“I figured I’d try to download a vide or two for my flight to SF next week. First step, finding some content. Excellent, an old Star Trek episode. Click, purchase, download and install player (which first installed some new version of .NET without asking). Load player, it connects and then nothing. No download. No nothing. It shows but nothing happens. Fifteen minutes of nothing. I click troubleshoot. It tells me it’s checking stuff like DRM. Everything checks out. Message pops up. You have used all licenses for this file. If you want to watch it on this PC, you need to purchase it again. OK. We’re done,” Michael Gartenberg blogs for JupiterResearch.
Gartenberg writes, “Time to un-install this thing and hope it didn’t screw up my PC in the process. $1.99 wiser. I’ll say it again, we understand DRM is necessary to make the content available but it must be DRM that works and NEVER locks a customer out of their content. If Zune doesn’t support Plays for Sure, it’s no wonder. I could see where MSFT would want to use technology that actually worked.”
Full article here.
Microsoft: jacks of all trades, masters of none. Unless you consider schlock distribution to be a trade.
Related articles:
CNET Alpha Blog: absolutely do not try Amazon Unbox – September 09, 2006
Analysts: Amazon’s ‘Unbox’ to be ‘Unsuccessful’ vs. Apple – September 08, 2006
Cringely: Apple, Amazon, and what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve for next Tuesday – September 08, 2006
Amazon.com launches ‘Amazon Unbox’ DVD-quality video download service with TV shows and movies – September 07, 2006
Thanks Alex,
I know have a clue.
I read that Amazon’s stock price has been troubled, because since the start of the year, Amazon has spent $300 million opening this unbox thing, and now they appear to have one honking big paper cut.
Looking forward to Tuesday, but I’m concerned about reports that Disney may be the only studio offering video at first. This is not a good time for Apple to play up it’s relationship with Disney, on account of the 9/11 lie-umentary they have on tomorrow night. Disney is looking like a pack of irresponsible fools right now.
Thanks Alex,
I *now have a clue.
Even sheep eventually get tired of all the hassles and move to something with higher quality standards. Simple, Steve Jobs has high quality standards and accepts nothing less.
Watch Apple market share rise slowly and pick up speed this next year.
Soon, Apples biggest problem will be that they are growing too fast. But, with a quality plan and quality elements in place, they can survive that. Quality leadership with quality standards will win long-term.
Hasn´t apple only signed up Disney for its upcoming movie thing?
I already own all the Pixar dvds….and don´t want any Herbie the VW movies…
The Unbox must use Microsoft’s version of the Superluminal Undilithium Crystal Klingon System (SUCKS) transporter system, which is know to spew its load at maximum dispersion into the cosmos. So Michael, if you actually expect delivery, go on bended knee to iTunes. Apple has better aim.
The Boss
You’ll just have to wait for the “Showtime” event on Tuesday. Way too early to assume anything.
Danny says “Looking forward to Tuesday, but I’m concerned about reports that Disney may be the only studio offering video at first. This is not a good time for Apple to play up it’s relationship with Disney, on account of the 9/11 lie-umentary they have on tomorrow night. Disney is looking like a pack of irresponsible fools right now.”
You couldn’t be more COMPLETELY wrong! No one has even seen this mini-series on 9/11 and its already lambasted for being full of lies. Let’s be fair here, if you don’t agree with it, turn it off. Michael Moore spews pure horse manure, and he’s a saint, with creative license!?! I don’t think Apple will have any problems come Tuesday for doing business with Disney nor ABC. Hey, Al Gore is on the board and they are still successful.
Get a grip!
Schmuss, I certainly have enough of a grip on current events to know what is happening in the world. Here, I’ll tell you!
A cut of this this thing was sent by ABC to critics and journalists. What they saw is being widely reported in the media. They saw an undefensible political smear job, packed with untruths and distortions, ala Swift Boating, made for network TV. And supposedly a very poorly made one as well. Disney may not allow it to be shown at all; at this time, it is being recut.
To me, a Disney shareholder, and longtime Apple Maniac, it means Disney is out of touch/control of ABC, so I’m concerneed. I do agree that the matter is probably tangential to the early (doubtless) success of the upcoming iMovie Store. Regarding Gore, the former Dem. Sen. George Mitchell is on the board at Disney, and this still happened.
Danny
Well-gripped, but not callused.
“RemoteLoad pull-down” LOL
Sounds messy.
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3748#download_computer)
It’s a remote load alright…
Danny, no one gives a shit. Take it elsewhere.
*cough*AmazonUnboxIsAJoke*cough*
Oh, and Schmuss too.
Can’t tell you apart anymore.
Awwww.
Hoist IPs, Away!
LOL at Amazon. The typical Windows paradigm: get out something which “almost kinda works” and count on Windows sufferers to settle for it. Don’t they understand that they can’t do that anymore? Don’t they know that Apple has raised the standards? “Good enough” isn’t good enough these days — people want it to work as well as iTunes.
Danny:
The left rejoiced with the release of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”, but vigorously opposes citizens witnessing any other perspective or assessment of the U.S. government’s role toward terrorism such as “The Path to 9/11”. The left would not be so adamant against “The Path to 9/11” if the Clinton administration were not guilty of some grievous errors of judgment or obvious negligence.
It is shameful for Clinton and his supporters to pressure ABC not to air the film; however, it would be more shameful and frightening for ABC to capitulate to the coercion of the left for the sake of protecting Clinton’s sacred public image. The citizens of this country deserve better than the media becoming the tool of political parties. History will remember who won this debate, the nation and an independent media or a faction of incompetent, loud-mouthed, and self-serving hypocrites.
Thank God, the left is here to protect us from the lies and deception of evildoers. If you are ever in doubt what to think or what to believe the left is always there to tell you what to do. No need to take time to struggle with the facts or spend countless hours interpreting the evidence, just get your free copy of “American Citizenry for Idiots” available from your nearest Democratic campaign headquarters. Like the Dems say, “Don’t think for yourself, that’s our job.”
Everyone who thinks our current leadership, from the president through his entire admistration, the house, senate and supreme court are doing a fantastic job, please raise your hand now…! You all get a cookie.
Shut up with the frigging politics already.
What bores!!!
Go wank off some diatribes to your poli-blog or whatever you usually do…all of you, regardless of whatever your self-assigned pigeonhole may be…
Democrats, Republicans…the hell with you all. Life is more than politics, idiots.
Let’s get back to bitching about M$ and Amazon…
When did politics become more about dissing anyone who disagrees with you than it is about working collaboratively together to come up with constructive solutions to problems?
I work at Austin tech support/customer relations center and Friday we had a lot of leftist idiots calling in to complain to us about the Path to 9/11 just because Steve Jobs owns some Disney stock. Yjru were tying up our phones with that nonsense.
Wow, what a bunch of morons. As if Apple has anything to do with the movie. Let me tell you, the liberals were the laughing stock of the call center that day. And that’s coming from a call center filled with Austin liberals!
Can we get back on topic here? Sheesh.
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Michael Gartenberg says: “I figured I’d try to download a vide or two for my flight to SF next week… an old Star Trek episode… Message pops up. You have used all licenses for this file. If you want to watch it on this PC, you need to purchase it again. OK. We’re done… Time to un-install this thing and hope it didn’t screw up my PC in the process. $1.99 wiser. I’ll say it again, we understand DRM is necessary to make the content available but it must be DRM that works and NEVER locks a customer out of their content…”
And on Sept 7 said “… the real issue is where will you watch these things? There’s no way to burn content to DVD for playback and unless you have a media center PC or some inclination to hook up your TV to your PC, it’s a pretty much PC only experience…”
Carl Howe said: “No discount for all these restrictions. With … restrictions and by reducing the need for … a disk, a case, and supporting materials, you’d think that consumers would be seeing hefty discounts over buying a DVD… Think again. When I shopped for a DVD of “The Matrix” it cost cost $9.88. When I shopped for the same movie on Unbox, it cost … exactly the same. And the DVD I can play in my living room or on any computer in my house, rip to a file that will play on my Video iPod, and even sell to someone else when I’m done with it.”
http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2006/09/amazons-unbox-movie-service-isnt-any.html
All of the above illustrates what astute people have said from the beginning; that over DRM’ing this venture will kill it in it’s crib. I’ve also been saying that Apple, with prices reportedly being just as high as Amazon’s, MUST attack this from the angle of making their downloaded file ubiquitous. A ‘master file’, from which various files can be transfered (or wirelessly streamed) to any & all devices Apple makes. They need to leverage their hardware advantage to the hilt in order to bring any value at all to this artificially costly (thanks to power-mad studios) technology.
With prices for DVDs so low, and the ability to rip the so easy, it makes no sense at all to pay equivilent prices for digitized (and thus cheap to distribute) video files, UNLESS you can securely move them around to approved devices without hassle. Want a version for your iPod? No problem – here’s a sub-std def file for you. How about your computer? There you go – a version that plays at whatever definition your laptop/desktop can handle (PPC Macs will probably have some artifical restriction here, as they have no TPM chip). And a full-blown 1080p version will go to – hopefully – the soon-to-be-announced Apple vMac HDTV w/HDMI wireless connectivity … all for the same $14.99. You pay ONCE, own it, and as long as it’s going to an Apple device (maybe even an Apple Phone??), iMovie or iTunes will crunch it appropriately on the fly & you’re on your way.
I’m especially hoping Gartenberg’s experience indicates why Jobs was froze out by all the studios except Disney. I hope he has wised-up regarding how foul these studios & their DRM ideas have always been, and is rolling out something like what I just described just to show how it should be done, regardless of the total content disadvantage. As soon as Apple’s slight menu starts outselling Amazon’s smorgasbord, simply b/c you can actually enjoy ‘the meal’ with Apple, it’s a good bet the studios will come crawling to Jobs and do his bidding.
I also hope against hope that this kind of success in turn will convince Jobs NOT to over-rely on the Intel TPMs in the future. As Howe said, reasonable prices for what you get is the best DRM there is. I’ll even hope-against-hope that realization has already sunk in – maybe then we’ll get a wireless server/DVR combo, or even the PPC machines NOT treated as red-headed stepchildren. But the latter may be pushing it – besides DRM, Jobs is still trying to get as many people as possible to buy new computers too.
Still – with these commentators reporting Amazon’s UnBox problems honestly, I have much greater hope now that Jobs has seen the writing on the wall & Apple will pull out something truly phenomenal next week.
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PS – That 9/11 show ABC is choking on? They advertized it as historically acurate and it’s not. It’s hard enough to get straight info on a lot of what happened on 9/11; I see no benefit from muddying the waters & deviding tyhe country even further. This film should never see the light of day – ABC should put it in a vault or burn it.
(Sorry – couldn’t resist)
Odyssey67:
You claim that “The Path to 9/11” is not historically accurate. Should America be prohibited from seeing the film simply because you say the film doesn’t meet your mysterious and undefined standards of truthfulness and realism? Why are you opposed to allowing the rest of the country to evaluate the film on its own merits? Why don’t you trust the public to fairly and objectively judge the film and derive their own well-reasoned opinion?
When did the liberals in this country suddenly become the loudest supporters of political censorship? When did the liberals in this country become supporters of political coercion against the independent press?
It seems that Al Qaeda is not the only force against freedom and democracy, you liberals seem bent on destroying free speech and an independent press.
maczealot:
Neo-con bullsh*t at work, as usual.
Neo-cons have done more to undermine the safety and security of the US in 5 years than “liberals” ever could.
Moving right along…
Why do these companies all think that by trying to beat Apple to market with a movie download service, they will somehow have an impact. <bold> If the service doesn’t work seamlessly, it will not work. </bold> It’s really not that hard to figure out.
maczealot:
Neo-con bullsh*t at work, as usual.
Neo-cons have done more to undermine the safety and security of the US in 5 years than “liberals” ever could.
Moving right along…
Why do these companies all think that by trying to beat Apple to market with a movie download service, they will somehow have an impact. If the service doesn’t work seamlessly, it will not work. It’s really not that hard to figure out.
(sorry for the double post)
gzreo:
What exactly do you mean with the statement “If the service doesn’t work seamlessly, it will not work.”? Is there another way of “working” well or properly that isn’t also “seamless”?
Liberals have chastised the Bush administration for exceeding its governmental authority to prevent another murderous attack, but liberals have no qualms about enforcing political censorship to prevent citizens accessing materials of alternative opinions, hypotheses, or thinking. Obviously, when liberals want to violate our civil and constitutional rights it is under the guise of protecting the country from the dangers of cognitive exertion. Apparently, liberals believe that citizens are too stupid and too gullible to think for themselves and require protection from public discourse of unacceptable ideas and debates over controversial subjects.
Apple’s motto is, “Think different.” The liberal motto is, “We will think for you.” America, do you want politicians to determine what ideas are correct and acceptable for public discourse and debate? America do you believe that censorship and political coercion will make us a freer and more democratic society? America do you believe that thought control will make us a better and more informed society?