The Digital Lockdown
Today we are a highly digital society. We are beginning to move away from the physical and more to the digital. I know my media buying habits have changed. I buy my music and books digitally. I buy the books I want for my miniature gaming in pdf format. Movies I still buy in physical formats because Hollywood hasn’t caught up with technology. They are packaging in a digital copy of the movie you just bought in new releases, but you are restricted to viewing it on a PC or approved mobile device that works with their DRM scheme. Thus your options are a Windows Media file or an iTunes file. This seems so backwards to me. Read more
The Kindle Goes On Fire
Amazon announced the new kindle line-up last week. The new e-ink kindles got updated with touch and no keyboards, but the real star of the show was the kindle fire. This is Amazon’s answer to the Nook Color. They are about a year late to the 7 inch tablet market, but they look like they are ready to make a big splash. The kindle fire looks like a refined Amazon experience. Read more 
The Netflix Split
This past week has been very interesting in digital media. The main topic is that Netflix is splitting off its DVD-by-mail service. The new service is called Qwikster. They have decided to go all in on the streaming media. This is can be both good and bad. With Netflix streaming only they will have a chance to expand their catalogue. The DVD section while not a black hole on the company will at some point become one in the future. The problem is though right now no one can predict what the future holds. Read more
Netflix rising cost
This week we learned that Netflix will change its pricing structure. The DVD service is increasing its pricing by about $3 and then you will have to add in the streaming option. If you have the base DVD/Streaming option the price will go from $10 to $16 a month. While this is not a large jump in price it will make people who don’t use the DVD portion of the service to think about if the increase is enough to keep the dvd by mail service.
The price increase email
Many people who comment on this are threatening to cancel their Netflix subscription. To me this is a rash decision. I don’t mind paying for quality service and I find Netflix to be a quality service. My current plan with Netflix is the DVD/Streaming for $10 a month. I haven’t used the DVD portion in a while and mostly get DVDs from a local Redbox. I am probably going to drop to streaming only when I am forced to choose in september. I have a Netflix DVD sitting at home just collecting dust since sometime last year. In the end Netflix will still be receiving my money and I will be very happy with their service, plus they will save on the shipping costs. I do expect that the streaming cost for the consumer to increase in the next several years and I hope that Netflix will increase their streaming catalog aswell.
Of Tablets and PDFs
I have recently begun my quest for tablet that will quench my desire for digital books. Now the books I want to display on a tablet are far different than the books I read on my Kindle. These books are full color PDFs for a tabletop wargame called BattleTech. I already own a large portion of the dead tree books in my library. I am looking to par that down but to also be able to do searches through the books when I need to look something up during our regular play sessions.
I have tested out the the Motorola Xoom a couple of times and they have no dedicated pdf viewer in the system. The pdf viewers you can get for android are not the best. They don’t render the pdfs properly. You also can’t get the Adobe PDF reader for tablets. You can side load the adobe reader apk file to the tablet. Adobe reader is really the best PDF reader for android tablets the bad part is you have to find the apk to download and install. It does have issues with searching but that may be processor related on my phone as I haven’t loaded the Adobe Reader apk to the Xoom Tablet yet.
I was able to barrow one of my co-workers new iPads. I was very impressed with the way it was able to handle the game PDFs. It was able to search and very the PDFs as thought they were dead tree books. The iPad was very good for what I want in a tablet pc to help my game group. Now only if the Android tablets can catch up.
Hulu planning on charging for content
Back in mid-January more details leaked out about Hulu’s planned monthly fee, rumors started to circulate around June 2009. The basic details are for $4.99 a month you will get all the episodes of the most popular shows. Now it sounds like from the article at Ars Technica that each show would have to sign on for this. I would imagine NBC shows like 30 Rock and The Office would be some of the first to be on the initial list. FOX shows would be there also since the push for the monthly fee is coming from them.
Most people would start screaming this is a bad idea. I think this is a good idea, instead of cycling the past 5 episodes you would have access to all the content. Think of being turned onto a show that is already a couple of seasons in you could catch up on Hulu if you are a paying member. I think in the beginning it will only be popular shows and it’ll expand from there.
This goes a long way to make traditional cable more obsolete. With rising cable prices imagine getting the majority of your content through the internet. Of course right now only the hobbyists will make the move when it comes, but when Home Theatre PCs become common in the home this will start pushing more content over the net. It will be a very interesting shift to watch and be a part of.
