Kingston, Paramount to deliver movies on flash drives

I'd bye one of these in a flash (corny pun lol) But dont you think paramount would be worried about torrent sites getting a hold of these, no saying theyre not already on there, but more worried?

Movies on flash drives is a good idea. Let's see if this will succeed.

Seems overly expensive; and those flash drives look sketchy, I don't like Kingston.
I would adore having a worthless stockpile of flash drives which I bring everywhere and use to watch movies whenever I see a computer, and spend $30 each.
Piracy made easy?

EDIT: I bet those flash drives are too iffy to play the movie smoothly anyway!

4 Gigs , and a non HD movie ? A bit overpriced , but it depends if you even want it , i say why not just download it from the net ? Way simpler

Call me a skeptic, but I picture Paramount putting some sort of DRM software on the flash drive as well to prevent people from transferring it and sharing it. The more tech savvy will undoubtedly figure out a way around the copy protection, yet the movie studio will fight to keep their product copy-proof. I don't think the drive will be reusable, and I believe $30 is way too much because of this.

If they didn't sacrifice too much video quality then i might actually but it. 30$ for an 4GB Kingston and a movie isn't much.
I actually expected movies on flash drives to appear much sooner, but i'm just glad they finally actually did appear. Better latter than never.

That's a very good idea! It will start off quite expensive to see if it is worth progressing. The only thing with this is that you would have to burn it onto a DVD if you wanted to watch it on a DVD player and what copyright would be on it! They probably wont allow you to burn it onto a DVD and if this is the case then its way too much for the film specially in standard def!

Didn't Ubisoft already try this with PC games?
I think it was a 4GB drive and you had to choose between Rainbow Six, Brothers in Arms, Splinter Cell and another one I can't remember. Games are generally more appealing than movies (to me at least) and still they didn't last on flash drives.

BONUS:
Transformers flash drive picture (don't know if is real or fake):
http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u69/Ravage_USB.png

Very funny FAQ about the last Transformes movie:
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php?page=1

To me this seems like a bad idea, their target market is a person who wants a 4GB USB drive AND someone who wants to buy a Transformers film. Also once the film on the flash drive gets outdated, they're going to have overstock issues.

Firstly the idea has merit and they are not the first to think about putting movies onto media other than DVD's and Bluray disks.

I was recently working on a project to use any portable media (ipod, portable hard drive, usb stick,...) to load with movies at a video store, user would chose to rent movies X,Y and Z and also get other recent release movies added at the same time, loaded with DRM of course. Unfortunately the company had financial problems and some in-fighting at the board level which ultimately led to the company going into receivership. The movies were to be encrypted on the media and pay-per-view, paying for the right to watch via an internet connection (ADSL/3G) and watching from the already loaded portable media. A user would use a media device that would come as part of a membership, like getting pay tv, and plugin the media from which the device would copy the movie to be played. It would be like a PVR that also played rented movies. A later revision would allow downloading movies over the internet, which I don't think is likely until Internet speeds allow fast downloads of bluray quality movies. So as an interim solution loading onto portable media was the go.

So this has merit but I would give the option to use your own media device rather than wasting all the material needed to produce these usb sticks. Have a kiosk that sells movies using a USB, esata, firewire, etc.. connection to the users own device. The movies should only costs a couple of dollars, and requires no operator. Just think of it, just a few kiosks and someone to sell them a packet of chips/popcorn and a beverage, that is the video shop of the near future. They could even offer to sell the user a permanent copy after they have watched the movie and charge the difference between the rental price and full price. Rent with the option to buy.

Interesting idea but the cost is crazy unless you happen to need a 4GB usb drive and want the movie. I'd like to know how the video quality is since they must have compressed it to fit on the drive.

It's Transformers on the go ! obviously it's no Blu-ray quality but at least it has to have a decent definition ... plus you get to keep the USB

This is an interesting concept. The only way I would get one of these is if you can move the movie off the USB drive.

This a really good idea and good news for people who travel..

But how are they going to combat the piracy as we know our intelligent techs here will find a way to somehow Rip it and create copies for everybody.

In my opinion, I think this idea will be a flop and is useless. The reasons;

1. The price is way too much for the quality - I do not think that 4GB of storage is enough to save a video of the same quality as a normal dual layer DVD. DVDs are much cheaper and their quality is great. In addition, they also include extra features as well as great sound.

2. People buy DVDS to play them on their home theatre systems and besides that they can be used on a Pc or Laptop as well. With this, you can only watch it on your Pc or Laptop. The only way to watch these on your TV would be buying a new player that has USB support.

3. Though I am not sure, but there are chances that the drive will be write-protected thus making the USB useless. Image the clutter you will have when you buy many movies.

4. As for being portable, a DVD is also portable. Sure you can’t put it in your pocket but then again how many of these will you keep in your pocket. It makes more sense to download or copy a movie and save it on your hard-drive than to carry around a USB.

The only plus I can see is that it will be easier to share movies on the internet. However if it is not write-protected, only people who need a USB Memory will buy this - they would copy the movie on their hard-drive and use it as a normal USB.

All good points, but I'd need a way to save that movie before I'd re-use the flash drive. I'd rather have a way to copy any movie to flash drives when I travel, not just these few releases. Otherwise, I'll stick with Netflix movies on demand.

Not a bad idea, but users will need to burn the movie to a DVD anyway if they want to use the flash drive for something else. With 4GB flash drives costing around 10$ these days, you end up paying around 20$ for your movie... I'd rather buy a standard 4GB drive and the movie separately.

A few months ago i contacted Sony on this very subject but suggested they marketed their films on a flash drive that would only work on a Sony flat panel tv..It just seemed logical to me because Sony do have a very large library of films and they are also one of the leading produces of Flat panel tv's . My thinking on this subject was for sony to have complete control of content on their products.Sony f/p tv's do now come with usb ports so I suppose they will allow any flash drive with a movie on it to play. I believe they missed a very lucrative boat somewhere along the line.

I believe it's a great idea, but a terrible price.
These flash drives are usually $6-8 a piece ($3-5 before recession).
Basically, it's charging more ($24/movie max instead of $20) for the movie.

It's really portable - but the thing that's unclear is whether they DRM it or not.

I remember Sony did this once, but as a gift. The 4 gig memory sticks had preloaded UMD quality (480 x 272 px.) Spiderman 2 movie that you can watch on PSPs.