http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 9:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
see, this is one of the many reasons that people are turning to piracy: It's easier, more reliable, and will ALWAYS work. no pesky licensing schemes that prevent you from watching/listening to what you already paid for.

I'm not saying theft is right, but until they offer something as convenient and for a fair price, I'm sure it will keep going on.]]>Dec 27th 2007 11:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 10:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 9:29PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 9:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 11:17AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
This goes to show people, buy merchandise from companies whose core product is the item that you are buying. One stop shopping has its place but cutting edge technology isn't one of them.

Who wants to bet thet the SONY Connect store for e-books will fold and that the Amazon Kindle will at least make it several years......]]>Dec 28th 2007 12:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 11:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 11:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 11:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/02/nbc-content-gets-removed-from-itunes/

thanks.

and his comment is so ironic. any DRM is bad, iTunes will eventually be obsolete, so will the iPod. Locking the content to the device in a non-transcodable manner is the problem, not walmart.]]>Dec 27th 2007 11:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 5:08AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 5:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 7:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 8:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 8:53AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Jan 1st 2008 6:04PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
Steve Jobs FTW.]]>Dec 27th 2007 9:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
Video downloading just isn't as big as music downloading, because the fact of the matter is most people still watch their video on a TV in their living room. And there is still no way to do that over the internet that's as easy as "turn on your cable box or DVD player, sit down and watch". And honestly, DRM is a big issue for those who *do* want to watch video elsewhere, because the iPod isn't nearly as popular in that arena (in fact, cheap divx-playing portable DVD players are probably a lot more popular for that purpose). So those who do download movies are likely to keep using illegal download sites or just ripping their own DVD's.

Music is different because, as Stevie J himself said so long ago, it can be a passive activity, so it lends itself better to portability and consumption in short bursts. But as the Wal-Mart shutdown and the NBC iTunes pullout show, nobody has been all that successful in video downloads yet. Nobody. Including Apple. And the Fox deal won't change that.]]>Dec 28th 2007 7:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 11:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 31st 2007 3:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
Choices:
1. Rip your own DVDs
2. bit torrent
3. iTunes video
..
..
..
..
32. Amazon unbox]]>Jan 1st 2008 5:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Jan 2nd 2008 8:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 10:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 8:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 27th 2007 10:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
iTunes is no different in this regard.

That's why I buy DRM free or not at all. ]]>Dec 27th 2007 11:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 12:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 12:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
This may be true, however I know that as my equipment improves, and we move to quantum storage and new processor models and all that kind of crap -- I know that I have chosen to store my music in a form to which I have the full source code for compression and decompression (FLAC).
So - no matter how things develop, I will always be able to convert my music from it's current form into whatever comes next
]]>Dec 28th 2007 1:33AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/ ]]>Dec 27th 2007 11:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
As for people not hearing of it, one of the big reasons Wal-Mart sold off their DVD rental business to Netflix was because they were getting into downloads. They, like everyone else, expected movie downloads to eclipse DVD rentals by mail pretty quickly. Didn't happen. Wal-Mart's now closing down their download service and meanwhile, Netflix is still adding about 500,000 new customers per quarter.

The conventional wisdom is way ahead of the American consumer when it comes to the ways they get their movies.
]]>Dec 28th 2007 8:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/yeah, that worked]]>Dec 27th 2007 11:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
Anyway my point is clear: digital downloads still suck, DRM'd or not. Long live the physically-tangible optical formats! (CD, DVD, etc.)]]>Dec 28th 2007 12:21AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/"lossless 16-bit linear PCM encoding that only introduces minimal magnitude-quantization error"

I laughed when I got that far and decided to reply.]]>Dec 28th 2007 1:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 1:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
Addendum to my DVD discussion: I can play DVDs on any, ANY DVD/Blu-ray player out there as long as their region codes match those of the players. Well, I have a region-free DVD player so this isn't an issue to me. However, I still need to see a region-free Blu-ray player...]]>Dec 28th 2007 3:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
"I can't judge by ear alone the quality of MP3/AAC/WMA vs CD-Audio, but properly-calibrated spectrum analyzers can tell the difference."

Im no audiophile, but last time I checked, irrespective of how the music is encoded, musical enjoyment comes from listening to it via my ears, not some spectrum analyzer that properly calibrated to identify things my ears cant pick up.
]]>Dec 29th 2007 7:29AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 29th 2007 12:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
You made it about YOURSELF, not about golden eared people.]]>Dec 31st 2007 12:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Jan 1st 2008 12:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Jan 2nd 2008 4:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
"…CDs preserve audio quality much better than those pesky 128-kbps MP3/AAC downloads because they [the CDs, not the MP3/AAC files] use lossless 16-bit linear PCM encoding that only introduces minimal magnitude-quantization error. …"

Just in case you misunderstood my sentence.]]>Jan 2nd 2008 8:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Years from now, we ll find papers trying to explain why the Movie business is still in... business and the Music business is all but dead. The only thing i am afraid of is that TV shows are gonna go thru the same crisis as Anime today. They are short to download (even shorter without commercial) and without DRM, a spanking new episode of LOST will be available to everyone in the worlds the following morning making is useless for international media groups to pay huge money for something people have already seen.
Movie Download will never work. TV shows Download will take off and will destroy network TV. ]]>Dec 28th 2007 1:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 1:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 6:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Purchasing a song today has no meaning whatsoever compared to the experience of actually going to BestBuy and buy a CD. The product itself has become a disposable format that people accumulate in their Ipods without thinking twice and then are all surprised when they realized they actually bought the song when their Ipod shuffles to it. There s a long way to go to reach that point with movies. We did reach it with Anime thou. and this is the reason for all those distribution companies filing for bankruptcy. Next stop TV shows.]]>Dec 28th 2007 6:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 9:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/Dec 28th 2007 11:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/wal-mart-shuts-down-video-downloads-after-a-year/
I had to first install the Walmart downloader, which also installed the Walmart viewer (a bastardized Media Player). Which you had to use to view the movie, because other players weren't allowed.

I downloaded "Open Season" or whatever that animated Bear movie was called, and it did look good, sound good, and play well, and cost about 12 bucks.

Of course, I couldn't move it to any other computer or device, so my daughter ended up sitting at the computer, watching the movie. I guess I could hook the computer to the TV, but I wasn't in the mood.

That was the first, and last, movie I bought/downloaded from Walmart.

I think there's a future for movie downloading, but that wasn't it.]]>Dec 28th 2007 12:52PM