News

Wal-Mart Closes Movie Download Shop

Friday, December 28th, 2007 at 8:00 AM - by

Wal-Mart's grand experiment in the digital movie download market ended with a whimper when the company quietly closed its service down a few days ago. The retailer claimed the service met its demise after Hewlett Packard killed the technology that powered the site, according to Reuters.

The online movie download service closed on December 21, Wal-Mart spokesperson Amy Colella said that the company will not look for another technology partner.


Wal-Mart's video download service ended on Dec 21.

HP said that it dropped its movie download merchant services because the online video market didn't meet the company's expectations.

Despite Wal-Mart's grand plans, its movie download service apparently never took off. One complaint about the service was that it relied on Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM, which limited playback to Windows PCs and some portable media devices -- no Macs, iPods, or Microsoft Zunes allowed.

Studios looking for alternatives to Apple and the iTunes Store for movie downloads now have one less option available, but considering how long the shut down took to make the news, Wal-Mart may not have been the best company to partner with in the first place.

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brett_x said:

member since 24 Jan 2006 with 322 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Dec 28, 2007 10:06 am

Hey Wal-Mart... while you're in the blame game (HP's fault???), why not blame Microsoft? I mean, it was their DRM [that you chose] that wouldn't allow the movies to be played on their own "ever so popular" Zune media player (not to mention the iPod). But then again, I've never watched a movie on either one of those devices.. so maybe it's just the idea of paying a premium for something from Wal-Mart? Maybe you (Wal-Mart) have cheaped yourselves into a corner for certain markets. Could it come down to Wal-Mart being to blame for the failure? Maybe you should stick to your old game plan of waiting for a market to emerge, then figuring out a way to do it cheaper. That's the only reason people shop Wal-Mart, and I doubt it will ever change.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:46 am

Nice one Brett, I'm sure you have all the figures on what Wal-mart apent on this venture. Just another uneducated response.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Dec 28, 2007 4:21 pm

I still don't like paying per file with movie downloads. The Netflix service is the only one that I like. I've tried others, iTunes (ironic name), MovieLink, and one other one I can't remembe the name of off hte top of my head right now. Prices for a purchase are just too high for the quality they provide right now. But since Netflix is built-in to their subscription service, it works for me for now when I have an itch for a movie but don't want to watch something I already have on hand. Selection and quality are the biggest drawbacks to every one of these services. Once we're at 1080p and have a large enough selection the services will provide enough value for me to finally abandon optical discs. But yeah, even a guy like me who has used many of these services, I never even looked at Walmart.

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A guest said: (hide)

Fri Dec 28, 2007 4:26 pm

Oh, I meant to say, in response to Brett's comments about the DRM. I've watched movies on at least 5 different handheld devices, including the iPod and iPhone, and it's just not worth it. Support for handheld devices is not what I look for in an online movie service, quality and selection are what matter to me. Watching a movie on a 2" screen, which isn't even the right aspect ratio for movies, just doesn't do it for me, it becomes tiring and you just can't see the interesting details anyways. As long as the DRM works on my computer, then it works on my TV.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:55 pm

I would really like an iTunes video on demand option.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:57 pm

I really can't see iTunes rentals working out that much, and I can't see Steve Jobs backing down to his, "People want to own their music/videos, not rent"

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