Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Fox Totally Misses the Point of Content Portability
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "CONTENT" @ 09:00 AM
'In an industry first, 20th Century Fox is expected to announce Tuesday that the special-edition DVD of "Live Free or Die Hard" will come with an electronic copy of the complete movie that can be played on a computer and select portable video players. "This may be the killer app, where you have physical media that allows you to have a big-screen experience and at the same time move the file around to other devices and have a great experience there as well," said Mike Dunn, worldwide president of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the studio's home-video division."
This story is getting a lot of press, with Fox proclaiming "we're looking out for the little guy! we're giving you content portability!" No. You're not. First off, I can already play the DVD in my computer. So I don't need no stinking DRM wrapped file. (Or I can rip it to my computer using countless free software programs, in just a couple of clicks, but that's another issue altogether.) Second, I don't own any PlaysForSure devices. I have an iPod. The file that's being provided on the second disc won't work with iPods, or for that matter, any device that is not PlaysForSure certified (which is...um, oh, MOST of them...including the Zune). That makes this "portable content" completely useless to me. Third, managed copy is written into the spec for HD DVD. Why not take the time and energy you spent setting up this deal for the Die Hard DVD and just give us the managed copy we've been promised?
What a steaming pile of crap.
This story is getting a lot of press, with Fox proclaiming "we're looking out for the little guy! we're giving you content portability!" No. You're not. First off, I can already play the DVD in my computer. So I don't need no stinking DRM wrapped file. (Or I can rip it to my computer using countless free software programs, in just a couple of clicks, but that's another issue altogether.) Second, I don't own any PlaysForSure devices. I have an iPod. The file that's being provided on the second disc won't work with iPods, or for that matter, any device that is not PlaysForSure certified (which is...um, oh, MOST of them...including the Zune). That makes this "portable content" completely useless to me. Third, managed copy is written into the spec for HD DVD. Why not take the time and energy you spent setting up this deal for the Die Hard DVD and just give us the managed copy we've been promised?
What a steaming pile of crap.
