But in one sense there does seem to be competition: Both groups are busily at work trying to make these web delivery systems as easy to use as possible for non-techie people.
We want to make it clear: Rifftrax is MUCH easier to do than it is to describe and, as Disembaudio likes to say, it works flawlessly most of the time. But there are people for whom the technical aspects are just too much.
We await CT’s first product, and we will see at that point what the ease-of-use level is for EZTakes.
In the meantime, Rifftrax has allied itself with another big name in the video download biz, Divx. It has already taken several existing Legend titles and made them available for download. This weekend it issued a sort of proof-of-concept, shake-the-bugs-out, get-the-fans-registered trial run of what will apparently be more such downloads–a three-minute bit from “Signal 30,” an infamous driver ed short.
The moral of all this is a re-assuring (to me, at least) capitalist one: the hand of the market is out there forcing these guys to make their product more and more accessible and that’s good for everybody.
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I continue to stand by my “whoever makes it available to buy on DVD, gets my money” statement.
But this is good for those who enjoy spending money for digital items, and have the knowledge and expensive merchandise to possibly burn them to disk.
I’m with MLD. The most “accessible” would be true-blue factory-pressed DVD. Anything else is second best.
I’d listened to Rifftrax’s “X-Men” with an iPod and a DVD player and found the experience less than satisfying. I can appreciate the legal reasons behind the format and am such a fan of Mike, Bill, and Kevin’s MST3K work that I *wanted* to enjoy the Rifftrax Experience. Unfortunately, the synchronization took time to get working properly and the disjoint between the iPod and TV audio made for an odd listening experience.
That said, I couldn’t resist hearing their recent take on the SW Holiday Special. Since the source video was only available online, I decided to attempt making my own Rifftrax DVD. I’m on a Mac and had to hunt down the info and software required to make it happen, and although the synchronization process was much easier when I could *see* the sound, the entire process of creating the disc from scratch took over a day (erasing Disembaudio, creating chapter stops, menus, etc.) and a lot of trial and error. Fortunately, the end result was more than worth it, as the riffing was nothing short of hilarious :grin: I now know what’s involved if I ever decide to purchase another RT track again (hopefully it wouldn’t take me so long to finish creating another DVD).
My point is that as a fan, I was willing to go through such hassle because of my personal love for the cast and concept. If I didn’t have the means of creating my own DVD, I would have long since moved away from Rifftrax after my initial “split media” experience. It’s not that it was too much effort to time the pressing of a pause button, but the format as is wasn’t provided the experience that I wanted (i.e., I had to put in several hours’ of time and effort to create a proper integrated product). I don’t know anyone that would purchase just an mp3 by choice – we’d all buy the finished DVDs if was legally/financially feasible for Rifftrax to offer them. That’s why Cinematic Titanic automatically held more appeal for me – they’re offering a finished product, just pop it in and go.
I’m glad to see that Rifftrax is being forced to push themselves forward and offer a more integrated viewing experience. I had so much fun with the finished Star Wars Holiday Special project, so I’m willing to give them another shot.
I’ll buy a RiffTrax of a movie I enjoy (whether for its good or bad points) or particularly wish to see riffed (case in point, Star Wars Holiday Special was a fine episode), but the repeated hassle of the pause/play action prevents me from buying every episode like I might for, say, MST3K DVD releases. Since Cinematic Titanic is giving us straight-to-DVD content, I’m very enthusiastic about the prospect of easy riff-watching, so I’ll be more likely to amass the entire collection (the same applied to The FIlm Crew’s initial outing, and I genuinely hope they get more episodes produced soon).
I tried out RiffTrax On Demand’s demo video, and while it did solve the main issues I have with the service, I was displeased with the inability to convert it to a TV-friendly format. I don’t own a DivX-certified player, and was hoping to either burn the movies to DVD or convert them to iPod format (I have a video-out cable for my fifth-gen iPod), but the DRM prevents anything of the sort. I appreciate their need to protect their intellectual property, but my favorite way to watch Best Brains-type riffing material is on a large television screen; this allows me to watch with friends and family. Unless they relax the limitations put in place by DivX VOD, I doubt I’ll be paying for any of these videos any time soon.
In the end, though, I’m just happy to see all this quality riffing content being produced by Mike, Joel, the Bots, the Mads, and all the other Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni. Competition between all these projects will theoretically mean higher frequency of content release and a general increase in quality, and that can only be a good thing for us consumers. Besides, we were gonna run out of Rhino DVD-able episodes eventually. ^__^
Being the tech dullard that I am, I don’t get what Mario is saying. Mario, when the DivX player offers the “burn to disk” feature…it’s not to a DVD? What disk will it burn to? And is there any way to watch that disk on a TV?
Thanks!
“Being the tech dullard that I am, I don’t get what Mario is saying. Mario, when the DivX player offers the “burn to disk” feature…it’s not to a DVD? What disk will it burn to? And is there any way to watch that disk on a TV?”
I believe it burns a data disk with a .divx video file on it that can be played by certain DVD players that have the functionality to play divx files.
I, for one, hate the divx codec and it is one more reason I won’t buy video from Rifftrax (the other is the unreasonable price compared to the equivalent DVD). Xvid is a better codec, is free, and is compatible with most of the divx-enabled players. When *I* encode video, I use Xvid.
As big a fan as I am of MST3K….Rifftrax just sounds like too much hassle. I’m all for the guys working on new projects, and bought the “Film Crew” DVD’s as soon as they came out, and will also buy the “CT” disk offerings. I’m sure there are plenty of folks out there who feel Rifftrax is a great product and virtually hassle-free, but after working a full week and having a family..I just don’t want to waste the time trying to figure Rifftrax out, so that I can what….watch a movie on my computer??! No thanks.
I didn’t realize so many people were discouraged by the Rifftrax format. If you go to the Technical Support section of the Rifftrax forum, you’ll find a few different techniques for making Rifftrax DVDs. The system that I use only takes about 30 minutes of actual effort (there’s some processing/wait time also).
Yeah, it’s really not that prohibitive. I made a couple of coasters my first couple of times, but now it’s pretty straightforward. I’d rather pay $3.99 and make my own instead of paying $19.99 for essentially the same product!
I thought that this fan made video on The Digital Lounge did a good job of showing how easy it can be to watch a RiffTrax movie the “old fashioned way” (mp3 player + DVD):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6xEDygKjvc
“After working a full week and having a family..I just don’t want to waste the time trying to figure Rifftrax out, so that I can what….watch a movie on my computer??! No thanks.”
RiffTrax are not and have never been limited to your computer. The amount of time that you took to write this post would probably have been sufficient to properly “figure out” RiffTrax.
“I, for one, hate the divx codec and it is one more reason I won’t buy video from Rifftrax (the other is the unreasonable price compared to the equivalent DVD).”
Whether or not you choose to use the VOD service is up to you, but I don’t think that the prices are unreasonable compared to DVD. Rental prices are equivalent if not lower than a video store, and the several of the movies are priced lower than their respective DVDs on Amazon.
“Xvid is a better codec, is free, and is compatible with most of the divx-enabled players. When *I* encode video, I use Xvid.”
I don’t believe there is a Video On Demand service that uses the Xvid codec. While it may be a preferred format for encoding your own video, I don’t think it solves the problem of offering up video for purchase/rental.
The new VOD section is going to allow us to offer up new content such as shorts, as well as hopefully more movies with the RiffTrax pre-combined with the movie. Like the new software player, it may not be the perfect solution “for you.” But we’re trying to offer people up as many options for making it easy as possible.
There seems to be this perception that just because things can be downloaded that everyone would prefer that to a DVD. I for one have no interest in watching MST3K, Cinematic Titanic or any other show on an iPod, especially not after investing in a large screen TV with a decent home theater DVD system attached to it. As for downloading the shows and then burning them to DVD myself, I am capable of doing that, but I’d still prefer a commercial DVD with chapter breaks already set in it and possibly some nice extra features.
This is why I hate downloading stuff…because you’ll get ****ed for no reason.
Example:
I download movie trailers all the time. I even know how to save most Quicktime trailers that don’t give you a save option. So, the latest “The Dark Knight” trailer comes out (If you haven’t seen it yet DO IT NOW!) and I download the small trailer.
The trailer is lagging big time! Not sure why the FPS is dropping but it is. NEVER has a trailer done this to me, and I just downloaded a Cloverfield trailer a week or two back and it worked fine.
So, I update Quicktime…nothing. I update Divx, and still nothing. I think “Maybe the smaller trailer is glitched?”, so I download the medium trailer. Still having problems getting it to run smoothly. Hell, I downloaded a copy from YouTube and that worked fine! WTF moment there folks.
In conclusion, I had to convert the medium trailer to a Divx format. Then I had to import it into Windows Movie Maker and save as a movie file…just to see it! Now, luckily I know a little about video stuff, but even this took me about 2+ hours to fix! NO movie on DVD has ever ****ed my over, yet so many computer-related things have.
Just my rant about downloading problems and my message for those of you to see the Dark Knight Trailer. :D
Thanks for your comments, Conor, and we’re delighted to have you here.
As Conor knows (because of the many dopey technical questions I’ve asked him) I’m no techie wiz. And I have never had any problems using Rifftrax. It’s incredibly easy. I encourage anybody who has avoided it because they think it will be a “hassle” to try it and see for themselves how easy it is.
I haven’t had any problem using RiffTrax, but then I burn a melded DVD version immediately upon buying the MP3 and renting the movie. I don’t bother trying to watch the original disc while synching up a player. Like other posters here, it takes me only 15 min of editing and 5 hours of rendering (i.e., waiting) and presto! A finished RiffTrax DVD!
I won’t be buying ANY download-only video product (including Cinematic Titanic) unless that is the only option and even then, ONLY if they can be easily burnt to a standard DVD playable in ANY DVD player, not some proprietary DIVX crap.
Clearly, I’m firmly in the “Just let me buy the damn DVD” camp and REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that for these “shorts” and “other pre-combined movies” to which Conor refers, there will be a traditional purchasing option whereby I can “just buy the damn DVD” and watch it on my TV.
’nuff said.
“Whether or not you choose to use the VOD service is up to you, but I don’t think that the prices are unreasonable compared to DVD. Rental prices are equivalent if not lower than a video store, and the several of the movies are priced lower than their respective DVDs on Amazon.”
I use DeepDiscount.com. Amazon prices are generally a bit higher than DD, but in at least two instances (Night/Living Dead & Reefer) they match or (very) slightly beat the Rifftrax price.
For comparison, first price is the Rifftrax price, the second is the DeepDiscount price for the full DVD.
Missile to the Moon – $9.99 / $11.30
Plan 9 from Outer Space – $12.99 / $11.30
House on Haunted Hill – $9.99 / 11.30
Carnival of Souls – $6.99 / $7.45
Night of the Living Dead – $9.99 / $8.79
Little Shop of Horros – $9.99 / $11.30
Reefer Madness – $9.99 / $8.14
Swing Parade – $6.99 / $8.05
3 Stooges Greatest Routines – $4.99 / $7.49
3 Stooges in Color – $4.99 / $7.79
Now, “Missile” is a unique case, as the riff is not available on the DVD, so the VOD has a value the DVD can’t match.
The last two 3 Stooges VODs are the only ones with a major advantage over the DVD, but I take it that’s because there isn’t actual riffing on those, just intros by the Film Crew, like the DVDs.
With the exception of those, most of the DVDs are either competitive (less than $1.50 more expensive) or cheaper at DD. And you have the advantage of a factory produced DVD that you can watch anywhere as well as both the color and b&w versions unriffed.
This dichotmony is particularly glaring on ‘Plan 9’, where for an *extra* $1.69 you lose out on the unriffed versions, the Ed Wood videos, the “Other Plans” bit, and the text commentary (by *ahem* yours truly).
Please correct me if I’ve gotten any of the details wrong concerning the content on VOD.
The rental prices are fine as far as I can tell, as I never rent anything. (If it’s worth seeing, it’s worth owning, I always say.)
I want to make it clear that I am not bashing Rifftrax for doing this or even for the prices they’ve set. I’m just explaining why I personally will never use it. As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t even think a song is worth a $.99 download from iTunes, but that price works for them, just as these prices may work for Rifftrax.
As for the Divx/Xvid bit, I was just pointing out that I, personally, don’t like the codec because of all of the business involved in using it. No, there is no VOD service using Xvid, because Xvid is just a codec, not a content delivery system like Divx wants to be. It’s just the sight of a website using Divx has started to hit me like one using RealMedia: an instant bad taste in my mouth.
I’m with alot of the other posts…
DVD! DVD! DVD!
Rifftrax is fun and an inexpensive way to watch, but, the synch-ing is a PAIN IN THE A**!! And i’d rather watch DVD’s than sitting at my computer for 2+ hours, but that’s just me..
I’ll say it again, :lol: DVD! DVD! DVD!
THE FILM CREW DVD’s are great! Please, put out MORE!!
And, I can’t wait to see what Cinematic Titanic is all about…Should be good!
Is there a rift between both camps?
I hope not..
I hope, someday, we’ll see a “CINEMATIC FILM TITANIC CREW” release!!
How great would THAT be?!?!
My preference is for a factory-made DVD, but download and burn works fine for me as well, as long as I can burn it to a standard DVD that can be played anywhere. I do NOT however like the digital rights management issues associated with DivX. I don’t care for DRM in general in anything. The EZTakes method that CT is planning to use works beautifully, but that’s strictly for purchase, not “on demand”. Really, is “on demand” that big of a selling point?
Just a Guy, you summed it up exactly for me!
Ibidem, ibidem, ibidem!