STARZ download plan includes PDAs, excludes Opera |
Loading ...Our youngest son has a habit-forming saying lately that cracks us up: That’s what I’m talking about. I find myself saying that a lot lately. And when I just read that STARZ new service called Vongo will allow transfer of movies to PDAs, I echoed my son’s sentiments. At least until I actually visited Vongo with my Opera browser and saw the following message:
Stone tablets?
C’mon, STARZ! A better browser? Has anybody there actually tried the new version of Opera? Grrrr. Some might tire of seeing me write how Opera is a great browser, but it has to be the most disrespected browser out there right now. New sites launch and they don’t work or return lame humor as shown above.
(Note: when I visited Vongo with Internet Explorer, it said I needed to upgrade to Flash 8 or higher. The only visit where my browser was up to snuff was Firefox — seems like I already upgraded Flash there.)
Since 2004 they have been using RealNetworks via a program called STARZ Ticket but that arrangement didn’t allow transfer to portable devices.
With Vongo, Starz will shift to technology from Microsoft that will allow movies to be downloaded and watched on portable video players using Microsoft’s software.Until now, portable players have been costly and have found few buyers. But that is starting to change. Lower-priced players are expected to be introduced later this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
I’m curious what lower-priced players means? Under $150? Under $100? Portable DVD players have come way down in price and maintained pretty good quality, so why not hard drive based players too?
As mentioned yesterday, the PSP is having more success as a video player than a games machine — at least in retail marketability. The iPod video has outperformed expectations thus far. Will 2006 be the year of flexible video DRM? If it turns out to be I know what I’ll be saying.
That’s what I’m talking about.
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[…] Recently, I checked a blog of someone who also uses Opera as a browser and he claims that a website that goes by the name Vongo has blocked Firefox and called it a lame browser. When I went to check it myself to see if his claim was true, I was angry because there it was. A dialog on Voingo.com calling my browser lame. This truly outrages me. […]
Pingback by Le Eccentric Ennui » Opera, a very disrespected browser. — January 3, 2006 @ 7:49 pm PST
[…] “This OS is not supported.” Just like Opera wasn’t supported, Vongo didn’t support Windows ME. So I had to go get the OS that was upgraded on the system before the sytem restore: Windows XP Pro and upgrade again on the machine, hoping that a clean upgrade might fix the TV-out functionality problems. Fortunately it did. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Review: Bye bye cable TV, hello Vongo — January 15, 2006 @ 9:57 pm PST
Yes, the Opera blocking is a deal-breaker for me. Last I heard, it didn’t work on Mac’s, either, but I don’t have one so don’t know much about that battle.
I’ve been a die-hard Opera fan for years, they best not be calling it “stone age” while IE still gets daily virus warnings in the press about it…
Comment by ben — January 25, 2006 @ 3:38 pm PST