tivo movie rental and drm

I was bored Saturday night, so I decided to go rent a movie.  For some reason, I got in the mood to rent Sneakers.  I was lazy and really didn’t feel like hopping in the car to go to Hollywood Video (which is, literally, less than four blocks from my house), so I toyed with the idea of just renting it on my Tivo instead.

I’d like to say that a major reason for thinking about the Tivo rental was to do an experiment in DRM, but really it came down to two things: I really didn’t want to go anywhere, and I knew that chances were that Hollywood didn’t have it in stock.  Oh, that and the rental was expensive — $3.

After a bit of deliberation, I decided to just save money and go to Hollywood Video, and if they didn’t have it in stock, I’d rent it online.  I actually had a coupon for rent one, get one free rental from there anyway, so I had to mentally pick out a second selection (another reason I hate going, now I run the risk of finding two movies out of stock).  I eventually came up with a few ideas of movies to rent, so that I was prepared.

Of course, they didn’t have Sneakers.  I wasn’t sure which genre it would be under, either.  Tivo listed it as Adventure/Comedy.  I looked in the Adventure, Comedy and Drama sections but it wasn’t there.  I ended up going to my backup plan — I rented “Nine to Five” and “Oscar”.  Actually, “Oscar” wasn’t even on my backup plan list — I just saw it on the shelf and got that since none of the other ones I wanted were on the shelf either.

Anyway, I got my two movies for $3 and some change, and could have them for a week.  Not bad.  I still didn’t get my original movie, though, so I went poking around my Tivo menus to find what I was looking for.

Admittedly, finding the movie was an entirely painless and simple experience, thanks to the brilliance of Tivo’s UI simplicity.  Video on Demand -> Amazon Movies -> Search Entire Catalog -> Type in SNE with the remote -> Sneakers -> Available Downloads.

The movie was $3 to rent, or $6 to buy.  I seriously thought about buying it just so I could have more freedom, but since I went to Hollywood with the intent of actually saving money, it didn’t really make much sense to throw it away here.

The rental terms were, of course, both annoying and confusing.  You can have the movie on your Tivo for thirty days after purchasing the rental, but once you start watching it, you only have a 24 hour viewing period.  That kind of threw me for a loop, and I had to read it twice to make sure I understood correctly.  It was actually confusing because they displayed the thirty day limit quite prominently and the 24 hour viewing part was in small print, and not as clearly displayed until after you actually start watching it.

Another issue I had to decide was, which Tivo do I download it to?  I have one in my living room and one in my bedroom.  They’re both attached to my one Tivo account, but you can’t move the content between different boxes.  So I had to plan ahead which TV I was going to watch the movie on, since I’d be stuck with that one.

After figuring all that out, I paid for my rental, and it asked for my Tivo password to authorize the purchase.  It wasn’t until after I bought it that I realized I couldn’t start watching it right away.   It was then they tell me that I can’t see it until the entire movie is downloaded.  Well, crap.  I was hoping to wait a few minutes then watch it while it was downloading.  I figured that was an old notice or something, so I went to my Now Playing List and the movie wasn’t showing up in my list at all.  Hmm.  That made me a bit nervous that something may had actually gone wrong, as I figured there’d have been a placeholder or something.

Well, either way, if I had to wait for the entire thing to download, then that pretty much ruined my timetable.  So much for “on demand.”

I went off to do something else, and actually came back about an hour later to see what was going on.  This time there was an entry in the Now Playing menu.  I botched up what could have been an experiment at this point and didn’t try to play it (it probably would have worked).  I did look at the info on the download and it said duration: unknown, so I decided not to press my luck and just wait for it to finish downloading in its entirety.

I finally did come back much later and it was done, and I was getting ready to watch it when I started thinking about the dreaded 24-hour window.  What if I couldn’t watch the whole thing right now?  I’ll probably want to watch the rest of it about this time tomorrow, but I won’t be able to start it this soon (in fact, it would have end by this exact time).  I decided to risk it, and started watching it right then.

I didn’t make it through the whole movie last night, I stopped it after watching a little over an hour, and I went to bed a bit worried that I might miss the rest of the movie if I forget to watch it on time.  The drama!

So, that’s where I am so far.  The whole experience is a stupid mess.  Compared to other services, the only thing that renting through my Tivo versus going anywhere else is that I don’t have to leave my house.  That’s the only advantage.

I’ll do a quick comparision to other ways of getting the movie:

Buying a physical copy:

I can keep it, watch it whenever I want, rip it, re-encode it, put it on my PSP or my PlayStation.  Make a backup.  It also probably comes with special features, a surround sound audio track and liner notes.  Not to mention a snappy case with pretty artwork.

The only cons are that I’d either actually have to go to a store to find it (and risk them not having it in stock) or buy it online and wait for it to be shipped to me.  Plus, the price is more, which is ineffective if I only watch it every now and then.  I would probably have to rent it about five times before buying it makes economical sense, although you can’t compare the real value of actually having it on demand — on your shelf.   Plus, you’d have to factor in costs of gas and time going to the rental store or the wait time of downloading it.

Renting the DVD:

Even with a rental from a brick and mortar store, I at least get to keep it a whole week and watch it as much as I want.  Not only that, but I can watch it as many times as I want.  I still get all the same features that the DVD has, but for a limited period.  And, the cost is about the same as the online rental ($3).

The cons are that I have to find a copy, and physically go to the store.

Netflix:

Using Netflix’s rental service is the real sucker-punch.  I realize that their library is not huge right now — and for the record, Sneakers is not available — but the selection is constantly growing.  Economically speaking, it is by far the best choice.  For the price of four online rentals per month, $12, I could have unlimited access to watch all their titles as much as I want.  Not only is their selection growing, but the number of devices to watch them on.  A Mac or Windows box, Xbox 360, the Roku player and even some Blu-Ray players.  Plus, it’s coming to the Series 3 and HD Tivos next year.  Personally, I hope Netflix continues to be the competition that sets the standard for actual choice.

The only major con with Netflix is that, again, you’d have to wait for the download to begin or reach a good point where you can stream it without pausing.  Also, you’d need hardware to watch it, computer or otherwise, but that’s already the case with the Tivo so I’m not going to give that one too much credit.

Digital copy:

There is the other obvious option, which is to pirate it yourself and find it online.  DRM has proved wholly worthless in its endeavor to stop piracy and instead has simply charged too much and provided too little.

The pros to having an unlocked digital copy (illegally obtained or not) is to give you freedom to watch it anytime and most anywhere you want.  You could also quite easily re-encode it and put it on a physical disc to watch on your DVD player.

The cons would be trying to find it and running the risk of getting caught, etc.

Redbox:

I’m not a fan at all of the Redbox rental machines that seem so popular.  In fact, everytime I see one, there is almost always one to three people crowded around it picking out a movie.  The idea is remarkably simple and effective — rent a new release for one dollar a night, and have kiosks that are small enough to fit at the entryways of most super markets.

The pros and cons are pretty much identical to that of the rental store.  The additional pros here are the flexible pricing — you decide how long you keep it, and thus affect how much you pay for the rental.  Hollywood doesn’t prorate your rental if you return it the very next day.

Going back to my Tivo DRM’d movie rental.  One thing I really like was the selection that Amazon.com had.  I realize that DRM is a corporate attempt at preventing normal people from making copies, and that in a principled approach it shouldn’t even exist.  From a totally practical point of view, though, the costs are way too high for the opportunity presented.

I actually wouldn’t mind the restrictions at all (speaking as a casual consumer) if they at least gave me the same opportunity as other mediums.  That is, if they actually competed.  I think that if I’m going to pay the same price for a rental online, then I should at least get the same viewing freedom as I do with renting it from a store.  Give me a full week to watch it, as much as I want.  I don’t think that’s asking very much.

That, and the price is too much.  I think the flat rate for old movies (Sneakers came out in 1992) is still way too high.  It should be closer to 99 cents.  I’d rent a lot more movies that way, online or not.

I hope I don’t forget to watch the rest of my movie before it gets deleted.