Wal-Mart recently released a new movie download site this last week. Incredibly, they signed all five major studios (Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal) to grant them permission to sell digital DRM encoded movies to its customers via a website.

There is a great deal of competition in the movie and television download market right now and there is no real visible leader. Apple computer has yet to get all major studios on board for its Movie Download service.

The television download market is a completely different story. Lead by iTunes, Apple has signed up most major network stations and provides 95% of the video podcasting downloads. Currently Apple is the clear leader in this industry.

When I heard that Wal-Mart was offering movie downloads I wanted to check out their prices and what they had available for myself. So the first thing I did was type in the address: http://walmart.com/videodownloads

Oh uh, what is this…

We’re sorry…
Our website requires the browser Internet Explorer version 6 or higher. It appears that you are using Firefox, Safari, or another browser that Wal-Mart Video Downloads doesn’t currently support. Click here to get Internet Explorer for free from Microsoft.

Thank You

…this can’t be good at all. Wal-Mart has blocked viewing their video download site from Firefox, Safari and other browsers that it deems unfit. I cannot believe that they have restricted their website so that it can only be accessed via a Windows machine running Windows Internet Explorer. Restricting a website to a certain browser is something that I used to see during the browser wars five or more years ago.

This blog, shows what the site looked like in Firefox before Wal-Mart locked down their website. Terrible CSS/XHTML skills going on there.

Why didn’t Wal-Mart make a standards compliant website (ADA, XHTML, and CSS) and then tested it in all modern browsers? Last I learned you were supposed to build a site that utilizes the most efficient coding standards, and then testing it in all browsers?

Secondly why did Wal-Mart align themselves with Microsoft? Yes sure, 9 in 10 computers run Windows, and sure every Windows machine runs Internet Exploder… but here is where I see them going wrong. They had the choice to align themselves with Apple and they didn’t. Wal-Mart is using Microsoft DRM technology that can only be used on compatible devices. I am so sorry that 70% of the portable media devices will not be able to interface with Wal-Mart media stores or its any of its offerings. Then again why would you want to? Why not just buy the dvd off of Amazon and then rip it into your computer?

Now by no means am I trying to bash Wal-Mart. This argument is more of a CSS/XHTML standards one. It infuriates me when designers hack the code and don’t even try to do code by standards. Then again, Microsoft Internet Exploder is hardly standards compliant. A way that can save hundreds of hours a year by eliminating a great deal of errors. Furthermore Wal-Mart should have better planned this website. If they want to go against Apple and other providers of digital downloadable media they better bring it, and not be sloppy about it.

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