In Use (continued):

Plenty of issues and errors slowed me down on my way to viewing my new movie, and because I like giving the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume a good deal of it was because I was attempting to do all this in the pre-release stages or just slightly after launch. I'll cover just a few of the hurdles I encountered...

First, the link from the pop up above spawns your default web browser. In my case that is Firefox, which is not supported. So, I reconfigured my system so Internet Explorer was the default browser. Clicking the link now lead to a page telling me my system didn't meet the minimum requirements, which is ridiculous since it has a 2.4GHz quad core processor, 8GB of memory, Windows 7 Professional, Internet Explorer 8, perhaps 1TB of available disk space, and a big check mark next to any other item it requested. Somehow I got passed this after a few tries and made it to the "store". I was then presented an error stating I needed to install Microsoft SilverLight, but taking a closer look at my system confirmed I already had it installed. This error didn't seem critical, so I ignored it. I then tried checking out with Star Trek using the coupon code I had - only to be shown an error stating "Coupon has been applied from same promotions".



OK, so most of that occurred in the days before launch, and once again early on the morning of the launch. Perhaps there were some pre-launch bugs, or whatever. I decided to try once more just now at mid-afternoon on launch day and I did get much further than before. I successfully got through the check out, my coupon for Star Trek was accepted, and then I had to move to a stage called "DRM / Software Check". There was a three step test it started - my system passed the first part, but then the red flag went up, as shown in the capture below. A "Video Error" with generic sounding directions to copy and paste the code on to the Microsoft Support site for more information.



All my software is legit, my Radeon HD5870 should be more than capable of playing back any movie, and at this point I was getting frustrated... I could have watched the thing a few times already with the time I wasted.

I walked away again, and came back later that night. Like magic, this time the "DRM / Software Check" went just fine, despite not making any changes to my system. The below left image shows the passing results of the second run of the DRM test, and the below right image shows confirmation that Star Trek has been unlocked.



And finally, we have a screenshot of the movie playing in Windows Media Player (below left image). The file seems to have an exceptionally wide (but low resolution) format listed as 720x300, which equates to a ratio of 2.4:1. It is a WMV file whose properties detail that it has a 7247kbps bitrate and a 23fps framerate. No specifics on CODECs.



I also tried running the movie with another application (VLC) and it remained scrambled (above right image). In addition to being playable in Windows Media Player, you can load it on to a FreeAgent Theater+ media player that has the appropriate firmware update to handle this content.

Hopefully most people get to my final steps much quicker. I'd be interested to hear feedback from other users.