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Losing Control of Your TV
sp00 writes "The MPAA is now trying to prevent high quality copies made from TV broadcasts. The latest anti-piracy move will prevent you from making high-quality copies of broadcast TV programs. And the new "broadcast flag" technology enables all manner of other restrictions. In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."
The broadcast flag could be expanded into a whole family of little flaglets, and together giving the system a much more expressive repertoire. One flag might say, "you may not time-shift this program." Another flag might tell your TiVO "you may not fast-forward or skip this program's commercials." A very special flag might disable your TV's channel changer and "off" buttons. There might even be a Mission Impossible flag that makes your digital video recorder self-destruct in five seconds (or at least erase every movie owned by Universal Studios.) Who knows what Hollywood will dream up next!
I realize this guy is sort of pushing the bullshit lines with controlling the OFF BUTTON and the MI sequence but I can actually see them banning you from timeshifting, etc. Look at some DVDs. You already can't skip some commercials on those. I can see it being that way on a rented movie but on one you purchased? That's bullshit.
HDTV was mandated by the government at YOUR expense so that these people could control YOUR choices. Make sure you thank them.
Television is a Motion Picture.
And legally, the MPAA doesn't control anything. They're a lobbying group. They control things illegally.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Like streaming audio, there is always a way around that. In the age of digital cable, and MPAA controlled TVs, the frame grabber reigns supreme.
There's always going to be a way to get around it though. Look at XP's Activation, that was cracked. Even the activation in Longhorn has been cracked. No matter how strong of a wall you put up, all it takes is a big wrecking ball to bring it down.
Creating a market for tv's imported from countries that don't have the restrictions and a black market for chipping sets.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
The vast majority of these restrictions are only going to keep away casual joe from recording American Idol (which he probably won't every see again anyway). I'm sure there's always a way around any protection mechanism, like an exception to every rule.
Yea. I know.
No, they control things legally. They do it immorally, however.
the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set."
;-) You know what? I don't miss it either.
At which point I won't have one.
There is something to be said for getting older and not giving a *&@# about keeping current as-far-as TV shows are concerned. I could'nt even tell you who is sleeping with who on Friends
BC
There will be a modification of some sort, whether a chip of some sort, or a simple pencil mark, to disable this. And again we will all point and augh at the time and money spent on something so worthless.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
There are many many good reasons to stop watching TV, so many that I can't really list them all. But I know that I am finding I have less and less inclination to watch TV. All the new shows that come out are crap, and as all my old favorites end their life time, I find I watch less television.
With all the crap on TV these days, and things like this coming into play, I can only hope people will at least reduce the amount of tv they watch.
no comment
What will happen to good ol Tivo if this happens? I'm thinking it doesn't get any higher quality than a digital copy.
Guess we'll have to pay extra "taxes" or "licensing fees" or rent our TVs from now on since apparently you can't do anything with things you buy now.
When will this stop!
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
Someone will create a new "blackbox" not to dissimilar from a cable-descrambler nowadays to change the bit. Bingo, flag off, problem solved. :)
# fuser -v
#
With TV, the only way to force people to accept unreasonable controls is to legislate... but fucking with something that virtually everyone does on a daily basis (rather than MP3s, still something the voting middle-aged and elderly populations aren't entirely au fait with) is going to score them some serious heat and scrutiny.
We can but hope, anyway...
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
I will keep my old stuff for as long as it works. When I am confronted with HDTV crippleware, it's time to get rid of TV altogether. There isn't any problem MPAA can create that I can't solve with the power switch.
These MPAA people are determined to follow in the footsteps of RIAA. Crappy content, obnoxious protection, struggling for more and more control over media that has less and less content. Pretty soon they will control 100% of nothing.
Then I want control over the price....
... i.e. they (and HDTV) will be a complete flop, and television will be replaced by the Internet completely, once and for all.
If I don't own the TV set outright, I shouldn't have to pay $3000 for a plasma TV. I think I should only have to pay $3.
We (collectively) have complete control over the price. Do not buy an HDTV with these sorts of crippling features. I own an HDTV, which I use as a 61" computer monitor and DVD playback device. I own an HDTV (Linux PCI card) tuner which does allow digital recording. I will not purchase a device with these flags enabled.
If enough other videophiles are informed enough and smart enough to do likewise, the product will go the way of the original DIVX self-destructive DVDs
(There is a lot to be done on the content side to offer entertainment alternatives to the Corporate State's Bread and Circuses program, but Red v. Blue and other content online is already showing the way, and Blender et. al. put the tools in our hands to make our own high quality content. The rest is up to us).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Just stop watching TV... speak with your wallet and stop watching TV. Notify your provider in writing that you object to this limitation of the service you enjoy. Write your MP or Senator and state that you do not enjoy the fact that someone is limiting your freedom to enjoy a product which you pay for.
My point being is that the TV/MPAA industry is bound and determined to make money whatever way they can in order to both profit and to 'subsidize' 'providing' broadcast television. This typically means advertising. It is up to you to determine whether you will put up with restrictions or not. The problem is that all of us viewers allow these corporations to do what they want because its not worth 'your time'. That's your choice.. your time. These days I am chosing to not use TV anymore. I live with the lack of entertainment.. but I am finding my way with.. gasp.. reading... exercise... developing social networks for work, friends, and family.
Its amazing what you can do when you plug those 4 to 8 hours a day into something other than watching television.
Admittedly there are a lot of folks quite happy to do so... hoorah for them. They've made their choice whether they actively did so or not.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
I have not had a TV since May, 1978.
I have not missed a darn thing.
There is too much in life to enjoy without
having a TV.
How can the MPAA control the empty space where
your TV is not?
Cleara
Your friendly neighborhood public library still doesn't treat you like a criminal. Amazing as it sounds, you can walk in and ask for a book, and they'll lend it to you. All they ask is that you return it when they ask you to. That's right, they'll actually take you at your word. No deposits, DRM, FBI warnings or EULAs involved. Why not go today, and remind yourself how it feels to be treated with a little respect?
The closest thing I have to a TV is an NTSC monitor at work, for video capture and output monitoring. I watch the DVDs I borrow from my coworker on my computer- a 20" screen is just fine, thank you.
News flash: YOU DON'T NEED THE TV. There's plenty of OTHER things you could be doing- personally, I hate the thing and see it as an incredible waste of extremely valuable time. Gathering 'round with friends for a John Carpenter marathon is nice social thing, but watching TV alone is like going to the movies or a restaurant alone- an asocial act of mental masturbation.
I stopped watching TV for several reasons- most of it was shit, I didn't want to pay out the ass for 50 channels I don't want to get the three I do, and I REALLY HATE the advertising- specifically the difference in audio levels and overall brightness.
I don't miss TV at all. With technology like this being pushed, I miss it even less. I'll stick with software DVD playback once or twice a month, so I can watch movies and comment about how {good|bad} they are on IRC at the same time. Good use of existing hardware, excellent monetary savings (one of my machines has RCA/S inputs, so it's not like I need a TV for my old Nintendo, either...)
The industry's great fear is that high-quality digital broadcasts would be scooped up by techno-geeks with digital television cards wedged in to the back of their PCs.
And it will be. You don't think "techno-geeks" will be able to tweak the firmware on the capture cards to ignore the flag?
The only thing this does is take away consumers rights to timeshift this digital content. I should be able to capture the 6'Oclock movie and watch it at midnight - not in some lossy second rate format, but exactly how it originally aired. Did the courts not already decide this?
If they dont want me watching this material, why the fuck are they broadcasting it? The push medium, the your-life-revolves-around-our-schedule school of thought within the cult of TV is ending. With all the PVRs out there, on demand programming from the cable company, etc, people are watching what they want and when they want.
The silver lining? This will probably bite them in the ass. Less people will see flagged movies/shows, which means less ratings, which means less advertising dollars, which makes the movies/shows worth less.
I bet you'll see the flag off by default almost all the time. Except guaranteed captive audiences, like live sports events.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I don't own one :-)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Perhaps you should only have to pay $3 for a car, since you don't own it outright (you're restricted from changing it in certain ways).
What's different here, is who is restricting. With a car's emissions equipment, the restriction is placed upon you by everyone; we all (theoretically ;-) agree that it is in all our interests to limit pollution. So your neighbor isn't getting any more out of supressing your rights, than you are, also.
With the broadcast flag, it appears that the only party benefitted by the supression, is the MPAA. Thus, it's a blatantly corrupt law.
But they will then argue that it isn't true, because copyright law benefits us all, since it encourages the creation of works that we all enjoy.
Well it would be nice if the masses really did start to create high quality art instead of just being passive consumers of "content". Released under a Creative Commons license... but movie production ain't all that cheap and I don't see it getting there anytime soon.
Yeah one can make decent home movies and wedding videos... maybe even videos of some live performances and sporting events (well, some sporting events...). But do you really think those will have a wide audience as to compete with commercially produced content?
I think this is a blessing in disguise, as it is I hardly watch any TV. Reality TV having hardly any reality. Melodramatic sitcoms ,too predictable and not remotely funny. MTV, please don't even get me started. Sportstars are more and more appearing in Legal courts than stadiums.
Heck even the national geographic and discovery channel programs seem over dramatized. Remember the Nat. Geo. special about the hole drilling in one of the Pyramids a few months back.
Amongst all those ads, trying to get me to buy stuff that I really don't need, and all those sensationalized news reports, I am truely Bored of TV.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
On the other hand, the decoders will probably output a macrovision signal on their analog outputs when the broadcast flag is set...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Finally, a voice of reason. People tend to act like TV is a must have. It's the same as the whole mess with people suing fast food joints. If fast food makes you fat, don't eat a whopper. If (insert media group here) is taking away your rights, don't buy from them.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
But they think that if you can't record your show, you'll go rent or buy a DVD of it. Take "Sex and the City" for example, you can record it, and yet they have DVD's available for renting, and knowing quite a few girls in their 20's, it does get rented by them. Now take away their right to record it (some do record it, in case they miss it) and you'll have a few more girls renting it. They're trying to create a market where there isn't a need to. It's all in the name of greed, and not neccesarily about piracy.
it's turning for this election. Everyone thinks that Bush is terrible. What they don't realize is that EVERY politician is terrible. They all have 10000 hands playing pocket pool for them.
Kerry, when he wins, is going to suck just as bad as Bush. He will just be a better actor at looking like he knows what he is doing.
Nothing will change, it never does, it will always suck.
I think the proliferation of "reality tv" and things like funniest home videos answers those questions. Those don't take a lot of money to make. Plus, just like there are people who create high quality music on their own, people can create high quality videos on their own. Sure it might not be a hollywood blockbuster but it can still be entertaining. Big budget doesn't guarantee quality.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Slippery slope arguments always make me suspicious. Garfinkel assumes that the use of flags to prevent high-quality recording of digital broadcasts will inevitably lead to a "in Soviet Russia, your TV watches you" scenario. Of course, if the RIAA provides an analagous case, Garfinkel may be right, and we'll have yet another battle fought between Orwellian copy protection schemes and geeks wielding magic markers. Come July 4, 2005, we'll read on Slashdot about how to build your own black box to get around the flags. The "Soviet Russia" scenario assumes we'll take this lying down, like the puppets of corporate America we are. Again, if the RIAA's efforts are any indication, I don't think that's a valid assumption.
"Den som vover mister Fodfaeste et Oieblik; den som ikke vover mister Livet." -Soren Kierkegaard
I disagree. If somebody is a big enough fan to go to the trouble of recording (on VCD or VHS) a show and keeping it, they'll buy it on DVD as well.
Why? Because you don't just buy the DVDs for the episodes alone, you buy them for the commentaries, specials, interviews etc and even the packaging!
I have almost every episode of FarScape on VCD, yet I have the first two seasons on DVD and will buy the rest when they release them as box sets.
I remember all the flak the recording industry got when crippled CDs wouldn't play on computers, some car CD players, or even regular old portable CD players. And guess what, crippled CDs really haven't flourished. I don't see this going anywhere either once people like my Dad (who loves his Tivo with a passion) can't use it the way it's intended.
Though my one question is, they can send little flags all they want, it's still just a stream of 1's and 0's that can be grabbed before they enter the TV and redirected to another recording source.
Just like no matter how much DRM they put on MP3s, there's still nothing preventing me from taking the line out from my computer and putting it into a digital recorder.
Now when they put gov't controlled ear plugs and blinders one me, then I'll be worried.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
From reading the articles on this. The protection is something that is handled through the TV tuner. So yes if you feed the signal to a VHS it will work, but if you try to record something from the higher quality outputs from a TV, such as S-Video, etc. Those outputs will be disabled when the Broadcast flag is set. So even you have a device that could record, they will not be able to get a signal to record from or get a lower quality signal than the port is capable of providing.
-- Wolfpup
"A man whose circumstances went beyond his control." -- Styx
Even if all of the videophiles in the nation united, it would not compare to the number of people who would buy them anyway because they just don't care.
... telling their family and friends not to buy obnoxious products will most certainly kill them dead.
... if the early adopters are informed enough, and intelligent enough, to make the right choice.
... video and audiophiles have a disproportionate impact on which consumer electronic devices succeed and which ones fail.
Wrong.
Early adopters are critical to a new product's success. If the videophiles, who are the early adopters of HDTV, do not buy the products, there is a good chance few others will.
Remember, not only do enthusiasts buy the expensive ("development-cost recouping") equipment, they are also the ones their friends and families turn to for advice on what to buy and what not to buy. Withholding their willingness to purchase will almost certainly be enough to kill obnoxious new products
This has already happened, with DAT tapes and divx DVD's. It can happen again with crippled HDTV
Don't kid yourself about the potential impact
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I think the DVD industry realizes that too many obstacles between the viewer and the movie will cause widescale hacking of the firmware. As mentioned in another thread, altough DVD companies have the ability to force people to watch a commercial at the beginning of each movie, many are opting out of this temptation. The last DVDs I've watched did not have forced previews or other commercials. My bet isn't on the movie industry playing fair with the public, but miracles happen. My guess is that the advertisers who pay for product placement in the movies are upset at those that pay for product placement on the DVDs. I can't see Hollywood ever doing anything that isn't set against the consumer.
Pretty soon the HDTV experience will be as displeasurable as the DVD experience - my power button will be disabled during the intro, we'll have "FBI" warnings that cannot be bypassed in any manner, the TV will change channels when I turn it on, and I'll have hypertension. And I will give up on TV entirely. Oh, wait, I already have. Thanks you MPAA - it will help people see the world outside of the bland "art" produced nowadays in Hollywood.
What don't they get? The RIAA screwed its customers, so now its customers (and potential ones) are returning the favor. If the music industry hadn't screwed its customers over in the first place, copyright infringment would be a small problem with little import to their profitability. Instead, they made copying into a problem that they can't control - every time a Napster dies, ten Kazaa's rise to take its place.
You'd have figured the MPAA and its members would have learned from this - when you have digital media, your audience will rob you blind unless you treat them well. Copying your work is tedious but trivial - thus if you give your customers a reason to do so, they will. When people can't do what they want with their TV and its content (time-shift, copy to disc for personal use, etc.), then people will find a way around the MPAA's restrictions, and then the MPAA is stuck playing a losing game.
The movie and music companies act like foreign dictators with their own private armies and Swiss bank accounts. Don't they remember what happens to tyrants? (Here's a clue - they don't have to worry about collecting retirement benefits.) The worse the dictators treat their people, the harder it is on them when their time comes up (as it always does). What makes these people think that they are immune to this? Even worse, unlike countries with despots, I can walk away from them. So can everyone else. As the parent said, eventually the movie companies will control 100% of nothing. How are they going to pay off^H^H^H^H^H^Hmake campaign contributions to legislators to protect their (nonexistent) market without any money?
The problem is that full cost will go up. enough people will take the subsidized version that the demand for one at full cost will go down driving the price up, witch will cause more people to go for the subsidized one makeing the price go up on the commercial free one. Eventually the commercial free would be 10x the cost of what it should be and most people will have settled for commercials when they would rather of paid a fair price that demand could have warrented otherwise.
This is why so many things are catering to lowest common denominator. Average quality in many things these days has been moved to a fringe market segment. Decent fair priced items can't seem to compete with cheap crap items due to loss of demand cause the fair price to go up to unfair rates.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
And so far, no one is complaining. So sad.
Are you sure nobody is complaining? Sometimes, people don't "complain", they just silently change their purchasing/consuming habits. Haven't you seen the stories on Slashdot where people are spending time on the web or with video games, taking the time out of their television viewing?
That is even better than complaining.
DiVX, the Circuit City self-destructing DVD technology, in the end wasn't killed by geek complaints. It was killed by people who didn't buy it. (Sometimes, the "sheeple" aren't. "Sheeple" is mostly a term for feeling yourself superior anyhow, but I digress....) DVDs, IMHO, have already crossed the line of what people will tolerate, as evidenced by being forced to back down from forced previews to allowing people to skip them. Don't expect them to get any worse, or if they do, expect rapid punishment exacted on the offending studio by the market.
I'd not bet on it yet but it is a perfectly plausible outcome that by 2006 or 2007, no broadcaster will use the flag, because they can't afford the viewership loss! PVRs aren't going away over the next year. The Internet isn't going away. Video games certainly aren't going away. The optimal time for TV to pull this shit was about four years ago; now too many people have tasted the "forbidden fruit" of interactive media, especially PVRs, and many of them are already choosing to decrease their TV usage, before the TV industry implements the squeezing! (If you've got the disposable funds, buy your representatives a TiVo; that donation will probably have a greater effect then anything else you could do with the money.)
Oh, there's valid reason for concern and I still would like to see a lawsuit that labels this as unconstutitional restriction on our speech, and personally I find attempts to control viewers who aren't sharing effectively unethical. The fight should be fought... but I'm pretty sure that in this arena, we've already won. The TV industry would like to think otherwise, but they are, in the end, dispensible now. Viable alternatives exist and most of them are one-way transitions for the people who try them; the television's only choice now is between declining slowly and maintaining a real but smaller existance, or throwing a hissy fit until we starve them as a society. (No laws necessary; we can't be forced to watch TV barring a sudden UK-like tax law.)
I say, if you don't want me copying or altering TV shows, then don't send them to me. I didn't ask for TV shows to be beamed into my house. Tough shit for them. I'll copy any damn TV show I want, 'cause it's mine once they beam it straight into my house. (In reality, I don't even have a TV antenna, never mind cable/satellite... I only use my TV to watch my DVD backups)
Then it dawned on me that DVD's get ripped and posted to the internet months if not years before the TV version gets Tivo'd and posted. So my question is why are they wasting all this time and money to implement a broadcast flag when it is pretty much irrelevant?
Now I am beginning to wonder what the real use of the flag is for. It isn't for copying because at this point the copies already exist. Maybe it is for tighter control over Tivo, timeshifting, skipping adverts.
'Same speed C but faster'
Yes yes yes, thank GOD there is somebody else out there who feels this way. I'm going on probably 2 TV-free years (with an occassional peak at friends' houses of course, plus the SuperBowl). It's about $70USD/month for digital cable, and I think most morons are willing to pay because they are so happy they can fool with the cool onscreen TV Guide menu; they don't even realize that all that's out there is crap.
Well, almost everything. When I hear about a good show, I watch it on DVD. Like the Sopranos. I can watch the whole season in a few nights. Netflix. $20/month. Only stuff I want. No commercials. There is zero reason to buy into TV anymore.
Can you think of a single FCC action under its Chairman, Michael Powell (nepotistic Colin Powell's son), that has benefitted consumers? Why do we let this clown keep his job?
--
make install -not war
doesn't make bribery legal. It makes it unenforced. There's a HUGE fucking difference.
The fate of all this DRM really lies in the hands of innovators outside the US, because the American public isn't going to bat an eyelash about this. Fifty years ago anybody who even suggested a universal plan to so equip all televisions or radios would have faced angry public protests, boycotts, and probably accusations of being communist. Nowadays such announcements are greeted with [yawn] consumption-as-usual, by people who are mere consumers rather than citizens.
The American public today is an amorphous mass of market share, whose job is to respond to advertising and other stimuli, not to complain or initiate any meaningful action. So don't expect the masses to jump up and say, "NO, I don't want a crippled television!" Expect them to say, "Does it have SurroundSound?" and, "How much is the Big one?"
Baaaaaa, baaaaaaa... Moooooo....
Copy protection is nothing. Digital TV will have nastier surprises in store. All of us are abundantly aware by now that duplicating copyrighted films is illegal, but that doesn't stop some publishers from putting up THREE warnings that the FBI, CIA, Interpol and the KGB will come and get us. With videotape and laserdisc you could always zip through those notices, but not with DVD. Set-top DVD players are semi-literate computers, which means that you can give them instructions like "over-ride all user controls" so that you must sit through it.
Digital TV may do the same thing with ads. All of a sudden your volume, mute, change channel and power-off buttons will not work -- until the ad is over, of course.
Example 1: Fox cancelled Futurama. They cancelled it not because it didn't have enough viewers, but because they could make shows that would have more viewers for the same time slots. If most viewers of Futurama bought the series on DVD, with the DVDs being available at a low enough price ($10 for four episodes (two hours) would fit the budget end of what DVDs currently fetch for movies.), there's little doubt in my mind they could make it profitable. They can't do that, of course, right now, because the market conditions are not right, they don't resemble what I've just described.
Example 2: A more theoretical example is one where a programme cannot be produced today because it would offend advertisers. Advertisers are notoriously conservative and do not want their products associated with programmes widely seen as offensive and/or immoral. Right now, the only way to get such programming on the air is via HBO, but HBO has limits to how much it can show and how much it can fund.
And bye-bye TV, because you can bet that if the TV stations try to force people to watch specific programmes at specific times, viewers will watch less TV. Quality will drop, people will rent more DVDs and again quit it with the cable.Essentially such an act on the part of mainstream TV stations would be an attempt to turn back the clock to the 1970s when, they believed, people could be forced to follow set schedules and be prevented from taping the shows they wanted to watch. The problem is they can't turn back the clock. DVDs already exist. Independent film makers who have nothing to do with TV or the MPAA exist. Force people into the hands of such a competition, and that's exactly where they'll go.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
All I hear when people start talking about TV shows is emptiness and sadness.
It isn't necessarily because what they watch sucks. It is because of the bland reality they are living. Having nothing else to talk about. I'm not a snob; I won't wield the "I'M SOOOOOOO INTELLIGENT AND YOU BOOOORE ME" argument (which is what people immediately think of you when you tell them you don't watch tv). I just want to hear about something real. Do people have hobbies anymore? Do they think anymore?
I like life. I don't need to live vicariously through television. TV is all right once in a blue moon. But it is not the be-all end-all of human existence. Yet somehow, in this culture of ours, it has snuck into our top needs right under air, water, and food!
Come on... This only seems bizarre because we don't have it here in the US. The income tax also seemed ludicrous when it was first created (some would argue it still is ludicrous).
If the movie flops, piracy will again be blamed, even if it is a case of most people not wanting to pay more for a 2 hour "lease" on the content then they would for an indefinite "lease" on it.
No matter what the entertainment industry gets, it will not be enough for them until they control our culture (what's left of it) in its entirety.
The market simply will not bear these outrageous DVD/cable subscription/movie ticket prices any longer, and they are trying to find a scapegoat.
DVDs are going to eventually go the way of CDs, for the exact same reason - we are being made to shell out a purchase price that is at least 5-6 times over the manufacturing costs. It's greed that is killing these people, not piracy.
As to TV shows, basic cable (read: non-dish/digital) is a joke. It's not even worth having any longer. I don't even think of watching cable any longer, when I want to see something, I load it up over my xbox ftp. There's no reason for me to watch american idol 57 when my computer has 3 seasons of family guy on it.
The entertainment industry has to change or die, simple as that. How many times can consumers (we're not even customers anymore) be expected to pay out higher and higher prices for the same content? (you pay for the subscription to HBO so you can see The Sopranos, then you pay a ridiculous amount of money to see it again, ala boxset.)
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner party to the Target Market.
all your base are belong to us.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
In my area (Minneapolis and burbs) Comcast charges about 70 bucks if you only want internet, or 55 dollars if you have internet AND cable. Does that make sense...it doesn't seem like it, but after probing the lady on the phone with about 1,000 questions she finally told me that they want to control the cable market, and not give up subscriptions to people like DirecTV and Dish Network, so by chargin a huge rate for internet unless you have cable too, they increase the number of cable subscriptions drastically.
So there are a bunch of people like me who ahve full cable and never turn on the TV.
I have rarely ever found a TV show interesting, but when I have, I think around 30 dollars for a whole season is a really good price. Unfortunately, one of the only shows I have ever liked is the X-Files, and their seasons go fo rabout $119.00 a piece, and there was 9 of them. I am not spending over $1,000.00 dollars to watch the X-Files. lol. Anything over 50.00 a season is out of control.
However, the good thing about this, as mentioned in the above post, is that networks will have people buying the seasons on DVD in mind when thinking of shows, and then want to make them better so that they can make money off of the DVD sets, so it will probably lead to more quality programming in the end.
If I can watch seasons of a good show and own them forever, and have no commercials to watch, I don't mind paying 30 dollars. If they start to overcharge for the DVD's as X-Files has, I will lose interest quickly, and the pirating of them will go up drastically.
In 5 years streaming media sent over the internet will be the "TV" of choice for anyone under 30.
Between people putting their own content out and those operating "pirate" feeds either in places that the the United States legal system can't touch or in encrypted anonymous trading networks, hollywood will never be able to put that genie back into the bottle.
In the mean time I don't have cable and don't miss it. I refuse to pay $50 -$60 a month for crap!
Every time I am somewhere like a hotel room where I can watch cable I end up flipping through 60 channels and not finding anything I want to watch. Who wants to watch a bunch of stupid sheep's pretend lives when you can go and have a life of your own?
My kids watch video's and DVD's that we either own or have rented and they are happy. They watch about 30 minutes of video a night, none of it broadcast. They watch way less then any of their friends. As a result they have time for ballet, gymnastics, swim team, trick jumprope classes, T-ball, scouts, church groups, sleep overs, visits to the liberary, computers, train spotting, ice skating, riding bikes, bowling, and doing their homework, reading stories to dad.
Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward - T. Edison
I know everybody's different, and I currently pay $52/mo for digital ($44.95 my ass - the FCC charges are non-optional and THEY collect them - they should include that in their quote!). Things I'd miss without cable:
Formula 1 and World Rally
Adult Swim
Discovery and TLC
G4TV
IFC TV (some of the most interesting movies around)
Speed Channel for other assorted motorsport
Little of what I watch can be bought on DVD, and in the case of TLC/Discovery, their DVD's wouldn't be cheaper than cable.
What kills me is that Comcast rapes me for 52 bucks and says it's because of the 100+ channels I get. However, about 60 of them I don't even SEE - I set favorites on the remote and channel-surf that way.
P.S. - I'd turn off the stupid TV Guide infobar, but you can't...Stupid thing keeps getting in the way at inopportune times...
GTRacer
- When is a la carte TV coming?
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Maybe we'll end up with DVD-on-demand. That way, Frye's won't have to waste stock space on old versions of "My Mother the Car". But you could still buy it, by choosing it at a terminal, and waiting a few minutes while they burn the disks for you.
>Yeah one can make decent home movies and wedding videos... maybe even videos of some live performances and sporting events (well, some sporting events...)
I can't believe I left out porn, the driver of the Internet and popular culture in general...
Hmmm, you know what?
That sounds almost like a library...
I wonder if the MPAA will try to wipe out such evil criminal enterprises as that?
I believe the term you're looking for is "Legal Bribery of a Public Elected Official" - aka lobbying.
Everytime the RIAA or MPAA comes up with another hardware scheme of protecting their content, determined hackers always circumvent it in short order. So far they've failed to protect CDs, DVDs, even satellite signals. They're not likely to succeed for long with this new idea, either. You get a digital tuner with the new technology, flash the firmware with hacked ROM and do what you want, per usual.
I don't buy it. Set the broadcast flag so I can't TiVo my shows anymore and I'm still not going to buy the DVD's, I'm less likely to because I won't "get into" the show in the first place. Major networks will have to rely on me remembering to be home and tuned to their channel when that show who's commercial or write up caught my eye two weeks ago; trust me, that aint going to happen. Instead, I'll go back to watching the discovery channels, FoodTV, Infomercials, oddball cartoons, etc., like I did in the days before Tivo. I'll bitch about their repetivness, though I imagine its a lot better now that there's 40 different Discovery channels. No, if anything this will increase teh need for cable, because I need more options when *I* watch TV, not during that 3 hour band that TV exec's consider "Prime Time". Fun stuff like Myth Buster's, or Iron Chef, or those insane knife auctioning guys (Havent watched them hawk their "collector's knife sets" since I got Tivo).
Here's my idea. If the MPAA is concerned about piracy because of HDTV, don't show the damned movie on TV. If I want to watch a movie these days, I go to block buster, or I'll buy the DVD. Or I watch it on HBO. The damned pirates will just rent the DVD and rip it from there anyway, I doubt they are concerned about getting those last bits of resolution an specially preped HDTV movie copy (1024i vs 480i, I see no reason to convert a 24fps movie to 60fps video) before they compress it down to VCD quality anyway. So unless they movie studios are planning on abandoning the installed base of DVD owners the broadcast flag does them almost 0 good anyway. I imagine given a choice between paying for technology to cripple their TV viewing habits and not watching the content of overly paranoid movie studios, 80% of Americans would opt to pass on the extra content and watch my Big Fat Obnoxious Bride
And here's the kicker. This technology has already been rolled out; check out the MiniDisc player. Now, check out its secret implications: Record your Wedding toast on you're digital MiniDisc recorder, and it will do you the favor of enabling the "do not copy" bit for you. After all, it can't tell that you own all the rights to your speech, so to be safe it assumes you don't (else you could make unlimited digital copies after having gone through just 1 D>A>D conversion, and that would be downright un-American.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
A DVD collection of "Dharma and Greg" will meet those requirements quite easily.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If libraries did not exist, and you suggested them today, people would think you were a "communist" and you'd be called a "thief".
Reduce the size of the pie, and the incentive to bribe government will disappear. Lobbying groups only attempt to bribe government because they know it works.