For a small fee that is. Today ADV Films launched their new anime download store called ADVuniverse
The website features episodes of various ADV license anime series for download. For a mere $4.99 American you can download episode one of Godannar or Jinki: Extended, or, um, Comic Party Revolution. Keep in mind that the store just launched so there are very few titles with episodes available. I'm sure that more titles and episodes will be added shortly. There are also a couple of movie titles available including Lady Death, but movie titles will cost you more topping out at about $19.99, which may have you asking, "is it worth it?"
My answer is a tad bit jaded. Why? Well for starters, the files are in WMV format with DRM protection. And before you go all crazy and accuse me of being a pirate [which I am not, I am clearly a Ninja... see my shurikens?] I only object to the DRM in this case because it renders the service useless on a Macintosh. Windows Media Player is only up to version 9 on the Mac, Microsoft has said they are no longer going to improve or add to the application, and neither WMP 9 on the Mac, VLC Media Player, nor MPlayer can play DRM protected WMV files. This sucks not only for myself, but true anime horders like Pandalicious. If I would have been able to buy and play ADV's catalog of content on my Mac I probably would buy a new external drive to devote just to it and I'm sure Panda would add a few drives to her existing arsenal of external storage.
I know that Apple recently added movie downloads to their iTunes Store, and I do feel that digital downloading is the future of film and animation distribution. Don't believe? Think of all the people that hit up places like YouTube and Viral Video, or how popular video podcasting has become... all those users can't be a fluke or fad. But I do think they have set their price point a bit too high and cut out too much of a potential consumer base to be very successful. Compare $1.99 per TV show episode through the Apple iTunes Store which you can purchase and view on either the Windows or Macintosh platforms to the $4.99 per anime series episode which you can must purchase and play on a Windows machine.
I guess time will tell. I could be wrong, people might be willing to pay $4.99 per episode for a half hour anime episode that is DRM protected to a Windows machine... but I know I won't be.
The website features episodes of various ADV license anime series for download. For a mere $4.99 American you can download episode one of Godannar or Jinki: Extended, or, um, Comic Party Revolution. Keep in mind that the store just launched so there are very few titles with episodes available. I'm sure that more titles and episodes will be added shortly. There are also a couple of movie titles available including Lady Death, but movie titles will cost you more topping out at about $19.99, which may have you asking, "is it worth it?"My answer is a tad bit jaded. Why? Well for starters, the files are in WMV format with DRM protection. And before you go all crazy and accuse me of being a pirate [which I am not, I am clearly a Ninja... see my shurikens?] I only object to the DRM in this case because it renders the service useless on a Macintosh. Windows Media Player is only up to version 9 on the Mac, Microsoft has said they are no longer going to improve or add to the application, and neither WMP 9 on the Mac, VLC Media Player, nor MPlayer can play DRM protected WMV files. This sucks not only for myself, but true anime horders like Pandalicious. If I would have been able to buy and play ADV's catalog of content on my Mac I probably would buy a new external drive to devote just to it and I'm sure Panda would add a few drives to her existing arsenal of external storage.
I know that Apple recently added movie downloads to their iTunes Store, and I do feel that digital downloading is the future of film and animation distribution. Don't believe? Think of all the people that hit up places like YouTube and Viral Video, or how popular video podcasting has become... all those users can't be a fluke or fad. But I do think they have set their price point a bit too high and cut out too much of a potential consumer base to be very successful. Compare $1.99 per TV show episode through the Apple iTunes Store which you can purchase and view on either the Windows or Macintosh platforms to the $4.99 per anime series episode which you can must purchase and play on a Windows machine.
I guess time will tell. I could be wrong, people might be willing to pay $4.99 per episode for a half hour anime episode that is DRM protected to a Windows machine... but I know I won't be.
Labels: Anime, Apple, iTunes, macintosh, Microsoft, Movie, Ninjasistah, Pandalicious, Podcast, windows, YouTube
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