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Ghostbusters is first film to be released on USB stick
Now there’s something you don’t see every day: PNY’s 2GB flash drive comes with Ghostbusters pre-loaded
Are you the USB keymaster? You could be soon if you pick up PNY’s new 2GB USB flashdrive, which comes with Ghostbusters pre-loaded. While the music industry has been playing around with USB flash drives for a few years now, the movie business is still relying on discs, but that may change following this partnership between PNY and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
We don’t know what file format and compression settings are used on the film yet, but a spokesperson for PNY explained to Custom PC that it does come with a form of DRM that prevents you from copying the movie. ‘They have DRM protection,’ explained the spokesperson, ‘so customers can download the movie onto their laptop or PC if they wish, but they have to have the USB drive plugged in to watch the movie, as the DRM is locked in the USB drive.’
PNY’s sales and marketing director for the UK and Nordics, Stefanie Summerfield, says that there will also be room on the 2GB stick for ‘12 hours of video play, 33 hours of music and 1,080 pictures,’ and added that ‘this is all in addition to getting a preloaded movie on the USB flash drive.’
The PNY 2GB USB key with Ghostbusters is available from Argos now. Would you be interested in buying movies on USB flash drives, or would you rather stick with conventional media such as DVDs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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the special ghostbusters usb pen drive is issued by columbia pictures is to mark the movies 25 anniversarie next year with inconjunction for the uk release of the long awaited ghostbusters video game and the bluray releases of both ghostbusters movies and the ghostbusters usb pen drive is in the regions of £14.99 from argos and contains the feature movie and a link to te argos site and an quick installation guide but no trailers of mini featurettes i am affraid but a great stocking filler for any ghostbusters fan for this christmas season. frankie smales (the daily krypton)
Comment by frankie08 at 1:14am 4th November 2008
And low and behold it is now half price!!!
Comment by crazyguy69er at 11:07am 18th September 2008
Not a bad idea. Hope they starting doing kids shows on USB sticks. I would gladly get them if they had thomas the tank engine on them lol
Comment by Nickuk1987 at 4:58pm 9th September 2008
£29.99 for Ghostbusters? Really though can you imagine having an extensive DVD collection on USB keys, a nightmare imo, give me a DVD any day.
Comment by Gerry at 9:35pm 8th September 2008
Hmm make it a 8Gb Flash Drive and a HiDef movie and since I have an xbox360 i'd be laughing - no need for a Bluray drive and it could work for a ps3 too.
Comment by corzair at 6:55am 7th September 2008
You only need to click once people!
Comment by crazyceo at 10:07am 5th September 2008
Nice idea to use a static device, but I think there could certainly be other devices that would perhaps work better. I would personally like to see a revitalization of the minidisc as a video device. Hi-MD's have tons of space.
Comment by nicholasalipaz at 11:09pm 4th September 2008
Nice idea to use a static device, but I think there could certainly be other devices that would perhaps work better. I would personally like to see a revitalization of the minidisc as a video device. Hi-MD's have tons of space.
Comment by nicholasalipaz at 10:43pm 4th September 2008
I like the idea of a movie on a solid state device. I can see potential for this. I think they could reduce the cost by using ROM. I would not want to store other data on the same stick as a movie. The other data would be to hard to find. I think a new player that could play both DVDs and MovieSticks would help. The MovieSticks could be stored in little plastic cases that would about 20 sticks with pages for movie fact sheets. The MovieSticks could be imprinted with the name of the movie. I think this would work it they get the price down a little lower than the current prices of DVDs. Also I think the movie rental businesses would like the ideal of the MovieSticks because of reliability the medium.
Comment by PhotoJoe1 at 5:55pm 4th September 2008
I like the idea of a movie on a solid state device. I can see potential for this. I think they could reduce the cost by using ROM. I would not want to store other data on the same stick as a movie. The other data would be to hard to find. I think a new player that could play both DVDs and MovieSticks would help. The MovieSticks could be stored in little plastic cases that would about 20 sticks with pages for movie fact sheets. The MovieSticks could be imprinted with the name of the movie. I think this would work it they get the price down a little lower than the current prices of DVDs. Also I think the movie rental businesses would like the ideal of the MovieSticks because of reliability the medium.
Comment by PhotoJoe1 at 5:55pm 4th September 2008
My opinion...leave the price issue out for one moment and think its about time someone was introducing a new concept...makes a change to the usual buy 5 for x £ in the high street ....so whats next on the movie list...a wonderful life!!!!!??
Comment by Waterboy at 3:50pm 4th September 2008
My opinion...leave the price issue out for one moment and think its about time someone was introducing a new concept...makes a change to the usual buy 5 for x £ in the high street ....so whats next on the movie list...a wonderful life!!!!!??
Comment by Waterboy at 3:50pm 4th September 2008
Doesn't flash-memory not last that long? Sure, it's solid-state storage, but without being used for a few years (and really, I don't watch each of my films every year), would it remain uncorrupted? Stamped DVDs will last for 5 or 10 years at least. I can't build a library if the things will become corrupted over time.
Comment by guest at 3:02pm 4th September 2008
My opinion...leave the price issue out for one moment and think its about time someone was introducing a new concept...makes a change to the usual buy 5 for x £ in the high street ....so whats next on the movie list...a wonderful life!!!!!??
Comment by Waterboy at 3:50pm 4th September 2008
Funny how a big comglomerate use PNY but lil man here says you shouldn't..... WHO YOU GONNA TRUST lol!!!! Why peeps gotta get personal!
Comment by crazyguy69er at 3:53pm 4th September 2008
1) This product shouldn't be this expensive. It's just ridiculous. 2) Home server people will be screwed until someone with development experience breaks the DRM mechanism. 3) Sticks do not have the annoying problems that discs do, but beware of driver hell. 4) DO NOT USE PNY AS THE SUPPLIER. PNY tends to have low-grade products from my experience. I would rather see SanDisk or just someone else. 5) What's wrong with putting these on MemorySticks instead? 6) Give me a box with it similar to DVD or BR-DVD boxes, or I won't buy it. 7) I agree with freesandwiches on the fact that they should be a little more creative with the design. Nothing that gets in the way of other ports mind you but something none the less.
Comment by GoldPantherSPQR at 3:42pm 4th September 2008
While I would agree that this product is expensive, the idea behind the technology is good. I travel a lot on business and, rather than pay for expensive hotel movie rentals, I take DVDs with me. If i'm away for a few weeks, that equates to 10 or so DVDs in my luggage. The same amount of USB sticks will be lighter and take up much less space. If Sony are involved in the venture they will have done their research and seen value in putting their name to it. I don't think it will be long before we see prices tumble and a load more films being sold this way and, personally, I'm all for it :)
Comment by pb212 at 3:21pm 4th September 2008
Ting wit this whole price thing is Argos and all the others r always droppin prices all the time. Sales all the time nowadays!!!! Bet the price goes down soon as.
Comment by crazyguy69er at 3:09pm 4th September 2008
when will people realise that if my PC can translate the movie to a digital output on the screen it can redirect that output to a file. Now it also means if I want to stay legal I'm gonna need a few hundred USB keys plugged into my fileserver so I can stream movies to my living room. Pathetic. Its still easier to get the movies DRM less.
Comment by reashlin at 2:35pm 4th September 2008
Can't believe none of you started your post without that line. I agree £29.99 is way too expensive as the DVD is bargain basket stuff at around £3 in most stores. A 2GB stick is also next too nothing. The problem here is the DRM. I host a homeserver which all the pc's in the house get music, pictures and movies from. Technically, I wouldn't be able to use this at all even if it was plugged into the server as the movie will be played on another machine. Nice idea but needs rethinking.
Comment by crazyceo at 1:39pm 4th September 2008
I think it's a valid idea. I always wondered when they'd move to disk storage - it had to come sooner or later. And I think it's going to get cheaper after a while, just like DVDs did (and Blue-Ray discs are 'in the process of' doing). And I think that now it's a challenge to design I) a device which can play stand-alone DVD movies from a USB stick, and II) a stand for USB sticks :D The first company to do it might just get a jump on the future... :-)
Comment by Egon_Freeman at 1:25pm 4th September 2008
As mentioned on our blog (http://www.usbcompany.co.uk/blog/), we think it'd be a great idea here in the USB Company offices. After all, how much space could you save if all those series in the DVD stand took up the space of a USB Stick?
Comment by JohnMason at 12:20pm 4th September 2008
I think potentially its a good idea to sell movies on a stick (obviously not at piss-take pricing, as mentioned in other comments you could do it yourself for a significantly less). Would eliminate disc-scratch/dirt problems which is always a plus. Could fit higher quality compressed movies (DivX etc) on there too. Dont like the way it's not been packaged to properly go on a shelf with your movie collection- i think it would be fine in a dvd case if they adapted the disc holder into a stick holder. And yeah, a movie label on the actual stick might be an idea! You dont get plain untitled discs when you buy dvds (except from street vendors in the middle-east), otherwise you'd get them mixed up.