It's a Small Disney World After All?

[3113]

Walt Disney Co's Japan unit said it would sell movies on flash memory cards as small as a fingernail so that people can watch them on mobile phones and other portable devices. The movie studio plans to package pre-recorded microSD cards together with DVDs holding the same movie content, allowing customers to watch at home as well as on the go. These cards will be available in November.

Users can watch movies stored on microSD cards on mobile phones capable of showing terrestrial digital broadcasting, and other portable gear such as car navigation systems. For new movies, the package of a DVD and microSD card is expected to retail for 4,935 yen ($53), about 1,000 yen higher than the DVD alone, a spokesman at the Japan unit said.

It is difficult to make a sales forecast since this would be the first time for Disney to put its movies in microSD cards, he said.

Story here.
I don't quite get why as movies can be downloaded onto such phones. I guess so you don't have to use up memory on a computer or phone to watch the movie?

 

[Verdad]

I'm by no means up to date with these things, but movie files are huge, so I suspect they'd be a pain to download and way too big to store. An external memory card solves both--and conveniently raises the price by selling you something you wouldn't necessarily buy otherwise.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I'm by no means up to date with these things, but movie files are huge, so I suspect they'd be a pain to download and way too big to store. An external memory card solves both--and conveniently raises the price by selling you something you wouldn't necessarily buy otherwise.

I am hard pressed to imagine watching something designed for a BIG screen on an iPhone. Don't you lose a lot of detail?

 

[Liar]

I'm by no means up to date with these things, but movie files are huge, so I suspect they'd be a pain to download and way too big to store. An external memory card solves both--and conveniently raises the price by selling you something you wouldn't necessarily buy otherwise.

My internet provider has a rent-a-vid service, where you download full HD quality movies to your hard drive. You can watch them, sync them to a laptop with the same rent box app installed, or several different compatible portable devices, and then the movie is deleted from all after 48 hours.

It takes about 30 minutes to download a 2 hour movie. And you can begin to watch as soon as the download started, so it's pretty much like video-on-demand, with a rewind and repeat function. And it takes about 4 gigabytes to store. I have 450 gigabytes free on my current hard drive.

So no, downloads are pretty convenient, and storage is a marginal problem. Bht you need not a product provider, like Disney who sells mem cards, but access to the right service provider who have direct content delivered from your access point to your computer.

 

[TE999]

Story here.
I don't quite get why as movies can be downloaded onto such phones. I guess so you don't have to use up memory on a computer or phone to watch the movie?

Products such as this are less a response to public demand than it's another example of a rapidly evolving technology that is still pushing the boundaries of smaller, faster and lighter.

Create the product and the demand will follow...especially if it's reasonably priced.

 

[Verdad]

My internet provider has a rent-a-vid service, where you download full HD quality movies to your hard drive. You can watch them, sync them to a laptop with the same rent box app installed, or several different compatible portable devices, and then the movie is deleted from all after 48 hours.

It takes about 30 minutes to download a 2 hour movie. And you can begin to watch as soon as the download started, so it's pretty much like video-on-demand, with a rewind and repeat function. And it takes about 4 gigabytes to store. I have 450 gigabytes free on my current hard drive.

So no, downloads are pretty convenient, and storage is a marginal problem. Bht you need not a product provider, like Disney who sells mem cards, but access to the right service provider who have direct content delivered from your access point to your computer.

Oops, thanks for the correction. To me it takes about 4 hours to download a movie on my desktop, so I assumed that to be the minimum. Also, my cell isn't exactly of the latest generation--I stare so much at this screen, I'm more than happy not to stare at another one when I'm out!

 

[Liar]

Oops, thanks for the correction. To me it takes about 4 hours to download a movie on my desktop, so I assumed that to be the minimum. Also, my cell isn't exactly of the latest generation--I stare so much at this screen, I'm more than happy not to stare at another one when I'm out!

Download speed depends on a couple of things. Your bandwidth to your provider of course. If you're on a slow DSL or modem connection, everything will trickle. But most of the time, the bottleneck is out on the net. Where do you download that movie from?

Can't say that I understand the idea of cramming movies into your handheld device or cell phone either. Its just silly. It's called the Big Screen for a reason.

 

[Verdad]

Download speed depends on a couple of things. Your bandwidth to your provider of course. If you're on a slow DSL or modem connection, everything will trickle. But most of the time, the bottleneck is out on the net. Where do you download that movie from?

Can't say that I understand the idea of cramming movies into your handheld device or cell phone either. Its just silly. It's called the Big Screen for a reason.

No, I'm good with bandwidth. But maybe I shouldn't have generalized from, um, spurious download sources.

 

[slyc_willie]

I am hard pressed to imagine watching something designed for a BIG screen on an iPhone. Don't you lose a lot of detail?

That's what I wondering. Even on the SO's iPhone, clips on YouTube lose a lot of their umph.

 

[Trudy_Antone]

Has anyone here been to Japan and witnessed the omnipresent obsession with mobile phones and all things 'gadget'? This, IMHO is a marketing push geared solely towards the expanding teen market - the new generation who go nowhere without their electrical appendages.

No rational adult would prefer to watch movies on a 1 inch screen - but to teens that would have to be the coolest of the cool.