It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionIntroducing GOG.com DRM-Free Movies(632 posts)(632 posts)
(632 posts)
Pages:
1
5
10
15
20
23
24
25
26
27
30
35
40
43
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
avatar
Maighstir: I actually don't.

I don't like renting at all (physical or streaming), but I don't find the practice of "digital renting" unfair. Because on streaming services such as Netflix, you're not paying to access a single movie or show (as you are at a physical renting store), you have access to the whole library - and in that business model, DRM-free downloads would not really be viable (pay $10 for a single month and download hundreds of movies for permanent access? how much would the business lose on that?).
avatar
shmerl: No, it's not reasonable. First of all, what is DRM used there for? To enforce the renting restrictions? So, they assume that without that DRM, people would somehow just download whatever they want from Netflix without bounds. Do they realize that those want to do such a thing can easily do it without any Netflix using Bittorrent networks already? So what exactly does that DRM do there? Nothing it seems. Then the whole thing crumbles. I find such business model to be based on empty logic. It works because people are paying for convenience of streaming, not because they appreciate the time limited access. Since most of the videos they get there are one time consumable films, they just don't feel the time window limitation.
For the same reason that you don't make things legal simply because people are doing it illegally anyway. Of course they realise that people pirate movies, but piracy is still a stopper for many that WANT to stay legal for various reasons. Offering DRM-free downloads would completely remove that block though, because it's actually offered legally. Yes, people pay for the convenience, but also for "any" access, remove the need for people to pay every month, and many would stop doing that because accessing movies on your portable HDD isn't that much different from accessing them from a web site.

Yes, people would consider the price against what they get, and while some would highly value "pause the movie and continue at the same place regardless of the device" many would see "all the movies I can download through one month for $10" vs. "pay $10 every month to watch a couple movies on the weekends, and keep paying to keep access", and would likely go for "download a couple years' worth of movies for $10, and keep them for later".

EDIT: Now, I do perfectly agree with you in the case of "for this much money, you get to watch this many movies", as in your last paragraph. When I pay per movie, I want to own it.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by Maighstir
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
Maighstir: Now, I do perfectly agree with you in the case of "for this much money, you get to watch this many movies", as in your last paragraph. When I pay per movie, I want to own it.
Yes, my point was not to say that Netflix or whoever should give an unrestricted access to the whole catalog for a monthly fee, but that their access should not limit what you can do with the file (such as downloading and the like). Limiting the amount is perfectly fine. The only reason why Netflix don't limit the amount is because they use DRM. But their usage of DRM is based on their desire to enforce renting. I.e. throw the renting logic out, and sell on condition of not more than certain amount of films per certain time period. That would remove any kind of mental block that pushes them to use DRM.

I still stand for what I said above - renting of digital goods is not economically mandated. It's only done to rip people off.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
Valoric: [...] Absolutely. Anything less would be a mistake and misunderstanding video encoding itself. Perhaps the best way would be to enforce an upload constraints to only lossless HD/4K and have GOG have an automated script that encodes the preferable & more accessible lossy options. Having archive quality that you can buy would be unprecedented!
avatar
DebugMode: Hmm... This could work for analog transfers and maybe animation to some degree. Life action is problematic. At least I'd assume that there are no devices in the indie or AA studio range that use lossless formats for recording. So it would be lossy no matter what.
Actually there are two really popular lossless camcorders in the indie price range:

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/
http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicpocketcinemacamera

In a slightly higher price range, Red has lossless cameras as well.

Another way to do lossless is to buy a camera with an SDI output and record with an SDI capture device. Two player productions does it that way.

In short, lossless production is a lot more common in the indie film market than you might think.
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: Actually there are two really popular lossless camcorders in the indie price range:
I thought practically all digital cameras allow lossless recording in raw uncompressed video. Then you can reencode that in lossless but compressed video (Dirac or whatever). So it shouldn't cost you anything extra for the camera besides spending time may be and having a good computer for further processing which you need anyway if you work with video.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: Actually there are two really popular lossless camcorders in the indie price range:
avatar
shmerl: I thought practically all digital cameras allow lossless recording in raw uncompressed video. Then you can reencode that in lossless but compressed video (Dirac or whatever). So it shouldn't cost you anything extra for the camera besides spending time may be and having a good computer for further processing which you need anyway if you work with video.
No, the vast majority of video cameras don't do lossless. At the very least they compress the color to 4:2:2, but most also record in MPEG or DV, neither of which is lossless.
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: No, the vast majority of video cameras don't do lossless. At the very least they compress the color to 4:2:2, but most also record in MPEG or DV, neither of which is lossless.
May be, I didn't really research cameras in depth. This is weird though. Doing lossless recording shouldn't be difficult for the camera.

Looking at this, there are quite a lot of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cameras_supporting_a_raw_format
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: No, the vast majority of video cameras don't do lossless. At the very least they compress the color to 4:2:2, but most also record in MPEG or DV, neither of which is lossless.
avatar
shmerl: May be, I didn't really research cameras in depth. This is weird though. Doing lossless recording shouldn't be difficult for the camera.

Looking at this, there are quite a lot of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cameras_supporting_a_raw_format
Only the ones in the "video" section of that list do lossless video. That's actually more than I thought, but still a very small subset of the market.

Also, if you read the notes on the lossless video camera list, they include cameras that do lossy color compression. That's almost lossless, but doesn't allow you to do color grading or HDR in post production, which is one of the really cool things about shooting lossless. The color in the Lord of the Rings movies, for example, couldn't have been done at the same quality with lossy color in the source material.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by barleyguy
Posted August 28, 2014
I wasn't asking for it, but I guess I'm good with this assuming the selection gets bigger and moves beyond gaming documentaries. Put some classic horror, sci-fi, action, noir, etc. up there and I'll become much more enthusiastic.
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: Only the ones in the "video" section of that list do lossless video. That's actually more than I thought, but still a very small subset of the market.
I see. Still I'm not sure what prevents all of them from doing it. May be weak processing capabilities? Tossing raw video requires more memory and CPU but modern hardware should be already capable of doing it.
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
shmerl: May be, I didn't really research cameras in depth. This is weird though. Doing lossless recording shouldn't be difficult for the camera.
Regarding specifically why it's difficult, it's because most cameras aren't fast enough, and don't have big enough storage.

Lossless 1080p is roughly 2 gigabytes per MINUTE. A 32 GB flash card in the Blackmagic pocket holds roughly 15 minutes of video. Therefore, an entire movie in lossless would be 250 GB or so.

I quite honestly don't think that will ever be an option for distribution. Maybe in a couple of decades when storage and connections are a lot faster, but most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between lossless and good MPEG-4 anyway.
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: I quite honestly don't think that will ever be an option for distribution.
It surely is pointless for distribution. It's needed for master files which require further processing and reencoding to lossy formats. So for cameras it's a natural thing to expect, since cameras should be the source of the master file.

avatar
barleyguy: most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between lossless and good MPEG-4 anyway.
In the future we'll have even something better than MPEG-4 (Daala for instance) so quality of the lossy compression will only go up, while the size will go down.
avatar
barleyguy: Regarding specifically why it's difficult, it's because most cameras aren't fast enough, and don't have big enough storage.

Lossless 1080p is roughly 2 gigabytes per MINUTE. A 32 GB flash card in the Blackmagic pocket holds roughly 15 minutes of video. Therefore, an entire movie in lossless would be 250 GB or so.
What prevents them from giving an option of attaching an external drive or just putting an SSD hard drive in the camera? The only real bottleneck can be slow CPU and little RAM, but I think embedded hardware is getting much better these days, so it shouldn't be an issue already.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
shmerl: May be, I didn't really research cameras in depth. This is weird though. Doing lossless recording shouldn't be difficult for the camera.
avatar
barleyguy: Regarding specifically why it's difficult, it's because most cameras aren't fast enough, and don't have big enough storage.

Lossless 1080p is roughly 2 gigabytes per MINUTE. A 32 GB flash card in the Blackmagic pocket holds roughly 15 minutes of video. Therefore, an entire movie in lossless would be 250 GB or so.

I quite honestly don't think that will ever be an option for distribution. Maybe in a couple of decades when storage and connections are a lot faster, but most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between lossless and good MPEG-4 anyway.
What is the exact encoding for these movies though? Good h.264 encodes can look awesome (and with 10bit, at a smaller size), but only if the encoder has a clue what he or she is doing. For 1080p you are gonna need 8gb at the very least. What's the sizes for a standard movie with this gog movie thing?
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: Only the ones in the "video" section of that list do lossless video. That's actually more than I thought, but still a very small subset of the market.
avatar
shmerl: I see. Still I'm not sure what prevents all of them from doing it. May be weak processing capabilities? Tossing raw video requires more memory and CPU but modern hardware should be already capable of doing it.
Not so much processing, but storage space (as barleyguy said) and (even more so) storage speed.
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
eRe4s3r: What is the exact encoding for these movies though? Good h.264 encodes can look awesome (and with 10bit, at a smaller size), but only if the encoder has a clue what he or she is doing. For 1080p you are gonna need 8gb at the very least. What's the sizes for a standard movie with this gog movie thing?
Do you mean lossless or lossy? Above we discussed how cameras handle lossless encoding which can have several different formats, such as HDMI format ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Uncompressed_video )
Not sure about what they do with the audio though.

For lossy, the top quality today are VP9 and H.265 which offer better compression than others and good quality with that. Daala will be next generation and better than them all, but it's still in development so it's too early to use it.
Post edited August 28, 2014 by shmerl
Posted August 28, 2014
avatar
barleyguy: I quite honestly don't think that will ever be an option for distribution.
avatar
shmerl: It surely is pointless for distribution. It's needed for master files which require further processing and reencoding to lossy formats. So for cameras it's a natural thing to expect, since cameras should be the source of the master file.

avatar
barleyguy: most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between lossless and good MPEG-4 anyway.
avatar
shmerl: In the future we'll have even something better than MPEG-4 (Daala for instance) so quality of the lossy compression will only go up, while the size will go down.
avatar
barleyguy: Regarding specifically why it's difficult, it's because most cameras aren't fast enough, and don't have big enough storage.

Lossless 1080p is roughly 2 gigabytes per MINUTE. A 32 GB flash card in the Blackmagic pocket holds roughly 15 minutes of video. Therefore, an entire movie in lossless would be 250 GB or so.
avatar
shmerl: What prevents them from giving an option of attaching an external drive or just putting an SSD hard drive in the camera? The only real bottleneck can be slow CPU and little RAM, but I think embedded hardware is getting much better these days, so it shouldn't be an issue already.
Most of the cameras on the lossless list do use SSD to record to. The full size Blackmagic does; it's only the pocket sized one that doesn't.

As far as why it's not a standard feature in consumer video cameras, it probably has to do with demand. Most people buying video cameras probably don't want to use lossless. That could change though, since the cell phone and still camera market is taking most of the lower end video customers.
Pages:
1
5
10
15
20
23
24
25
26
27
30
35
40
43
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIntroducing GOG.com DRM-Free Movies(632 posts)(632 posts)
(632 posts)