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The Napsterization of TV
Lefty writes "This article in today's Boston Globe talks about the napsterization of TV shows and how the PC as a media server is going to make it happen. Burning TV shows to CD/DVD, e-mailing your friends TV shows, streaming TV over the Internet -- all things the dedicated set-top boxes can't do... The article talks about Snapstream, a PVR competitor to Moxi and ReplayTV, that runs on the PC and has media server capabilities. from the article: "Already you can find a great deal of pirated video material online. If SnapStream gets installed on millions of PCs, there'll be plenty more. And the TV moguls will find themselves knee deep in the digital acid bath.""
The problem I have with snapstream and the other PC based PVR software is there in not guide comperable to what is available to tivo, replay, etc...All you get is a grid of times without show name or length. If you live in UK, there is digiguide integration, but I dont live in UK :)...it is rumored that there will be us version this year sometime though
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
if you watch tv, you get what you deserve.
love is just extroverted narcissism
There is a lot more to a Replay than a 'modified PC'. There is a stable OS that is designed to stay up without rebooting, a UI designed to access other Replays on the local network, broadband access to guide data and other Replay owners, not to mention other 'goodies' like auto commercial advance and recording conflict resolution.
Yes, there are programs that will add PVR functions to a PC, but none of them quite make it to the 'consumer box' level of integration.
My wife, an admitted technophobe, had no problem learning how to use the Replay, and loves it (my kids do also). If I had put a PC in my A/V stack, I'm sure I'd be the only one using it.
As a die hard Simpsons fan, I have nearly every episode archived so that I can watch them whenever I choose. I used to have every episode, until they came out with the whole first season on DVD. I bought it and promptly threw away my cd containing those episodes. When they release subsequent seasons on DVD, I'll buy it and get rid of my copies.
The answer to this seems pretty simple to me. Release the content on DVD. I think most people would rather shell out 15-20 bucks for a high quality copy.
Besides...how does it hurt them that I own a copy of the episodes. I still watch Simpsons episodes when they come on (both prime-time and syndicated versions).
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
If your capture device is Video for Windows compatible, then VirtualDub can capture video with it.
Yeah, that's gonna work real good with M$'s new Digital Violations Operating System. While it's cool of them to make the effort, I doubt the rest of us will be able to make use of windows API calls when the time comes, but will just use everyone else's properly functioning X or SVGA routines. It's sad to see effort wasted making a product like Windows more palitable. Why do people put their effort into this stuff? It will only be used to oppres you later.
Am I bitter? Hell yes I am. Your computer is being made into a freaking TV that serves mostly to suck comercial crap. The internet is being used as the new pipe to shove yet more crap on us as opposed to the airwaves that have been dominated by three or four giant publishers for the last fourty years: They at least came at no cost but advert mark up at the store. Does'nt anyone else see the convergence of all this as the absolute destruction of original content from around the world? Do you imagine that this will be used to distribute anything but big media junk? The very tools of creation will be removed before long. Those who wish to create will be forced to spend loads of money for Apples that purposfully have file types that do not transfer to these new boxes. How well do you think apt-get is going to work with all of this crap flying around? Free Softwar in general will be choked by the telcos as they close in their grab on the net. You don't imagine it will be long before the new infrastructure has packet prioritization bassed on origin, not yours? Isn't forced DHCP a warning that none but the mighty shall publish? Voice over IP has been possible for years, but you still pay by the minute to talk to your friends, in fact the US is now paying more than ever for telco "services". I have seen the future and it is the past.
To all you warez dudes out there, You are a problem. While you think you are sticking it to the man with your cracked software, MP3s and comercialless Simpson episodes, you are really helping them. You are just dumping more comercial junk on the world and preventing people from looking elsewhere, even within, for solutions to their software and entertainment desires. Go out and make something. Fight like hell. Think, create, propagate your ideas.
I don't even watch TV, it clouds the mind. There are so many other sources of information and inspiration. Read, do things, live damn it, then write, sing and make films about it. You don't think real stories come from big media giant? No, they get ripped off, diluted and sold back to you. As you consume the dilution, so go your own thoughts and dreams.
Thank you, and good night. I am insane.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.