Riddle Me This ...

A short follow on to last night's post. When I went on to Blinkbox to check the price of Soylent Green it was £2.49 to rent and £7,49 to download. This is a film that is forty years old and , yes , it's a decent film.

The problem with films is that unless they are very special you only tend to watch them once or twice. Music and books which also have their e-quivalents are similarly expensive when new but prices tend to drop after time. Novels are like film , but music does tend to be played and replayed, but film not so.

In my collection I have 400 DVDs , many of which havent come out of the box and some of which I have only watched from recording to my hard disc from Film4 or some other digital channel. So why are digital copies of old films so expensive given their nature. The DVD equivalant will be around £2.99 and for that you get a hard copy that , with the appropriate software , you can make a digital copy of.

iTunes has a similar pricing structure and on demand service will charge £3 to £4 for a rental , but they are usually newer films. 4OD gives you free on demand stuff (admittedly padded with unskippable adverts , but I don't mind that, they are giving me something I want) and the BBC iPlayer and other TV companies give similar service (although the BBC iPlayer has no adverts , it comes from the license fee).

If films were a couple of quid to download a copy I would happily buy them if I fancied them but I won't pay 7-10 pounds for something that I will only watch once. Youtube has it's own channel with a lot of free movies here such as the excellent Kung Fu Hustle . Also Blinkbox have advert supported free stuff and special offers , but the question remains , why ore downloadable DIVX movies so expensive? Bring the price down and you would see and explosion , like with MP3 and eBooks

There Are Lies , Damned Lies and Mobile Phone Contracts

Not long ago I thingk it was Talk Talk who won a case allowing them to advertise ridiculously low ceilings as "unlimited" . More and more companies are offering seemingly unlimited all inclusive packages. Oftenthese are based on two year contracts , with a "free" phone that of course just carries a one year guarantee. To protect this you have to take out a care package that will cost at least £150 for the duration of the contract.

O2's Best Ever Contract

Today I saw O2's latest foray into the arena. O2 are a market leader and have their "On and On" Best Ever Tariff that offers a "massive" 1Gb a month data, from £36 a month . This also doesnt include picture messaging and lets face it everyone picture messages so that could add a tidy sum to your all inclusive rates . 1 Gb is about a weeks normal web browsing with no downloads of MP3s or films. A single DIVX movie will be almost a Gb , and when you that that watching Youtube , streaming radio as data , you could use up that "massive" 1 Gb in a couple of days. T-Mobile used to have an excellent Flext plan that included everything with a limit where you started paying but everything came out of the same pot. It annoys me that so many companies hide behingd the small print almost getting like insurance!



I have my Mobile Wifi with 3 , who charge me £15 for 5 Gb on a monthly rolling contract which is more than adequate . I seldom come anywhere near that but its a good data package. Another company offers unlimited data on a similar rolling contract except in the small print is capped at 1 Gb per month.

So when you are taking out a new contract ensure you check the small print. Probably one of the most honest I've encoutered is Orange and as I say 3 offer excellent value for money , but a lot of companies are still trying to take you for a ride . Be wary!!

Blu Rayed and HD'd

Following the demise of our old CRT TV on our return from Dublin , we replaced with a new HD Samsung model , upgrading to a Virgin HD box and getting a Panasonic Blu Ray Media Centre, see here.

While HD is hardly a quantum leap in quality , the Blu Ray player has impressed me as it handles DVD upscaling, DIVX , Music and internet access in it's stride . Most Blu Ray players are in fact media centres which makes watching and sharing stuff extremely easy.