AOL to sell film and TV downloads

AOL to sell film and TV downloads:

AOL secured deals with 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Financial details of the deals were not disclosed.

Good for AOL. The article goes on to say:

The new service, available via the AOL portal, will let users download selected titles for $9.99 for back catalogue and $19.99 for new released.

How much? Seriously? That's way too expensive, I might as well go buy the DVD and have extras and a nice box to keep my movie in.

Once purchased, the films can be watched an unlimited number of times, and are compatible with Windows Media Player technology. However, the movies cannot be burned onto DVDs.

Okay, I don't want to burn my movie to a DVD: I can watch it anytime I like, right? According to the AOL site, you download the movie to your hard disk and/or portable device (they let you do both for the price) and then you have 5-7 days to watch it. It's unclear whether or not I have to then pay again if I want to download it in 5 weeks' time. Oh, and you get to choose the quality of the movie but, seeing as it's intended for portable devices and PCs, I guess it's not going to be up to standard for my new plasma TV.

And even if it were, how would I play said movie on it? I can't burn the movie to a DVD and can't currently stream the movie to the TV from my PC.

R U B B I S H

I say to AOL: Innovate or leave well alone. Or at least explain your service fully.

Hollywood backs Blu-ray with 75 movie releases in Japan

Hollywood backs Blu-ray with 75 movie releases in Japan:

Studios such as Disney, Warner Bros, Fox and Sony, as well as many others plan to release movies such as Da Vinci Code and Pirates of the Carribean in what is looking to be a show of force backing the Blu-ray format.
With most of Hollywood on its side, plus a swag of big name electronics and computer companies, Blu-ray appears to have an edge in industry support, although with Microsoft and Toshiba firmly behind HD DVD nothing is cut and dried as to which format will win out.

So: who didn't see this coming? I mean really. Come on, hands up!

The cynic in me has to point out the obvious: Microsoft's XBox competing head to head with the PS3. They're not really going to support the same technology as Sony, are they?

A sequence of really nice articles on the HD-DVD / Blu-Ray war:
http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/1496/The-Blue-Laser-Wars-Episode-I-HD-DVD/p1/
http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/1504/The-Blue-Laser-Wars-Episode-II-Bluray-Disc/p1/

Microsoft gives further details of Live Drive

So, not unexpectedly, Microsoft join the online storage party too, huh?

Will someone just get something usable out there! Sheesh.