... The pricing and limitations make no sense. I TOTALLY understand why they have to price it like they do, but I just can't see this working for enough people to matter. *I* would have to be able to watch it a few more times over a longer period of time -or- the per-movie price needs to be way less.
I talked to one of the guys from Prima for about an hour after a demo at Audio Advice in Raleigh, and a lot of the conversation was about the business model, which made a lot more sense (from the perspectives of both the intended consumer and the studio) afterward. I was really surprised/impressed that he was willing to spend so much time talking to us (or to come demo his product in Raleigh, much less at a more-or-less public event).
An aside: the demo was on a 4k projector, and we were told that what we were watching was encoded at a resolution between 1080p and 4k, without being exact about what it was. I suspect it was double 1080p simply because that's convenient, but I don't know, and I don't know if that was an engineering test/demo, or something they intended to release in a product. Other than some Sony stuff at a simulation trade show, it was the best quality picture I've ever seen. I'm not a home-theater guy, though, so that observation may not mean much.
Anyway, apparently if you're a Hollywood insider, you can already (before PC) get access to movies at home on the day they're released: the studio will send you a disc by courier--I guess back in the day, you had a 35mm projector at home. The studios have problems with this model--it's a pain in the ass, and apparently copies sometimes leak. Hence the encryption, fingerprinting, and watermarking.
So for the thousand or so people on this circuit, the money is insignificant and they like the convenience factor. Prima just expands the pool of potential consumers for whom this sort of service is available to people outside the movie business, but for whom the money is still pocket change. Even 40 or 50k customers is probably enough for Prima to do well.
So maybe Prima:Kaleidescape::Kaleidescape:AppleTV...