back to what ever I am going that day then return in 20 min to swap them out. No different then when I converted all my CD's to MP3 several years back.
Once all the conversions are done, that is it. Adding a new DVD is simply starting the rip to the HD then later adding it to the rip queue.
This is a one time process that, IMHO, pays for it self 1000x over. The ability to simply pull up a menu from any TV in the
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why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you?
Three letters D. R. M.
They can take their digital conversion service and stick it where the Sun don't shine.
If I can't play the file you get from this on any device I want whenever I want, connected to the internet or not connected, then no thanks.
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Yep; mad. And free.
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Ever hear of opportunity cost? For a busy person with a good income, that could be worth the equivalent of $1000 of labor just to rip a few dozen DVDs. Unless you really do have no life and nothing else you'd rather be doing than babysitting a computer on your weekends...
Re:Possible High "Parental Factor" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this quote reinforces GP's point - why spend free time fiddling about with all of this when you could pay somebody else a few dollars to do it for you?
Why spend any money at all? Someone has already uploaded your favorite movie in your chosen language with your chosen subtitles in your chosen quality. The work was done probably before the movie was even out on DVD.
You've already bought and paid for the disc. Why would you have anything but a clear conscience in downloading a movie you've already purchased?
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Thanks for this.. I need to look into doing this. I have a two year old that loves Shrek (and all her movies) so much she carries the discs around the house...
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(About 7 hours total for the day)
Goodness... I don't know how many Saturdays that is, but your whole collection of 580 movies would be done for $1160 (if they were really all worth scanning). At $25/hr you'd make that in 46 hours of work. That's under 7 of your 7-hour Saturdays.
And of course, now you need to buy server hardware, drives, and pay for electricity to keep the movies. And of course you have to back all of that up or lose all your time when the drive or server crashes.
I guess us hourly guys just think about our time differently!
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Server hardware? Who needs "server hardware"? Just put drives into any PC that you happen to have lying around. You're intentionally trying to make this harder and more expensive than it needs to be just to prove a point.
That might make you feel smug or something but it really has nothing to do with reality.
If you really are an "hourly guy" then you are in no position to throw money around. All of your "my time is valuable" rhetoric is just wishful thinking and nonsense.
Compressed, that amount of DVDs will
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Server hardware? Who needs "server hardware"? Just put drives into any PC that you happen to have lying around. You're intentionally trying to make this harder and more expensive than it needs to be just to prove a point.
LOL, sorry didn't mean for it to read that way - by server hardware I indeed meant a regular PC that would now become your basement server. I have the same thing in my basement: an old HP workstation (for the ECC RAM) loaded with four drives.
If you really are an "hourly guy" then you are in no position to throw money around.
Nonsense - I make good money as a consultant, and I could make even more if I worked weekends. While I don't "throw money around", I'm not so poor either. Time is indeed money for me, as I can trade one for the other freely.
Compressed, that amount of DVDs will fit in your pocket on a single 2.5 inch bus powered USB hard drive. A large Archos will be able to store half of them.
Minimum size for a compressed DVD to xvid is a
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While it takes 7 hours to do this, I'm sure you can do other things while this goes on. You don't just have to sit there and wait, you walk off and clean or program or setup another geeky setup. It's up2u, the only thing you need to do is periodically put in a new disc and click a button (heck! you could even walk away for a few hours and MISS a whole disc change over by several hours and your day still isn't ruined!).
Moving to use car work as an analogy due to the fact that it requires constant time, not b
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While it takes 7 hours to do this, I'm sure you can do other things while this goes on.
Now THIS I can get behind... when I was working from home I would rip my CD collection in. Very little productivity loss just feeding the machine disks while I was working on it anyway. It took months, but no "real" time.
However, are you able to work and get paid during those hours?
I'm lucky enough to, yes. Or sometimes I'll use the waiting room time for a side project. However, I still have to consider the time it takes to drive to the dealer. I only do 2 services a year, and one of those is doubled up with state inspection, which I'm not allowed to do myself anyway.
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Very few DVDs have extra copy protection that something like mplayer can't handle. For the rest, stuff is pretty simple actually. Movies are especially trivial.
A "technical" person should be embarassed to consider this service.
A non-technical person would likely find trying to use the associated online services to be outside of their comfort zone.
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I wouldn't use this particular service (the streaming requirement is simply a deal breaker), but for the time invested I'd totally use something similar that gave me viewable files. It's took me days to rip the 50 or movies I have done to a hard drive. I'd much rather have been doing something else and paying someone to handle it. I could have been hiking, or jogging, or watching a movie, or.. well.. lots of stuff. It takes just long enough to rip a movie that you can't really just leave it and go. Not
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What does "efficient" really matter? What's your rush? So what if the physical ripping part takes awhile just because you do it "whenever" and don't "dedicate time" to it?
You are sabotaging the process and then complaining that it's not working.
Until any of these services can offer me what Target plus a DVD ripper can, then the whole point about "my time is valuable" is entirely moot. I can't buy a suitable replacement at any price.
I get something I can take anywhere and play on any device.
I get the largest
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Why are you converting, though?
Storage is pretty cheap - I've got 200 ISOs of full DVDs (ripped, only things stripped are the region codes, etc.) - and that's not counting the ones that are just the files not stuck into an ISO container yet (no need, VLC will play them back regardless).
Conversion might make for smaller files, but you also incur a loss of quality - and more often than not you'll lose things either because you choose to or because the program chooses for you (where'd my DVD extras go!? - what
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You can do either depending on your preferences and the content in question. For something where the quality matters, you can just plain buy the BD and rip that. For other stuff, the degredation gained by re-compressing in a more modern format may not be such a tragedy.
If you can get more stuff on one disk, then that simplifies storage management. Plus, you can just have more stuff.
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Re:Possible High "Parental Factor" (Score:4, Informative)
I've always just used handbrake...
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I can see this being aimed at tech-dumb parents/grandparents.
It could also be for parents who don't like re-purchasing DVD's. I've never had a DVD break in my household, but periodically it'll be in a story I read that some poor mom has to keep on re-buyin her kids favorite DVD because they keep on stepping on it (apparently that's what kids do to things they love). So they pay $2 to get something that can't be stepped on. Now instead of paying $60 for a movie over a three year period, they've paid $22.
Now I know what you're thinking "She should just rip it and burn
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Actually, at $2 a pop, I might use it if it's fast, decent quality, and available in a centralized place on my Xbox 360 (like Netflix). Would be a handy place to stream DVD's on my Xbox without having to deal with discs. Of course, those are a lot of "ifs" and it would need to work pretty much exactly like Netflix's streaming on my Xbox.
I can see that being useful for titles not available for Netflix streaming (again, assuming that it's as simple as and of similar quality to Netflix). $2 a disc is a trivial
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll let me pay them for the privilege of watching something I already own in a different format? How magnanimous of them.
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It's $2. I normally hate these sort of schemes (was bad-mouthing Warner just the other day for a similar plan). But at $2, that's actually not a bad deal at all for the convenience.
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It's illegal but it's not the sort of thing anyone is going to persue you over.
OTOH, there is a statue of limitations on it.
Some of my older rips are old enough for that to be the case.
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Source (may be outdated): http://money.usnews.com/money/business-economy/technology/articles/2009/09/30/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-dvd [usnews.com]
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to save a few bucks because he already owns the movie.
can you download the digital copy to keep? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd pay $2 for that.
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I'd pay $2 for that.
Well, even if you could it'll be a $2 DRMed copy. You can keep the bits, your player software will just refuse to play it after the DRM servers go down. The Pirates are the only ones that offer non-DRMed copies that you can transcode and format-shift -- I wouldn't recommend doing business with them though: Pirates are known to rape, plunder and party.
You wouldn't want to end up in a Pirate Party now would you?
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No. Why would they want to give you what they want?
Call me when... (Score:5, Insightful)
... they let me trade in a DVD for a DRM-free 10-15GB h.264 MKV with the digital HD audio track. I'll happily pay money for that because it adds value for me. I could just buy the Bluray but this would save me filling up my house with those infernal things and would save me a fair chunk of transcoding time. I don't even care if you watermark the hell out of them (if the watermarks aren't visible) - just as long as they're DRM-free, so I can use them how I like.
I'm not going to spend extra money so I can trade one crappy format for another.
And just remember TPB offers this service for free. That's who you're competing against.
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To clarify - I hand them a DVD and some cash, and they hand me back a USB drive with the video on it. Bonus points for being able to give them a USB HD to fill up with DVDs you give them.
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I can do that for you at two bucks per dvd, no problem.
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they're not competing against tpb.
they're competing for the money of people who think it's a good deal to buy access to something you already have for two bucks. that two bucks is the business.
besides, the studios have a perfectly good reason why you can't be allowed to have the material without drm. because they're contractually obliged to keep the drm. by their own contracts. inked by them(wait what??).
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Agree 100%.
I am currently in the process of ripping my DVD collection on a 3 year old computer. Every day when I get up I take 2 DVDs out of the computer and put in the next 2 DVDs. When I get home I take them out and put in another 2 DVDs. Wake up the next morning and the process continues.
Been doing this for over 6 months, and just now making a dent in my DVD collection. Slowed down my DVD purchases while I'm doing this, BTW.
P.S. : Thank God I didn't buy Blurays. I couldn't just put those in the syst
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Hollywood has finally realized they stand a better chance protecting their content, even if only for a short while, by getting rid of all physical media and going with electronic distribution only.
Finally realized that they can try what HBO has been doing with satellite broadcasts for decades now? People used to receive free HBO broadcasts (which were being sent to cable company head ends for distribution to paying cable customers), until HBO encrypted everything and started charging for reception capabilities. Like most of what comes out of Hollywood these days, there is little originality in this effort.
I actually like this idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
For as many problems as UltraViolet has [livejournal.com] I actually think this is a good idea. I would prefer $1 a movie as a token gesture, but $2 still accomplishes that. Considering I've paid $3 to $5 dollars for a large portion of my DVD's as outlets $2 is rather steep.
Ultraviolet has the potential to be the DRM system (they hate it when you call it that) that actually benefits consumers as much as it does the companies. It's hard to pirate an Ultraviolet movie - good for the studios, the movies are theoretically (though not in actuality see above link) accessible on everything you own, without lock in. The problem with the current digital copy system is you're stuck with Sony, Microsoft, or Apple with limited ability to copy/transfer in between the three. With Ultraviolet platform neutrality is the name of the game, except for Sony and Paramount. Sony refuses to allow Linux clients to log in, Paramount insist on Silverlight so everything but the last step - actually watching the movie - works.
I as concept don't like DRM, but if they address all the reasons I don't like it I don't have a problem with it since I'm not a pirate. I would gladly pay $2 each to have all of my DVD's accessible online so I didn't have to worry about storing the files or yet another theft. Ultraviolet comes close, enough people making fun of Sony might get them to fix their crap and Paramount to it's credit doesn't appear to be intentionally excluding anyone, it's just their crappy choice of streaming software.
Re:I actually like this idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
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This thought has crossed my mind.
Ultraviolet is rather decentralized, as a whole that sort of strengthens it, but it doesn't stop branches from dying off, individual media companies doing crappy things etc...
If it becomes successful enough and they decide to terminate it they will have to address the issue for paying customers, way too much lawsuit potential. Yes there is potential to get screwed, but under this particular setup you still have your disk and you're only out $2 each for those. It's the ones
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I apologize, it was Universal that gave me a freebie, not Paramount, though it was a Paramount movie I registered on Flixster that got me another freebie so I should have said Universal and Flixster or Universal and Paramount - I need to give credit where it's due.
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...customers may well find their libraries vanishing, and what copies they have unplayable with the DRM servers disappeared. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.
Indeed. [wikipedia.org]
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...customers may well find their libraries vanishing, and what copies they have unplayable with the DRM servers disappeared. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.
Indeed. [wikipedia.org]
Excellent point! Although for me, DIVX worked out great! I bought a DIVX player on sale late into the experiment (just before they canned the whole thing) for about $40 more than a non-DIVX player. I paid for one rental, out of curiosity. Then they killed it all and sent me $100.
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I would say the joke's on me, but 5 bucks isn't a bad price for an old school, sturdy milk crate, even if it was full of useless junk.
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I'd pay $2 just for getting it on my Xbox. It's a lot of hassle to rip a DVD and get it over to my Xbox (you have to stream it from a running computer and deal with conversion issues--and the quality suffers). I could put my whole regular catalog on there pretty cheap, never have to deal with the discs again, and stream it directly from their servers (like Netflix) with no hassles. I'm sorry, but that's actually a pretty good deal (for me at least).
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FYI, I am one of those people with a huge movie collection. So far the bulk of my losses have come from physical theft. I had to start over after having my house cleaned out, at least in that case I would still have my online digital copies. When I got robbed my computers AND the backup disk were stolen.
I keep all of my movies on a dedicated NAS drive now. With Ultraviolet properly implemented I don't even have that to worry about.
BTW, less than five years after the great robbery I became an Ike victim.
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It's still a streaming service. Can't put it on a laptop for a trip.
I'm leaving the country in a couple weeks. Taking my laptop and a couple hundred movies on it. I'm not going to watch much, but at least I'll have a nice selection to watch from.
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I'm not sure of all the rules, but I do know you CAN download movies to played locally. I don't know if it's a call home DRM or not, but I do know in some cases downloading and playing back later is allowed.
That being said I still rip my own disks.
Re:I actually like this idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Digital Personal Property, which the IEEE P1817 [ieee.org] working group has been developing for the last couple of years.
One of the main problems with DRM for consumers is that it offends the deeply-ingrained notion that when we purchase a book, album or movie – whether as a physical product or a download – we should own it, and use it however we wish within our social and family circles, without the oversight of the copyright owner. We feel this way while at the same time respecting the right of the copyright owner of a protected work to control its distribution outside our circle of family and friends.
This insight underlies the IEEE Standard for Consumer-ownable Digital Personal Property (DPP), that will allow consumers complete freedom to lend, copy, sell or give away the digital works that they have purchased, whilst inhibiting them from sharing with strangers. In order to achieve this, the work is encrypted – which is just what DRM does.
But unlike with DRM, the encryption does not prevent the work from being copied, nor allow its usage to be tracked or controlled by the copyright owner. It simply enforces two simple functions of every DPP-protected work: a “give” button and a “take” button. The “give” button ensures that every DPP-protected work can be shared, both by the original purchaser and by everyone with whom it has already been shared. The “take” button ensures that each and any of those individuals can take the work back from all the others, “collapsing” it, if you will, into the single unit that it was when purchased.
The main difference between DPP and Ultraviolet is that there are literally no limits to how many copies you can make or what you can do with them. In fact, the copyright owner has no way of even knowing how many times the work has been shared, with whom, or who currently owns the work. The concept of ownership and who gets to receive copies are determined by social constraints, not technological ones - who do you trust not to use the "Take" button on you?
The main problem that the Working Group faces at the moment, apart from buy-in from the major studios, is that it needs an experienced technical expert to take leadership of actually finalising the specification. If someone from Slashdot has any contacts who might be interested, please contact the Working Group.
Disclaimer: I am a member of the P1817 Working Group, representing consumers' interests.
Pay Twice? (Score:2)
Even better, from Walmart's perspective, is that first-time users who pony up $2 for a digital version of their DVDs are effectively paying to create Vudu accounts.
No, users are effectively paying $2 more for the same content they already paid for. Eff You!
We're sorry for the..... (Score:2)
...incoinvience as we are currently suffering server cloudy day technical difficulty.
Hey, lets put everything in the cloud that way we can allow the authorities or hacker or the NWO powers that be control your life more than they do now.
Oops! Big sun spot at the same time we were under attack but military strength EMP cannon..... Can you show proof you ever existed in the cloud and did you make a backup you can send us to restore our service.... uh your account?
Anyone want to borrow my DVD collection so you
Movie Studios: Why Are You So Stupid? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Control over the downstream supply chain (Score:2)
it does do a lot to allow people further down the supply chain than you to control the prices that you can charge
The movie studios believe they still have more control over the downstream supply chain than the record industry had when iTunes Plus came out. And until Kickstarter financing of direct-to-video films becomes common, and until either "film festival" stops connoting snobbishness or there comes a better way to get indie films into theaters, they do have such control.
Questions (Score:2)
So does their service provide every DVD and BluRay movie on earth, or if I go in with my obscure DVD collection am I going to be told "Sorry, don't have that one, sorry don't have that one, ...". I assume they're not actually ripping disks, just scanning the barcodes on the box or inserting the disc in a reader for a few seconds to ID it.
If you're too honest to download torrents, but not quite honest enough to pay full price, it seems as though there is a big opportunity to borrow your friends disc collecti
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Well, they'd likely be different. I don't know anyone that makes encrypted copies of their DVD movies.
What happens to the disk? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does walmart keep the original disk or somehow mark that it has been converted?
Or for two bucks a disk can I get a copy of my buddies movie collection?
What a BARGAIN! (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean if I pick up a $10 DVD it'll only cost 20% extra for a DRM-encumbered streaming copy that doesn't actually reside on my hard drive and can disappear at any moment the studio changes it's mind?
I'm IN!
NOT.
I'd do it, with VHS tapes (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be an actual content upgrade, worth a token payment.
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Or could it just be the greedy, money grubbing, SOPA-loving, fascist MPAA ass-holes just want to soak the public for all they can get?
Trying to derail the DMCA Exemption process (Score:5, Insightful)
The timing on this is WAAAY too coincidental...that's because the studios rolled this out now so that they could tell the Librarian of Congress [copyright.gov] that there exists a commercial ability to rip DVDs to digital files for use in the iOS infrastructure and therefore Exemption Class 10 [copyright.gov] and the position [copyright.gov] of Public Knowledge [publicknowledge.org] is unnecessary. Read the comments [copyright.gov] and replies [copyright.gov], you'll see.
Which makes this all the more insidious. They could have rolled this AGES ago, but they're doing it now to stop American consumers from exercising their Free Use rights for another 3 years...during which, I'm sure, there will be another shift in their business strategy that they will take advantage of to bilk consumers. Ironically, the reason they gave during the arguing of the DMCA for this provision was NOT anti-consumer; instead it was compliance with licensing of hardware manufacturers. How thin that veil was! Because now they're back transparently arguing against the consumer. This needs to stop NOW! The studios stood by and watched the revolution; their loss. Consumers have hundreds/thousands of dollars of DVDs and Blu-rays and capable hardware to do the conversions at their fingertips, just as with CDs and iTunes. Exempt the DMCA and give us the ability to exercise our rights without being labeled "pirates".
Sounds good to me (Score:5, Interesting)
I can bring in my Star Trek TOS, Stargate SG1, and Gattaca discs to walmart, get the upgrade to high-def versions online, and then sell the DVDs on ebay for cash.
Free market == win.
Aside - On the other hand some things don't really look good in HD. I imagine seeing Spock throwing foam spears and plastic rocks really takes away from the entertainment. Maybe TOS is best viewed in blurry SD quality.
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Ahhh. In that case maybe I'd be better-off with Amazon Prime's rental service (view as much as you want for $80/year). Probably cheaper than paying $5 per DVD to upgrade to Walmart Vudu's HD service.
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That's kind of stupid.
Ripping movies is trivial. You basically have ONE main features on a disk. Ripping TV shows is a little bit more interesting and involves mapping multiple titles on multiple disks with the associated episodes.
It's like CD ripping but without any of the nice automated disk metadata to take advantage of.
The whole "inconvenience" argument works much better with TV shows.
Original packaging? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does the DVD have to be in the original packaging or can I bring in my burned-at-home (or someone's home, anyway) copies?
Its actually a semi-serious question, aside from the "I downloaded a .iso and burned it" piracy aspect, how are they deciding if a physical DVD brought in is legit or gray market or outright black market?
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Are they planning to physically mark the disks, so you can't sell them used, and then the buyer gets a $2 digital copy?
Perhaps their business model makes money if there are exactly N physical copies, and lots of people paying $2 again and again. Crazy like a fox?
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yep, the business model is that if someone pays 2 bucks for nothing, they're going to be paying two bucks for nothing. it would be even a sound business to distribute dvd's if they knew that people were going to use those to bring in to pay the two bucks with. more is more.
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For that matter, what's to keep Wal-Mart from claiming you did this on the way back to the counter when you bring in your collection?
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well.. they're probably going to just scan the barcode from the dvd box, check if it's on the list of supported movies and bang two bucks kthxbye.
it's not like they're going to be doing actual disc reading at all you know, or offer this as a service to get your home dvd's to the cloud.
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well.. they're probably going to just scan the barcode from the dvd box, check if it's on the list of supported movies and bang two bucks kthxbye.
it's not like they're going to be doing actual disc reading at all you know, or offer this as a service to get your home dvd's to the cloud.
Good point... I have some DVDs that are all scratched up and I would imagine they are not looking forward to dealing with those issues.
The good news is downloading scans of the package and UPC is a lot faster, cheaper, and simpler than downloading the entire .iso.
Also I can replace the UPC with a more "interesting" UPC. So Tomas the Tank Engine gets scanned, the UPC indicates its pr0n, tada I've got pr0n.
If they allow a "self checkout" then an app on the phone with a UPC generator might work too.
Another qu
Copyright Laundering (Score:2, Interesting)
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Say you have a disk you paid $18 for years ago. Now all your friends are paying $2 each for a digital copy, and they can measure usage. Not so completely insane. (Still probably won't work, but not as insane as DivX)
Re:Copyright Laundering (Score:5, Informative)
From what I have read, they are planning on stamping the disks when you bring them in so they can only be brought in once. With what or how hard it will be to remove I don't know.
Can I bring in a friend's DVD's and say..... (Score:2)
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yes. but you're still going to be paying two bucks for something you already have access to. it's a win for them.
Walmart: Because you didn't learn the first time. (Score:3)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...
Not in the TFA (Score:2)
Aha! Ahahahahah! Bwahahaha! (Score:2)
Ahahahahewaaha bwahahahahaaaaa ! Hahahaha!Ehahahahahahah!
Oh corporations, you slay me...
Nobody is stupid enough to pay *even more* for content they already own in this way. You can't even make people buy the media you have now.
All you are doing is making pirating the videos that much easier than legitimately purchasing them.
"a digital version of their DVDs" (Score:2)
I'd like to upgrade to a "wheeled version of my car." To find out if there is one, I'll use a "search version of Google" on the "internet version of the web" viewed on my "visual version of a LCD" connected to an "electronic version of a computer" while I sip a "liquid version of coffee."
Place your bets (Score:2)
Why would I want to do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
If I already have the dvd, why would I want to stream it from the internet to watch on my ps/3, xbox, computer, etc.? I already own it, I can just put it in the device. As for watching it on my phone, forget it, battery life is terrible and the screen is really small. Tablet, possibly, but if I have 100 dvds in my collection, do I want to pay $200 to digitize them (btw, aren't dvd's digital to begin with??) in case I might want to watch them on a tablet? Wouldn't it be cheaper to pay amazon to stream it to me for that occasion?
So, I ask, why would I want to do this?
Re: (Score:3)
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"This is gonna replace CD's soon; guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."
Agent K
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I have a copy of Star Wars on 70s-era videorecord (RCA CED). Then I bought VHS. Then rented the Laserdisc and copied it over to Super VHS.
And finally DVD (the original non-altered version). I decided to stop there because buying the same movie over-and-over sucked, and frankly I got bored with the story, plus making Lucas richer.
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I stopped because I was not in fact buying the same movie over and over again. I was buying subsequent derivative works based on the same original movie.
I would have less objections if I could actually pay for the originals in new formats. I could go for BD versions of the special editions. I just have no interest in versions that were never released theatrically.
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"blue rays", "ultraviolent", "voodoo"... I can't really put my finger on it, but there appears to be something sinister about it!
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Studios continue to charge again and again for the same media
I would agree with you if they were trying to charge $10 or $20 for this. But $2 for the added convenience is a pretty trivial cost. The amount of time I would spend ripping 20 DVD's is way more valuable to me that the $40 I could pay them to do it. And, since vudu is already available on my Xbox and vudu handles the quality, I don't have to worry about any conversion issues there.
"Digital delivery" defined (Score:3)
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According to fair use rights already in place, you can do this. There's a law (DMCA) that conflicts with it, but it is specifically against breaking encryption and not necessarily copying..even though breaking the encryption is a necessary part of copying the DVD in accordance with your own fair use rights.
It's kind of like saying that you can legally get gas for your car from any gas station, but it's illegal to put any brand besides Ford gas through the gas hole in your car. Also Ford gas is 3x the pric
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It's kind of like saying that you can legally get gas for your car from any gas station, but it's illegal to put any brand besides Ford gas through the gas hole in your car. Also Ford gas is 3x the price of normal gas for the same product.
But it's not like that at all, because the above behavior is expressly prohibited by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, whereas the DMCA is a law designed to deprive you of other legal rights.
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This is nonsense. You won't go to jail for making private use rips. Stop spreading FUD.
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Just don't give Hollywood a map and a flashlight.
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But being able to buy a computer for only $250 plus other lowcost items helps the people save their money for other purposes (college for the kids, or retirement for the parents). Would you prefer that Mac or IBM PC-compatible computers cost $4000* like they did in the 80s, and few can afford them?
*
* inflation adjusted