Amazon Unbox Fails to Deliver
I have been watching season one of Prison Break using the Blockbuster dvd delivery service. I got disks 1-3 first and watched them. Then Blockbuster sent me disks 4 and 5, but not disk 6. Instead they sent me something else. You would think that if someone is watching a series, getting them all together would matter. But that’s another complaint for another time.
I wanted to watch the last two episodes which I didn’t get, so I went online to find them.
Fox is giving away the current season, but not the last season.
Amazon’s Unbox claimed it had the show for $1.99, so I thought I would give it a try. One click turned out to be lots of clicks to download some software. OK, it’s like iTunes I thought.
Once the program downloaded, I installed it and then the downloading began. The first thing I noticed was that I had a twenty five minute wait. Clearly, Amazon has not heard of progressive downloads I thought, but wait their website says they have it. Well obviously, they don’t have the bandwidth to do it fast, nor have they used some p2p technology to make it possible. The NBA can do it, but not Amazon. Go figure.
So I wait my twenty five minutes and it’s still downloading, but it says it is “Ready to Watch”. i give it a try and get an “Unable to play file error message”. On to troubleshooting. I have a DRM problem. Here’s what it says:
Then I get an error message saying that the DRM repair failed and I have to call customer service.
I try their call me now service. I click on the button and my phone rings. Wow, I’m going to get some help I think. They make me wait. Why call me right away if they are going to make me wait. Finally, I get some guy and have to go through some security questions.
Seems bogus to me. They called me. They have all the info, so why make me go through hoops to get help. Finally, I get to tell them about the problem. Can’t help. That department is closed until tomorrow.
Amazon used to be one of my favorite companies. Amazon’s Unbox just doesn’t work for me and Amazon’s customer service tricks just made it worse. They failed today and I don’t think I will forget.
Let me know if it works for you.
UPDATE —-
I was contacted directly by one of Unbox’s lead developers. Sam sent me an email asking if he could help. Sam was able to determine that I had an old version of Windows Media Player’s security file. I was unable to update that file, so I rolled back WMP from version 11 to version 9. Thankfully, my videos now work. It’s too bad these companies feel they have to use digital rights management (DRM) technology to block legal usage of media which consumers pay good money for. It seems to me to be a way of punishing honest customers for the bad things done by customers downloading illegal copies. The DRM does’nt stop the bad guys and it makes the good guys want to go elsewhere.
February 4th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I am wondering how you agreed to the EULA? I doubt that you actually read it, otherwise you would have run screaming from the website. I recommend you get your money back, delete the software from your computer, maybe even go to a restore point to make sure it is all gone, and then get Blockbuster to send you episode 6. As the following link shows, the EULA from Unbox is probably the worst ever in existence. You really have no way of knowing what getting “approved” DRM working on your machine will do to your computer, and whatever side affects you incur, it won’t be their problem.
TripleII
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/15/amazon_unbox_to_cust.html
February 4th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Is it possible there is something wrong with your PC? Are you on WMP 10 or 11? Have you made any unique modifications that would affect the way your WMP DRM works?
They do have progressive dowload by the way. The NBA is fast becase the video is much lower quality. To each his own I suppose.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
My PC is just fine. It’s a DRM thing. I am running WMP11 and have made no mods.
I was supposed to receive a phone call from their support group, but get emails instead, despite telling them not to email me.
Amazon suggest playing their video in WMP. I try playing in WMP and it fails to verify the rights to the file.
Their next email suggests reinstalling WMP. It seems like bad service to me. Why did they make me download their player if I have to use WMP. I don’t need their player if it doesn’t work.