Survey screens reveal potential new FiOS guide, 1080p VOD, HD purchases on the way?
By Richard Lawler 
posted May 4th 2009 2:46PM
posted May 4th 2009 2:46PM
[Thanks, Matt!]
posted May 4th 2009 2:46PM
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
$29.99 for a hd digital version that only has dvd audio and no extra? no case and you can't resell later on. The price should be no more than $19.99 to had a chance, consider most store like amazon selling the new blu-ray of that same movie for under $25.
That's one 9 too many.
I don't see how a digital copy costs more than a physical one, especially when you can't resell it. I'm sick and tired of the BS coming from movie studios who assume we are idiots!
Bandwidth ain't cheap yo.
Hence, why blu-ray isn't going away anytime soon.
Bandwidth is actually very cheap. Most of these companies use a CDN to distribute content, and while there is a cost associated with it, on a per-download basis, you're looking at a cost that is AT MOST equal to the packaging cost of a physical movie (but probably much less, depending on the type of deal they got from the CDN).
Don't be fooled, this is nothing but a money-grab from the studios.
Looks very similar to Apple themes. The fonts, the background gradient and the coverflow-ish selection screen shot are almost indistinguishable. Looks much better though.
...better than the previous FiOS menus I mean.
What happens when your box gets replaced with an upgraded one? What happens if you move? What if you switch providers and come back to fios, do you keep the movies you bought before?
Lets not pass judgment until we know more. I think there are some other plans for FiOS if they plan on letting us download 1080p copies of movies. I certainly don't want to tie up my 160Gb DVR with one 8Gb (at least) file. And since its not in Verizon to compress anything who knows what kind of codecs they will use.
It would be nice if they updated their STB's to play at 24fps and HD audio codecs too, maybe HDMI CEC if they really feel generous.
Also they have been touting video streaming from your PC to the STB through their Media Manager app for quite a while, and its supposed to support a lot of codecs, yet we haven't seen anything on that front yet, and the MM is a resource pig on most PCs.
Since this is their VOD service I highly doubt there would be any downloading content onto the DVR or anything else. My guess is that if you "bought" the movie from their On Demand service you would be able to watch it anytime On Demand for as long as you had the service. This is why I was wondering what happens when you upgrade boxes, or if you move, or whatever else. For $30 bones, that's pretty expensive if you decide to change services at some point...
VZ has been saying for several years that streaming movies and shows from almost any site on the internet straight to our TVs was just around the corner. Now they are saying that we might be able to download some videos from a few sites later this year. Or maybe not. A
$6 to download a rented movie? No wonder piracy is so prevalent.
People pirate 99 cent songs, it doesn't matter what it costs.
@Nate: People assign value to things. At 99 cents per track, apparently people don't find the music valuable enough to pay for it. On top of that, perhaps it isn't available in a convenient package (DRM, crappy download managers, low-bitrate, not in a preferred format, etc).
Personally? I'd *NEVER* pay $30 for any movie. Period. However, I have bought over 50 HD-DVDs at $4-5 each, because to me, that is a good deal. Every single one of those movies I could have downloaded via torrents, but I didn't because I don't mind paying for something...I just want to feel like I got a fair deal.
A song and movie are pretty different. If a proper 1080p HD download cost $.99, I think movie piracy would go way down.
Because a feature length movie and a single audio track have the same production cost or because they cost the same to transfer from host to customer. You are really dreaming. You think businesses exist to give you things you deserve. Businesses exist to make money.
I have no problem with companies making money (I'm about the biggest fan of capitalism in the world), but the entertainment industry has completely bought out our representatives in Washington to allow them to artificially manipulate the market in their favor.
There is a real value to all of this media. As soon as the entertainment industry is willing to lower the prices and find that value, piracy will all but disappear. Until that point, piracy is easy, cheap, and provides the content in a way that works best for the consumer. There's no real reason to "legitimately" purchase media, except to feel good about "doing it the right way" (which is falsely manipulated by the entertainment industry to begin with).
If only Verizon could service my area with FiOS... :(