AfterDawn: News

PNY flashdrive to come with Ghostbusters video file

According to a new press release from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and PNY, the two companies have teamed up to release a 2GB USB flash drive that includes, for the first time ever, a full-length feature film already pre-loaded.

The movie is the classic hit Ghostbusters starring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd and the companies say the file can be played right from the drive.



Andy Armstrong, UK, Managing Director for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment added in the release, "Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is delighted to partner with PNY to offer the first full length movie preloaded on a USB flash drive and ready to play on your PC/Laptop. We are committed to giving the consumer more choice in how to experience their movies either at home or on the go."

PNY says the drive is available now, but there was no word on price and it is not yet available on their official site.



Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 4 Sep 2008 13:53

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• 17 comments

• emugamer

  Interesting move, to say the least. Xvid? Can't be HQ, can it? Can a HQ rip be compressed to under 2GB? Even at 720p? There's a "1080" reference on the bottom of the package picture. 1080 anything on 2GB?
  
  And how is Sony giving us more choice? The legal choice has been around for years now - backing up movies. Hence the DVD-R's that they sell.

  4.9.2008 15:30 #1

• DVDBack23

  Originally posted by emugamer: Interesting move, to say the least. Xvid? Can't be HQ, can it? Can a HQ rip be compressed to under 2GB? Even at 720p? There's a "1080" reference on the bottom of the package picture. 1080 anything on 2GB?
  
  And how is Sony giving us more choice? The legal choice has been around for years now - backing up movies. Hence the DVD-R's that they sell.I believe the film will be in MP4, but don't quote me on it.

  4.9.2008 16:30 #2

• supasonic

  Originally posted by emugamer: Interesting move, to say the least. Xvid? Can't be HQ, can it? Can a HQ rip be compressed to under 2GB? Even at 720p? There's a "1080" reference on the bottom of the package picture. 1080 anything on 2GB?
  When was the last time ya looked at a usb package, it breaks the average # of pics that could be stored on the drive, like the 12h of video and 33hr of music.... on average.

  4.9.2008 17:53 #3

• atomicxl

  Originally posted by emugamer: Interesting move, to say the least. Xvid? Can't be HQ, can it? Can a HQ rip be compressed to under 2GB? Even at 720p? There's a "1080" reference on the bottom of the package picture. 1080 anything on 2GB?
  
  And how is Sony giving us more choice? The legal choice has been around for years now - backing up movies. Hence the DVD-R's that they sell.XviD and DivX are archaic formats. There are numerous other formats that give you better picture quality at a smaller fils size. The movie could probably fit on a single layer DVD and thats with super old hyper bloated MP2 encoding. I've "backed up" alot of movies. You can get standard def that looks just like a DVD @ 1.5 gigs if you use H.264. HD content is different though. You'd probably want to start at like 6+ gb for live action of 4gb for animation @ 720p. For 1080p i'd think you'd need like a 10+ gb stick.
  
  This is a pretty cool move. The PS3/360 can read mp4 files directly from a usb drive so assuming you have one of those, you wouldn't have to worry about how to watch this on your tv or wonder if your PC is good enough to play it back.
  
  I'm probably the oddball but if they sold me this for the same price of a DVD, i'd never choose the DVD over getting the same movie AND a free memory stick.

  4.9.2008 18:56 #4

• tatsh

  Wonder if it has DRM that will screw up Windows to the point of needing a reinstall. Need I reference the wonderful Sony DRM of the past?

  4.9.2008 22:34 #5

• tatsh

  Quote:Originally posted by emugamer: Interesting move, to say the least. Xvid? Can't be HQ, can it? Can a HQ rip be compressed to under 2GB? Even at 720p? There's a "1080" reference on the bottom of the package picture. 1080 anything on 2GB?
  
  And how is Sony giving us more choice? The legal choice has been around for years now - backing up movies. Hence the DVD-R's that they sell.XviD and DivX are archaic formats. There are numerous other formats that give you better picture quality at a smaller fils size. The movie could probably fit on a single layer DVD and thats with super old hyper bloated MP2 encoding. I've "backed up" alot of movies. You can get standard def that looks just like a DVD @ 1.5 gigs if you use H.264. HD content is different though. You'd probably want to start at like 6+ gb for live action of 4gb for animation @ 720p. For 1080p i'd think you'd need like a 10+ gb stick.
  
  This is a pretty cool move. The PS3/360 can read mp4 files directly from a usb drive so assuming you have one of those, you wouldn't have to worry about how to watch this on your tv or wonder if your PC is good enough to play it back.
  
  I'm probably the oddball but if they sold me this for the same price of a DVD, i'd never choose the DVD over getting the same movie AND a free memory stick.One of the reasons why XviD is still being encoded in general is because of the size and performance. Because of this, I do not think it is archaic at all. For me, x264 is not preferable even though I know it produces better quality. Reason: performance. I'll gladly watch an x264 rip. The quality is great but I would rather not have my computer struggle just to play a video. Even at 2 GHz (not dual-core unfortunately) on Windows I can get skipped frames. On Linux it's even worse (ATI sucks). We need the video card companies to really get onto hardware decoding of H.264/x264, along with XviD and DivX. Would be very nice.

  4.9.2008 22:40 #6

• Footie979

  A similar thing was done a couple of years ago for the PSP.
  
  http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/12/sony-...-memory-sticks/

  4.9.2008 22:52 #7

• emugamer

  Quote:Originally posted by emugamer: Interesting move, to say the least. Xvid? Can't be HQ, can it? Can a HQ rip be compressed to under 2GB? Even at 720p? There's a "1080" reference on the bottom of the package picture. 1080 anything on 2GB?
  When was the last time ya looked at a usb package, it breaks the average # of pics that could be stored on the drive, like the 12h of video and 33hr of music.... on average.What the hell dude? 12 hours of video? What kind of video? 2GB is just what it is. Only 2GB. Personally, I couldn't give a flying %$$@# for a super compressed piece 'o shite movie. I've seen 1.5GB x264 compressions at 720p and I wasn't impressed. Of all the different types of rips at various compressions, an x264 4.5GB+ 720p rip is as low as I will go and still call it HQ. Just a personal opinion and preference.
  
  Aside from that, a better move maybe would've been to give customers a credit to download a movie that they like.
  
  Movies are dispensable. People have been downloading/ripping/compressing the hell out of them for years now. And all of a sudden it's a "great move" to "give the consumer more choice in how to experience their movies either at home or on the go?". I'm not hating on the move so much as the condescending attitude big media has toward the consumer. Like we are all retards they have to spoon feed. They need to wake up and smell the coffee. Try to learn to work with what's going on and not fight technology. If Sony wants to give the consumer more choice, they need to unlock their hardware.
  
  I'm all for looking for the silver lining in these offers, but personally I find nothing worthwhile about this offer.

  4.9.2008 23:18 #8

• glassd

  Pretty cool idea from Sony and PNY. Will the price reflect the flash drive and the movie or just the movie.

  5.9.2008 08:33 #9

• sKrEwZ

  I've got Ghostbusters the way it was meant to be seen, on VHS.

  5.9.2008 08:58 #10

• varikelo

  Well, I just heard that a a new Ghostbusters movie is in the works, so this must be a Sony move to create buzz on the subject.
  
  Regards

  5.9.2008 12:49 #11

• SProdigy

  Originally posted by varikelo: Well, I just heard that a a new Ghostbusters movie is in the works, so this must be a Sony move to create buzz on the subject.
  
  RegardsIt sure beats that U3 crap that comes with SanDisk drives. I find it rather odd that this is being offered by PNY, since Sony offered their own brand of flash drives in the past. Perhaps it's a way for PNY to offer "value" versus the U3 preloaded software.
  
  Of course, they could jack the price up a few dollars to increase profit, or it could be a way of advertisement for Sony, though I would expect Ghostbusters promoted through a Happy Meal before seeing it on a flash drive.

  5.9.2008 16:21 #12

• ThePastor

  What kind of computer struggles with H.264?
  
  I had many of the same issues with this. How badly compressed will this movie be? I'm curious as to the file size.
  
  That being said, the idea of movies being sold on memory sticks opens up a whole new issue.
  Right here in this forum is an article suggesting that BR may not last 5 years. Technology like this is exactly what will kill it.
  Sure, right now Solid State memory is more expensive than optical, but it is MUCH more versitle and easy to use. It is quite possible that in the near future Solid State memory may be the movie package of choice.
  I personally hope so.

  5.9.2008 16:35 #13

• sKrEwZ

  I'm tempted to buy one of these just to satisfy some of my own curiosities. I'd like to see what format it comes in, what type of protection (if any) is on board, etc. If anyone beats me to it, please fill us in here or PM me.

  5.9.2008 20:19 #14

• 1bonehead

  Big deal. I just want a thumb drive (blank). I already own the movie.

  5.9.2008 21:24 #15

• Hyasuma

  pssh...2gb? come on now, now there is freaking 8 gb for like 29.99(sale) (i got my for 23 bucks), why dont they just comibine damn movies instead of just one -_-;...I ant buying jack unless then price pacakage is like 5 bucks. Is not worth it unless they plan to put HD movies on drives. sure will save alot of rooms.

  7.9.2008 03:16 #16

• iamgq

  Who you gonna call?

  7.9.2008 12:32 #17