I’ve been talking about how great the new advances in movie download services are, but at the same time I’ve been curbing the enthusiasm with the fact that even though things are headed in the right direction, there are still problems with the system. Well, Gizmodo put up a post today that sums up those problems better than I ever had, so I thought i’d share their 10 reasons why movie downloads suck list:
1. Pricing: Apple’s iTunes store charges $14.99 for a new release and $9.99 for an older movie, and Wal-Mart is expected to come close to matching that except for brand-new releases for which it will charge $19.88. That’s comparable to the price of a DVD, but with that you get a disc you can hold in your hand, cover art, a tangible item. Plus, that price is a whole lot more than you’d pay to rent a movie at Blockbuster or have one delivered to your mailbox from Netflix.
2. Meager selection of movies: although Wal-Mart promises movie downloads from the “big six” studios (Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal), it still won’t be able to match the vast collection of an ordinary video store, at least not for a while. And the iTunes store’s selection of films is so slim, it’s just pathetic.
3. No computer in the TV room: Most people don’t have a computer near the TV, and getting a downloaded movie from one to the other is awkward at best.
4. Quality: As HDTV finally begins to catch on, even ordinary viewers people are becoming accustomed to ultra-high-quality movie viewing, and downloads are still mired in the world of standard definition. Of course, this will change over time, but that’s not happening anytime soon.
5. Force of Habit: It’s hard to change the habits of John Q. Public, especially when it comes to comfortable routines such as TV watching. Just look at how long it took HDTV to gain any interest whatsoever. Even some techno-geeks we know are inexplicably clinging to standard definition television.
6. What’s the diff?: If you can record, say, Mission Impossible 3 via HBO onto your Series 3 TiVo in full quality HDTV, what’s the difference between that and downloading the same movie from the iTunes store? Yes, those staggered release dates imposed upon us by the studios make some downloads (and DVD purchases/rentals) more appealing, but many people don’t mind waiting a month or two to get a high-definition viewing of a semi-current movie, rather than going through all the gyrations of downloading that same flick.
7. Download Speed: Many broadband connections are not fast enough to download a movie in a reasonable amount of time. And then, let’s don’t even think about downloading HDTV movies, which will take four times longer to download.
8. Broadband flakiness: Another problem with broadband connections is that many customers are frequently throttled, where the amount of data they’re allowed to download is capped after a certain magical number. Broadband providers are trying to choke bandwidth as much as possible, just to be sure their services are profitable. Sure, might think you have “unlimited” Internet service, but it’s only unlimited as long as you don’t use it much.
9. DRM bullshit: Even if you are able to solve all the problems with downloading movies, there’s still gobs of digital rights management slathered onto that data, restricting how and when you can play it back. Nobody but the greedmeisters at the Hollywood studios likes this.
10. Too complicated: Finally, all of that knowledge and computer know-how needed for downloading movies is simply nonexistent in the skill sets of the average movie viewer. They’re just not willing to go through the learning curve to get the digital data from the PC to the TV screen when they can effortlessly pop in a DVD.
I really couldn’t have said it better myself. Now, do keep in mind that things ARE INDEED headed in the right direction, things are improving rapidly and I have every confidence that eventually these issues will start to sort themselves out… but for now they remain a problem and keep most film fans from embracing the new technology. This will change. Man, just a year ago the idea of legal movie downloading services were novel… now it’s happening and improving at a break neck pace.
