The Xbox Live Marketplace is going to get an HD injection in a couple weeks. The possibility of buying songs for Zune player with Microsoft points and HD movies and TV shows will become new options shortly.

Microsoft Corp. today announced agreements with CBS, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Turner Broadcasting System Inc. (TBS Inc.), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment to bring an initial lineup of over 1,000 hours of hit TV shows and movies to Xbox 360™ gamers in the U.S. by the end of the year. Furthermore, Xbox 360 will be the first gaming console to bring standard and high-definition TV shows and movies via digital distribution over the Internet directly to the consumer.

The movie shows will be available for viewing in a 24 hour viewing period, rental style, within 14 days of download. TV Shows will be sold similar to iTunes. Whole seasons and season passes? Not sure on that one yet.

The problem with saved video content, especially HD content on the Xbox 360 is hard drive space. 20GB for HD video content is nothing. In the case of the rental movies, they will go away, but you’ll still need enough space available to watch. We already burned up our Mac hard drive with music and video content for Kara’s iPod and have another external hard drive on the holiday shopping list. Saw a 500GB external drive at Costco for $229 yesterday. Will we see TB drives for this price a year from now? It almost seems criminal that Microsoft and Sony are selling their systems with sub 100GB drives. I know they’re both losing money, but come on. This could become a major gripe this holiday season.

What others think
Angel also worries about hard drive space: “It would be great if we could transfer the shows to an external hard drive or to our computers in order to free up space, but unfortunately Microsoft has already stated that they will not support external drives.”
David Hunter ponders pricing, which hasn’t been announced yet but Microsoft says will be competitive.: “the only difficulty is that the user experience has been problematic and the cost effectiveness dubious compared to physical purchase or rental, or cable TV ‘pay-per-view.’”
Lost Remote: “The one advantage over iTunes is that the 360 is already connected to the TV. But in a disadvantage, the downloads aren’t portable.”
Davis Freeberg sees this as a blow to Apple: “With Microsoft’s ability to support HDTV downloads and having the ability to play video games on the system, it’s going to make it all that much harder for Apple to convince people to fork over $300 dollars in order to have the privilege of being able to pay for VOD films.”
Thomas Hawk calls the Xbox 360 Microsoft’s “trojan horse” in the living room. Hawk compares to the Media Center. Yeah, everybody wants their gadget in our living rooms and the Xbox 360 has a better chance than a loud, power-hungry Media Center PC.

Microsoft’s secret weapon: micropayment
I’ve mentioned several times here that I think Microsoft can make — and already is to some degree making — a splash with their Live Marketplace particularly in the micropayment area. This is unannounced and pure speculation on my part but just imagine if they wrap their Adcenter for webmasters — think Adsense, webmasters — to encompass the content on the Live Marketplace? Wow. Will they pull the trigger?

And let’s not forget the pipeline of indie games that will be making their way to the XNA Games Developers. How many, I’m not sure, but for $100 a year, this will give gamers a chance to make their own games and/or share games with others. This is a market that Sony has repeatedly snubbed on the PSP platform. Will Sony get their act together with the PS3 and offer something similar? Considering their history, doubtful.

Last night my wife and I caught the 7pm showing of Saw III. It opens with a scene of a guy torturing himself to get out of a foot shackle (yikes, use your imagination) and the movie includes some graphic gore scenes like Jigsaw’s brain getting a piece of skull cut off leading up to a literally twist test. Several ewwww, cringe moments, even for those use to gore flicks. As for actual scare components, Saw doesn’t really have any. It’s more a let’s gross you out and reveal a twisting, turning storyline. I like the storyline part the best of these flicks. No spoilers, but the ending leaves itself wide open for a sequel.

The official Saw website is standard Hollywood fare, It has a Flash puzzle of sorts, but it’s a one on one affair. Why don’t they do more with the web interaction? Jigsaw could be doing some wicked, viral interactive puzzles. Maybe they’ll do this with Saw IV? They could (should) rip a page from the Da Vinci code.

Don’t watch Saw III unless you have a strong stomach. It’s a good Saw sequel as long as you don’t want to be scared. My grade for scare factor is D, but for gore it’s A+. Grade: B-

Happy Halloween!

It’s getting to be trick or treating time in these parts, we’ve already had our first few at the door and the fogger is rolling again. So much fog that I had to get up and shut the door for a bit. It was wafting in here and making it difficult to see.

Trick or Treat — the movie
One of my favorite unsung movie soundtracks is from the rather cliched and unscary movie Trick or Treat by Fastway. This movie starred Gene Simmons as a DJ named Nuke and an 80s version of Ozzy Osbourne as — get this — a preacher! Backwards satanic messages [gag] we’ve heard that before.

Good luck finding the Trick or Treat soundtrack online at the various music download services. I wonder when the online music stores will get caught up with the massive backlog of great music that’s available? iTunes draws a blank for this gem from Fastway which features my favorite music soundtrack song of all time “If you could see.” As you can see from the picture above we have the cassette and it’s time to upgrade to the CD.

Amazon ratings show it as five star and has it available on CD for $9.98 as of this writing: Trick or Treat Soundtrack by Fastway(affiliate). A bargain for those who like 80s style rock. I’m also hunting that new CD from Quiet Riot Rehab. Hope to pick that up at the store later as I understand it’s being released today (?).

Spirit on the radio blog
My thanks to this Halloween’s first ever spirit of the blog, Aura Nge for making a few alternating trick or treat posts. Also thanks to Karen Blundell for providing this year’s Hmm Halloween blog theme. Karen will be linked on the bottom of every page until the theme is changed back. For those who crave the old Hmm theme, don’t fret, it will return some time after midnight tonight PST again. For those reading this only in their RSS readers, hey, you are missing on the fun stop on over for a few minutes.

Comment contest ends at midnight PST
There is a comment contest running until midnight PST. We left money in our PayPal account expressly to pay to readers, so leave some Halloween-creative comments wearing your costume name and have a chance at winning. Odds are very good right now, but maybe will get worse as the night rolls on, who knows. This contest ends at midnight PST tonight and the contest details are here. All comments in posts dated October 31, 2006 and in costume are elligible. FYI, the server time is a couple hours ahead of PST. Yeah, that should make things more interesting, just get the get those spooky, crazy comments posted.

The doorbell beckons …

I’m not sure what’s going on with actor Wesley Snipes, but if any of these tax fraud charges against him turn out to be true and he’s found guilty, expect to see his next movie starring someone else playing him in a penetentiary:

Actor Wesley Snipes, whose once-hot career has been undermined by personal and financial problems, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Florida on charges of attempting to bilk the federal government out of almost $12 million by filing false tax refund claims.

What’s that saying about death and taxes?

I’ve got the same reserved skepticism that Cinematical’s Erik Davis has for the remake of the classic Revenge of the Nerds:

On one hand, it will be interesting to watch how they update the nerds; throw in things like computers, the internet, iPods and (insert a bunch more neat little gadgets).

Why aren’t the Nerds producers and promoters already running out an interactive blog, podcast, vlog (YouTube viral action?) and working the internet juice? Didn’t they learn anything from Snakes on a Plane?

They could throw in character blogs from each of the main cast members and maybe sprinkle in some of the old characters. Do something, well, nerdy. A Google search as of this writing doesn’t reveal that the remake Nerds even have an established website yet and the movie is less than a year away. Louis, Gilbert and the gang would be all over a website. This could be a great opportunity completely ungeeked. And let’s not forget the ultimate burnout nerd Booger:

Takashi: Excuse please, but why do they call you “booger”?
Booger: [picking his nose] I don’t know.

I’m not a fan of remakes. I’m hardpressed to point to one remake I’ve really liked. Remaking something that was a cult hit in the 80’s seems way too soon to me. The problem with the Nerds franchise is it was spoiled by several really bad sequels. Nerds in Paradise was the only tolerable one with the others going straight to TV. If your movie sequels start going straight to TV, especially on Valentine’s Day with some corny smellovision tie-in, that’s probably a sign to hit the showers (which thankfully they did). Whatever happens in this movie, I hope the sorority girls get some fine nerd lovin’.

The remake of Revenge of the Nerds is in post production and preparing for a summer 2007 release.

One way people will continue favor buying DVDs over online is through creative packaging. You can’t get that from any online movie store download and it’s another reason I feel strongly that online movies should be priced lower.

Check out the Limited Edition of My Name is Earl ($41.99 USD) a Best Buy exclusive complete with Flannel shirt packaging. No, really, serious. I’ve seen Wal-mart do exclusive DVD packaging several times and they are the biggest seller of DVDs. Collector’s love this kind of stuff. Also, Earl was probably our family’s favorite TV show last year. This year we’ll have to either watch/buy it online or wait for the DVD before next season.

Earl deluxe DVD set contents
- 4 disc one-sided DVD set with all 24 Season One episodes, no flippers, oh yeah!
- unique flannel t-shirt
- Karma is a funny thing blooper reel
- Behind the scenes featurette
- Exclusive Earl misadventure: Bad Karma
- Bonus Best Buy disc with three songs: “Everybody Talkin’” by Matthew Sweet, “Instant Karma” by John Hiatt and “What goes around comes around” by Nescobar-alop-lop and the Camden Country Band

My wife spotted the leather jacket 25th anniversary special edition of Grease. We already own Grease but passed on the abysmal sequel, but my wife was all over this special collector’s edition with the unique packaging and it was priced right at Costco for $12.49 USD.

Grease Rockin’ Rydell Edition contents
- Rydell Sing-along. Rock with your favorite Grease songs. Relax karaoke fans, that’s not exactly what this is, it has the movie parts along with the music and words along the bottom so one could sing along. No thanks for me on this one.
- 11 deleted/extended/alternate scenes
- DVD Launch party with a collection of memorable moments from the 25th Anniversary DVD launch party
- Grease memories from John Travolta and Olivia Newton John
- The moves behind the music
- Thunder Roadsters

I checked the following online movie services and neither Grease or Earl was available at any of these places: Guba, Amazon Unboxed, Movieflix, Cinemanow. Didn’t bother checking iTunes since that’s only Disney and Grease is a Paramount property. iTunes has some NBC TV shows available but not Earl yet.

Online movie sites don’t have to be lame and just offer the movie download, they could do some creative stuff like offer special websites and interactive games and trivia.

Have you seen some other really creative DVD packaging or online movie download promotions?

There, I’ve said it. Again: DRM is more appealing than piracy. Agree/disagree?

I don’t want to get all high and mighty with a post and come off like I’m judging other people (but I’m sure I’ll be judged by simply writing about this topic), but our Vongo comment thread has taken a turn for the dark side. A discussion which started in response to a review I wrote of the Vongo service has descended into how to crack Vongo’s DRM.

Ouch.

On one side, this is a good real world example why you should never shut down comments for old posts. The Vongo post was made back in January, some nine months ago and it still is generating conversation. That’s the positive. The negative is the conversation is no longer about the Vongo review, but about how to do something with the Vongo movies that breaks the license agreement.

Ouch again.

I’m probably at least partially to blame opening this can of worms in the comment area by wondering if you signed up, downloaded a bunch of movies and then cancelled Vongo and kept watching the movies what would happen? Others chimed in that this wouldn’t be possible. I didn’t try this myself as we were only with Vongo a couple months before cancelling, but apparently others actually have tried this. Just because I wonder about something doesn’t mean I’d ever actually try it. Good thing there are no thought police. Yet.

When I saw the first comment suggesting a workaround for the Vongo DRM it made me uncomfortable. Having never had a comment thread here like that before, at least that I could remember, I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I remove the comment because it encouraged breaking the licensing of another site/service? Then again, these people couldn’t get the files without paying for the service, so was it the same thing as stealing video via bittorent?

Vexing.

Then I saw other people chime in and the thread started receiving links from other sites saying: go to xyz to learn how or do this and that and this to bypass the Vongo DRM. And when an alleged Vongo employee showed up to comment, I was a bit surprised to read (emphasis mine):

Loved reading all these entries…having a slow night doing Vongo tech support and thought I’d look up some blogs on the service. Was nice to come access one site that didn’t bash it. When you do have trouble with the service, usually it is a pretty easy fix. If we are unable to fix the issue we send it up to level 2 and usually customers will get a responds within 48hrs. Lately our phones have been very busy sorry to anyone that has had to wait hold for help. New hires are being added soon Keep enjoying the service and I will check back to this site … Oh sorry also ment to add…no worries to those of you that are copy the movies….my lips are sealed …have fun.

At least one person who allegedly works at Vongo tech support, found this thread, commented, is willing to look the other way and acknowledges that some of their customers want to break their DRM. I don’t want DRM either, but is piracy the answer? Ok, I know, I know it’s not piracy breaking the DRM, but is breaking the license still ok?

Again, not judging others here or try to play preacher man, but my own ethical compass says no, it’s not. The RIAA and MPAA seem to me to be treating copyright infringement like piracy and they are two different animals. Maybe in the MPAA and RIAA view it’s stealing a bike versus stealing a tricked out Harley, but it’s still stealing. I can’t easily make that same leap of faith.

The most recent comment this morning from Diane asking why the Vongo movies she downloaded won’t play any more and if there is a “workaround” sucked me back into the thread, especially considering if she would have scrolled up and actually read the 50+ comments above she’d have seen the answer, several times, to her question.

Approving comments that set your ethical compass on fire
I can see why some people might want to break the DRM, but I personally disagree with breaking DRM as a solution. The commentary still stands because people that make these DRM decisions need to read this type of commentary somewhere and explain to all of us why they are using DRM when the people who pay to see this content don’t like or want it. Where would I want to draw the line and actually start unapproving, editing or removing comments here on this subject? If people start commenting trying to actually sell their hacked Vongo DRM movie files or point to other sites that are conducting this activity.

The RIAA and MPAA should spend more energy going after the real pirates
I think this is where the RIAA and Hollywood (MPAA) have gotten derailed and I intentionally have muddied up the waters with piracy and DRM in this thread to further illustrate the point. People who want to copy movies for personal use are not the same as people who want to copy and turn around and sell the copies. It’s time that the RIAA and MPAA realize there is a huge difference and focus their efforts on those profiting from pirated music and movies instead of some grandmother in a small town who’s computer was used for Kazaa.

If people want to break the Vongo license agreement, that’s their own personal call. If people want to use bittorrent to suck down movies, again, their call. Personally, I’d rather buy the DVD than movies online because I get the packaging and can resell the physical goods versus the online pricing structure and DRM irritations which I’ve covered here several times before.

As a music and movie consumer I want complete archival freedom, not so I can sell illegal copies to my friends, but so I don’t have to buy the same movies and music on new formats. Even with this strategy, I still end up buying some of the same movies and music in new formats. Or new versions with more special features or original theatrical versions. It doesn’t seem like digital movies or audio will be sold that way online any time soon.

Here there are so many people willing to break license agreements and DRM for an online movie service that launched in 2006, probably most of them are good people otherwise that wouldn’t walk into a store and steal something off the shelves. It’s an ethical compass argument and I understand where they are coming from but I also understand where the music and movie organizations are concerned too.

I don’t agree with either side completely, guess I’m somewhere in the muddy middle, but I understand the arguments for both sides and see a need for continued discussion and debate and hopefully someday a reasonable, fair solution for both sides.

So the comments for that thread live on despite going a place I didn’t expect to go, and yes again they make me uncomfortable, but then so does the whole state of DRM. If given the choice between piracy or DRM, I’m sticking with DRM for the moment. If given the choice between choosing DRM or breaking the DRM, I’ll choose DRM. Reluctantly.

But I really, really, really despise conflicting and restrictive DRM. It’s the reason I have bought only a couple iTunes songs to date. It’s not that I don’t like iTunes because it’s great on the Mac, but I don’t want to crack the DRM to be able to listen to the music on non-Apple devices. I’d rather buy the CD and rip to MP3 so I can listen anywhere, any time and any place. I paid for it, now remove the digital handcuffs please.

The only solution I can offer both sides, and I’m far and away not the first one to suggest this, is to lift the whole DRM structure and vigorously pursue and prosecute the real pirates. Just as technology has enabled pirates, it can also aid law enforcement. And it’s important to stop confusing and treating archival options for consumers the same as copying and reselling copyrighted content.

- a man in drunken idiot mode jumps into a panda cage at the Beijing zoo and is bitten by the surprised panda. The man retaliates by kicking and biting the panda and gets bitten again. Dude, next time stay home and dial up a pandacam instead.
- Google is offering Adsense to a select few publishers to use in newsletters and mass market emails. This is one of the few places where I actually support limited, by invite only testing. Please, please, please do not open this service to the masses, Google.
- And while we’re G talking, Google Analytics now allows up to 50 profiles (domains) instead of 10 [Inside Google via Cristian Mezei)]. I learned recently that a privacy policy is required for each site that uses Google Analytics, and this is a part of the Terms of Service many sites are not following, including this one up until yesterday (see Hmm Privacy Policy). Here’s a handy Privacy Policy generator you can use to stay in compliance. I found it necessary to tweak a few things for this site as some of the statements don’t match what we’re doing here. Overall though, it’s a handy timesaver and better than having nothing at all.
- Wired lists its best and worst Web Pooh Point … Oh sites. Losers: MySpace, Seth Godin’s DOA Squidoo, Browzar, Fo.rtuito.us and Friendster. The winners? Flickr, Writely, Del.icio.us, Odeo and Netvibes.
- 1080p coming soon to Xbox 360. No native 1080p games yet but that will change too.
- Amazon and Del.icio.us Live Writer plugins from Scott Watermasysk
- Willie Nelson is back on the road again after his tour bus was stopped, searched and police found pot and shrooms. Citations were issued.
- New question to ask when buying laptop: was the battery made by Sony? Toshiba the newest in line to recall batteries made by Sony. Some 340,000 of them.
- A 4-year old Bonzo? This kid has mad skills [watch video]. Let’s hope this isn’t some kind of YouTubeFake. Bonus: Mark Cuban likens YoutTube to the early Napster days and Napster looking to sell outright or a “strategic partnership”. Meanwhile, YouTube and Warner cut deal. Cuban updates his post and says it doesn’t change his opintion.
- Apple sells over one million worth of movies the first week
- better than a coin flip, let Tekken decide
- VS Studio 2005 SDK v3 released via vsipmembers.com [thanks Jason]

As mentioned back in May and in case you missed it — and no self-respecting Star Wars junkies would — on Tuesday George Lucas found yet another creative way to get into our wallets anew: by releasing the limited edition original theatrical version of Star Wars IV, V and VI. Only available for a mere three months and then back to the vaults. Hopefully not for another 20+ years. And while at it, don’t forget the Star Wars II LEGO game for the Xbox 360, although that isn’t a limited edition.

I don’t know why Hollywood is so worried that they can’t make money. They should just follow the Lucasfilms DVD model. Edit the movie for DVD so fans talk about it and demand the original. Oh, the injustice. Free publicity, additional versions. Now that we have the original theatrical version, how long before the director’s cut of the original theatrical version? And then maybe can get lost footage from the gaffer or perhaps the footage from the guy who used to pound nails with Harrison Han Solo Ford. Or maybe they could go viral on YouTube with that stuff to pump up sales. Never say die to a good movie property.

One thing that surprised me a bit is not seeing these versions on either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Are they being released on either of those formats? I could have poked around the web and looked, but anybody know off hand?

Amazon Unboxed (affiliate) champion of the longest URLs is ready to take the gloves to the online video rental and download canvas. The rumor is iTunes will be joining next week and I wrote about a small time local Seattle contender called Reeltime yesterday. Already here are Vongo (a more intriguing membership concept) and Guba along with longtimers Cinemanow and Movielink. There are more but with no exceptions they all seem to have the same problem which regular readers are going to see the complaint coming.

Pricing
Who decided that $1.99 for TV shows was the right price? Who will be interested in paying $3.99 for a movie rental online when they can pay 25 bones a month and get unlimited movie rentals with DVD quality? Convenience? That is a tired sales pitch that has limited appeal. Most people work hard for their money and aren’t going to pay $1.99 to catch the most recent of episode of Prison Break that can be seen for free on the Fox website. No, maybe they can’t download to their portable device and watch while running on the gym, but why not just wait for the whole season on DVD which can be traded or resold later on for some return on investment? Online video stores seem to be focusing their pricing on the impatient and ignorant consumer instead of the informed and enlightened.

As for buying movies online versus the DVD, forget about it. When all three seasons of Star Trek the Original Series can be bought new for under $150 USD and yet to download them without artwork, inserts and collector’s packaging they are still $41.57 per season or $1.99 per episode at Amazon Unboxed? No, no, no. They should be at least half that price of the DVD or provide us with higher quality downloadable versions.

Blame Hollywood, not Amazon
The pricing isn’t Amazon’s (or ___ insert online movie site name here) fault, it’s Hollywood who remain so eternally petrified that we are going to rip them off that they won’t give us what we really want and deserve at a decent price. Online media is not worth more and arguably not worth the same price as the physical media with packaging and artwork. Convenience isn’t worth that much compared to physical material than can be collected, traded and resold.

I asked my wife who is out resident Amazon shopping guru what she thought. Her response contained a few expletives I don’t feel like reposting here.

No online video site review would be complete without mentioning the Hmm benchmark: The Cave (affiliate) which sells for $17.99. This subpar movie should be priced at or below $9.99 but there it is at nearly twice the price.

Amazon is running a deal where you can get your first TV rental credited back. That might be worth at least checking out, but I didn’t bother. I’m disgusted with seeing the same stores with different logos and a few different titles make the rounds. It doesn’t matter if it’s Amazon or Google or ___, they are all flawed on the most important business factor.

Frankly, I’d rather point people to my Amazon TV show aStore where physical DVD packages can be bought. Yeah, ok, you can’t get that almost immediate viewing pleasure (but buying online you still need to wait for downloads), but drive to the store if you want that fix. You’ll get more mileage from the media and have something actually worth resale value on eBay or in a garage sale. What sort of resale value do online downloads have?

Sorry Amazon, the look is, well uninspiredly Amazon-ish and it’s nice that you got an exclusive Star Trek deal, but the Trekkies will have already purchased the DVDs. Maybe next week with Reeltime or iTunes they will finally price this stuff fairly for what people are actually receiving.

In the meantime another service at least our family will rarely, if ever use. If you can’t get people without cable or satellite TV interested in your online stuff, Hollywood, you are totally screwed with people who already have multiple TVs and PVRs. I had higher hopes after seeing Guba’s pricing, only to learn that was merely promotional and not permanent. Wind. Out. Sales.

Go ahead, somebody use the G word in the comments, it’s well deserved. Again. [sigh] Will Hollywood ever learn?