In Apple v. Amazon, it's Disney versus the rest (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060906-7677.html) -- Ars Technica, 2006-09-06
Amazon and Apple are poised to launch their online movie stores in the coming weeks, and everyone knows it. Apple's big event is on Tuesday next, while Amazon has yet to tip its hat on a launch date (though we've seen the screenshots). It's not a question of if... only a question of when. In fact, the number of people talking about these developments behind the scenes is so great at even the Wall Street Journal is reporting the "rumors" as facts.

One of the more interesting tidbits coming from folks in the know is an apparent split between Disney and the other major studios over who they want to do business with. At present, Apple has managed to only sign Disney, while Amazon has scored deals with most of the major studios... except Disney. As you may know, Steve Jobs and Disney got a lot closer earlier this year when Disney bought Pixar for more than $7 billion, and Jobs got a seat on the board. What's the hubbub?

That's a good question; why is Disney the odd man out in this? Is there some perceived conflict of interest?

I've been downloading to own or rent movies (including Disney's) from www.movielink.com for years now...and I was wondering why all of a sudden the Disney movies have popped up on the "Last Chance" list there (most expiring mid-September).

Perhaps Disney signed an exclusivity deal with Apple, and their films won't be available from Movielink any longer?

I wish Disney would have partnered with Amazon. I think Disney is on the wrong side. And when does the whole HD-DVD vs. Blue Ray really start? I hate all this taking sides stuff.

Amazon officially launched their service today. Disney is actually the only major studio that isn't represented.

-Jeff

Here's my review of Amazon's "Unbox" service:

Format: Windows XP Only (unless you can run Windows programs on your Mac...but they don't guarantee anything if you try).

Movie Purchase: I really don't see a whole lot more titles available from this new Amazon Unbox service, than anything you couldn't purchase before from other online movie download companies like CinemaNow or Movielink. So there it's kinda a yawner.

Movie Rental: A whole lot less available for rental than from the other guys that have been around for years.

TV Shows: This is where Amazon has an advantage over Apple's iTunes in two areas. Greater selection of shows, and you download them in much higher DVD quality...than the crummy quality iTunes videos that were designed mainly for the tiny iPod screen. BUT...small personal player users don't despair! See "Download" below.

The Player: The player is slower to start up than the other guys' for some reason. I also don't like how after you pause a download, and then shut down your computer...when you start your computer back up...it starts downloading again automatically. I removed the Tray Icon from the Startup Menu, and while the icon no longer shows...the process still starts up automatically in the background when you start your PC, and restarts the downloading. I like to control when and where I allow downloading and like to manually start and stop it. I have some ISP and bandwidth issues where I like to make sure I'm not hogging or violating policy. This thing comes to life no matter what.

Downloading: It downloads the movie file and it also downloads a second separate smaller file version of the movie to transfer and play on a portable device. So you're getting 2 files...one for your PC in DVD quality (playable PC>TV) and also a smaller version for the smaller screen on your portable device. If you want to also watch these movies on a little 2 inch screen...then this is good news for you.

Policy: Each PC can assign 1 portable device to play the download. And Amazon allows for 2 PC's. But I'm not sure yet if you can swap movies between those 2 PC's...or if it only allows you to pick which one of the 2 machines you want to download to. But each PC can share it's movies with 1 portable devise by transferring over the smaller video file to it.

An introductory deal right now gives you a $1.99 credit on your first purchase (credit toward a greater movie price, or as most TV shows are $1.99...get a TV show for free). I just purchased and downloaded a Samantha Brown tour of Amsterdam from the Discovery Channel selections. Everything worked fine, the show plays well, and my bill was $0.00 as advertised.

Before trying Amazon Unbox, I recommend reading this story at CNet (http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6636289.html?subj=blog&part=rss&tag=6636289). I left work after that and rebooted my laptop at home. That's when the real trouble began. I noticed that the Amazon player had launched itself. Annoying. I looked in the program for a preference to stop it from launching itself, and there was none. Typical. So I went to msconfig and unchecked Amazon Unbox so that it would definitely not launch itself at start-up. When I rebooted, it was no longer there. However, my firewall warned me that a Windows service (ADVWindowsClientService.exe) was trying to connect to the Net. I clicked More Info in the firewall alert and found it was Amazon Unbox. Downright offensive. It still was launching a Net-connection process that even msconfig apparently couldn't stop. Forget it. That's not the behavior of good software. I went to uninstall it.

Before trying Amazon Unbox, I recommend reading this story at CNet (http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6636289.html?subj=blog&part=rss&tag=6636289).
Maybe I am crazy but Mac fans can get very into defending mac products and I could see people writing bad/false reviews for other products. My ex-roommate was a mac fanatic so I know from experience. You just can't believe a lot of online reviews.

...so I know from experience. You just can't believe a lot of online reviews.

Well I can certainly attest to the "issue" quoted in Andrew's post and it was indeed one of the first negative things I noticed, as it's exactly the same issue I mentioned in Post #6 above:

I also don't like how after you pause a download, and then shut down your computer...when you start your computer back up...it starts downloading again automatically. I removed the Tray Icon [process] from the Startup Menu [msconfig], and while the icon no longer shows...the process still starts up automatically in the background when you start your PC, and restarts the downloading. I like to control when and where I allow downloading and like to manually start and stop it. I have some ISP and bandwidth issues where I like to make sure I'm not hogging or violating policy. This thing comes to life no matter what.

The only way I could stop it from accessing the internet on it's own at Startup, was by shutting down it's "Service" under msconfig. Unchecking the program under the "Startup" tab in msconfig just wasn't enough. But by killing Unbox as a Service...it never works upon demand (just hangs).

This is the first time I've had or seen a program on my computer that "hijacks" the system in this way to where I can't control it.

I mean...who wants to have to go do a msconfig and restart every time they want to start and stop using it again? Big thumbs down from me for this part of their product. Though I do admire and wonder how they are technically pulling it off.

There are now several other reply posts in that blog, including this:

The behavior of the Amazon Unbox Player reminded me of the Sony CD DRM trojan that caused such a controversy a while back. Apparently, the media company attitude behind DRM is that media content providers have the right to take control of your computer and hide in the background if you want to use their stuff.

In the case of the Unbox Player, I also noticed that it launched every time I started my computer and attempted to establish an Internet connection even after I disabled it in msconfig. It also took several attempts to uninstall it successfully. I don't want to use this kind of creepy software to buy media files.

I tend to agree.

Ten minutes now and on my 3rd attempt to uninstall and I am connected to the service! I'm starting to get really pissed. :(

Well...that'll teach me to download a new service on the first day of launch.

Finally got rid of the thing. It continued to hang at a point in uninstall that asked if you wanted to permanently delete the service (losing all your purchased content forever), or just temporarily removing the service (keeping content to be imported later if the Player was installed again).

I was permanently uninstalling.

The real funny part about that is that even though I chose "Permanently Delete"...the content files remained! Just the Player and all it's related junk was gone.

But I can confirm that once you uninstall the Player...that you can no longer play that content. Windows Media Player starts up, but tells you you don't have a license.

Can not recommend the service to anyone except those that don't care what's happening to their computers and information that might be going out (or in) without their knowledge. :(

Another Update:

Even after successfully completing uninstall (or so I thought), a search of my computer for the word "Amazon" revealed several Unbox files and folders and a Registry file still on it. I manually trashed the files and folders and then did a quick System Restore to a restore point a couple of days ago before I got the darn thing...and now I'm finally clean of it. I hope.

Some great uninstall routine. :(

Opus, I'm glad you were (hopefully) able to get your computer cleaned out. Did you check to see if the ADVWindowsClientService.exe service was removed from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es?

I use Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel (http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml) to keep an eye on what's auto-loading on my computer. It's better than MSConfig, but still doesn't include Windows services. The absolute best auto-load checker is Sysinternals' Autoruns (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html). Autoruns does include Windows services but it's more of an expert interface than the Startup Control Panel.

Opus, I'm glad you were (hopefully) able to get your computer cleaned out. Did you check to see if the ADVWindowsClientService.exe service was removed from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es?

"Search" for "All Files and Folders" on "Local Hard Drives C:" finds "ADVWINDOWSCLIENTAPPSERVICE.EXE-12E6E29D.pf" in C\:WINDOWS\Prefetch.

Can I just go in there and delete it?

I've never messed directly with Registry before and don't even know how to get to HKEY and all that.

Unless you want to tell me. :)

Don't worry about the Prefetch entry. That's where Windows caches frequently-used executables so they load faster. If the EXE is gone, the prefetch cache doesn't have any effect.

If you didn't find any copies of the actual executable, you should be okay.

Yep. Other than prefetch...it seems to be gone.

Thanks!