Rent Movie Feature / Master Movie Database?

[usaf-lt-g]

Just curious, but I liked the idea Apple TV went with in allowing users to "rent" titles via the internet. Thought this was a very cool option, especially since you can get them in HD or Blu-Ray.

What about allowing for something like this, OR, perhaps making a peer-to-peer type application. I.E. You use a program to capture an XML extract of LinuxMCE core's currently attached to internet, to extract Movie Title, quality, Size information to a central database program. Users of LinuxMCE could then browse through the DB for a title they'd like to watch, and assuming there were a client software piece located on each MD, the MD could connect to the person(s) with the movie, and stream it to their MD.

Just some thoughts... noodle that one a bit

[tschak909]

In a perfect world, we could...

However, in this world, we have businessmen, and lawyers....

Who would hang us by our scrota if we added that feature. Sorry, it's a no-go.

-Thom

[colinjones]

Nice plural, Thom, will remember that

[nascarfan1956]

Wouldn't that be scrotae??   

[usaf-lt-g]

Not if you pursued it in the right way. I'm not asking to do anything illegal, or promote P2TP File Sharing... that's not what I'm suggesting at all. You could turn it into a profitable service... so how is that legal if Apple can get away with it?

Just have to cross the T's and Dot the I's.

[tschak909]

Apple has connections with all the media production and distribution houses. They had to severely lock down their hardware to get that to happen.

You really don't understand how much Hollywood does NOT want this to be possible.... Do some research.

-Thom

[usaf-lt-g]

Yea I do understand! I happen to a "businessman" myself, you don't have to give me some snide remark as if I'm unfamiliar with the laws of my own country or how complex an issue it really is. I don't appreciate being belittled. I research plenty... and I certainly wasn't implying that the suggestion was a 2 minute C++ snipnet, or as simple as a web service.

Good grief, it was a friggin suggestion. Never said it was easy... more or less it was directed as an "idea" to think about for the future, and to ping an idea off others who may/may not have thought about the possibility. If you got time to answer a post in less than 20 seconds, maybe you should work on cooling that attitude of yours down as well. That's one of the reasons I can't STAND posting to any forums anymore... because you get people who act like their 12 and know it all to respond in a negative manner to every post they come across.

[tschak909]

I am sorry for coming across a bit clipped...

However, as someone who went through this doing multicast video transmission in the late 1990s, I went through all of this, already. So I do feel I am a bit qualified to comment.

I do have an RSS assisted torrent downloader on my list, because this is still within the bastion of fair use....

but rentable movies currently are subject to negotiation by both content production houses and their tightly coupled distribution houses. Since this system is open and source code is available to all, Hollywood will not enter into an agreement to provide content for such a service, unless it can be proven that the content can not be copied, or viewed without a proper matching transaction.

This is not a technical problem, but a political one, and those problems are always tougher to solve.

It could be done with a commercial locked down fork of the software, however, it would require a completely separate DCE Player device, that does not intertwine with the rest of the system, under a commercial license, we would not be able to provide source code to such a device.

-Thom

Yea I do understand! I happen to a "businessman" myself, you don't have to give me some snide remark as if I'm unfamiliar with the laws of my own country or how complex an issue it really is. I don't appreciate being belittled. I research plenty... and I certainly wasn't implying that the suggestion was a 2 minute C++ snipnet, or as simple as a web service.

Good grief, it was a friggin suggestion. Never said it was easy... more or less it was directed as an "idea" to think about for the future, and to ping an idea off others who may/may not have thought about the possibility. If you got time to answer a post in less than 20 seconds, maybe you should work on cooling that attitude of yours down as well. That's one of the reasons I can't STAND posting to any forums anymore... because you get people who act like their 12 and know it all to respond in a negative manner to every post they come across.

[Hagen]

Why rent when you can buy
If there was some way to hook LMCE up to the emerging business of selling movies as downloads, that would be a much simpler route I would imagine. (then again, my imagination is quite vivid)

[jetrich]

Hagen, that _might_ work outside the US. The MPAA wouldn't want to let anyone download a movie in an uncontrollable form.

Jason

[usaf-lt-g]

No problem, I too get touchy when people step on my own Subject Matter Expertise, especially on forums (too many bad experiences). In any case, I appreciate your input and understand completely where you're coming from, especially since it's an Open Sourced Software as well as a open configuration (hardware) layout.

On the otherhand, what about a goog/tv front end? I wasn't sure if this was already built or not (still working on finalizing my OWN setup at home at the moment, but have played around a lot with the core software, not so much the MD yet). I did my MS in Information Security, so I'm uber sensitive in my network layout which is probably taking me the most time to setup in the best effecient way possible.

Just some thoughts... Thanks again.

I am sorry for coming across a bit clipped...

However, as someone who went through this doing multicast video transmission in the late 1990s, I went through all of this, already. So I do feel I am a bit qualified to comment.

I do have an RSS assisted torrent downloader on my list, because this is still within the bastion of fair use....

but rentable movies currently are subject to negotiation by both content production houses and their tightly coupled distribution houses. Since this system is open and source code is available to all, Hollywood will not enter into an agreement to provide content for such a service, unless it can be proven that the content can not be copied, or viewed without a proper matching transaction.

This is not a technical problem, but a political one, and those problems are always tougher to solve.

It could be done with a commercial locked down fork of the software, however, it would require a completely separate DCE Player device, that does not intertwine with the rest of the system, under a commercial license, we would not be able to provide source code to such a device.

-Thom

[Zaerc]

Dunno about you guys, but so far KTorrent on the KDE desktop works out rather nicely for me. 

[Hagen]

Dunno about you guys, but so far KTorrent on the KDE desktop works out rather nicely for me. 

And before anyone starts crying "piracy", even the national broadcaster in Norway puts up their TV-shows for bit-torrent download (do a search for lars monsen for example)

[Matthew]

If we're just going to use the metadata about the movie, and not actual content data (nor even metadata about a specific media file, but rather only about the abstract "movie" itself, eg. as it ran in theaters or on TV independent of any content in someone's LMCE), then we could use the popular and complete Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

IMDb prohibits "framing" any of their pages inside another page with someone else's logo (eg. "LMCE"), bu IMDb  does allow linking to any of its pages, even embedding its search form (and maybe just its search form submit URL API submitted by a custom form or widget in a client like LMCE). It looks like it's happy to let people include IMDb pages in separate apps, just as long as that page comes with the included IMDb logos and embedded ads.

So if the "movie database" feature is just a standalone guide to movies in the world, and doesn't include links to get movie content that isn't allowed by the user's copyright clearance (eg. from some other user not authorized to distribute copies, like some Internet movie download site), then IMDb might be just the ticket (pun intended . If someone has a specific implementation in mind, it looks like the IMDB corp is very approachable for questions about such use. There is most probably some use that would be good for LMCE that IMDb would allow along the lines it already explicitly mentions can be done without permission. If it's OK for IMDb ads to appear in the LMCE interface.

BTW, IMDb does offer a TV schedule, even individualized for most movies (and many TV episodes), but individual titles' schedule listings are not complete (I don't know whether the complete TV listings are complete). In any case, the reported listings would have to be presented complete in their return page (with ads, logos, etc). Probably IMDb would prohibit using just the data to schedule movies without showing in their complete/branded page, especially if that data is used to schedule recording movies (which, though legal for personal consumption without redistribution, is still controversial and probably pisses off Hollywood players like IMDb).

FWIW, I'd like to be able to use LMCE to search for movies, which results LMCE could link to those in my local collection if I have them. That looks a totally legit use of IMDb in LMCE.