320px Video Isn't Too Small
Some of you will decry me for being a fool when I tell you that I just bought every Lost episode available on the iTMS. Some of you will say that I am supporting DRM. I say, I'm just buying some TV shows. If there were an agenda in the purchase beyond that, I'd say I'm supporting a new emerging type of broadcasting television that I want to see flourish. And then I'd add, that if I bought them legally on DVDs, I'd still be supporting DRM. Just because it is easy to get around, doesn't mean that the copy-protection baked into DVDs isn't DRM.
Others among you will say that it's ridiculous for me to spend $1.99 per episode when I could get it for free over bittorrent or for less on DVD, both of which are better quality video. Perhaps, but I couldn't do so so easily as I can by clicking 'Purchase.' 10-15 minutes later I have a full show to watch. As for the quality, I tend to agree with what Eric Rice posted recently to his blog in a post (PG-13) entitled The falsehood of "No one wants to watch 320px video". It's a good read and cuts through a lot of the noise surrounding the quality of the video in the iTMS: "We subscribe to content, not format. There are valid points about surrounding technologies being good or bad: from DRM to BitTorrent. . . . No one wants to watch video sized at 320 pixels, you'll say. To that, I'll just tell you to keep it down. I'm watching."
