taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

So Mulley mentions that Moviestar.ie are planning to offer downloadable movies. Great concept, but I can guarantee the execution will be crap on a stick. :(

First off, the content available:

‘When the service goes live on 1 May, customers will be able to avail of content from several Irish producers including Network Ireland Television, as well as Video International’s film library which includes films like The Little Shop of Horrors. The company is also seeking content from both the History and Biography Channels, which would mean a substantial back catalogue of documentary shows.’

Sorry, but: snore.

Secondly, the technology used:

‘Moviestar.ie content must be downloaded onto a PC or laptop but can then be transferred over to digital media players like the iPod Touch for viewing on the go. This service will be compatible with Apple Macs but only if the user downloads Windows Media Player.’

So in other words, it’s Windows Media. That means it won’t play on my TV through my MythTV box, on a USB stick plugged into a Philips DVD player, on my Linux laptop, or even on a normal DVD player using a burned DVD.

Too little, too late. Plenty of Irish consumers are already consuming downloaded video — as the popularity of the Philips DVP5960 demonstrates. For legal video downloads to work, they need to be somewhere remotely near as convenient and usable as BitTorrent.

Using DRM is just falling down the same rabbit hole that swallowed up downloadable music for 5 years. Nobody used that either, until gradually the companies involved realised that opening up was the only way to get customers, bringing us to where we are today — legal downloads using the MP3 format.

BTW, I know that’s the same DRM technology used by Channel 4’s “4oD” download service. Big deal — I don’t bother trying to watch that stuff either, for the same reasons. If Channel 4 jumped off a cliff, would Moviestar.ie jump after them?

(By the way, that Philips DVD player is a total success story. That’s a name-brand hardware manufacturer, making a low-end, $60 DVD player, with support for viewing downloaded XviD AVI movies on a USB stick. Apparently it’ll also play off USB hard disks, too. It’s immensely popular; for example, here’s a customer review of 10/10: “Best thing ever”. Several of my friends have them, and praise them highly. I’m coming up to DVD player replacement time, and I’m planning to get one too.)

Tags: downloading, dvds, dvp5960, ireland, movies, moviestar.ie, philips, video

After a short period where things were looking up, Screenclick have once again reverted to type, by ditching the lovely simple Netflix-style queue they seemed to be using, and instead instituting some new kind of bizarre homebrew wierdness.

It looks like a queue, with a line-by-line listing of movies — but then beside each title, there are 3 radio buttons: “High”, “Medium”, and “Low”.

The instructions run as follows:

All titles are sorted in alphabetical order within their priority group

• - High: Please deliver these titles as soon as possible
• - Medium: Please deliver these titles as they become available
• - Low: I don’t mind when you send these titles

So what — does this mean that if I put a title in as “High”, I’m going to receive it next, or not, or what? and what’s with the alphabetical order? WTF is going on? argh.

Anyway, I just got out “Amores Perros”, presumably due to this alphabetical ordering thing. not what I wanted at all. What a mess.

Tags: dvds, ireland, netflix, screenclick, tv, usability, wtf

Yay! They now have a proper queue! Also member reviews and other improvements — it seems a lot better.

Can’t figure out how to change my password, though ;)

Tags: dvds, ireland, screenclick, tv

Funny: BBC: DVD pirate’s pitch ends in arrest:

A man has been arrested after trying to sell counterfeit DVDs - at a Trading Standards Office.

The man had apparently missed the sign on the office in Beehive Lane, Chelmsford, Essex, and asked if anyone would like to buy pirated films. Staff said they were very interested indeed in what he had to sell, but when he realised where he was he ran off, leaving his wares and £210 in cash.

Police later arrested the man in a supermarket in Chelmsford.

Tags: arrest, bbc, chelmsford, counterfeit, dvd, dvds, funny, man, office, pirate, pitch

Ireland: A while back, I posted ‘Room for an Irish Netflix’, which plugged the idea of opening a version of the Netflix concept for Ireland. Well, over on the taint.org QT forum, JCorbett says: ‘ DVDRentals.ie is what you’re looking for!’

Sure enough, it looks pretty good — 20 eurons a month, and a reasonable selection (considering they just started).

But it limits how many DVDs you can get out in a month to 8. IMO, that’s unnecessary — nobody can watch DVDs and turn them around through the postal system that quickly!

Also, the browsing interface is lousy — I’d suggest licensing some kind of metadata from IMDb or similar, so people can get third-party reviews, comments, ‘my favourite action movie’ lists, that kind of thing.

Can’t tell much more, as the FAQ page doesn’t work on Mozilla/Firebird for some damn reason.

Sick: Anger as contestants hungry for money go begging on TV (Irish Indo) (via forteana):

A reality television show in which 12 young Russian contestants have to scrounge, beg and even steal to win a pension for life, is being filmed in Berlin.

In a city already struggling with bankruptcy and large numbers of asylum-seekers, police and residents have been quick to condemn Golod, Russian for ‘hunger’. The contestants live in a container without money or food to survive; none of them speaks German. ‘Golod’ is proving a huge hit with Moscow television viewers, thousands of whom tune in at nine each evening to find out how Karina, Anastasia and 10 other photogenic contestants are faring on the mean streets of a foreign city.

Spam: Latest Pew Internet report on spam. Pew Internet surveys are very good. This one notes that ‘25% of America’s email users say they are using email less because of spam. Within that group, most say that spam has reduced their overall use of email in a big way.’

Mafia: A mafia hacker tells his story to Wired (Simson Garfinkel via FoRK).

Tags: city, dvds, email, golod, ireland, irish, kind, money, month, netflix, spam

Net: So it seems Kerry Packer has announced a Netflix-like service in Australia, Homescreen.

In essence, you pay a flat fee per month, log on to a website, select a whole batch of DVDs, and they post the first 3 out to you. You can keep them as long as you like, then post them back in pre-paid envelopes; once they arrive at the nearest depot, they post out the next 3 on your list.

This works very well — in the form of Netflix at least. I can vouch for the coolness of this; pretty much everyone I know who has a DVD player has joined Netflix. It’s just great having 3 DVDs on-hand for whenever you feel like watching one.

Of course, it requires that the serivce have a decent selection of goods, including some good ‘classics’. From the sounds of things, Homescreen may be failing on this point.

Also, it requires a reliable postal service. But if they can do it in the US, they can certainly do it in Australia or any European country ;)

And I’d bet Ireland has a whole huge DVD-player installed base, given the oft-quoted factoid that there are more PlayStations per capita in Ireland than any other country outside of Japan.

Irish entrepreneurs — get cracking! ;)

Tags: country, dvds, essence, homescreen, kerry, net, netflix, netflix-like, packer, post, service

Art: Jason Salavon: Selected projects, 1997 - 2003.

Salavon operates by taking data from various sources (DVDs of late-night talk shows, homes for sale in various states, MTV’s 10 Greatest Music Videos of All Time, Playboy centerfolds, etc.), then statistically combining them and converting that into another image, movie, or whatever.

The results are excellent. Check out Homes for Sale and Every Playboy Centerfold, The Decades (normalized).

I remember somebody asking me what I thought ‘computer art’ (sic) should be like, after I dissed yet another lame pixellated Photoshop/Flash thingy. Now I have something to point at ;) I’m well impressed.

Tags: art, dvds, greatest, image, mtv, music, playboy, sale, talk, time, videos