Disney plans to distribute videos via Internet?

[Rebel]

Just saw this news this morning.

Disney has signed with Microsoft to distribute video online in late 2004 or early 2005.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jh ... ction=news

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... ge=printer

It is unclear what videos they are talking about. Personally I think that the Windows Media Player format sucks and that if they are talking about distributing feature films then this venture will not be successful for Disney. In addition to the general poor quality of WMP video, the related Microsoft Digital Rights Management has already been cracked. However, in regards to movie trailers and cartoon shorts on the Disney website, it may be ok, but not really a big deal.

Regardless, partnering with Microsoft seldom benefits any company in the long run and IMO this decision is just one more reason that Disney needs a new Board of Directors..

[2099net]

Microsoft do actually have some very good software now for distributing video. If you have a high-enough spec PC check out the HD Terminator 2 for Media Player 9 on the T2 Extreme Edition set. (And marvel at how good the quality is for how little disc space it uses).

This agreement is probably for Microsoft's next generation of Windows Media (which don't forget will not only be on PCs but the next XBOX console and possibly WEB-TV boxes etc).

But I agree, partnering with Microsoft often only benefits MS!

You can download some demos here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... deoQuality

[jabroni76]

I also read about this on CNN.

It might prove to be a selling point to families trying to enhance their children with computers.. who knows...

[MickeyMousePal]

This sounds like a good idea but knowing Disney they will only show lame Disney movies like Fantasia 2000, Atlantis - The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet and The Black Cauldron on the internet.
They might show some great movies like Lion King or Beauty and the Beast IMO.

[Disney Guru]

Neato. Cool. No I can watch movies on the Internet fun fun fun. I think this is totally awesome. Bill Gates get my vote for his idea to start doing this,

[Grunches]

What would the point be of putting movies on the internet if you own them on dvd?

[Joshua Clinard]

Unless they release these in low quality, the filesizes are going to he huge. At DVD Quality, they would use about 10 megabytes per minitue. That's 600 MB for a 60 minitue movie. Nobody is going to want to download that. Even on broadband, that would take several hours.

[AwallaceUNC]

wtf? I see no point in this, not for Disney anyways. Come on.

-Aaron