Dell pre-loading Iron Man, world asks "Why?"

While in the throes of customizing your dream machine over at Dell, weighing CPU cost vs. memory cost, would you click on a $19 option called "Iron Man movie with bonus content?" We sure wouldn't, but now you can, part of what the Director of Dell's Global Consumer Group is calling the company's "slow immersion into content as a major piece of the puzzle in terms of what consumers want from a PC." Right. The (surely DRM-riddled) film is available on any Inspiron, Studio, or XPS laptop or desktop, playable on that machine itself or through your choice of Windows Media Extender. Iron Man is the only film on offer now, but meaty palms are likely being pressed as you read this to drive other partnerships and more choices. This could let the company hook customers before even shipping their hardware, a potential advantage for what looks to be a looming content battle with Apple.

[Thanks, SebS]

[Sisyphus @ Sep 30th 2008 12:12PM]

At least they're not preloading "Iron Manga"

[Kai @ Sep 30th 2008 12:13PM]

I don't know why Dell would want to do that... are they going to start selling a Windows Media Extender soon?

[Jason @ Sep 30th 2008 12:14PM]

Just say no to DRM kids.



Just say NO.

[ethana2 @ Sep 30th 2008 2:14PM]

Don't bother.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

Just hack through it mercilessly. Blu-ray is coming, there's no way to stop it.
..but there's no way to stop /us/, either, so in the end, really, it's all good.

[Kawaiipikachu @ Sep 30th 2008 7:22PM]

Well there a big Difference between Digital Rights Managment & Digital Restriction Managment .

Ones provides piracy protection & other corrupts file prevents playback & other tonne of of crap .
Example of digital rights managment Wii Virtual Console & Wiiware: lock games to one system infinite redownloads from one puchase but have one minor drawback even you can transfer your account to a new system in case on emergency your SD card backups are useless meaning you would need to redownload with updated backups that tied to the new systme but im willing to put up with that .

Digital Restriction Managment Anything Sont or Microsoft ect.
Finite downloads malware inducing online actavation ect .
Just plain stupid .

There you have it Nintendo sets an example of what should be done .

[farfisa @ Sep 30th 2008 12:15PM]

I wonder if they would let you mail in your Dell every time you want to watch a new movie? Oh wait, brain's back on. Bad idea.

[bangladeshiluv @ Sep 30th 2008 12:20PM]

preload utorrent

[ethana2 @ Sep 30th 2008 2:05PM]

Mine came with transmission.

[Lars @ Sep 30th 2008 5:20PM]

Stealing is wrong, kids.

But I do sometimes torrent movies that I own, when I don't feel like ripping and concatenating VOB's.

[Neeko @ Sep 30th 2008 12:22PM]

$20 for digital copy? THATS CRAZY. Who would want this? That price is ridiculous. Wow there marketing dept mustve been some OLD suits looking to abuse there DUMB customers.

Id love to hear the dell rep try and spin this as a GOOD DEAL.

[Chris Anderson @ Sep 30th 2008 12:40PM]

i wonder what kind of quality this version is, though....I've had the 1080p blu-ray rip for some time now, and i wouldn't mind paying 20 dollars for a pre-loaded copy of THAT....

if it's equal or worse than DVD quality, I blow my nose at you, Dell!

[Lars @ Sep 30th 2008 5:17PM]

I guarantee you some people will buy it. And it's not really a dumb move by them since making digital copies doesn't really cost anything. If people buy it, cha-ching! If not, no biggie.

I sure as hell wouldn't buy it though. I'll just take the BD or DVD version, and rip my own DRM-free digital copy.

[konshuss @ Sep 30th 2008 12:23PM]

the fact that DRM content is being crowbarred into deals like this shows how antiquated it is and unnecessary. let it die.

[meist3r @ Sep 30th 2008 12:24PM]

The bets are open now, who will launch a redundand movie download service with exclusive Dell partnership soon? This sounds like another pathetic attempt to fight the degree of freedom users are already acquainted to through their regular download habits. I'll surely never pay for a movie pre-loaded onto a new computer, heck I don't even pay for the OS since I get that for free.

[MC Double Def DP @ Sep 30th 2008 12:24PM]

Free, maybe. $19, hell no.

[Lindsay @ Sep 30th 2008 12:28PM]

How do they get this disc on the hard drive? I thought RealDVD was the only legal way to do that?

[rickhamilton620 @ Sep 30th 2008 2:00PM]

Actually Sony's done this for a while. They are preloaded by default however (unlike Dell that let's you opt out or into all the crapware) and to add insult to injury, Sony charges you to watch them...after they've shoved it onto your computer.

Pretty interesting article, comparing the level of junkware preloaded on top brands of systems: http://www.pcworld.com/article/137285-5/junkbusters.html

[ethana2 @ Sep 30th 2008 2:08PM]

Just rip the whole disc image..
But then, if it's blu-ray, that's a whole lot of space you'd be basically wasting.
....then again, a 1 TB HDD is only like $200, and it would store like 20 of them.. Still, that is ~$10/movie just for the disc space.....

[Mile @ Sep 30th 2008 12:28PM]

Great movie!

[Fred @ Sep 30th 2008 12:29PM]

It's nothing earth-shattering. The headline should have been, "World says , Meh." It's just a gimmick.

[Anthony @ Sep 30th 2008 12:31PM]

Movies good but this is a fail.

[NoAndThen @ Sep 30th 2008 12:33PM]

LOVED Iron Man, am buying it on bluray today.

HATED DRM (i now no longer use ANY DRM media/software).

Stupid marketing idea? Check.

[Big Sam @ Sep 30th 2008 12:52PM]

You realize Blu-Ray is DRMed right? Twice actually.

[Ashwin @ Sep 30th 2008 1:18PM]

Theres a huge difference between Blu-ray and a digital copy in terms of DRM. A blu-ray disk can be played on any blu-ray drive, and is just difficult to copy. A DRMed digital copy is pretty much locked to the machine.

[John @ Sep 30th 2008 12:34PM]

oooor you could spend about 12 hours downloading it in high def..... but you don't get the awesome "behind the scenes" of how they had to strap Downey down and beat the demons out of him.

[iEye @ Sep 30th 2008 12:36PM]

Why not! If there are morons out there who will buy it then I say fleece 'em

Hey, people pay $$$ for little pieces of rolled leaves that they burn, inhale and then get lung cancer from, but they buy 'em!

[meist3r @ Sep 30th 2008 12:47PM]

It all depends on the kind of plant you prefer ... and to keep the smokers analogy going:
You can only find the good stuff on the black market ... it still might give you cancer, but at least until then you had a fucking great time instead of plain constant addiction.

DRM is a lot like nicotine in that way. Strange really, but people seem to go back to quench that itch that started only when, and because, they first used it.

[Gansta @ Sep 30th 2008 12:38PM]

Follow the money trail fool!!!

[snypergod @ Sep 30th 2008 12:41PM]

My sister's new dell m1330 was preloaded with spider-man 3 that you had to activate for $10.

[Raphael Salgado @ Sep 30th 2008 12:52PM]

Isn't everyone tired of preloaded crap on PCs? Iron Man is actually good, but how about we start getting PCs without anything but Windows and its drivers on there? Whatever else we want, we'll add ourselves. Is that so hard to do?! Macs are pretty good at doing that, they might squeeze an iWork '08 or Microsoft Office 2008 trial on it, but that's about it.

[avester @ Sep 30th 2008 12:57PM]

If you are capable of installing your own software, you are capable of building a PC yourself...

[telepheedian @ Sep 30th 2008 1:10PM]

Build your own notebook?

(and yes, I do know that there are vendors that skip the preload crap for the most part)

[Technex @ Sep 30th 2008 4:38PM]

Yep, how are you suppose to build a laptop, possible perhaps but not something I want to be doing.

I love the fact that my Dell laptop is very easy to perform maintenance on, nicely laid out. Although I shouldn't really be having to do all this if it wasn't for there crappy drivers on the standard WiFi cards....

Dell need to fix there drivers, stop adding preloaded shit, takes too long removing that crap... Not everyone should have to spend there time reformatting or removing there stuff when they just paid a small fortune for there new laptop.

[Roger Crimmons @ Sep 30th 2008 1:08PM]

You guys are all missing the point. As readers of "Engadget" you are by definition *not* the target audience for this type of offer. You folks are what we call "early adopters" and generally a little more savy when it comes to the myriad of options for downloading and viewing studio content.

The "Iron Man" promotion is for the millions of folks who are not as technologically advanced. These people want to pull their brand new computers out of the box and immediately do something cool with it...like watch a blockbuster movie without the hassle of finding it somewhere else and figuring out how to download it.

Cut Dell some slack here. Their customers will decide if this idea is good or bad. I'm voting "good."

[James @ Sep 30th 2008 1:41PM]

"like watch a blockbuster movie without the hassle of finding it somewhere else"

Oh crap, you're right. They'll never figure out how to drive that half mile to the video store!

[giuliop @ Sep 30th 2008 2:10PM]

I'm voting "idiotic". People may not be tech savvy, but it takes a really dumb one not to realise that you could buy the same movie online (before or after you buy this PC) or at your local store either for less than that (if it's the SD version) or without wasting gigs on your hard drive (if it's HD), *and* have a disc you can play anywhere.

[masonreloaded @ Sep 30th 2008 4:16PM]

If it were a free offer, I think this is a really good idea - Give 3 or 4 movies away with the PC would encourage people to use their PC as a media center or get an extender. They already load enough crap on it, why not add a movie or two...

However, to charge more than the DVD will cost day one for a DRMed ethereal copy of a single movie is a terrible idea.

[Magallanes @ Sep 30th 2008 2:02PM]

Dell pre-loading Iron Man, world asks "Why?"

may be it is a IRONy.

:3

[ethana2 @ Sep 30th 2008 2:06PM]

Is THIS what they've been doing instead of working on offering the Latitude XT tablet with Ubuntu?
Are you serious?!

[chiwax @ Sep 30th 2008 2:14PM]

You guys have it all wrong!!! This offer is for people who casually use their computers within their complex lives. If someone wants to store professionally made files on their PCs and then watch them on five different TVs in the house this is a great deal. If someone wants to sit in front of their PCs night and day and play with themselves because they are getting off on downloading poorly made files for free, this deal is not for those people. Just like Zune Marketplace, iTunes, XBOX Live Marketplace and such are strictly for people who don't have time for poorly made files and need things to work without much trouble. I prefer to watch content on many TVs throughout the house and I need that content to be professional. I have noticed that the DRM free content is for people with less standards on quality. Not to mention that the professional distribution channels are so much more easy to browse for content. Each to their own right? Q.

[Loban @ Sep 30th 2008 2:55PM]

"poorly made files for free"

Not much experience with matroska and private trackers eh?

[ChiWax @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:01AM]

At least you are making my point for me about DRM and why it exists. It has zero to do with keeping people who pay for content from playing the content on multiple devices. It's to protect the content makers. None of which hang out at Engadget all day....Q

[SlickD @ Sep 30th 2008 2:14PM]

While I agree with you all that this is a bit unnecessary, but my guess is that dell do this to lure people to also pick the blue-ray player option.

[Fant @ Sep 30th 2008 2:17PM]

Why does the article say you need a media extender to play them on a TV? Cant all these notebooks be hooked up to a tv via HDMI / DVI / VGA / Component / S-video / Composite ?

[rickhamilton620 @ Sep 30th 2008 3:37PM]

They just want you to pay more for the extender...that's all.

[chiwax @ Sep 30th 2008 2:20PM]

I found something even worse at a Best Buy last week. "The Godfather" on Blu-Ray was in a protective case. It was security laden so someone couldn't walk out of the store without paying for the thing! Can you Engadget dopes believe that one!?!?! I mean who does Best Buy think they are putting extra security on something like "The Godfather" in hi-def? Just say no to store security people!!!! Let me know what else I can do to help Engadget in this fight!!! Q.

[telepheedian @ Sep 30th 2008 5:25PM]

Your analogy would only work if the security device locked down the amount of players and brands of devices you could use the disc with.

[Hey @ Sep 30th 2008 3:08PM]

Many Dell LCD monitors in the Iron man movie. Dell is sponsor of the movie.

[Jonny @ Sep 30th 2008 6:53PM]

Anyone who buys this is a tool.

Speaking the DVD version of the movie is around 13.99 at CC, to 16.99 or so.

That gets you all the bonus features, the movie, a real disc, a nice case with artwork, and the possibilities of using it on any DVD player. Not just a computer or a Media Center extender.

Media Center Extenders are about 149.99 and up. A DVD player is 20-40 dollars.

[ChiWax @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:02AM]

But buying the DVD and playing a spinning disc is seeming more like a baby's toy each and every day. For people who want large libraries of content without spending a lot of time building it this is the start of a new age. I understand people being nostalgic and not being able to move on from very old technology.....Q