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General discussionIntroducing GOG.com DRM-Free Movies(632 posts)(632 posts)
(632 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 27, 2014
Cause there's no business like show-business!

Our DRM-Free approach to digital distribution has been the foundation of GOG.com since day one and we're convinced it is now firmly rooted in the gaming industry landscape. More and more users start to expect and demand the digital content they paid for to be free from any kind of restrictive mechanisms that limit access to their collections and get in the way of enjoyment. We think this is a good time to take the next step in our quest to make digital entertainment better for everyone. Today we set out to spread our DRM-Free ideas across the movie industry! That's right: GOG.com now offers DRM-Free movies.

Our goal is to offer you cinema classics as well as some all-time favorite TV series with no DRM whatsoever, for you to download and keep on your hard drive or stream online whenever you feel like it. We talked to most of the big players in the movie industry and we often got a similar answer: "We love your ideas, but … we do not want to be the first ones. We will gladly follow, but until somebody else does it first, we do not want to take the risk". DRM-Free distribution is not a concept their lawyers would accept without hesitation. We kind of felt that would be the case and that it's gonna take patience and time to do it, to do it, to do it right. That's quite a journey ahead of us, but every gamer knows very well that great adventures start with one small step. So why not start with something that feels very familiar? We offer you a number of gaming and internet culture documentaries - all of them DRM-Free, very reasonably priced, and presenting some fascinating insight into topics close to a gamer's heart. Now, what do we have in store for you?

- There's a whole new Movie Catalog for you to browse!
- All the movies we sell are priced at $5.99 (that's a launch promo price for a few of them), and we aim to have that as the main price point for most of our future releases
- Two of the movies - The Art of Playing and TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard are available for FREE, so that you can test our new movie distribution features
- Most of our movies are in Full HD 1080p quality, some in 720p. With those of you with limited bandwidth or download quota in mind, we also supply much lighter 576p versions.
- Apart from downloading your movies you have the option to watch them streaming online, right here on GOG.com
- GOG.com is famous for its bonus goodies - each movie will come with as many of them as we can muster
- You can expect subsequent movie releases each week

That's it. GOG.com Movies is a go, time to get some popcorn!
Posted August 28, 2014
Good move GOG! I'll definitely be following this development with great interest.
Posted August 28, 2014
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coffeecup: Some other things which do not work anymore:

- Cannot change my avatar anymore (stick it to the forum options menu back)
This post should probably have been in the thread about GOG's redesign, not the introduction of DRM-Free movies, but whatever. :)

I'm still able to change my avatar. Once you're in the 'account section', you need to hover over your avatar and then click on the 'change picture' message that comes up, not the picture itself. Hopefully you can get it working! :)

Someone else was having this problem and they got it working by clearing their browser's cache. Perhaps you could try that.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by Kerchatin
Posted August 28, 2014
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Valoric: I agree with the others. Please give us multiple formats for the movies. Re-encode them into mkv, webm, daala (in the future), push the boundaries (FLAC, Opus, OGG) and make yourselves better than those providing these for free. Do what bandcamp.com does and give us the choice to be free or proprietary.

Give us the freedom to choose.
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shmerl: +1 for Daala & Opus which is the future of video, but we'll have to wait for quite a while until Daala will reach release state. According to the project plan - it's at least in the end of 2015. And then frameworks, browsers and players will have to adopt it still.
-1 :o) It would be wiser for Gog to first comply to actual standards like the following:
- MKV container (if the movie has subs or mutiple soundtracks, otherwise a simple mp4 is fine)
- MP4 encoded with H.264 (or x264)
- AAC audio
- SRT subtitles

Why? Simply because it sucks for digital files to be unplayable (or have stutterring issues) on some devices (like tablets, blu-ray players with usb port, netbooks, etc.) due hardware or software issues. Even the 10bit encode is not handled properly at the present moment so the fancy tech stuff can wait for a while, don't forget gog would have to refund if the movie file is unplayable on the customer's device. I personnaly encode my blu-rays with "adaptability" in mind.
Posted August 28, 2014
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shmerl: +1 for Daala & Opus which is the future of video, but we'll have to wait for quite a while until Daala will reach release state. According to the project plan - it's at least in the end of 2015. And then frameworks, browsers and players will have to adopt it still.
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catpower1980: -1 :o) It would be wiser for Gog to first comply to actual standards like the following:
- MKV container (if the movie has subs or mutiple soundtracks, otherwise a simple mp4 is fine)
- MP4 encoded with H.264 (or x264)
- AAC audio
- SRT subtitles

Why? Simply because it sucks for digital files to be unplayable (or have stutterring issues) on some devices (like tablets, blu-ray players with usb port, netbooks, etc.) due hardware or software issues. Even the 10bit encode is not handled properly at the present moment so the fancy tech stuff can wait for a while, don't forget gog would have to refund if the movie file is unplayable on the customer's device. I personnaly encode my blu-rays with "adaptability" in mind.
There are no standards for this. The only standard so far is probably Opus which got standardized by IETF already as part of WebRTC. The rest of codecs are complete Wild West. Noting is "standard" there. And especially since they are mostly all poisoned with patents (while Opus is a patent free codec).

Performance wise Daala will beat not only H.264, but H.265 as well. So Daala + Opus will no doubt be the leader when it will get stable. But as I said, it's too early for that.

For the reference, x264 is not a codec, it's a name of the open source H.264 encoder (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X264 ).
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
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shmerl: There are no standards for this. The only standard so far is probably Opus which got standardized by IETF already as part of WebRTC. The rest of codecs are complete Wild West. Noting is "standard" there. And especially since they are mostly all poisoned with patents (while Opus is a patent free codec).
I consider them as standard as even a cheap sony blu-ray player can handle them directly à la "plug 'n' play". If a casual user (your grandma or your child) just has to copy the movie file and play it on all its devices then it's considered as an "industry standard" because it's supported "everywhere" (the end-user doesn't give a damn about patent, main question is : does it work or not?)
Posted August 28, 2014
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Niggles: Id say the segment of customers interested in those types of movies would be really quite small to be honest. Lot of us find it an odd option to sell these...
Coinciding the current selection of movies and the little knowledge I have of the type of movies GOG may release, I agree with your comment. Also, I find that the prices for the movies without the discounts to be quite expensive.
Posted August 28, 2014
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shmerl: There are no standards for this. The only standard so far is probably Opus which got standardized by IETF already as part of WebRTC. The rest of codecs are complete Wild West. Noting is "standard" there. And especially since they are mostly all poisoned with patents (while Opus is a patent free codec).
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catpower1980: I consider them as standard as even a cheap sony blu-ray player can handle them directly à la "plug 'n' play". If a casual user (your grandma or your child) just has to copy the movie file and play it on all its devices then it's considered as an "industry standard" because it's supported "everywhere" (the end-user doesn't give a damn about patent, main question is : does it work or not?)
Blurays is an aged technology. Optical disks? Come on, why not use 5" diskettes for example? I'm sarcastic, but the point is, all that "standard" is so much behind because of DRM. There is no other reason why outdated technology is still used widely. Video industry poisons it with DRM and patents to prevent any kind of progress. It's not GOG's job to help it linger around. If Daala / Opus will get support in browsers, GOG should definitely start using it. For those who want to use antiquated tech, GOG can provide other formats.

For example Youtube now provides WebM (VP8 / VP9 + Vorbis) and MP4 (H.264 + AAC, not sure about H.265).
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
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Niggles: Id say the segment of customers interested in those types of movies would be really quite small to be honest. Lot of us find it an odd option to sell these...
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ginsengsamurai: Coinciding the current selection of movies and the little knowledge I have of the type of movies GOG may release, I agree with your comment. Also, I find that the prices for the movies without the discounts to be quite expensive.
What would you consider fair prices for those movies?. (looks cheap enough as it is imho)
Posted August 28, 2014
A brave big step indeed, GOG! I'm pleased to see that you always stick to your policy, the DRM-free. You have my support. Good luck! :)
Posted August 28, 2014
low rated
Seriously. remove that Brony documentary. the movie is propaganda for their loser society and making us as a gaming community feel bad. not to mention making us men into wimps. remove it now or I will stop buying your games
Posted August 28, 2014
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shmerl: Blurays is an aged technology. Optical disks? Come on, why not use 5" diskettes for example?
Questions : How fast is your bandwidth? Do you have have a bandwidth limit per month? Do you think the whole world has the same internet connection as you to download some 30Go file per week or more?
Posted August 28, 2014
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shmerl: Blurays is an aged technology. Optical disks? Come on, why not use 5" diskettes for example?
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catpower1980: Questions : How fast is your bandwidth? Do you have have a bandwidth limit per month? Do you think the whole world has the same internet connection as you to download some 30Go file per week or more?
Blurays are obsolete not because of bandwidth, but because there is such thing as Flash memory. The fact that Blurays are still used however is because of DRM / patent poisoning which is used to lock certain way of publishing content. It's just sickening, but it demonstrates clearly how things can be held back because of DRM obsession of the film industry. Imagine them locking the industry for 20 years into vinyl disks or whatever. It sounds weird, but it wouldn't be any better than blurays.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
YES! DRM-Free movies! It maybe just a start, but I do hope you start providing movies that cannot be found any where. Like

Into The Sun (1992).

And you can bundle game and movie packages like Riddick and Riddick. Or Tora! Tora! Tora! with IL-2 1946.

Go GOG!
Posted August 28, 2014
Is it all right to request animated series? I noticed it says not to request series in the title box, but I am interested in some old cartoon shows from the 1990s.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by NessAndSonic
Posted August 28, 2014
Hell Yeah, been waiting for ages for someone to sell me DRM-Free movies with the option of quality, or stream. Never thought it would be GOG.com though, best news ever, hopes this gets HUGE. Best of luck.

To top it off, you beat Steam to market on their planned movie distribution service. Salute!
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIntroducing GOG.com DRM-Free Movies(632 posts)(632 posts)
(632 posts)