Slashdot Mirror

I'll leave this here: Vodo
Great stuff there

The world is chock full of content. If somebody doesn't like selling to you or a group you belong to, perhaps it would be in your interest to react and take your business elsewhere. Don't enable such suckers. Say no to abuse!

Fuck Hulu, goto http://vodo.net/film/allfilms
Fuck Amazon, goto http://gutenberg.org/

I killed mine after STTNG stopped making new episodes. Since then, via TPB, I've seen (and ultimately purchased) Defying Gravity, BSG+Caprica, and Fringe. I think they're worth watching. Plus the VODO pilot for L5 looks really promising; I've tossed some some coin at them, but haven't heard about any more episodes.

I would prefer to have product placement replace traditional 30-second ads in such shows, and if they are able to personalize that experience without malice to me, all the power to them. If, OTOH, they fuck it up by hammering a repetitive line & image at me, I'll tune it out as quickly as I tuned out commercial TV and radio all those years ago.

PS: here is the direct link to the L5 episode (stream or download).

http://vodo.net/l5

I strongly recommend it for anyone into scifi. The acting and production quality is not at all what I was expecting for a crowed-sourced production. Give these guys your support!

Check out http://vodo.net/ for a distribution network. They've got some cool shit on there like Pioneer One and L5, stuff that's free to download and distribute. All they ask is that you do so under the Creative Commons License and not remove the imbedded link screens so the creators can fund their next project. It and some of the other alternatives to big studio contracts like Kickstart are things I'm looking into for something I'm working on a bit here...

I generally just watch "let's plays" on YouTube, however there's a lot of decent stuff at http://vodo.net/ (Pioneer One, Zenith, various documentaries, etc.). Another good place for free shows is http://revision3.com/ - my particular favorites are Scam School, The Ben Heck Show and Hak5.

As for games, try Urban Terror, Xonotic (not a huge number of online players though) and fs2_open (updated Freespace 2 engine, needs FS2 files though which are available legally if you know where to find them).

There is a faulty assumption underlying the notion of the infeasibility of civilization off this planet. That faulty assumption has a name -- planetary chauvanism ... Planetary Chauvinism

No breakthroughs in physics or engineering would be needed to build O'Neill cylinders that could eventually create habitable land areas several times that of the earth. ... Space Habitat

So we can't claim it's impossible. Maybe we'll never do it because, as a species, we can't seem to stop wasting talent and energy on killing each other over borders and religions -- But not because it's impossible.

By the way, an O'Neill cylinder is used in the new hard science fiction web series "L5". They only tease you with a few glimpses in the opening episode, but if they get enough support, they'll make more. ...L5 - A Hard Science Fiction Series

"and as the price of video equipment comes down and the quality goes up, the same will happen to the movie/TV industry."

I suggest you look up the Tv show "Pioneer One" Oh hell, here.... http://vodo.net/pioneerone for you lazy people.

Also explore what else is there on Vodo.net.

It's already happening, Hollywierd is doomed.

Contemporary and excellent sci-fi can be done with almost no CGI and special effects. If you haven't checked out Pioneer One, you owe it to yourself to do so. One of my favorite shows.

http://www.pioneerone.tv/
http://vodo.net/pioneerone

Entirely supported by viewer contributions. No adverts. If you like it, make a donation.

If you want to make a show, you fund the development of a pilot and make it available for free. You get people who liked it to invest $10 each. Once enough have invested, you make a season and make it available for free, asking people to invest in the next season. From the studio's perspective, the funding is the same. From the consumer's perspective, they're paying for what they want directly and can directly influence how long it lasts (how many shows have been cancelled because an executive thought the time slot could make more profit with another show, even though there were millions of fans wanting it to continue?).

You mean like Pioneer One? It all sounds good in theory but in practice it's damn hard to get people to pay, and even if they do, you can only afford a really low-budget production.

They already did!

This is quite well made, and I recommend it. Note that it's not technically a film, as this appears to be the first episode of a mini-series, with the second episode coming in a few weeks. That said, my favourite movie on Vodo is still by far The Tunnel.

I've seen a couple of the productions on this VODO site, namely Pioneer One, and The Tunnel. Both were watchable, but I would say they are both not quite as good as a Hollywood production. The acting seems to be noticeably worse. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems that in these low budget movies, they seem to just keep the shot as long as the lines are correct as per the script, and don't seem to worry about whether or not they are delivered properly. At lot of the dialog seems really unnatural. Whereas in hollywood they would make the actors redo the scene until it was perfect, it seems that in indie films this just doesn't happen. Overall, I think that indie movies have their place, but that big budget movies aren't going anywhere. Although they may change their distribution model a little bit.

I've seen a couple of the productions on this VODO site, namely Pioneer One, and The Tunnel. Both were watchable, but I would say they are both not quite as good as a Hollywood production. The acting seems to be noticeably worse. I'm not sure what it is, but it seems that in these low budget movies, they seem to just keep the shot as long as the lines are correct as per the script, and don't seem to worry about whether or not they are delivered properly. At lot of the dialog seems really unnatural. Whereas in hollywood they would make the actors redo the scene until it was perfect, it seems that in indie films this just doesn't happen. Overall, I think that indie movies have their place, but that big budget movies aren't going anywhere. Although they may change their distribution model a little bit.

Vodo.net

They have had two pretty interesting shows come out so far. Their official distribution method? Bittorrent.

Just click on "Download Torrent" in the upper right corner, and a dropdown will appear that holds all the releases in various formats.

And if that's too complex, here are the direct links for 720p:

http://vodo.net/assets/torrents/Pioneer.One.S01E01.REDUX.720p.x264-VODO.torrent
http://vodo.net/assets/torrents/Pioneer.One.S01E02.720p.x264-VODO.torrent

Just click on "Download Torrent" in the upper right corner, and a dropdown will appear that holds all the releases in various formats.

And if that's too complex, here are the direct links for 720p:

http://vodo.net/assets/torrents/Pioneer.One.S01E01.REDUX.720p.x264-VODO.torrent
http://vodo.net/assets/torrents/Pioneer.One.S01E02.720p.x264-VODO.torrent

Well said. I've just noticed that Pioneer One has finally released the second episode of their series, and am torrenting the mkvs of episodes 1 and 2 as we speak. I've already seen the first episode, but it's been so long I need to see it again to be caught up.

YES. Mod parent up- this was an incredible short film that moved me in both its animation quality and its story.

It's also on vodo if you want a free, high-quality version: http://vodo.net/sintel

Keep this book away from me! This guy's gonna spoil the next few episodes of Pioneer One for me if I'm not careful. D:

It is still the law, though. The reason governments exist in the first place is because man cannot live in a vacuum of moral absolutes. Murder is wrong. Theft is wrong. Rape is wrong. Without government telling everyone that there are specific punishments for specific crimes, anything can and will happen. No laws on rape? Watch men and women be violated even more than they are now. No laws on murder? Watch the spread of fear as roving gangs of vigilantes and sociopaths start killing not only each other but everyone else they encounter. No laws on theft? Watch everyone drop into the poor house except for those good enough not to get caught by their victim.

Don't get me wrong. I think current copyright law is immeasurably wrong. It does nothing for promoting the arts and is all about making every last corrupt dime out of a work as they possibly can. It's not about protecting the pseudo property known as IP. It's about power and money and who does and does not have it.

By widespread breaking of the law you are only proving the point that current laws need better enforcement and bigger punishments. I really don't like the alternative (indy bands and groups at places like Vodo, ClearBits, and Jamendo (and the like) or, you know, actually paying the RIAA for their artists' stuff (I'd rather pay the artist directly, thanks)), but if we are going to claim the moral high-ground of law abiding citizen and have a chance of being taken seriously, what is the choice?

No one sees copyright infringement as anything near revolutionary. To most people, those who willfully infringe are indeed nothing more than common criminals. Step up above that and walk the higher ground while lobbying your state and federal politicians. Otherwise, I don't want to hear about how unfair the system is. I know how unfair it is.

Also check out VODO, too.

Yeah, no chance in hell of that working huh?

http://vodo.net/pioneerone

You mean like http://vodo.net/ is doing? They do not do so well, but proved it's possible to create without millions.

Its really a secret message to Mars...

for example see Pioneer One.

Pioneer One

Hey thanks, never heard of it before but I'm now seeding the first episode.

And to add my own current favorite free movie to the list, check out Sita Sings the Blues - a free animated movie that Roger Ebert practically gushed over. It's available in a bunch of different formats, I'm currently seeding the 4GB 1080p matroska edition myself.

heck, some of the more impressive creations have been done on shoestring budgets. I dont think star wars had much to go on back when it was made, for instance.

then there are projects like pioneer one: http://vodo.net/pioneerone

if donations keep ticking in, that series could in theory go on forever rather then be killed off by some media exec because it fails some arbitrary metric or other.

i wonder, what kind of hardware would it take to render babylon 5 quality animations today?

In that box of blanks on your shelf. Download the Matroska file via BitTorrent, and burn to disc with any semi-decent burner app to add a menu or whatever else you want.

Or, you could use the Xvid version and just burn it to a cd, every semi-decent DVD player should play that as is.

You realize it's been on TPB for like a week already right? It's now seeding in the 21K range so still going up. Really you only need say 100-200 seeds to make a download fly so 20+K is silly huge. I can max out my connection grabbing a Linux ISO with less than 1K online seeding...

Oh, they want 20K to make the next 3 episodes. Prior to this story they already had more than $3K of that. http://vodo.net/pioneerone#Donate

In that box of blanks on your shelf. Download the Matroska file via BitTorrent, and burn to disc with any semi-decent burner app to add a menu or whatever else you want.

Don't forget to seed, either.

You rule out the option that content will be created that has little cost that people will still want. I enjoyed Paranormal Activity more than I did Transformers 2. Guess which had a smaller budget?What about movies that rely solely on donations and ARE being successful?

One of the changes that needs to occur is the consumers need more power over what they want to watch, not what they want us to see. I've stopped watching TV because I hate the dribble that's on there and the only things I *do* want to watch appear when I'd rather be out with friends.

Comcast has it wrong. I'm working for a telecommunications company and we ARE looking into how to make the experience work for the consumer who wants it now and wants it cheap. People will still pay for content, they just don't want to be charged $20+ for a DVD.