Nothing special: Wal-Mart downloads die
Hate to spoil the rest of your holidays, but Wal-Mart has abandoned its movie download service.
The blue-collar retail giant posted a one-sentence notice on its “media downloads” page noting that the service “closed on 12/21/07.” Users were advised to delete the page from their favorites.
That shouldn’t be too hard, considering pretty much no one knew or cared Wal-Mart was in the business. The service had been marked as in beta. (Now comes word that Wal-Mart has entered the SEO business. Brother.)
A statement from Wal-Mart on Friday noted that the service faded to black because tech partner Hewitt Packard decided to pull its tech backing.
“The market for paid video downloads has not performed as expected, and the broader Internet video space continues to remain highly dynamic and uncertain,” the technology company told the New York Times. (Gizmodo broke the story, apparently.)
Wal-Mart charged up to a whopping $20 to download a brand-new release, wildly out of touch with competitors such as iTunes, Netflix and Amazon Unbox. In addition, the retailer’s digital rights management system meant its movies worked only with the Windows Media Player.
When Wal-Mart launched the movie-download service about a year ago, it did so with the participation of the major Hollywood studios, all of whom depend heavily on the retailer for traditional DVD sales.
iTunes, Fox going to the movies
20th Century Fox movies are headed for iTunes in a deal to be announced at Macworld, London’s Financial Times is reporting.
The partnership includes inclusion of Apple’s FairPlay digital rights code into some new Fox DVDs. That means the DVDs could be burned to one computer and an iPod player.
The Fox content on the iTunes store would be for rental, a first for iTunes. A move of this type had been expected.
The partnership would mean a strong showing by Steve Jobs and Apple at the closely watched product unveiling, set for Jan. 14. The iTunes store recently lost NBC Universal fare in a widely publicized spat over pricing and control. Fox is owned by News Corp., NBC Uni’s partner in the Hulu video-on-demand service.
Coding that paves the way for iRentals was discovered in the iTunes v. 7.5 release.
BitTorrent leaks, Apple TV woes, DivX to 360
Don’t tell the striking writers: We’re seeing more reports that TV networks and producers have been leaking upcoming programs to BitTorrent. The wink-wink shows reportedly include “Weeds,” “Chuck,” the upcoming “Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Dexter.” Guinevere Orvis writes on last100.com: “Why? Well, it’s partially an experiment, but the hope is that distribution of content this way will lead to new viewers that wouldn’t have been reached through traditional marketing means. Early signs indicate that these experiments are working.” She goes on to quote “Weeds” producer Jenji Kohan: “Revenue aside, I don’t expect to get rich on ‘Weeds” (so) I’m excited it’s out there.”
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 now supports video files captured in DivX and XvID. The upgrade came in a software upgrade a couple of weeks ago. “It’s not entirely perfect,” Gawker reports. “It’s 90% of the way there.” The files are best played off a disc. Those are all legal video files, right?
Forrester Research says Apple TV “will be lucky” to sell something like 400,000 units in the holiday season, which would still leave the video-transfer device well below expectations. About half of online adults are aware of the device, but only 3% intend to buy one, Forrester says. Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider responded with some advice for Steve Jobs. “Despite plenty of claims to the contrary, the device still doesn’t have much serious competition,” Frommer wrote. He proposes a serious software update, HD content on the iTunes Store, DVR functionality and letting people rip DVDs to their Apple TVs/computers the same way they can transfer CDs to play on iPods.
‘Jackass 2.5′ punks cinemas, debuts online
The first two “Jackass” movies grossed something like a combined $140 million in theaters, but the exhibitors aren’t getting their mitts on the next installment.
Paramount is heading straight for the gross-out gang’s core audience by deploying “Jackass 2.5″ online, starting Wednesday with exclusive streaming on Blockbuster’s Movielink.
A week later it’s on to DVD
Blockbuster shareholders will be delighted to hear the rental giant reportedly paid $2 million for this chance to spotlight its movie download service. With a film featuring liberal ass, dick, shit and piss.
The online units of MTV and Paramount say this is first major studio movie to debut online. That’s not counting “Sicko” and “American Gangster,” both victims of major leaks to Bitstream Nation. The scheme also promos the new jacksassworld.com
“Jackass 2.5″ is just what it sounds like: outtakes and deleted scenes from “Jackass 2.” Damaged goods? Nope, this is another balls-to-the-wall effort from Johnny Knoxville and the boys. Making it about as funny as disgusting humor gets — strictly for those with the inability to be offended.
Knoxville says in the that “2.5″ is due to “my and the boys’ inability to stop shooting ‘Jackass 2.’ ” And so we have stunts such as anal-bead kite flying, fun with snapping turtles, a Russian prostate massage, a cobra-infested bed of nails, the smelly powder “poof” and the “rattlesnake salad toss.”
The best bit is fat man Preston Lacy dressed as King Kong, balancing atop an outhouse while fending off radio-controlled airplanes. His love interest is Wee Man, as Fay Wray.
In between bits, the boys talk about each stunt and how much the victim Jackass guy hated doing it. They say things like, “We filmed this atrocity … ”
Here’s Knoxville with a pitch for this major Viacom corporate initiative:
Hulu test drive: streaming high definition
The NBC Universal-Fox site Hulu continues to impress. The video site just expanded its public beta to include high definition. I took a virtual walk around the HD Gallery to viddie the results.
The showcase features trailers from five new and upcoming films: “Alien vs. Predator: Requiem,” “Horton Hears a Who,” “Wanted,” “Charlie Wilson’s War” and “Hitman.” Unfortunately, with the possible exception of “Charlie Wilson,” these movies appear to suck. But we’re here to look at the pretty pictures …
The animated “Horton” had the best images, as is typical with CGI material displayed in high definition. On Hulu, the animation looked sharp and clear, but the visual experience clearly lagged behind a decent TV monitor running similar content in any format: HD DVD/Blu-ray, upconverted DVD and even DVD.
Still, for streaming video on a midpriced computer monitor (16×9), this was a visual treat, far better than I’ve seen to date. That’s in line with what Hulu has to say in its HD preview:
We’ve limited the bitrates on these HD streams to allow as many users as possible to sample high definition streaming. Even so, we think you’ll agree that the results are a huge step up from what we’re used to seeing on the web.
Given expectations, a few of the live action trailers seemed a bit flat and dingy — probably more a question of source material, or even the choice of shots in the trailer. “Alien” and “Hitman” looked drab at times, while “Charlie Wilson” and “Wanted” had some sparkle. There were no signs of artifacting or other video noise. The video stream never broke and the pause feature worked like a charm. (The photos on this post come from the HD and give a pretty good idea of the quality. I did brighten up the images a tad.)
The lossless audio is a major perk of high definition on DVD systems. On Hulu, even played through a decent PC system, the sound was nothing special. Except for that one moment of real clarity and presence, in which an announcer thanked the sponsor. I have no idea how the audio was streamed.
The Hulu HD comes out at 1280 x 720 resolution, using the H.264 video codec for compression. Viewers need broadband, the latest Adobe Flash Player 9 and a reasonably fast computer. The requirements can be found on the HD Gallery’s intro page. You’ll need to be in on the Hulu beta.
Meanwhile, NBC Uni has been busy on other fronts:
TechCrunch reports that NBC’s own site, NBC Direct, is turning to P2P distribution of its downloads. Apparently this is another move toward high definition.
NBC Universal also did the spin on an output deal with SanDisk for videos on the Fanfare service, which uses a portable hard drive to haul online video from PCs to TVs. Fanfare has an iTunes-style store for downloads that gave NBC the pricing control it failed to wrest from Steve Jobs. The deal includes content from NBC’s primetime sked as well as Sci-Fi Channel, Bravo and the like. Here’s the closing snark: Anyone have a Fanfare player? Hands? OK, how about an iPod …
