Why I hate Warner Bros’ “Digital Copy”

As promised, I recently added “Watchmen” to my Blu-ray collection.  It has its faults, but overall I thought the movie was very well done and entirely deserving of the cash outlay required to occupy a space in my collection of movies.

Blu-ray, as you are likely aware, is the current standard for high-definition content.  High definition, as in more definition than a DVD.  That point becomes important in a moment.

Coincidentally, we have also just procured a home server, and I am currently in the process of ripping our collection of movies down to it so that we can watch them on any of the TVs or computers throughout the house.  This is the advantage of a media server; your movies are always at your fingertips, and you don’t need to trudge over to wherever you store your little plastic discs and stuff said disc into your movie player of choice.

I’ve started with ripping our DVD collection, primarily because I don’t yet have a Blu-ray drive attached to my computer that would allow me to rip high-def movies to the computer.  My goal, though, is to eventually have our entire collection on the aforementioned server to avoid the aforementioned trudging about with little plastic discs.  Imagine my intrigue, then, when the Watchmen movie I purchased boldly declared that it included a Digital Copy.

Hurrah!  thought I.  WB has heard my pleas, and is providing me a quick and convenient way to get this movie I purchased (and I do stress purchased) onto the server so that I can enjoy it anywhere in my home.  I will be able to enjoy its high-definition richness and surround sound awesomeness wherever I choose, at a moment’s notice, without the fetching of pointless pieces of plastic.

I should live so long.  First, the Digital Copy is on DVD.  DVD, as in “I’m a format that is capable of holding roughly one-tenth the content of a Blu-ray disc.”  DVD, as in standard definition.  As in not high def.  As in, “I could have sworn that my decision to purchase a Blu-ray movie would have been a strong indication that I have both the means and the motivation to enjoy high-definition film.”

And second, the [insert adjective of choice here - be creative] Digital Copy, so far as I have been able to readily see, can only be loaded onto one computer.  So you drop the disc in the drive, go through some arcane ritual involving typing in a product key and swearing to seven different deities that you’re an honest-and-true customer, and then wait while WB drags the movie over to your computer and then locks it there.  I suppose, technically, that I would repeat this process on each computer in the house, up to whatever limit WB has imposed, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a digital file?  What if I want to watch the movie on a PlayStation?

To me, it’s as though they had promised me a portable copy of the movie, and then shipped me the disc and a bottle of crazy glue.  “Just glue the disc to your laptop’s DVD drive”, they’d say.  “There.  Now it’s portable.”

I don’t want to watch this movie on my laptop.  I want to watch it on my TV.  Or a different TV.  Or on a different computer.  Or pretty much anywhere I want to watch the movie that I just bought.  I want to put the movie on my server so that it’s available to me wherever and whenever I want.

No, says WB, you really, really want to watch this movie on your computer.  This computer, actually.  And only this computer.  And not in high-def, because high-def is for suckers.

I must say, these guys are making it hard to be a customer.

photo credit: DeclanTM