The Walmart/Superman FAQ just went live and here are a few more facts to follow on our earlier story.
- The "portable format" will use PlayForSure.
- The "standard format" will be 640x480 at approximately 1500 kbps and will occupy about a gigabyte of storage.
- You can't transfer the videos between computers.
- There's no Mac support whatsoever.
- There's no iPod support whatsoever.
- There's no Zune support whatsoever.
- Playback depends on Windows Media Player 10 or higher.
Oh well. As Emily Litella would say, nevermind...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-28-2006 @ 8:35PM
Rich Mayo said...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
What will it take for these huge corporations to learn?
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11-28-2006 @ 8:43PM
Jon said...
So, in other words, this is entirely useless?
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11-28-2006 @ 8:56PM
eggstone said...
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...
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11-28-2006 @ 9:21PM
G said...
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").
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11-28-2006 @ 9:49PM
Angel said...
What exactly is the point? Are these companies purposely trying to make digital downloads fail?
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11-28-2006 @ 9:51PM
MadMac said...
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......
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11-28-2006 @ 9:55PM
Jeff said...
Plays for Sure on nothing. Doesn't play on iPod (75-80% marketshare) or Zune.
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11-28-2006 @ 11:50PM
Shaaheen said...
Media services for sheeps or Humans?
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11-29-2006 @ 9:15AM
Joel said...
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.
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11-29-2006 @ 9:37AM
digitalintrigue said...
Feel free to jump in, Mr. Jobs, and show these Ozark/Redmond pretenders how it is supposed to be done.
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11-29-2006 @ 2:19PM
Scott said...
According to an AP story on MSNBC, there is a download option for iPod and Zune:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15949061/
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11-29-2006 @ 2:23PM
Erica Sadun said...
I'm pretty sure the MSNBC story is wrong.
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