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Illegal for the intended use in most states, and illegal even to install in many.

http://www.ce.org/Consumer-Inf...

What *is* usually legal is one with a lock-out so that it can only do vehicle info and navigation while driving. Simply not using the other features doesn't help; it has to have a physical lockout in most states, or be mounted so that the screen is not visible to the driver.

Crowd sourced or not, it is illegal in most states and subject to being seized, in addition to the driver being cited. Simply turning it on is often illegal, even if you only use the navigation functions, because these kind of devices require being locked out when in motion, except for backup and instrubment video. Many states it is illegal just to drive with it installed, even if never turned on.

http://www.ce.org/Consumer-Inf...

How's it working out for you? Less than 10% of Americans still go with OTA broadcasts.

I don't know what the comparable figures are in the UK, but I suspect that they too are moving towards getting their entertainment via media that make the broadcast oligopoly irrelevant. You probably don't care about broadcast providers there and wouldn't care about it if you moved there.

let's think about the big picture here

Some already have.

http://www.ce.org/Consumer-Info/Car-Electronics/Got-It/State-Laws-for-Electronics-Use-in-the-Car.aspx

Michigan. It's the one shaped like a mitten.

To cite JP Barlow as an example of how the EFF represents the music producers is just wrong. He's got different opinions than the others and he's not shy about saying he's different. Really.
Also, lobbying groups like the CEA aren't affected by a few members like the software companies. Big companies routinely join organizations like the CEA just to track what the competitors want. It greases the wheels.
To understand the CEA's position, why don't you take a look:
http://www.ce.org/AboutCEA/CEAInitiatives/3631.asp
Notice how it states that consumer electronics deliver wonderful things and copyright owners had better keep their mitts off them.
"Consumer electronics products are a vital link allowing the world's citizens access to information, education and entertainment. Increased access to this technology will shrink the digital divide and produce a renaissance in arts, science, music, academics and creativity across the entire world. Copyright owners must resist the temptation to restrict technology. If successful, restrictions will deprive the public of equal and fair access to information, entertainment and education. "
It's all about making sure that the consumers don't waste their money on content. Then they'll have more to spend on gadgets. The EFF is their tool.

Most reputable ones do. The Consumer Electronics Association has many standards for measurement and ratings that manufacturers can follow if they chose to. Some use them, some do not, some use them but bury the standard CEA qualified specs way in the back of the manual too.

http://www.ce.org/Standards/listings.asp

"While we can be quick to claim hot topics as 'DRM' or 'Poor Economy' for the cause, it's more likely the simple fact that the difference between BluRay and DVD is negligible. "

You are wrong, and I say that with no qualifiers.

DVD sales have been down for what, 3 years running (including year to date)? DVD sales are decreasing faster than BD sales are increasing. Video games surpassed the lucky-to-be-flat DVD sales. Home video overall is still down. These are all "simple facts".

BD costing significantly more than DVDs, which are losing ground overall, and you want to blame something that is for the most part, irrelevant? Lest we forget, during the same period after the release of DVD, people were saying the same thing wrt. DVD vs. VHS. The difference in content and visual/audio quality between VHS and DVD is quite large, though not all true at first. Yet we saw the same pattern of lackluster DVD vs. VHS sales. If that much of a clear difference in quality - even w/o spending more on TVs and receivers to "get the most out of it" - saw the same pattern, then how the hell is an alleged "minor" bump in quality going to be the main cause or even a significant one? BD is more expensive than DVD, just as DVD was more expensive than VHS. Players were not cheap, and the movies were significantly higher priced.

DVDs had very distinct advantages in that it was going to get pull out and stuck in your player, permanently ruined - an advantage anyone who had VHS could easily appreciate and understand. Yet it took several years for DVD to "take off".

It is certainly true that there was, and is a lot of hype around "the new format", and that it is exceedingly rare that the reality lives up to the hype. But if you look at what people in the know have been saying, you'll see that this year is in line with what reasonable people have been expecting, At current rates, the BD sales will top over 1.3 billion dollars this year. [sarcasm] Year, that's a loss for a more expensive purchase, sure. [/sarcasm] By the end of the year BD sales will approach 50 million discs this year. Do DVD sales outshine that? Hell yes. DVD is established and has been around for many years.

We also have the hype of "the end of the war" with the death of HD-DVD. People with no knowledge claimed it would be a huge win for BD, and eventually it will be. But anyone with sense and reason knew it wouldn't be right away. That said, on big "recent" titles, BD sales account for 1 little more than 1 in 20, and in some cases even one in ten sales of that movie. On essentially re-releases to BD, the sales share for BD has reached 2 out of 3. Overall almost one in ten movie disc purchases are BD. The format wars didn't end until this year. That means in less than one year after the "end of HD-DVD vs BD", BD has hit almost one in 10 (8%) of video disc sales. Note these are dollar amounts, for both DVD vs. VHS and BD vs. DVD.

Consider these:
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/01/07/daily34.html and http://www.ce.org/Press/CEA_Pubs/929.asp

Note that public availability of movies on DVD began in 1997 (1996 in Japan), and this was after the digital disc format wars ended. It took almost 5 years for DVD sales to surpass VHS sales. And that was considered "a meteoric rise" at the time. At the current growth rates, BD will outsell DVD in less time than it took DVD to overtake VHS. And VHS is still available, more than 10 years after the release of DVD video. After 2 years of public availability of DVD-Video, it was predicted by market analysts that it would be 5 more years before DVD overtook VHS. It took "only" 3 more years. Today the analysts are predicting 4 years for BD to outsell DVD. So the analysts are more optimistic this time around.

I should also note that DVD rentals lagged behind sales, only overtaking VHS rentals in late 2003 - six years into DVD-Video.

Unfortunately it is not Sony's fault. The governing body (CEA) over the video spec has turned down the proposal to 'allow' 1080p over component.

Households, not individuals. And assuming people you happen to know are a representative sample is always a mistake. Assuming people you happen to know are representative of an entire nation of people over seven thousand miles away is flat out idiotic.

The 25% number is actually one of the lower estimates for overall penetration. If you look at the Consumer Electronics Association they pegged penetration at 30% back in June, with a projection of 36% by YE07.

Hell, a cursory look seems to indicate your friends aren't even representative of Australia given that this article seems to imply significant market penetration in Australia as well.

This is from the CEA and it's pretty consistent with everything else I've seen on the subject: "On average, current owners paid $783 for the primary TV in their home, but plan to spend $966 on their next set." $1200 is still a lot to spend on a TV and will continue to be a lot to spend on a TV in the foreseeable future. And even if there are people a lot of people willing to spend $1200 on a new HDTV, I'd wager most of them opt for a larger 720p set over a smaller 1080p set at the price they're willing to spend, especially considering the content available in HD on TV is 720p or 1080i right now.

That's funny. Techdirt just had an article about how the CEA is standing up for consumer rights, even to the point of being right in the RIAA's face.

I wrote them a letter thanking them for their support. By the end of the day they emailed me back:

"Thank you for the kudos for Gary and CEA! We are so happy that you are
noticing the impact of our work in promoting and protecting technology
innovation. The best way for you to show your appreciation is to
continue to be a well informed consumer and keep the pressure on your
legislators to support legislation friendly to innovation. You
definitely do not have to be a CEA member or part of the CE industry to
do this!

I urge you to visit the following websites designed to create ways for
consumers and industry supporters to communicate this message to their
legislators (and to your friends and family to spread grassroots
support).

The Digital Freedom Campaign at www.digitalfreedom.org
The Home Recording Rights Coalition at www.hrrc.org
Americans for Consumer Technology at
http://www.ce.org/GovernmentAffairs/ACT/2991.asp

Thanks again!"

I also wrote Vivendi regarding some nasty dealings over at Universal music and such, their investor relations addresses. I haven't heard back from anyone else.

... the CE website. There are some working groups within that organisation defining just that: new standards for embedded (consumer) devices.

In Engadget's comment section, I followed the links to this 238 MB downloadable MP4 video file. Hopefully, it has the MI3 trailer (different from teaser trailer?). :)

The CEA study is real. The last paragraph of the Home Theater article is a intentional joke -- the rest is just inane.

NEW DATA SHOWS ANALOG BROADCASTING CUT-OFF WILL IMPACT FEW U.S. TV SETS AND HOMES
[...]
CEA's calculations are based partially on information from Nielsen Media Research, which shows there are 109.7 million U.S. television households, each owning an average of 2.6 televisions. CEA employed the firm of Opinion Research Corporation and explored how each of the 285 million television sets is used. The study found that only 5.2 million (3 percent) of TVs in households subscribing to cable are not connected to cable service. Of these, approximately 474,000 are used exclusively to view something other than television programming, leaving 4.7 million TVs (less than 3 percent) in these households used for viewing OTA television. Just over seven million (9.8 percent) of the 71 million TVs in satellite households are used for viewing OTA broadcasts while only 200,000 of the 3.46 million TVs in households subscribing to both cable and satellite are used for OTA viewing.

"Clearly, the vast majority of TVs in the United States are not used to view over-the-air television and we can presume that these numbers will diminish as more and more Americans subscribe to pay TV services, including coming technologies such as TV-over-IP, via telephony and even powerline," said Shapiro. "More than 88 percent of today's TVs are connected to cable or satellite service or are used to play videogames, watch pre-recorded content or some other non-broadcast television function."

Example:
Kent State University in Kent, Ohio held several patents related to the original Liquid Crystal Displays, which were invented there. Every time some geek bought one of them newfangled LCD watches, KSU's Liquid Crystal Institude got a big fat royalty check.

Here's a link with some history.

They still have a ton of patents related to LCDs and KSU is one of the top places in the world for LCD work.

All that was fine with me - many students received outstanding educations as a result.

I don't feel the same way about software, though.

Could very well be horseshit, hence my "if you believe the 90%" comment. But a variety of sources point to a number pretty close to that:

In 2003, this site showed 87%: http://www.parksassociates.com/press/articles/2003 /converge_mg.htm
This site shows cable alone at 66.8% as of Feb 2005: http://www.ncta.com/Docs/PageContent.cfm?pageID=86
This site shows satellite TV over 22% in 2003 http://www.ce.org/publications/books_references/di gital_america/video/satellite_tv.asp

As for cable networks switching to OTA, not very likely. Give the relatively short range of OTA broadcasts, not to mention all the licensing issues, they're much better off selling "wholesale" to cable and satellite providers and let them deal with the end users. Especially if at the moment OTA only gets you 10% of the users. The demographics of people who won't pay for TV is likely to overlap somewhat with people who won't pay for useless crap the advertisers want to see either.

Well the first reply pretty much smacked down two of your points, so let me smack down another. While you are right that HDDVD will be cheaper to build players and cheaper to produce disks, you are incorrect about BD's ability to play legacy DVDs.


The format is not backward compatible with current recordable DVDs, but it will be possible to use blue lasers to read prerecorded DVD-videos. Therefore, most Blu-ray recorders probably will be developed to read both Blu-ray and legacy DVD-video discs.

Also, this link


but only recently did its leading developers, among them Sony, announce that Blu-ray machines will also play old DVDs.

It IS legal to tape a TV program for a friend and share it with them them . . . err, at least in the country I currently live in, Canada. It has certainly been legal for quite some time in the States to tape TV programs for yourself, so it's a grey area as to whether you can distribute them afterwards . . . yes, in the case of downloading TV programs it's currently considered illegal, however, enough various legislation that it would be a tough case to call, if someone downloaded a program that they missed and it went to court.

There are strong legal arguments to be made on either side; of course, our current society being corporate-minded and money-fuelled, it probably would end up falling on the side of Big Business. (Call me a left-wing liberal if you will, but try disputing that current law and judicial decisions tend to heavily favor corporations over individual consumers' rights -- whether you think that's okay or not is another question, naturally, as was noted in reverse of sorts by parent).

I doubt it. They point out that it has component inputs. So what? Most TVs sold today have component inputs now (it is an easy thing to add, since it is just an NTSC signal without as much processing). It might handle multisync (capable of 1080i/720p signals, therefore qualifying as a digital TV). But Since they say component inputs but no mention of a digital tuner (and no FCC mandate until 2007), My guess would be that it does not).

And, yes, the 97% of households mentioned have the DTV/HD signal going through the air. Most homes don't have the ability to watch it. I'd really be interested in knowing the number of the general population who have really seen an HD/DTV signal off the air, not a demo at Best Buy. And, of course, their opinions of the signal.

I went to the supreme court this morning in hopes of being able to see the oral arguments for the case (I live in the DC area). Unfortunately, there was a huge line and I and many others didn't get in. I can report on what happened outside, though.

The pro-RIAA/MPAA/MGM protesters showed up first, at maybe 8:45am. They tried to go up on the steps leading to the court building, but police told them they needed to stay on the sidewalk. This group of folks then hung out for a little while with their signs (one which read "Thou shalt not steal. -God"), then some of them took out their guitars and started playing and singing.

Then at around 9am, the protesters from the Consumer Electronics Association showed up, with black shirts reading "Save Betamax" in white letters. They were met with a some cheers from some folks in the waiting lines as they left their bus and assembled on the sidewalk a little ways away from the rival protesters. They had more creative signs compared to the musician protesters. The interesting thing to note were different demographics of the two protesting groups. The musicians were mostly middle-aged white men. The electronics advocates were generally younger, and had more of a mix of genders and races.

The news media started showing up in full force at around 9:30, and took some interviews with various people, including folks from both protest groups, and random people (including a teenager from a school group). I saw cameras from NBC, ABC, Channel One and Reuters. The media seemed to be focusing a lot of attention on the musician protest group, as at least one of their members was always being interviewed. However, that might have had something to do with them having guitars and making music, which got them attention.

The crowd waiting to get in seemed to be either on the side of Grokster or ambivalent. I took some photos, which I'll put up on Flickr (tagged "Grokster" or something like that) or the dc metblog when I get home from work.

Those numbers don't look so good if you compare the growth in CD sales to the sales of video (VHS/DVD's) software, or to the economy as a whole:

Video: Consumer Electronics Association: DVD Software Sales Benefit: Although movie-ticket sales fell one percent to $9.2 billion in 2003, consumer spending on the purchase or rental of video software (VHS tape and DVD) rose 18.2 percent to $22.5 billion, according to DEG. DVD accounted for 72 percent of total home video spending.

Overall Economy: CNN The economy has expanded at rates exceeding 3 percent for the past six quarters and seems poised to keep growing. The White House last Friday estimated GDP will expand 3-1/2 percent in 2005.

Like take car audio. Many (most even) manufacturers won't warentee their equipment unless it's "professionally installed". The reason is because there exists the good likelyhood of fuckup if some dumb teenager just wires it up themselves (it's much easier to fuck up car audio than home audio). So just what is a professional? Well it's someone that is a Mobile Electronics Certified Professional, MECP. It's a simple written test akin to the A+ for computers. It's not proof you are a master with electronics, but at least it means you should know which wire is positive and how to ground a system.

So, if it was something along these lines, that you had to be A+ certified, or have some computer certification, I could see the point, though not necessiarly support it. In that case the point would be to ensure minimal competence, that someone could know you were state licensed, meaning you'd apssed a standard test and so weren't just a complete liar that knows nothing of computers.

That is not the case. All you do is send them $55. Oh give me a break, that probes nothing other than that you have (had) $55. It's like those diploma mills on the Internet. Sure it says PhD, but since all you did was give them money for it, it holds no actual meaning or value.

In a word -- yes. According to the CEA, over 9.73 million DTV sets have been sold since their introduction in 1998. And over a million have been sold in the first two months of this year alone...

In a word -- yes. According to the CEA, over 9.73 million DTV sets have been sold since their introduction in 1998. And over a million have been sold in the first two months of this year alone...

It is odd that such a 'technology leader' is always second (or later) to market. I guess they have to rely on the true innovators to show them the path to money.

No, that's not odd at all! Thats shrewd. Let other people pave the way, then devise a best-of-breed from what's out there, and make a minor improvement. For example, the consumer electronics adage- that America made it first, and Japan made it smaller. Witness the transistor radio.

The real issue being, can Microsoft get a best of breed product/service combo out there? The XBOX is fun to play, and the penny-arcade dewds have create things to say about Xbox Live, but I'd never give up my PS2...(inferior as it may be, I still think its better)

The CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), the trade group for the companies that would build and sell a retail cable STB (set-top box), has repeatedly said that the secret contract terms offered by CableLabs, known as the PHILA (POD-Host Interface License Agreement) are unacceptable. This has stalled the process of making STBs available as a retail product for several years. See the CEA press release. The HRRC (Home Recording Rights Coalition) is also opposed to the PHILA.

laserdisc, quite sure of it...

You're right. I checked this out, and came across something called Compact Disc Video (CD-V; not Video-CD, V-CD or VCD); essentially, this is just Laserdisc and Laserdisc/CD hybrids under a different name.
This page gives a 1987 date for CD-V, and this page dates the official adoption of Video CD (i.e. MPEG-1) to 1993. There's more here and here about CD-V.

The CD-audio 5" disks are actually hybrid CD-DA/Laserdiscs (digital and analog) which is what threw me. (I was wrong earlier- it's the 8" discs that hold 20 minutes of video; the 5" discs hold a whole 6 minutes worth! Wow.)

I don't remember the phrase `Laserdisc' being used to describe any of these discs (5", 8" or 12"); but then, Laserdisc had pretty much bombed in the UK, so it wouldn't surprise me if they marketed all 3 sizes as CD-V.

This still leaves the issue of when VCD (MPEG-1) was launched. The 1987 date given in the URL above seems very early- I think the author of the webpage meant CD-V/Laserdisc (which I saw marketed in '89), or confused it with VCD... I could be wrong though.

laserdisc, quite sure of it...

You're right. I checked this out, and came across something called Compact Disc Video (CD-V; not Video-CD, V-CD or VCD); essentially, this is just Laserdisc and Laserdisc/CD hybrids under a different name.
This page gives a 1987 date for CD-V, and this page dates the official adoption of Video CD (i.e. MPEG-1) to 1993. There's more here and here about CD-V.

The CD-audio 5" disks are actually hybrid CD-DA/Laserdiscs (digital and analog) which is what threw me. (I was wrong earlier- it's the 8" discs that hold 20 minutes of video; the 5" discs hold a whole 6 minutes worth! Wow.)

I don't remember the phrase `Laserdisc' being used to describe any of these discs (5", 8" or 12"); but then, Laserdisc had pretty much bombed in the UK, so it wouldn't surprise me if they marketed all 3 sizes as CD-V.

This still leaves the issue of when VCD (MPEG-1) was launched. The 1987 date given in the URL above seems very early- I think the author of the webpage meant CD-V/Laserdisc (which I saw marketed in '89), or confused it with VCD... I could be wrong though.

VHS has actually lasted for over 25 years. I think that I'd rather use the cool technology available in 2020 than ancient DVDs.

My mistake, you're right, it was a radio. Apparently attempts were However the name's concept was from Victrola.

[..]William Lear teamed with Galvin in 1934, and successfully developed the automobile dashboard radio they named the "Motorola," the motorized Victrola. Galvin demonstrated the prototype model in his Studebaker. Motorola produced millions of car radios, followed by two-way radio systems for police and fire services. [..] Source

The actual story is brought up in a popup by javascript, and I don't know how to get the link.

Of course they use absolute sizes in <font> tags, so it's still unreadable on my display.

-s

In the speech, he makes several references to CEA. This is the Consumer Electronics Association (formerly CEMA - VCR makers, among others, and among the backers of the Home Recording Act). Check this link (story dated 2/28/01). The actual story is brought up in a popup by javascript, and I don't know how to get the link. How obnoxious. Anyone?