Wal-Mart shuts down video downloads after a year in service

Sounds like the video download game isn't as easy as the biggies make it out to be. Wal-Mart, whose download store has been open all of a year and a couple of weeks is already shutting down, apparently abandoning the effort after its tech partner HP discontinued whatever technology it was running the thing. Bonus for (former) Wal-Mart Video Downloads though: according to the FAQ, all downloaded videos are users' to keep, and no one's bound to keep the Wal-Mart Video Download Manager on their machine anymore. Of course, it's still DRMed to hell, so short of stripping the copy protection, you'll only be able to play "your" purchased videos with the machine on which you bought it -- and nothing else.

[Via Reuters]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2007 1:39PM]

Everything that is available on a DVD or CD COULD be available in digital download and at exactly the same quality. True, pirated movies and existing download services don't include them now, but anyone that doesn't understand that DVDs and CDs are nothing but a type of storage doesn't belong here. And if something is storage it can be downloaded. Sure, bandwidth is an issue, but barely. See http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/25/internet2-operators-set-new-internet-speed-record/ an article about a theoretical 100Gbps connection. When things like this become reality then we truly can all live 'in the cloud'.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 28th 2007 5:24PM]

Finally, some responses with more foresight. Increasing bandwidth
speeds and technology will only help movie downloads more of a
reality. TV's with external or internal media servers will dish out
content accessible from any device, anywhere in the house, and
anywhere you can connect remotely from. Movie downloads will not be
stuck at the PC forever. But don't get me wrong. Movie downloads are
not for everybody. The very young kids (< 24) have/are already
ditching physical media for digital downloads. The older guys (yes,
25+) will be like the folks who still talk lovingly about vinyl or
going to Best Buy for the experience (what?!). And your DVD
collection won't look so good cluttered and collecting dust on your
shelf when everybody has sleek TV's serving out digital content.
Plus, there's also digital rentals that online stores like iTunes are
soon providing at reasonable prices. Don't tell me you prefer to go
to Blockbuster. Last time I checked, video stores were struggling.
Blockbuster had to start a mail-rental program and buy up Movielink. Movie downloads are coming up. It may take 10 years or so for physical media to finally die, but it has already begun.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 29th 2007 1:07PM]

I doubt this will ever happen. The moment superfast internet connections (512 Mbps?) become affordable to almost everybody and digital downloads achieve the same quality/resolution as Blu-ray/HD-DVD, the movie industry would've certainly migrated to a much-higher-resolution, much-better-quality video format: 6720×2880p pixels (cinematographically-correct 2.33:1 aspect ratio, more than 9 times 1080p HDTV resolution!) @ 48 fps (twice the industry-standard framerate; equal to IMAX?), 48-bit super-true-color (twice the 24-bit true-color scheme used by MPEG-2 and VC1), MPEG-7 compression...

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 29th 2007 1:36PM]

..., monster 10.2-channel 48-bit uncompressed audio super-sampled at 384 kHz...

The physical media will always be way ahead of digital downloads

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 30th 2007 3:35PM]

As stated so meticulously, that new resolution is 9x 1080p HDTV
resolution, but a 512 Mbps internet connection is also about 100x
faster than the current average broadband connection. Assuming
physical media is way ahead with the ability to store that much data,
why assume compression technology would not also advance to handle
6720×2880p? Especially if downloading at 512 Mbps.

Sure, physical media can hold tons of data. But IMO, in the near
future physical discs will simply not be of interest to consumers for
aesthetic and practical reasons. Why store boxes with discs when you
can conveniently download and store digitally on a drive hidden
somewhere in your house? And like I said earlier, the younger
generation is already not interested in buying discs. I doubt they
will start buying discs for 2880p or 4320p in 10 or 20 years when
those formats are actually viable. And neither will their kids.

[THJ Posted Jan 2nd 2008 3:13AM]

Having moved about 13 times in the past 15 years, stacks and stacks of DVDs/CDs, etc; are a drag. OTOH, I can fit 100+ 700MB movies on a 1 TB HD that takes up 1/100 of the space.