BOST TV — The Would-Be Solution
DKellis has written about BOST TV. It’s an online anime distribution service that is almost doing the right thing. The basic concept is that you pay a nominal fee online to watch anime that was recently released, rather than waiting for months on end while a larger company piddles around with a DVD release.
Okay, great plan. The problem? It’s too complicated, and it’s not permanent. Quality issues aside, there’s a flawed system in place that mimics things like the Wii’s Virtual Console or XBox Live and so on. It uses a point system that you can buy in chunks of 500 and up, which is essentially money. You “rent” episodes for $1.99 USD apiece and they stay on your account for 14 days (two weeks).
Okay, now… How much of that seems unnecessary? Why rent? I want to buy those episodes. If I can download a song for $.99 from the iTunes music store, or buy an entire album for $9.99, why can’t I do the same with anime? Obviously the episodes will cost a little more ($1.99 an episode is more than fair), but get rid of the damned point system. It’s useless, convoluted, and no one wants to buy $9.95 worth of it at once. Plus, let me keep the episode and slap some DRM nonsense on it like iTunes does. DRM’s a pissoff, but it’s a better solution than a 14-day rental.
BOST TV’s a step in the right direction, but it needs to go further. Let me buy things with actual money. I’d be fine with a slightly higher pricetag if I could only keep the damned episode. Further, don’t use Flash. Deliver this via some other method. Flash is cumbersome and it’ll degrade the quality too far. I want crisp lines, not patches of blotchy colour. If you’re going to charge $1.99 an episode, then let me download say 4eps/$6 or a similar deal. You’ll be making money like hotcakes.
The other issue is selection, as DKellis pointed out. Different regions have different titles available. All BOST TV really needs is more. More, more, more. It’s a good start and I urge them to keep going. Revise the download model a little (or if need be, keep the rental system and abandon the god damned points) and we’ll be on our way. For all my complaining, I approve of this sort of step. It just needs to be cleaned up a little.
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DKellis said,
December 4, 2007 @ 10:09 am
I’ve just edited in a minor update, based on forum-browsing and encountering this post. Apparently BOST wants to offer keep-forever items as well, but “content holders” are reluctant.
As for the Flash format, I see it as a necessary (if unfortunate) evil, since I don’t know how else they can keep the bandwidth usage down with the current popular video format choices. I’m not well-versed in how compatible it is, since the three main encode formats I’m anywhere familiar with (Flash, XviD, h264) all have their own problems.
Christopher Fritz said,
December 4, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
Forgive me for asking this, but following your recent post on pushing the industry, have you contacted BOST TV with your thoughts and ideas? Even if they’re heard it all before, even if they’re already trying it, DKellis quotes “I urge everyone to use the feedback form as the information collected there is part of what we present to the content holders.”
I plan to see if the free content can play on my Linux system, and if so I might just drop the US$10.00 to check it out for review and feedback giving purposes. And if it won’t run on my system, that simply means I save $10.00 and still leave feedback.
Hidoshi said,
December 5, 2007 @ 12:30 am
Heh, funny you mention that. I haven’t yet, no, but I’ve drafted part of a letter I want to send to them. I intend to make a clear point to them. Plus I’m also in the process of writing Bandai Ent, etc about said recent post.
Christopher Fritz said,
December 5, 2007 @ 1:21 am
I did fully expect you were writing or working on writing (and I know how it can be having other priorities), but just wanted to check
Judging by the look of things on the forums, it seems posts will be met with “we’re working on that” and “thanks for the words” by the admins. Hopefully more people requesting will make it easier when it comes to the “working on that” (trying to get content providers to allow for more).
Something they need to look into is security. Unfortuantely, while I’m quite knowledged in HTML and HTTP, I’m not so much in SSL and authentication, so I can’t write any detailed suggestions to them. Their system appears to be more open than it should be (i.e. I could probably download content not available in my region, bypassing payment as well, if they don’t filter by region by IP address).
I’m sure they’ll improve over time, though. All start-ups go through a lot of phases of learning, a lot of hard times and major improvements.
I just hope they’re tracking who pays for what, so if they ever move to a “buy to own” scheme, there’s an “upgrade” path for content a person already rented. I might just have to inquire about that on their forum sometime if I think about it.