Someone’s leaving money on the table. That’s how Peter summed it up as we chatted about this over IM. I think he nailed it.
I have a Windows Mobile phone that seems to make a nice little media player. I’m willing to pay money to legally purchase TV show episodes to put on it.
As near as I can tell, that’s not an option.
Amazon’s Unbox offers mobile support, but only to just handful of devices. As they’re encrypted, my half-hearted attempt to transcode one to a smaller format failed miserably.
I’m sure I can buy shows from iTunes, but don’t I need an iPod to then watch it? I’m not a fan of iTunes, but I’ll install it if someone can tell me that a purchased show will play on my device.
Is it really any wonder so many folks turn to torrents for shows? No, I’m not advocating that (and I have a sternly worded email to ensure it!) but seriously. This is silly. I can go to several network sites and watch the shows online for free… why can’t I download them for my portable device?
What network has ever turned down money?
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November 5th, 2007 
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“What network has ever turned down money?”
A stupid one. I know just how you feel, I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to load tv shows you purchase on itunes and send them to another device as drm and itunes don’t seem to like people doing that. Any company who gets smart and does this will make a lot of money. Until then we have to suffer.
Hey Mike, thanks for stopping by.
You’d think that Microsoft’s windows mobile sites would see an opportunity here…
I couldn’t agree more. This whole DRM-we’re-going-to-control-anything-you-do stuff is …hmm, bogus. That’s a polite word for it. It finally looks like Record labels are getting it with DRM free music, but Hollywood movie and TV studios haven’t got a clue yet. If I buy a DVD, I can rip to an AVI file (or whatever) and even shrink it for my mobile device if I want. But since the same content is available – from a technology standpoint anyway – via direct digital download, why take the extra step? Because apparently, they are greedy and/or stupid. When I was a kid, no one ever talked about recording movies on blank VHS tapes, yet everybody did. No one even remotely thought about selling TV shows. You taped them. You could program your VCR to record them – they sold that feature! But now, it’s like all of a sudden, Hollywood exec’s – who have apparently been promoted via The Peter Principal – have seemingly “woken up” with ephiphanies that ‘oh, we can sell this’ ‘it’s a value-add’, ‘if they watch it in two rooms, we should charge for that’, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. What the heck? It’s like you said. Look, dudes, we just want to download the content. Wake up, indeed.
I am so glad to hear that other people are having the same frustrations about this issue as I am. I use iTunes for a lot of my shows, but they just got rid of NBC, USA, and Sci-Fi (probably others that I don’t know about, too.) So now I have no way of downloading shows from those networks because I live overseas which prevents me from using Amazon’s Unbox. I have been unable to find any other alternatives so far. So what next? Do I turn to the illegal torrents? I am completely willing to pay for the shows and do everything legally, but what choice am I left with when they make these shows so hard to get. I also say “I just want to buy TV episodes.” Why do they have to make this so hard and complicated.
Every time I get a good idea I realize someone else had it first! Still, it’s comforting (mildly) to find out that I’m not the only frustrated person.
Personally, I’d like to be able to purchase my favorite episodes (ex: Window of Opportunity, Hollow Pursuits, etc.) and burn them to a DVD, just like I purchase songs from Walmart or anywhere and download them and play them as often as I want on my mp3 player. What’s the difference? Corporate thinking, I guess. The movie industry just hasn’t caught on yet!
Boy what a goldmine this would be for them! I gave up on buying cd’s eons ago because I hate paying $15 for a maximum of two songs I like (on a cd w/ 10+ songs, of course). The same goes for buying an entire ($65) for one or two episodes that I truly enjoy watching over and over. I’d much rather buy the one or two episodes for $2.00 each (or so) and add them to my collection.
So in essence, they’ll never get the $65 from me, but they could at least get the $2/episode!
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One last thought…if they can edit movies from R down to whatever so they can be broadcast on public tv, why don’t they produce and sell dvd copies w/ multiple versions? I ask because I don’t watch R-rated anything, but some of the stories sound so interesting. If they would just put out a PG version (on the same disk or whatever) I might spend the money.