One of the questions we get most frequently is why we don't support burning Unbox videos to a DVD that can be played in a DVD player. We do allow burning to a DVD to make a "backup" copy of the video files, but these cannot be played in a DVD player.
There are several answers to this question.
- The customer experience in burning to DVD is not very good. In order to provide the highest quality video, Unbox videos are provided as VC-1 encoded files (as opposed to the MPEG-2 encoding that is used for DVD). So, burning to DVD involves not only the time to write the DVD (which can take hours), but additional time and disk space to transcode the video from VC-1 to MPEG-2. This is a computationally intensive process, such that the entire time to transcode and burn could easily be four to five hours. Plus, there is the small but significant chance that the burned DVD will not play in a particular DVD player.
- Conventional DVDs include CSS copy protection. This is a proprietary system that prevents (among other things) directly copying a DVD to a DVD recorder. Until recently, this has not been available to PC DVD burning software. Without this protection, most content owners will not allow their content to be burned to DVD.
- Even though CSS copy protection is becoming available to PC DVD burning software, the system requires compatible DVD burners and media. This requires customers to either upgrade the firmware on their DVD burner or purchase a new one, in addition to purchasing compatible blank discs.
So the current process for burning a DVD to watch on any DVD player is somewhat burdensome for the customer. We expect this situation to improve as the technology matures. We are actively investigating this scenario, as well as continuing to provide other ways to view Unbox videos on television.
-- Sam
Recent Comments