ZarkSeven

Lately I’ve found myself strangely intrigued by the new trend of “bonus digital copies” that are sold with DVD’s and Blu-ray discs.  I’m a pretty staunch opponent of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and digital only media in general.  I’d rather buy a music CD and rip it into my iTunes than download it from the iTunes store.  Similarly, I’d rather own a DVD than download a movie I want to own.  In 5, 10, 15 years, when that company you downloaded from no longer exists, what will happen to your downloaded media?  Will it still play, or will it no longer be able to verify that you are the legal owner and refuse to play?  The whole concept is anti-consumer to me.  That’s not to say that I don’t like portable media, however.  I do own a 160GB iPodClassic with plenty of media on it.  I just like the idea of owning my media, not leasing it. 

So the concept of buying a DVD or Blu-ray disc, and getting an additional copy I can put on my iPod is appealing to me, even though the digital copy is still DRM’d to hell.  I recently tried this with 4 movies, and I had wildly mixed results.

The first movie I tried was the Get Smart movie recently released on DVD by Warner Home Video.  (I couldn’t resist the shoe phone packaging exclusive from Best Buy!)  The instructions said to put disc 2, which was the bonus features disc, into the computer.  I put it in my iMac, and iTunes popped up.  It asked me for the code for the movie, which was printed on an insert in the packaging.  I typed in the code, and then iTunes proceeded to download the movie to my hard drive from the internet.  It put the movie in my movie directory, and when it was done, the movie played just fine in iTunes.  I synced it to my iPod and it played just fine there as well.

The second movie I tried was the recent release of The Incredible Hulk from Universal Studios.  I bought the Blu-ray version of the movie when it was released, but didn’t do anything about the digital copy.  I had noticed in the fine print on the Get Smart code insert that there was a roughly one year time limit to get the digital copy (Again, why?  See my opening paragraph) and I remembered that The Incredible Hulk movie came with a digital copy as well, so I figured I better try it before I forgot and the code expired. The Incredible Hulk movie came with a separate digital copy disc, with no other content on it.  When I put it in the iMac, it did the exact same thing as with the Get Smart movie, except this time it transferred the movie off of the disc rather than downloading it.  But all else worked the same.

My third and forth attempts are what I would classify as “digital copies gone horribly wrong.  The third was a “portable digital copy” that was included with the Blu-ray version of Dead Space: Downfall from Anchor Bay.  It too came on a separate stand-alone disc, but I noticed right away that there was no insert with code like the previous movies.  In fact, there were no directions at all.  I put the digital copy disc in my iMac and nothing happened.  I browsed around on the disc for a bit, and found some .html files.  One was a FAQ that stated that the digital copy would not work with non-Windows machines.  Nice.  In fact, the movie on the disc was a Windows Media Video file.  Determined to follow it to a conclusion, I rebooted into Windows with Boot Camp.  I put the disc in again, and this time it popped up with the .html files I browsed on the disc.  After accepting various license agreements and privacy statements, it asked me where to copy the movie to.  I chose the same directory that my iTunes movies are in, and it copied the movie from the disc to the hard drive.  It also pointed out that I could only do that two more times.  Once done, it put an icon on my desktop, which when clicked, pulled up Windows Media Player and started playing the movie.  No where did it explain how this was portable, although I guess if you synced your device with Windows Media Player it would copy it over.  More on that in a bit.

My last attempt was withthe digital copy disc included with Blu-ray version of Speed Racer: The Movie, from Warner Bros.  I noticed immediately inside the package that there was an insert with a code on it, similar to the first two movies I discussed.  So far so good.  Then as I read the insert, I saw that the digital copy required Windows XP or Vista, Windows Media Player 11 or above, and Internet Explorer version 6.0 or above.  There was a help link on the bottom of the insert that I went to, which pretty much outlined the same thing.  They also specifically state that “The Digital Copy portable media file is supported on Windows Media DRM compatible portable media devices (e.g. PlaysForSure certified devices).”  I didn’t even bother with Boot Camp on that one, I just put the movie back on the shelf. 

What I discovered after all of that is that once again these companies just don’t get it.  I’m not sure why it surprises me, but it does.  In response to the notion that people rip movies (a.k.a. pirate them, in movie industry speak) because they want to put them on their portable devices, the movie studios decide to promote this “added feature” of giving the consumer a means to do that a reasonable number of times without having to circumvent copy protection.  But then rather than make a unified standard, the studios all go off and make separate and exclusive deals for their Digital Copy, leaving the consumer frustrated and jaded about the experience.

After the first two movies, I though the concept was pretty nice.  I have a large library of DVDs, and with upscaling DVD players, I’m not about to go replace my DVDs with Blu-ray copies.  I’m also not going to pay significantly more for a Blu-ray version of a movie or show over the DVD counterpart, unless there is enough added value in the bonus content to warrant it.  As the digital copies offerings seemed to be more prevalent with high def movies, I started thinking that might just tip the scales towards getting Blu-ray versions in some cases. 

But it seems that it’s very hit-or-miss as to whether a Digital Copy will be an added value to you or not.  I mean, two of the four I sampled will not even play on an iPod!  Isn’t Microsoft’s Zune even incompatible with their own PlaysForSure standard?  And then didn’t they abandon it on their MSN music store?  What the hell is Anchor Bay thinking??  And Warner Home Video supports the iPod on one release but not another!  Hello?!  iPods have something like 70% market share.  How are consumers to know what will work on their device and what won’t?  

After doing a little research, support varies substantially.  Here’s a lowdown:

• 20th Century Fox: Will work on PCs and Macs, and will transfer to PlaysForSure devices and Apple iPod.
• Disney: Will work on PCs and Macs, and will transfer to PlaysForSure devices and Apple iPod.
• Lionsgate: Will work on PCs.  Mac support unknown.  Will transfer to PlaysForSure devices and Apple iPod.
• Paramount:  Will work on PCs and Macs, and will transfer to PlaysForSure devices and Apple iPod.
• Warner:  Who knows.  According to their support site, will work on PC’s only with Windows Media Player, and will transfer to PlaysForSure devices.  No iPod support.  But then the Get Smart movie worked on Mac and iPod.  Confused anyone? *
• Sony:  Will work on PCs only.  No Mac support.  No iPod support.  PSP support (I think).
• Anchor Bay:  Will work on PC’sonly with Windows Media Player.  No Mac support.  Will transfer to PlaysForSure devices (I think).  No iPod support.

So, where does that leave us?  With a mess.  Do consumers really want to put up with this hassle?  Amazon had to create a special webpage to explain to buyers what Digital Copy was, with links to various studios policies.  You can’t pick up a disc and easily tell if the Digital Copy will work for you.  You can’t tell on an online order page.  Unless the industry gets its act together and creates a unified standard, this whole concept will end up as another failed attempt by an out-of-touch industry.

* Side note:  After writing the Speed Racer section, I found an elusive link to a place on Warner Home Video’s website where you can request an iTunes compatible version.  Not included with the Speed Racer documentation or the link they refer you to.  Maybe they’re starting to get a clue?  Nah, probably not.