Voddler
On my day-to-day stumble around the internet I bumped into a post, or a tweet, or a profile update or something that mentioned Voddler : an on-demand streaming service for Movies and TV shows offering both rental and free viewings.
Being a film nut this answered a question I’ve been asking from the day I discovered Spotify.
Is it possible to create something like Spotify for streaming movies/video?
And like the man from Delmonte, well, Voddler says… yes.
Now before you scream “Isn’t iTunes and a ton of other sites doing pay for rental already” let me just be clear, I’m only commenting on the idea that films can be streamed for free, supported by non intrusive advertising.
I appreciate that true cinephiles will instantly turn their noses up at the idea that your movie experience will be interrupted by advertising, and to be fair there’s a little bit of me that agrees with this nose play, certainly if the advertising is handled irresponsibly.
Voddler is not currently available in the UK so I’ve not been able to stream anything to investigate this so let’s just assume for the point of argument that Voddler’s advertising is basically a video version of an ad-spot that interrupts your showing at key moments (end of scenes etc) much like that of Spotify.
So free films on demand, that’s a good thing right?
As home cinema is becoming a recession favourite what better way to pipe films into our homes. Legally.
Hang on, won’t free films supported by advertising, take money away from the film industry and pile even more capitalist propaganda into our already saturated mind boxes?
Possibly but that all depends on how Voddler vet there advertising, surely this can be utilised by the very film companies to sell their films at the box office, much like the big festival push on Spotify. And surely a financial agreement is reached between Voddler, The advertising companies and the Film/TV studios, thusly providing the studio’s with fixed contracts and measurable income.
“Arrrrrrrrgggghhhhhh me hearty’s”
As far as Voddler dragging money away, I think the use of BitTorrent etc. is already having a good phycho-esque stab at that anyway. But is the industry really being damaged by piracy? Good piece on that here
Either way, drowning those pesky pirates would surely please the movie industry immensely. I would hazard a guess that free streaming movies would at least severely capsize the pirates.
I’m sure that like me, in the very distant and forgivable past you’ve downloaded an album or two, but since the dawn of Spotify if I want to listen to something I don’t own I’ll fire up Spotify and search away… to be honest if what I’m looking for isn’t there, illegally downloading it doesn’t even cross my mind, because my easily distracted attention has no doubt been lead on to something else by the Spotify UI. And after all that if i’m still desperate for the latest record, I can always buy it off of Spotify if it’s blocked by it’s free service or utimatley use iTunes.
Alrighty then, the mighty Broadway Cinema* in Nottingham UK pitched the question – But will it replace the thrill of the big screen?
As a regular cinema goer, my opinion would be; of course it won’t replace the thrill, but surely it’ll provide more access to films that you might not have made the trip out to the cinema, or opened your wallet for. Also providing on-demand access for cinema to more remote communities in whatever form is certainly not a bad thing.
*Broadway cinema, is probably my favorite cinema/media centre in the UK, I urge you to check it out if your Notts way.
As the Voddler service is HD I wonder how well it would project?
Is there any mileage for Voddler to act as a service to curate film festivals, whereby, somehow, a public performance licence is granted to a set of specific films allowing communities to screen their own film festivals in Public places on their own digital projectors?
What do you then do about the logistics of those local communities charging for the pleasure?
Perhaps Voddler could charge for the public licence, much like how they already do for their rentals, actually I don’t know, I going off on a tangent.
All in all I think free streaming films/media is a great idea, and despite the fear of potential industry damage, I thoroughly support the expansion of our Scandinavian friends’ innovation and eagerly await such a service to arrive in the UK even if I’ve got to be occasionally sold insurance by anthropomorphic digital animals or irritating moustachio opera singers.
