Walmart Video Download Follow-Up

I'm pretty sure the MSNBC story is wrong.

According to an AP story on MSNBC, there is a download option for iPod and Zune:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15949061/

Feel free to jump in, Mr. Jobs, and show these Ozark/Redmond pretenders how it is supposed to be done.

I've got a device on which these videos would play (A Zen Vision), but I'll have to stay away from this service. I purchased a video online once with the same set of restrictions for $10 just to experiment with it. Later I needed to install Windows 2003 on my machine (it had XP) and that's when I found there was no way to back the movie up. If you ever reinstall windows you will loose this content.

As for DVD ripping, if we ignore for a moment the fact that it's illegal it's not a sure fire way to get the content off of the DVDs. Some software has had varrying success with DVDs that use additional protection technologies.

Media services for sheeps or Humans?

It does not matter. You can just take the DVD you bought, use some free software like handbrake and do it yourself for free! ;-)

END OF LINE......

What exactly is the point? Are these companies purposely trying to make digital downloads fail?

I don't know whether to laugh harder at Walmart or at Microsoft.

Let this be a lesson to whomever wants to be a Microsoft format lemming. They don't know the meaning of the word "standard" and never have (to say nothing of their latest buzzwords "innovate" and "ecosystem").

What does "portable format" mean if they cannot be played on iPod or Zune or what so ever... Maybe Walmart thinks a small file is portable even on desktops...

So, in other words, this is entirely useless?