Wal-Mart offers video downloads with support from the big guys

Filed under: Business, Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux

Wal-Mart offers video downloads with support from the big guys

by Emily Price Feb 6th 2007

We heard the rumors in September, and now the day has come.

Industry giant Wal-Mart will introduce a new and improved Wal-Mart video downloading site today, in another move toward their ultimate goal of complete world domination.

The big news is Wal-Mart has partnered with Sony, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Universal making them the only video download site with support form all six major studios, and making them an instant video powerhouse. The site also plans on getting television shows from Comedy Central, MTV, FX, and Nickelodeon amongst others.

New release movies will run you anywhere from $12.88-$19.88, with older movies starting at $7.50 and TV shows at $1.98.

[via NY Times]

Tags: video downloads, VideoDownloads, wal mart, WalMart, walmart video, WalmartVideo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lonnie McClure said 12:13PM on 2-06-2007

Apparently Wal-Mart believes this section of their website should be viewed only in Internet Explorer. I've seen sites that had some issues in Firefox, but http://mediadownloads.walmart.com/ is an absolutely unusable jumbled mess.

I realize this is a beta service, but given that the main section of their website displays fine, I would have expected better out of the gate.

Bruce said 12:13PM on 2-06-2007

Maybe they should get the site to work with Firefox before launching it.

MacDeac said 12:18PM on 2-06-2007

Only works with Windows Media Player, so it is not Mac or Linux compatible.

fuddes said 6:18PM on 2-06-2007

So the price isn't cheaper than the DVDs in their store, even though they don't have to package or ship the downloadable movies? Sickening. I'll just continue renting movies from Netflix and burning a copy of the ones I like until retailers like Walmart get a clue.

fd said 7:32PM on 2-06-2007

Safari works.

No details nor FAQ on the way things work though.

Lonnie McClure said 8:25PM on 2-06-2007

The site appears to work in Opera with only minor formatting issues.

I dug around a bit to try and determine the resolution of the videos. I comment I saw elsewhere claimed only 320x240, but gave no link to the source.

james 42 said 9:45PM on 2-06-2007

So, when they throw in the towel on this one, you think they will refer their customers to Netflix like they did after their DVD by mail rental fiasco?

Good news for Netflix I guess.

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