Solo Technology

Been lots of posts on lots of sites for the last few weeks about Google Video, but Google themselves finally blogged something informative last night. Not being a huge “watch videos” on my PC kind of guy (In the last 3 years I’ve watched exactly 1 DVD on a laptop), I’m not real pumped about this one.

Check the link out though and, especially, check out the large and eclectic list of video providers. There’s definitely some interesting potential here… Pricing, after a couple random clicks, appears to be around $1.99 for TV shows and $3.99 for movie length stuff. [edit: I've since seen movies at $9.98 and $14.98 as well.] Some things you apparently “buy” and others you get a “day pass”. Is that how their DRM is handled? From the FAQ:

What’s the difference between buying a Day Pass for a video and buying a video?

If you buy a Day Pass for a video, you can download and view the video through the Google Video Player at any time over the next 24 hours. If you buy a video, you’ll be able to download the video to your computer and view it indefinitely.

I’m still clicking around, but not seeing much on DRM specifically. Oh wait… check this answer:

What media players can I use to play videos I’ve purchased?

If a video you purchased and downloaded isn’t copy-protected, you can play it in any media player that plays AVI files.

If a video you purchased and downloaded is copy-protected, you can only play it in the Google Video Player. You must also be online to view copy-protected videos.

You can determine whether a video is copy-protected during the purchase process: if a video is only available for Windows, it’s copy-protected.

Check out that last sentence…

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