Ghostbusters is first film to be released on USB stick

the special ghostbusters usb pen drive is issued by columbia pictures is to mark the movies 25 anniversarie next year with inconjunction for the uk release of the long awaited ghostbusters video game and the bluray releases of both ghostbusters movies and the ghostbusters usb pen drive is in the regions of £14.99 from argos and contains the feature movie and a link to te argos site and an quick installation guide but no trailers of mini featurettes i am affraid but a great stocking filler for any ghostbusters fan for this christmas season. frankie smales (the daily krypton)

Comment by frankie08 at 1:14am 4th November 2008

And low and behold it is now half price!!!

Comment by crazyguy69er at 11:07am 18th September 2008

Not a bad idea. Hope they starting doing kids shows on USB sticks. I would gladly get them if they had thomas the tank engine on them lol

Comment by Nickuk1987 at 4:58pm 9th September 2008

£29.99 for Ghostbusters? Really though can you imagine having an extensive DVD collection on USB keys, a nightmare imo, give me a DVD any day.

Comment by Gerry at 9:35pm 8th September 2008

Hmm make it a 8Gb Flash Drive and a HiDef movie and since I have an xbox360 i'd be laughing - no need for a Bluray drive and it could work for a ps3 too.

Comment by corzair at 6:55am 7th September 2008

You only need to click once people!

Comment by crazyceo at 10:07am 5th September 2008

Nice idea to use a static device, but I think there could certainly be other devices that would perhaps work better. I would personally like to see a revitalization of the minidisc as a video device. Hi-MD's have tons of space.

Comment by nicholasalipaz at 11:09pm 4th September 2008

Nice idea to use a static device, but I think there could certainly be other devices that would perhaps work better. I would personally like to see a revitalization of the minidisc as a video device. Hi-MD's have tons of space.

Comment by nicholasalipaz at 10:43pm 4th September 2008

I like the idea of a movie on a solid state device. I can see potential for this. I think they could reduce the cost by using ROM. I would not want to store other data on the same stick as a movie. The other data would be to hard to find. I think a new player that could play both DVDs and MovieSticks would help. The MovieSticks could be stored in little plastic cases that would about 20 sticks with pages for movie fact sheets. The MovieSticks could be imprinted with the name of the movie. I think this would work it they get the price down a little lower than the current prices of DVDs. Also I think the movie rental businesses would like the ideal of the MovieSticks because of reliability the medium.

Comment by PhotoJoe1 at 5:55pm 4th September 2008

I like the idea of a movie on a solid state device. I can see potential for this. I think they could reduce the cost by using ROM. I would not want to store other data on the same stick as a movie. The other data would be to hard to find. I think a new player that could play both DVDs and MovieSticks would help. The MovieSticks could be stored in little plastic cases that would about 20 sticks with pages for movie fact sheets. The MovieSticks could be imprinted with the name of the movie. I think this would work it they get the price down a little lower than the current prices of DVDs. Also I think the movie rental businesses would like the ideal of the MovieSticks because of reliability the medium.

Comment by PhotoJoe1 at 5:55pm 4th September 2008

My opinion...leave the price issue out for one moment and think its about time someone was introducing a new concept...makes a change to the usual buy 5 for x £ in the high street ....so whats next on the movie list...a wonderful life!!!!!??

Comment by Waterboy at 3:50pm 4th September 2008

My opinion...leave the price issue out for one moment and think its about time someone was introducing a new concept...makes a change to the usual buy 5 for x £ in the high street ....so whats next on the movie list...a wonderful life!!!!!??

Comment by Waterboy at 3:50pm 4th September 2008

Doesn't flash-memory not last that long? Sure, it's solid-state storage, but without being used for a few years (and really, I don't watch each of my films every year), would it remain uncorrupted? Stamped DVDs will last for 5 or 10 years at least. I can't build a library if the things will become corrupted over time.

Comment by guest at 3:02pm 4th September 2008

My opinion...leave the price issue out for one moment and think its about time someone was introducing a new concept...makes a change to the usual buy 5 for x £ in the high street ....so whats next on the movie list...a wonderful life!!!!!??

Comment by Waterboy at 3:50pm 4th September 2008

Funny how a big comglomerate use PNY but lil man here says you shouldn't..... WHO YOU GONNA TRUST lol!!!! Why peeps gotta get personal!

Comment by crazyguy69er at 3:53pm 4th September 2008

1) This product shouldn't be this expensive. It's just ridiculous. 2) Home server people will be screwed until someone with development experience breaks the DRM mechanism. 3) Sticks do not have the annoying problems that discs do, but beware of driver hell. 4) DO NOT USE PNY AS THE SUPPLIER. PNY tends to have low-grade products from my experience. I would rather see SanDisk or just someone else. 5) What's wrong with putting these on MemorySticks instead? 6) Give me a box with it similar to DVD or BR-DVD boxes, or I won't buy it. 7) I agree with freesandwiches on the fact that they should be a little more creative with the design. Nothing that gets in the way of other ports mind you but something none the less.

Comment by GoldPantherSPQR at 3:42pm 4th September 2008

While I would agree that this product is expensive, the idea behind the technology is good. I travel a lot on business and, rather than pay for expensive hotel movie rentals, I take DVDs with me. If i'm away for a few weeks, that equates to 10 or so DVDs in my luggage. The same amount of USB sticks will be lighter and take up much less space. If Sony are involved in the venture they will have done their research and seen value in putting their name to it. I don't think it will be long before we see prices tumble and a load more films being sold this way and, personally, I'm all for it :)

Comment by pb212 at 3:21pm 4th September 2008

Ting wit this whole price thing is Argos and all the others r always droppin prices all the time. Sales all the time nowadays!!!! Bet the price goes down soon as.

Comment by crazyguy69er at 3:09pm 4th September 2008

when will people realise that if my PC can translate the movie to a digital output on the screen it can redirect that output to a file. Now it also means if I want to stay legal I'm gonna need a few hundred USB keys plugged into my fileserver so I can stream movies to my living room. Pathetic. Its still easier to get the movies DRM less.

Comment by reashlin at 2:35pm 4th September 2008

Can't believe none of you started your post without that line. I agree £29.99 is way too expensive as the DVD is bargain basket stuff at around £3 in most stores. A 2GB stick is also next too nothing. The problem here is the DRM. I host a homeserver which all the pc's in the house get music, pictures and movies from. Technically, I wouldn't be able to use this at all even if it was plugged into the server as the movie will be played on another machine. Nice idea but needs rethinking.

Comment by crazyceo at 1:39pm 4th September 2008

I think it's a valid idea. I always wondered when they'd move to disk storage - it had to come sooner or later. And I think it's going to get cheaper after a while, just like DVDs did (and Blue-Ray discs are 'in the process of' doing). And I think that now it's a challenge to design I) a device which can play stand-alone DVD movies from a USB stick, and II) a stand for USB sticks :D The first company to do it might just get a jump on the future... :-)

Comment by Egon_Freeman at 1:25pm 4th September 2008

As mentioned on our blog (http://www.usbcompany.co.uk/blog/), we think it'd be a great idea here in the USB Company offices. After all, how much space could you save if all those series in the DVD stand took up the space of a USB Stick?

Comment by JohnMason at 12:20pm 4th September 2008

I think potentially its a good idea to sell movies on a stick (obviously not at piss-take pricing, as mentioned in other comments you could do it yourself for a significantly less). Would eliminate disc-scratch/dirt problems which is always a plus. Could fit higher quality compressed movies (DivX etc) on there too. Dont like the way it's not been packaged to properly go on a shelf with your movie collection- i think it would be fine in a dvd case if they adapted the disc holder into a stick holder. And yeah, a movie label on the actual stick might be an idea! You dont get plain untitled discs when you buy dvds (except from street vendors in the middle-east), otherwise you'd get them mixed up.

Comment by darth_satan at 11:58am 4th September 2008

Good idea, bit tooo expensive. But there is potential. Add a few extras (OST, Photo galleries etc) maybe try and make it a bit interactive with mini games etc. Could change the whole home movie experience

Comment by coggs at 11:54am 4th September 2008

How do they expect you to file a USB stick on your shelf!? I know people with thousands of DVD's, imagine trying to sort through them if they were on USB sticks instead.

Comment by gavomatic57 at 8:45am 4th September 2008

nuf said!

Comment by gdaley at 6:40am 4th September 2008

Crushed by a daft price. I think that the idea of having films on usb keys is great and solid state drives is the way to go, however the price is daft. Hopefully the price will drop to something reasonable as it becomes more common.

Comment by WoodSpoon at 3:05am 4th September 2008

somebody pointed out that they convert dvds to flv. format . Ive pinched movies in flv and stuck them onto my 1gig stick along with the flv player. you can run the player from within the stick on my work pc which has no media player and is administrator locked and watch movies instead of working woo hoo . ok the quality is poo but who cares ....

Comment by rabbiehippo at 2:48am 4th September 2008

maybe if it was shaped like the gadget to catch ghosts, and it popped open and glowed when you plugged it in.

Comment by richfdvv45 at 2:35am 4th September 2008

I can buy a 2 gig drive for less than ten bucks US. In less than two hours I can record my VHS of GB in Windows Media and then convert it to .flv to load to 2 gig drive and still have room for Pics, Clips and Music. The whole process for what, if I loose the drive I replace for another ten bucks for a movie I already OWN.

Comment by WhiskySmuggler at 1:56am 4th September 2008

I think this is another of these ideas rushed out on a friday afternoon .... yeah the customers will buy it ... pre-load the ghsotbusters game and i might pay £30 but as this is pretty much shelved for now I will stick with paying £30 and gettting 2x8gb Memory sticks from any other manufacturer.

Comment by akoli at 12:55am 4th September 2008

Assuming the prices will go down (which they should), USB all the way. No moving parts is always better - less fragile, less energy use, etc. Just like SSD. That's where things are headed anyway, the sooner the better.

Comment by rahneshin at 11:52pm 3rd September 2008

black 2GB pny memory stick 6.99 on play http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/6535471/PNY-Attache-Black-2GB-USB-2-0-Flash-Drive/Product.html ghostbusters 3.89 on play http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/872629/Ghostbusters/Product.html, rip it to my PC no copy protection... OR this for £30... I DONT THINK SO!!!

Comment by droitwichdosser at 11:15pm 3rd September 2008

I agree with the majority of posts... Whats the point? Either you have a load of films on memory stick (and unless they looked different or were very obvious I dont fancy wading through a draw of sticks to find the film I want to watch), in which case the extra space is just a waste, or, you use it as a memory stick, in which case the film is just a very expensive gimmick... I can get a 2GB memory stick for about a fiver if I look around... and the film for about the same... guess what, I won't be buying it... but it has made me want to buy the ghostuster films again... hmmm

Comment by NewParadigm at 11:12pm 3rd September 2008

I couldn't agree with you guys more! This is just shameless. £30...? I'm stunned pny think that little of it's customers. At least any sane person will see this for the rip-off it is and vote with their purse-strings :/

Comment by borodin at 11:04pm 3rd September 2008

I've just this week paid £0.53, (yes, that's a whopping fifty three PENCE) for a 1GB USB pen drive from Aria, though they also have a 2GB version for £1.16. These guys want to sell a 2GB version with a 19 year old film on it for £30? Exactly HOW stupid do they think we are? Now I'm thinking of a phrase, can't quite remember it, ends with an 'off'...

Comment by antonyg at 9:07pm 3rd September 2008

What a load of 'tosh'. Too expensive, to be able to fit that much on the drive with the film would mean the film has to be very low quality, DRM makes this even less worth it (especially considering nothing on a storage medium is inaccessible, with the right software you can get at anything) and not to mention 2GB is a pretty low amount of storage these days. 4 and 8GB memory sticks are much better value

Comment by bscorpion at 8:57pm 3rd September 2008

I'm not sure what these guys think is new about selling DRM-laced media. Personally, I will not purchase anything that is marketed under the ideals of Corporate Dictatorship. You can take your USB stick and shove it.

Comment by janger1 at 8:28pm 3rd September 2008

if my VCR/ DVD/ DVR had a USB port. Which is doesn't. But otherwise, a bunch of USB drives on my shelf would be as easy as a row of DVDs, and easier than a row of VCR tapes.

Comment by Crumbly1 at 8:02pm 3rd September 2008

This item is *ludicrously* over-priced. A decent 2GB stick is about £10 these days. As a means of distinguishing one from another, that is to get someone to buy Stick A at £10 (with Ghostbusters) instead of Stick B at £10 (without Ghostbusters) it might have a chance, but expecting people to pay a £20 premium for a low quality, DRM-crippled copy of a very old film is just loony.

Comment by arisian at 8:11pm 3rd September 2008

Third notes, are they having a giraffe? My DVD box set of GB1 and 2 cost less than £20, which came with loads of extras including episodes of the real ghostbusters cartoon!

Comment by steeli at 8:10pm 3rd September 2008

Maybe if the USBkey looked like something cool. Like a proton pack, or a slimer, or their logo or something or was part of a neat piece of crap that sits on my desk to let my coworkers know that I, like them, am into a movie I remember from when I was young. NOTE TO MANUFACTURER. NO ONE CARES. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Comment by freesandwiches at 7:18pm 3rd September 2008

It's different I suppose. It's a bit too expensive to be practical, and if you are going to use the USB stick for work or anything else it's likely to get lost or broken. In which case you would lose your film :(

Comment by Bonzo450 at 6:51pm 3rd September 2008

....just a shame that it's so damn expensive! I'd rather pay a fiver for a 2gb stick from Play, then £3.89 for the film on DVD....a free download of Handbrake later and I have the same deal for £21 less....

Comment by F_A_F at 6:37pm 3rd September 2008

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