mSpot to offer full length movies on the Pre 80
According to the NY Times, mSpot has announced that they will be offering movie rentals at $4.99 a pop. Rentals from mSpot can be watched from 24 hours to 5 days after being delivered. It looks like the company has signed deals with Paramount Studios, Universal Pictures, and the Weinstein Company, and is in talks with other major studios.
While more options are always a good thing, my question is this: is $4.99 a fair price to watch a movie on a screen that's smaller than 4 inches (3.1 inches, in the Pre's case)? While I let that query wreak havoc on your gray matter, let me point out that Adobe announced back in February that they'd deliver Flash to webOS by the end of the year, meaning we hope to see Flash support not too long afterwards. Hulu, anyone?
[Thanks to SharonW for the tip]
80 Comments
what I'm hoping for eventually is a Netflix app, similar to whats currently on Xbox Live.
the issue is often that companies like Itunes make money off selling movies from their itunes store. It cuts them out if they allow a streaming video app to run. So they are unlikely to ok a netflix streaming app. I'd guess Palm will behave the same as it adds nothing to their bottom line.
I would guess that Sprint would take more issue than Palm on this. This only makes their hardware and OS a greater value to the user. Sprint on the other hand might not be interested in people streaming full length movies.
I see what you're saying, but I think you're pointing fingers in the wrong direction, especially since it's been reported that Apple only makes just enough money to cover the itunes store operating costs.
This would be so great.
Hulu for sure...at $4.99 I can wait...plus if Netflix does come out with an app might as well use your already paid for subscription with them...good idea bad pricing especially considering the alternatives now and in the future if you can wait!
At $5.00 a movie, I'm not going to be subscribing. Considering that many TV shows and even some movies are available for free on YouTube. I might be willing to pay $0.50 for a movie on a 3 inch screen, but not more than that. Now if the pre had the capability to export video, like the iPhone and iPods, then I might buy it and then connect it to my projector to watch. But since the pre doesn't have that capability, $5.00 is not worth to price.
i doubt hulu will let us watch their contents on our pres...I bet they will block it just like they did to skyfire.
Wasted App Space
Why would I pay $5 to rent a movie and as the article pointed out... to watch it on a 3.1" screen.
If the rentals were $1 or even $2... I might consider it... but I can get a lot of things for $5. :}
To look at it this way - $5 dollar equivilants
- 1/4 to 1/3 the price of the dvd itself (owned)
- Just about any fast food place has a $5 meal deal
- 2+ gallons of gas
2+ gallons of gas??? wow bud where do you live?
@ 2.35 cents a gallon, thats about right.
I just looked out my window at the gas station next door. It's $3.05 here in SF (and that's one of the cheaper gas stations in the city, too!)
Paid $2.19 this morning at a WaWa in Virginia :}
Virginia has WaWa? I thought you guys did Sheetz only. Did you drive to NJ to fill up?
We have plenty of WaWa's and Sheets... and I must say for those that have not had the pleasure of the WaWa gas station... you don't know what you are missing :P
NY ain't that cheap, and I'm paying between $2.48 and 2.55...VT and NH are cheaper, so is Jersey, and Mass.
Sorry for you folks in California, we haven't seen gas above $2.75 in quite some time out east.
So $5.00 gets me about 60 miles away from home...or a movie on a 3.1in screen? Looking at a 1.25 hour radius, I'll take the 60 miles.
I guess they've never heard of RedBox...
DEFINITELY was about to add this.. Redbox is $1+tax/night, and I can watch it on my bigger screen... FTW
Pretty much. I already have Netflix and I can watch tons of movies for no extra charge on my laptop or home theater any time. I'm not paying $5 to watch a compressed three-inch movie on my phone.
This is not an App it is web based.
Pretty much. I already have Netflix and I can watch tons of movies for no extra charge on my laptop or home theater any time. I'm not paying $5 to watch a compressed three-inch movie on my phone.
uhh....the way the pre is with the battery right now, you wont be able to get through half a movie without plugging in.
you know, I thought that too. But I have watched two movies on my Pre now (not back to back) and had enough juice (on a full charge) to get through a film with a decent buffer amount afterwards.
yeah, but that wasn't while downloading the movie as well. seeing the way pandora kills my battery when not using wi-fi, i'll be impressed if you can watch a complete movie on a single charge.
i suppose you could download the entire movie first, then watch it later. but about the only time i would want to use a service like this would be when i was bored and needed something on demand.
point well taken. This will be positioned more as an "on demand" feature, as opposed (sic?) to download now and watch later, which is what I do when converting my DVD's.
i watched a full movie on my phone with less than half battery with Bluetooth on my as bright as possible while having multiple apps up...i was trying kill my battery fast.
This was my first thought. I suppose this would be good fo, say, an airplane/road trip, but after that you better get to a wall sockett ASAP or yo'll be without a phone. I see someone has already watched movies on their phone with a "decent buffer" after. That's good to hear, but if you don't have something to plug into real close at hand you're taking your battery-life in your hands.
I totally agree with the consensus that this is a good idea with a horrible price point. Additionally, as easy as it is to convert a DVD with programs such as Handbrake or DVD Catalyst make me question why I'd want to rent one onto the Pre in the first place.
because renting is legal and converting dvd arent.
converting is not illegal
yes it is. Digital Millennium Copyright Act made it illegal in 1998. In fact to own or traffic in the software to do it is illegal, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/judge-copying-dvds-is-illegal/ See you are supposed to pay for the dvd copy, and each of the digital media file on each device. In other words you supposed to buy the file over and over.
Oh and don't worry unless they get this thing taken care of, it will be moving on to all digital files next. Can you say music, books, blogs, and everything else that you aren't paying over and over for.
you need to read the article again. As is consistant with these kind of rulings the judge did not find that copying the DVD itself was illegal for personal / backup use. True, the software itself is illegal to be distributed, but that is on the software maker, not the end user. The courts have traditionally sided with the consumer in cases where the copy is made for their own personal use. Now when the person gives / sells the copy to someone else it is a legal problem, but not for something like this.
flash is dying. even if it gets implemented on the webOS platform, it will be a huge disappointment. a stripped down flash plugin for the Pre is nothing to look forward to.
Tell that to all the porn freaks.
Whats wrong with porn?
I guess there is a lot of flash in porn. Well, flashing.
A lot of the websites I visit use Flash. I would definitely get good use out of it!
Terrible price point. I would never purchase a rental. Not to mention there's no way I'm staring at a tiny screen for 1 1/2 hours.
Movies are for laptops and PSPs...
Yeah, save that flick for the GIANT screen on your PSP!! I know what you're saying, it just sounds silly. I know this might be blasphamy on a sight lke this, but has anyone ever heard of reading a book? (Waiting for the parade of hate mail. Please don't bar me from PreCentral, Deiter!!)
I LOVE reading books, and I nearly made i comment about the LARGER then LIFE PSP screen myself.
I would, if there was a GOOD ebook reader on the Pre, lol!
I would say for the majority of the members here this is a minor program with a big no thanx. You really think that we have no creative workaround for movies...lol For the general public....Net Flix. This program sounds like the B-Buster flop out right now.
No thanks. I can wait for a Netflix app, or just put my DVD's on my Pre.
5 bucks is about 4 dollars higher then I'll pay.
I had to (and was able to!) watch the two-hour premier of Heroes on my Pre via m.NBC.com. It came in the form of 7 or 8 rtsp URLs, with a 15 second pre-roll commercial in front of each. Free! No registration!
Granted it was TV not movies, but still!
thanks for the info.
Would this price include watching also on your computer? If so, not a bad price. But, if it is only for watching on your phone, they charge a penny per inch.
I agree... I would not pay that much to rent a movie to watch on that little screen. I do travel a bit with my band, and it's nice to watch some movies in the van on my Pre, but I just convert DVDs, or download TV shows to watch.
Do you need the 3G connection to watch the movies? If so, then you couldn't even watch them on a plane, which would probably be the most useful place to watch a movie on a phone.
it's a neat idea, but in reality, at that price, I don't have much use for it.
the day will never come when i pay $5 for a movie to watch on a tiny screen. Especially considering AMC only charges $6.00 for feature movies before noon. There is no movie that is so urgent that i must watch it now on a tiny screen. Sports maybe cause they are live and that's a stretch.
Is it streaming only -or- is it downloadable / able to completely cache locally?
If the latter, and it doesn't take too long (
4.99 a movie...are they even serious...a movie that expires, even worse...please this is a joke....somebody please get a lukluk app developed for the pre! Please!...I had it on my G1...hundreds of movies streaming for free great quality! LukLuk rules!
TiVo + Amazon HD + 50 inch plasma TV = win.
But hey, some people really like watching TV or movies on their iPods, so whatever.
Not a bad idea but far too expensive.
I can go to see a new movie at the theaters $9.50
Or I can go see a movie at the discount theaters for $2
I wouldn't pay more than 1$ to see a movie on such a small screen and have it drain a days worth of battery.
I already know I WONT be buying movies at that price point, or just about ANY price point. What a terrible waste of space and review space.
Why can't we get decent offical app reviews? Google dialer, new IM's added reviews, stuff we wanna see!!!
I'm not one but excited for this app.
Um isn't it up and running right now,
It DOES NOT require any apps
you can just go to m.mspot.com and at least watch them demo, its a stream and works great.
according to there FAQ "if you can see the preview, then your phone is supported..."
At $4.99, I would only try it once just to satisfy my curiosity. I would not use it regularly. I can go to a video store to get a DVD with the same price or less and watch it on a big screen.
I am willing to pay $1 for it and if it is relative easy to use. If the movie is for me to keep, I am willing to pay $5.
I feel the studios (I don't really blame software vendor for the high price) are like oil companies. When they came out with a new technology, they increase the price. For example, DVD is more expensive than VHS, Blue-ray is more expensive than DVD. I am fine with that, because there are higher quality and more contents. However, at the same time, when they lower the quality like on a phone and smaller formats, they do not lower the price.
4.99 a movie...are they even serious...a movie that expires, even worse...please this is a joke....somebody please get a lukluk app developed for the pre! Please!...I had it on my G1...hundreds of movies streaming for free great quality! LukLuk rules!
why does the "back in February" link take you to a google search result of the term, "February?"
I won't be supporting this either.
$5 ? Are you serious ? I can go to the redbox, spend $1 and rip the movie to a size for the Pre. I would say the max I would spend is $2 a movie since I don't even get to watch it again.
Cant wait for a HuLu app !
I'm not interested in this app if the price per movie stays $5
Why would I want to spend $5 to rent a movie on my Pre when I could just go to the local grocery store and rent a dvd from the Red Box kiosk for $1, bring it home and rip it with handbrake?
They need to re-think their pricing model.
I think the point here is. We want the Flash Player, Hulu, Netflix, and mSpot to work on our tiny screens because we Can! Even if you never use it, at least someone out there has the option just in case they want it. We don't want to be limited on our devices just because flash is going out of style and people think it's a waste of time. One day a friend is going to send you something (like now) and you won't be able to open it because you still don't have flash player. Maybe you are out camping and you and your significant other want to watch a movie for some reason and you're willing to spend 5 bucks for it. Why not!
Streaming, no go for me. I watch movies on the subway on my iPod. Something that requires a constant good data connection simply won't work. In fact, even above ground, I can't get a connection that's consistent enough to stream YouTube for very long.
Nor will this work on airplanes.
So, where am I going to have 2 hours, where I have a good data connection, but no access to a device with a larger screen (like a DVD player or laptop)? I'm not going to pay $5 to sit in my house and look at a tiny screen.
So, first, they need to make this so that it will DOWNLOAD to your Pre. That way, you can watch on planes, subways, etc.
And, even at that, $5 is steep.
Sorry, legal or not, I'd prefer to stick with NetFlix, rip the DVD to my iPod, watch, delete, and then return. (Yes, I don't return the DVD until I've watched it and removed it from my iPod and computer.)
the only way I would spend 5 dollars, if my girlfriend ask me to rent a porno before doing it...
$5 ? cmon thats crazy
the only friend that I know that watches movies on he's iPod screen is one that works on security doing nothing and the only reason he does that is because he downloads them for free, do you think I guy like him is going to basically not get paid that hour to watch a movie instead, cause the movie cost is almost he's hourly pay LOL LOL then it expires LOL LOL LOL personally I can rent a Blu-Ray for $4 or $2.50 on wednesday's special
Im not a fan of watching movies on this devices but ... can't you download a full movie and get it on your Pre through USB or whatever rather than paying $5, don't know because I haven't tried it but I bet it can be done
I think the one thing nobody has noticed yet is that they are just charging the same price as what it costs to rent a movie from sprint tv. Go and take a look. Aladdin which is almost 20 years old is 4.99 + tax for three days. Not saying I agree with the pricing, but it's inline with sprints on excessive pricing.
Yeah, I completely forgot about movies on Sprint TV. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is $5.99 on Sprint TV. Not sure what the terms are, i.e. how long you have to watch it.
Further, the Sprint TV app has a menu item called "Shop" and one of the items I can subscribe to is "MSpot Movies." No idea what that even means or what it costs.
Anyway the pricing is a tad high, but who knows, it might be the right thing at the right time once or twice a year. What I like is it's pay-as-you-go, no subscription required. I don't watch a lot of movies.
I wont pay that much, but my bigger gripe is that new movies are watchable for only 24 HOURS. That really isnt enough time, then you wasted your money.
I'm not so much worried at the price of the movie as I am about the fact that the battery life will DIE especially for a full length movie. TV shows maybe would work out alright...
I think the one thing nobody has noticed yet is that they are just charging the same price as what it costs to rent a movie from sprint tv. Go and take a look. Aladdin which is almost 20 years old is 4.99 + tax for three days. Not saying I agree with the pricing, but it's inline with sprints on excessive pricing.
Why in the world did the site double publish my comment; and 30 minutes apart @ that. Just so it's clear I'm not that retarded. Lol
Why is the price of a movie fron Netflix or Redbox relevant?
I'm not going to use my Pre to watch movies at home. I have a 48" LCD 1080p TV and BluRay player for that.
I'm not going to use it in a hotel or airport either, I have a nice widescreen laptop for that.
So that pretty much leaves my morning commute via public transport or places where I might not have a laptop with me like a hospital/doctor's waiting room.
In a case like that I might be willing to pay the $5 to have something to watch, although I better get at least 3-days all the time so I can be certain to have the chance to finish watching.
i'm waiting on a slingbox app... Slingbox + tivo + hbo = movies on demand at no per movie cost
$1.49 is the most that any of us would be willing to pay, you hear us, mspot? $4.99 is just stupid. who in their right mind would want to pay for a rental mobile movie at $5? if we can own the mobile movie ofr $5, then that would be a whole different story.
like others have echoed, great idea, and poor implementation if the pricing sticks.
Only if i can get 35 other Pre phones, place them in 6 rows of 6 phones each and have the movie displayed as if that were one giant Pre. Think that may be cost prohibitive..., but cool!
RedBox - at every supermarket in this area is 1.99 a night. For a real DVD. So... there you go.
$1.99 / night?! holy cow it's only a buck here! And someone mentioned that gas in their area is $3.05 / gal while here it's $2.36 perhaps there IS an advantage to living in Ohio, lol!
I want Hulu, Slingbox, streaming Netflix, and Flash available on the Pre.
Like almost everyone here has said, $5 is way too much for a limited use movie. Now if the service were to offer an unlimited monthly arrangement comparable to Netflix, then we could talk. I'd pay $10.99 or so for unlimited streaming movies on my Pre.
All these comments on how $5 is too expensive when the actual price on their site is 8 month-long credits for $16 or 6 for $13 or 4 for $10. I've never tried them, but the full price is misleading. You may want to update the article as well.
there is no way in hell i am going to watch a movie on my pre for that much(5.00). 99 cents or even 1.99 each...ok. palm needs to develop their own music and movie storage site. Maybe someone in homebrew could figure a way to do this..legally of course.
or have a redbox mobile...thats the ticket
Gotta say, I'm one of those people that believes sound is the key experience in a movie. We never had bigger than a 27in TV till this year, and I'd always comment that a movie on 13in black and white with killer sound was better than a movie on a big screen without sound, but after getting a 65in DLP, I have to say, I can't stand watching movies on a smaller screen (small being less than 65in). Of course I never could stand watching TV shows off the web on my laptop either, I used to always hook it up to the TV.
Bottom line, I will and do watch video on the Pre, but $5.00 is way too much when for the same price I can do VOD in HD and watch it on my DLP in 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound.
So, maybe at between $.99 and $1.99 I might if I was desperate, or if I was flying, I'd just buy a few magazines and (gasp) read...
Check out this article from DVICE on mSpot:
http://dvice.com/archives/2009/09/mspot-launches.php#more
Title: mSpot launches really sucky movie-streaming service for phones