Battlestar Galactica Available for Download

blankgm writes "The SciFi channel has made Episode '33' (Season 1 Episode 1) of Battlestar Galactica available for free, uncut and commercial free, online at SciFi.com. Also available are deleted scenes from the series. Is this a ploy by the SciFi channel to grow a viewer base as well as loyalty, or an extremely bold move since the series isn't even out on DVD yet? Hopefully it's both. In either case, I believe this is unprecedented, especially since season 1 hasn't even concluded here in the states. Bravo SciFi. Keep 'em coming!"

Comments

For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks awfully like streaming to me...

Re:For download?

[sprlmnl]

yeah, and blasted Real to boot.

Re:For download?

[Lisandro]

Seriously. BG doesn't air where i live, and i keep hearing about how good the show is - so the idea of watching it for free and legally appealed to me a lot. I hate RealMedia with passion though.

This is still a remarkable thing - i just hoped it was something i could watch outside a tiny window.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

"i just hoped it was something i could watch outside a tiny window"

If you're watching it on a PC, you can right-click and select 'Play in Realplayer Theater Mode' - blocky and aliased, but at least it's full screen.

Re:For download?

[sgant]

Could have sworn that this was posted here at Slashdot a few days ago.

Nah, couldn't have been. Must have read that somewhere else. The crack squad of editors here at Slashdot wouldn't let something slip through the cracks and be posted twice...right?

Guys?

Re:For download?

[luna69]

Perhaps I'm confused, but it's my understanding that it's NOT specifically illegal to record, and trade, television shows, provided that no money changes hands. There is a difference between selling TV shows (which would clearly be illegal) and sharing recordings (which is akin to recording a show on your VCR and letting a friend borrow/copy the tape).

I managed to grab the whole series, through ep.13, from a torrent sharing site. Watched every single one of them on a single sunday several weeks back.

And people are telling you right: it IS a great series. Best thing to come along since Firefly, IMHO. Better in many respects, even, though it pains me to say it (being the Whedon fan that I am).

Re:For download?

[Lisandro]

Ohh, goodie! I really liked Firefly...

I'll download it off BT if that's the case - i'm no saint, and i have downloaded/download my fair share off BT/P2P, but i end up buying what i like. What i've seen / readed about BG so far sounds extremely promising.

Re:For download?

[chronicon]

If you hate RealPlayer for the ads, get the "crap-free" BBC version. This blog entry has the details.

Or just jump over to the BBC now and get it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp_install.shtml

Available for Linux, Mac, Solaris, and Windows. Enjoy ad-free RealPlayer today! ;-)

Re:For download?

[timeOday]

I don't like "this is a dupe" posts. I don't see the point, since by definition if you didn't already know, you don't care (because it isn't a dupe for you).

Re:For download?

[ecloud]

Well has anybody ripped and mirrored this yet?

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

Zonk, is that you?

Re:For download?

[Minna Kirai]

Perhaps I'm confused, but it's my understanding that it's NOT specifically illegal to record, and trade, television shows, provided that no money changes hands.

Yes, you are confused. It's not specifically illegal, but dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury isn't specifically illegal either. One is a kind of copyright infringement, and the other is a kind of murder, and those two things are illegal.

Whether you earn money directly is irrelevant, theoretically. (Exchanging cash money isn't really a factor for many definitions of criminality- besides prostitution). Practically, the exchange of money creates further legal jeopardy, because it leaves an undeniable trail of evidence, and the appearance of greed will make a jury less sympathetic to you.

Even recording for your own use is a copyright infringement, except that it has been found to be a permissible Fair Use. However, if you watch it more than once, that's illegal again.

and sharing recordings (which is akin to recording a show on your VCR and letting a friend borrow/copy the tape).

Lending a VHS tape to a friend is illegal too, although it's such a minor offense that no one would bother to press charges. Because it's a slow process of physical transmission, you are unable to commit nearly as many illegal acts as a megabit P2P operation can. Digital data transmission renders the infringement fast enough to endanger the TV-advertising revenue model.

Re:For download?

[Linuxathome]

In linux, download with:

mplayer -dumpstream <.rm file>

File will be saved as "stream.dump".

I believe you can also install mplayer-plugin for mozilla and have a setting to save all temporary file streams...here it is, use the option "keep-download=1".

Re:For download?

[luna69]

Well, provided that you are correct, then I'm going to have to say that I don't give a rat's ass.

My recording/watching/sharing of media that has already been shown publicly is NOT the same thing as "dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury", as is abundantly clear. These shows are offered to anyone with the hardware to view them. If my recording of a television show is "fair use", then watching a downloaded copy and recording the original myself and then watching it are the same thing with the exception of who did the recording. And regardless of what the law specifically says, I say it's entirely fair and will act accordingly.

And before you go talking about avoiding commercials, let me ask you: if the downloaded copies of these retained the original commercials, would it matter to you (or the law)? No? Then it's a bogus issue.

I'm not going into a movie theatre and taping a movie, I'm watching shows recorded from what are essentially freely available transmissions. And copyright lawyers aside, I'll keep doing so, with a clean conscience.

Re:For download?

[rbanffy]

dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury isn't specifically illegal either

They will probably float. It should be quite impossible to drown in liquid mercury. I am not sure what other side effects may arise ;-)

Re:For download?

[IANAAC]

Yes, you are confused. It's not specifically illegal, but dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury isn't specifically illegal either. One is a kind of copyright infringement, and the other is a kind of murder, and those two things are illegal.

Sorry, you lost any credibility right there. How can you possibly compare the two things? You can't, unless you're the MPAA, which only seems to understand fear-mongering. Wouldn't it be nice if logic were actually used instead of fear (and mesunderstanding, I might add)?

Re:For download?

[einolu]

You are awsome, I knew something like this should exist but didnt know where to find it. Thank ya kindly-

Re:For download?

[Tassach]

Lending a VHS tape to a friend is illegal too,

Bullshit. It's fair use.

In your twisted view of reality, libraries would be illegal.

Re:For download?

[MindStalker]

The problem with liquid mercury is that even a quick dip fills up your skin pours and this your skin can't breath. Death quickly follows this.

Re:For download?

[Antony-Kyre]

I strongly dislike Real Player too. Especially after accidently installing that Google toolbar I think. So I finally uninstalled it.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/06/153525 0&from=rss concerning MXF would be nice. How that would work with current players, I don't know, but maybe someone could explain it to me.

Re:For download?

[acroyear]

at least Real works on linux (most of the time). compare that to Windows Media, iTunes protected AAC, Quicktime, liquid audio, or a host of other formats for which there is no (and will never be any) official linux support.

i find it interesting that its been over 1 year since the annoucement that Microsoft would support WMA on Linux, and nothing has come of it since. To quote Shakespeare, "and lastly, they are lying knaves.".

Re:For download?

[eaolson]

The problem with liquid mercury is that even a quick dip fills up your skin pours and this your skin can't breath. Death quickly follows this.

Um, no. Your skin does not need to breathe. Only insects get oxygen through their skin. (For lack of a better term.) If this were true, you'd die any time you went swimming.

Urban legends page: http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/goldfing.htm

Re:For download?

[chip of known space]

Nothing of value to say here except "still love the show keep up the good work"..........

Too bad it's not in another format than Real... uhg.

Re:For download?

[JNighthawk]

Congrats to you and the mod who decided you were insightful to not understand the concept of an analogy.

Re:For download?

[JNighthawk]

Sorry, but I don't believe it is.

Re:For download?

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

Of course, mercury is a toxic metal. Such a dip is likely to be fatal (but not as fast as suffocation/asphixia)

Re:For download?

[joNDoty]

True, your skin does not need to breathe, but that doesn't mean that it can't. Insects are not the only animals that breathe through their skin. Amphibians most notably, but even certain bats get a reasonable amount of O2 through the skin. In fact (I didn't believe this when I first heard it) humans can breathe through their skin when skydiving!

See the percentages here

Re:For download?

[TheGuano]

Bullshit. While direct exposure to Merc is not good for you in any sense, old issues of NatGeo have pictures of people handling liquid mercury (and even a photo of an ore miner sitting on top of a pool of liquid mercury - it's that dense). Mercury doesn't "fill your pores" - it's very cohesive and your hand is dry when you lift it out of a pool.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to systematicly feed babies to mutated puppies. But thats just me.

Re:For download?

[hazem]

"Media Player Classic" is a great alternative to quicktime, realplayer, and WMP. It's GNU, and works on about 90% of the media I've tried:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

Full sets of codecs for it are at:
http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/

Re:For download?

[joNDoty]

dipping babies in vats of liquid mercury isn't specifically illegal either

Liquid mercury as opposed to... gaseous mercury? That would be at least 675F at standard pressure. My skin is burning just imagining it! Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at STP.

And let's not even get into how one would dip a baby into a solid.

Re:For download?

[cpt kangarooski]

I'm afraid you are confused. It is illegal, except for those specific instances of downloading or uploading where it might happen to fall within an exception to copyright law. There is an important difference between lawfully recording it, and loaning out that specific copy to someone else and instead just putting it on a server for other people to download.

Re:For download?

[cpt kangarooski]

Even recording for your own use is a copyright infringement, except that it has been found to be a permissible Fair Use. However, if you watch it more than once, that's illegal again.

No. Where the hell are you getting this, anyway? Private performance is not part of copyright; you can do it as much as you want.

So if you lawfully record it, i.e. if the infringing recording is noninfringing per fair use, then watch it all you like. (Of course, watching it a lot might indicate that it was a commercial substitute for something else, which plays into whether it was ever a fair use to begin with....)

Lending a VHS tape to a friend is illegal too,

Not if the copy was lawfully made. If it was lawfully made, it is then eligible for the first sale exception at section 109. Again though, this can have an affect on the lawfulness of the fair use analysis regarding the recording itself.

Re:For download?

[cpt kangarooski]

Bullshit. It's more likely first sale, if the tape was lawfully made to begin with. Only if that didn't apply would you ever resort to claiming that it was fair use.

Re:For download?

[cpt kangarooski]

If my recording of a television show is "fair use", then watching a downloaded copy and recording the original myself and then watching it are the same thing with the exception of who did the recording.

No, that's not necessarily true. Fair use requires a fairly complex analysis for each time it is alleged. While one can of course analogize taping off of the air (which may be fair sometimes, but is not necessarily always fair) to downloading (ditto), there's nothing to indicate that the analyses will come out the same. It may very well be that to a court, who did the recording is important.

I'm watching shows recorded from what are essentially freely available transmissions. And copyright lawyers aside, I'll keep doing so, with a clean conscience.

I'm a lawyer that works in the copyright field, but don't let me stop you. I don't really care all that much.

Re:For download?

[rblancarte]

There are alternatives

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm

The one I recommend in this case is Real Alternative.

RonB

Re:For download?

[anagama]

The Firefly influence in the CGI is obvious. Full disclosure: I'm a Firefly nut -- I personally don't think a better sci-fi in video (as opposed to book) format has ever been made. When I saw the CGI in the opening scenes of this BG episode, it was obvious that the CGI philosphy from Firefly is being used here ... and that's a good thing. Rather than artifically ultra-smooth pans with the camera, the CGI is made as if the scenes were recorded by someone holding a camera from inside the action. It gives the shots a flavor of authenticity. And that authenticity comes straight out of the techniques used in Firefly, Thank you Firefly ... again.

I've never seen battlestar galactica (well, I saw the old one circa CHIPS when I was a kid). I've watched few minutes of this episode and I'm going to finish it - so far it looks like a better show than I expected. I'll give it a shot on DVD when it comes out. My skepticism was vastly reduced by the firefly influence. I can only hope that carries over into the scripting and acting.

Re:For download?

[neurojab]

Even recording for your own use is a copyright infringement, except that it has been found to be a permissible Fair Use.

Copyright is about restricting the right to copy works of art. Recording telivision shows for home use was judged to NOT infringe on copyright by the supreme court in 1984 (sony vs Universal Studios).

However, if you watch it more than once, that's illegal again.

What? If I have a copy that I legally obtained, where in copyright law does it state that I can't view it multiple times? I believe the supreme court would disagree with you there as well.

Lending a VHS tape to a friend is illegal too.

Unless the lending also involves copying, I believe you're wrong again.

P2P is different in that copying does occur. I have a copy of something, and if I publish it via P2P, I retain my copy, and someone else gets a copy as well.

Re:For download?

[xsfo]

You know what this means...
Mecha Shiva!

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there's a lot of nonsense in there, too. Lending a VHS tape to a friend isn't illegal, unless you know that friend intends to copy it. And no, watching more than once isn't illegal to my knowledge - only giving it out willy-nilly. IANAL, but clearly neither are you.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you're on Mac, right-click and choose Play in RealPlayer, then go to Play -> Full Screen.

Re:For download?

[harlows_monkeys]

Even recording for your own use is a copyright infringement, except that it has been found to be a permissible Fair Use

If it is Fair Use, it is not infringement.

Furthermore, you've overlooked the first sale doctine, 17 USC 109: "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord".

When you record a broadcast, that is a lawfully made copy that you own. It seems to me that first sale says you can sell it.

Your comments on lending to friends, etc., are simply nonsense.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but there is almost no point. The quality sucks (tiny) and it is encoded with that ass Real codec.

Re:For download?

[Zaak]

In fact (I didn't believe this when I first heard it) humans can breathe through their skin when skydiving!

From http://www.dur.ac.uk/freefall.club/faq.php:

This was posted as a joke on a skydiving FAQ years ago. The author thought everyone would realise it was a joke because it was such a silly concept, but actually managed to convince quite a lot of people that this was true! Indeed, it is far from the truth - the human body was simply not designed this way! You can breathe perfectly normally in freefall as long as you relax and don't seize up.

Yes, humans get 2% of their oxygen through their skin. No, that number doesn't increase while skydiving.

TTFN

Re:For download?

[BrynM]

i just hoped it was something i could watch outside a tiny window.

In the player window, right click on the video image and select "Play in RealPlayer Theater Mode". Fullscreen. Not better resolution, but fullscreen or windowed normal RealPlayer. Hit escape to go to a normal window.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

What ads? Seriously, I've never seen ads with Realplayer.

(Except maybe on movie sites where they show you trailers of other movies you could watch trailers from, that sort of thing.)

Re:For download?

[joNDoty]

I agree that there's nothing preventing you from using your lungs when skydiving. I also think you're right that someone posted the skin-breathing fact as a joke, but you're wrong in thinking that the percentage doesn't change when skydiving.

Absorbing O2 through the skin is a result of diffusion, the same concept that allows the alveoli in our lungs to pass O2 into the blood. The rate of diffusion, or net flux, of oxygen into our skin is increased as the concentration of oxygen outside the skin is increased. Now even though there is slightly less pressure at higher altitudes, the fact that you are traveling over 100mph creates a much greater pressure against your skin than if you were standing on the ground. Add to this the fact that the oxygen supply isn't depleted as if the air around you were stagnant.

I would guess that your skin could absorb enough oxygen at this speed to make holding your breath (for the 15 seconds or so before you pull the chute) completely natural. And technically, once the O2 concentration in your lungs has reached equilibrium with that of your blood, 100% of your oxygen intake is through your skin. So that percentage would increase if holding your breath while skydiving.

Re:For download?

[reezle]

Yes. Quicktime does one basic job, and it does it pretty well. Realmedia bogs down every computer I've ever seen it installed on, and is trying to be the 'everything media' application once it's in your system. (Plus maybe a download helper, and a few other non-media things, too)
It's bloatware, and I'm glad to see people deciding it's just not worth it to hamstring their PC in order to see some of the very few clips that come realplayer-only.

And WTF is up with the stupid/lazy comment? If the software were doing what it is supposed to, you'd just click the play button. Is it your viewpoint that if people don't work through buggy bloated software for their videoclips, they are just dumb slackers who don't deserve the video goodness?

Re:For download?

[DJCF]

Like you, BSG is not available near me. Also like you, I've heard it's mustard. One of the monitors in my multimon setup is a TV, and the graphics card automaticly full-screens video.

Bloody useful, that!

Re:For download?

[deke_kun]

Not the philosophy. Its actually the same production group that did the CGI for firefly. They are based in canada I believe, but the name escapes me at the moment. But yes, it looks the same, because its done by the same people.

Re:For download?

[bbc]

Fair Use is a legal defense that you use _after_ the infringement.

Re:For download?

[Lisandro]

I just saw the first chapter (from the site - i couldn't get it to zoom it fullscreen with Linux Realplayer).

It's good. Very. You'll have to read a bit of what's happening in the very beggining, as otherwise the story won't make a lot of sense from the start, but it carries on just fine after that. Lots of very interesting characters, locations, and, as you said, CGI shots. The characters are great, specially Dr. Baltar (James Callis) - i can't spoil it, but he's part of much what's going on, in a rather clever way.
The "muffled" sound of the CGI space shots was clever as well. It doesn't go as far as making space mute (like it should), but somehow gives that feeling.

I liked it a lot. I'll download the rest - but looks like a must-buy-DVD so far.

Re:For download?

[ArmorFiend]

Its not ad-free. Anything in Real format is itself an advertisement for Real. I'm not buyin'!

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, another message from the pro copyright infringment brigade.

Re:For download?

[The_Dougster]

Offtopic, but here's the scoop on mercury.

Liquid metallic mercury isn't really a big deal. It's not really absorbed into the skin or body while in that form. The main problems are mercury vapor and water-soluable salts of mercury. If you ingested some of it it would presumably react with the hydrochloric acid in your stomach forming mercury chloride which could then be absorbed into your tissues. Symptoms of mercury poisoning are supposedly somewhat like schizophenia. Hatmakers used to use mercury salts to dye feathers and such, and in the days of yore many were likely suffering from mercury poisoning. Thus the phrase "Mad as a hatter" refers to this condition.

If you break a thermometer and the mercury spills into your carpet or cracks in your floor, it is quite difficult to clean it up, usually you need a mercury sucker (squeeze bottle used in reverse), which is what all laboratories should have around. Once you have liquid mercury in the cracks of your floor it slowly evaporates, emitting toxic gaseous mercury into the area, so spill prevention and quick cleanups are essential.

Water-soluable mercury salts (and other heavy metal salts) can be absorbed into the skin so you should always use gloves if you are working with them. Once you have absorbed some heavy metals in your body, they persist for a long time but are slowly eliminated through hair growth and other means. The use of "chelating compounds" can be used to try and remove it mercury and other heavy metals from the body in cases where the poisoning is sufficiently advanced. In most cases, heavy metal poisoning causes strange and insidious chronic mental and physiological effects rather than being acutely fatal.

I don't recommend playing around with liquid mercury because of the danger of spilling some. If you have a jar of it, pour some water on top of the mercury to keep the mercury from forming vapor, and keep it in a plastic container so that if you accidentally drop it it hopefully won't shatter.

Re:For download?

[Grishnakh]

i find it interesting that its been over 1 year since the annoucement that Microsoft would support WMA on Linux, and nothing has come of it since.

I've been able to play WMA and WMV on Linux for ages with no problem at all! Of course, I'm using MPlayer and codecs I downloaded from Hungary or Poland or someplace like that...

It really doesn't matter much to me if they ever do release an official player for Linux; it'd probably suck ass just like Realplayer. Why bother with corporate-owned players that show you ads, and only work (sometimes) with a small number of codecs, when there's two excellent media players (MPlayer and Xine) which work with ALL codecs?

If MS wanted to do something genuinely useful, and which wouldn't take any effort at all on their part, they could just release their codecs (binary form is fine) with a license that allows their free and legal dis.tribution as long as they're unchanged.

Re:For download?

[luna69]

> Great, another message from the pro copyright
> infringment brigade.

Quite the contrary. I do not "pirate", and pay for things that have price tags. The only "free" mp3's in my collection are those which were offered as such by the artists. I use Netflix to preview DVD's, and if I like them, I buy them. Back when "Buffy" was on the air, I downloaded copies from usenet to watch, but ONLY if they hadn't been released for sale - when they were, I BOUGHT them. When BG is released for sale, I will buy the whole damn series, happily - as I did with Firefly.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

.......or Apple realeasing the codecs for Quicktime.
They are tighter fucks than Microsoft in my book; take and give NOTHING back.

Re:For download?

[Grishnakh]

.......or Apple realeasing the codecs for Quicktime.
They are tighter fucks than Microsoft in my book; take and give NOTHING back.

You're definitely wrong about that one. Yeah, they've been stingy about their codecs, but they blame that on Sorenson (Sorensen?), who actually owns the codecs.

But with Safari, the KDE folks have mentioned many times how Apple has made improvements to the KHTML renderer (used in Konqueror) and submitted them back to KDE. I believe they've used some code from other KDE projects in this way also.

And of course, they use the open-source Darwin kernel for OS X. No one else seems to use it now, but there's nothing stopping them from adopting it: www.darwin.org.

Re:For download?

[Anonymous Coward]

download... not. stream yeah. nice too get it though. :)

Re:For download?

[anagama]

"Philosophy" was probably the wrong word but you know how it is - these things just get typed out with whatever comes to mind. "Style" would be much more fitting. In any case, this group is really good - I'd love see more of their work in the future. I'll have to look them up.

Re:For download?

[Ilgaz]

If you use realplayer 10 (latest) you can right click and switch the fullscreen directly from the embedded stream.

I think realplayer 10 is better than old version so if your system supports it, better to upgrade.

Re:For download?

[Ilgaz]

"What ads? Seriously, I've never seen ads with Realplayer."

ssh, they speak about realplayer 8 while its now opensource helix based real 10.

Real is spyware and has ads! :P I mean, slashdot people says so.

Re:For download?

[acroyear]

I was referring specifically to legal (in america), and SUPPORT, not just "someone reverse-engineered it". as in, having a legal license to use software that plays those files. right now, there is no legal license recognized by American law (the foreign downloads don't count).

i was also specifically referring to pointing out how microsoft tapped into the vaporware technique (again). by promising WMA (and by extension, DRM) support for linux, they put apple on the punch to linux-ify quicktime and protected aac or lose out on a microsoft market, AND they put real on the spot because the announcement implied that legal DRM would come to linux through microsoft -- moving more media suppliers making their format choice to go to microsoft instead of real for their distribution.

it was, and remains until i see otherwise, a total bluff call on their part -- a 1-2 punch to hurt both Apple and Real, and never to "help linux" in any way. if they *really* wanted to help linux, the player announced 14 months ago would have been released by now.

Re:For download?

[Grishnakh]

I agree completely that it was a bluff on MS's part. As usual, MS is playing dirty games instead of acting honorably.

I was just saying that if they wanted to give WM[AV] support to Linux, all they have to do is provide the codecs under license. MPlayer and Xine already use the codecs, just like any other player. It may be reverse engineering, but it works just fine, and I imagine the API interfaces aren't that difficult to find out, since any 3rd party that wants to write a codec usuable in WMP would have to know the interface as well. MPlayer and Xine have simply written players that use the same interfaces. So again, if MS actually had any honorable intentions, they could just let us legally use the codecs. We don't need support, or their player.

Re:For download?

[acroyear]

looking back, i think the fact that apple didn't call their bluff is the main reason M$ didn't bother to actually go through with it.

Re:For download?

[acroyear]

well, i don't doubt that if there WAS a microsoft player for linux, Xine and company would just recode their own tool to use the microsoft codec (and DRM code) for maximum compatibility over the reverse-engineered stuff. this is, in effect, what Xine did for Real, once the Real codec binary was released as part of the Helix code base.

still, in the end it all comes down to DRM, obnoxiously artificial limitations of the technology to keep the RIAA and MPAA happy (e.g., iTunes not being able to have more than one machine act as the "library" for an iPod). as long as linux has the "everything is free, even when it isn't" public perception, its an anethma to the entertainment industry's constant desire to increase control; as such, they'll never support a DRM scheme that includes linux support in it, so WMA and iTunes-protected AAC HAVE to stay proprietary and officially non-linux.

to support the stuff on linux is to imply that they're giving away the industry's "property" and to hollywood, they'd call that betrayal and your multi-million business model is over with in a heartbeat.

even though we know that just giving us the binaries doesn't mean we'll ALL use that to crack the codes and give it all away (like its not hard to make a "clean" digital master just by going down one analog generation or trapping the digital signal going to the sound card), hollywood won't see it that way. control is everything to them, in spite of the multi-billion dollar failures it breeds.

Re:For download?

[Minna Kirai]

No. Where the hell are you getting this, anyway?

Yes. I get it from title 17, obviously. Private performance has nothing to do with it, as recording a show off the air is not a "performance" in any way. It is an act of "reproduce"tion, which infringes title 17, chapter 1, section 106, paragraph 1. (Unless an exception exists under section 107, just like I already said)

Not if the copy was lawfully made. If it was lawfully made, it is then eligible for the

The strong contextual implication was that the VHS in question was recorded yourself, rather than purchased in a sale.

The only form of recording television that has been explicitly declared legal is "time shifting", although other kinds may be Fair Use too.

Re:For download?

[Minna Kirai]

where in copyright law does it state that I can't view it multiple times?

The 1984 case between Sony and Universal. You cited it, so maybe you should read it. That case found that "time shifting", and only "time shifting", was a legal use. That means that you tape the show once, and watch it later ONCE, and WITHOUT fast-forwarding through commercials.

Anything else, such as multiple views, sharing with friends, or commercial skipping, is outside the scope of that decision.

Re:For download?

[Minna Kirai]

When you record a broadcast, that is a lawfully made copy that you own. It seems to me that first sale says you can sell it.

No. Maybe you need to understand more of what "Fair Use" requires. Two of the considerations for qualifying as Fair Use are the nature of the use, and how that usage effects the market for the published work.

Whether or not your copies are protected fair use depends upon what you actually do with those copies. Videorecord it for yourself to watch later- fine. But since the fact that only you would watch it was one of the factors that allowed you to legally create the copy at all, you do not enjoy the "first sale" right to sell that copy.

(Or rather, if you later perform an unfair act like sale, the previous copy becomes retroactively infringing...)

Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

CowboyNeal? More like CowboyDupe!

Nice

[TheKidWho]

Way to go SciFi Channel!

Now just go ahead and buy Enterprise and I will love you!

Re:Nice

[TheKidWho]

Too bad its only 15fps... Otherwise it would be perfect.

Re:Nice

[joshdick]

Yeah, SciFi has got an overall great website up for Battlestar. I especially like watching deleted scenes and reading the writer's blog.

Re:Nice

[Bhalash]

How do you view those files under Linux?

Re:Nice

[lanc]

Have a look at this site.

HTH

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Being for Sci-Fi and liking Enterprise is like being for the GPL and hating copyright.

Re:A shame

[Avyakata]

Wait...that's a shame..?

welcome change!

[Anonymous Coward]

Under my anonymous guise I for one welcome our new sci-fi overlords! and say thankyou for the pleasure of first post!

Re:welcome change!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh.

This rules

[nnnneedles]

No, wait. Streaming only?

This sucks.

Re:This rules

[squarooticus]

If it can be streamed, then it can be downloaded. Someone will quickly point out the way to do this.

Re:This rules

[haluness]

mplayer -dumpstream STREAM_URL

Re:This rules

[Anonymous Coward]

bash-3.00$ mplayer -dumpstream http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/33_full_episode/in dex.html
MPlayer 1.0pre6-3.3.4 (C) 2000-2004 MPlayer Team
CPU: Advanced Micro Devices Athlon 4 /Athlon MP/XP Palomino (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 3DNow 3DNowEx SSE

Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Playing http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/33_full_episode/in dex.html.
Resolving www.scifi.com for AF_INET...
Connecting to server www.scifi.com[66.77.88.100]:80 ...
Cache size set to 320 KBytes
Connected to server: www.scifi.com
Stream not seekable!
Core dumped ;)

Exiting... (End of file)
bash-3.00$

Re:This rules

[haluness]

Sorry!

wget STREAM_URL .
mplayer `head -n 1 DOWNLOADED_URL`

(The actual stream URL is in the file that the link points to)

But it still does'nt play - I on't know why

Re:This rules

[ArmchairGenius]

Yeah streaming seems foolish to me - just cost them more bandwidth I would think as opposed to people sharing it from their own servers.

But other than that I think this is a brilliant marketing move. People who wanted to get it "illegally" probably could do so anyway - but by doing this they will in fact grow their viewer base - and probably sell more DVD sets as well.

Very smart move in my opinion.

Re:This rules

[Oopsz]

wget supports the RTS protocol?

Re:This rules

[LiquidCoooled]

They also get to gauge the response better.
By letting them see every time its watched (for now forgetting about the few stream ripper ppl around), they can go back to their bosses with some hard figures about demand.

Fingers crossed that this is the start of subscribing (yes I would pay) to entire series direct from the web legally :)

Re:This rules

[Zorilla]

Most streams also have a metafile which contains the real location of the stream. The idea is that you view the text of the metafile, take the URL from that and use it as the command argument in MPlayer.

Re:This rules

[ralphclark]

yeah I tried:

mplayer -dumpstream 'pnm://rx-wes-sea138.rbn.com/farm/*/usanet/usanet/ g2demand/scifi/battlestar/33/33.rm'

it dumped the file OK, and viewing the header it appears to be of the right type but I can't even get realplayer to play it, nor mplayer, kaffeine etc.

Anybody know why?

Re:This rules

[Ishin]

The point behind streaming isn't "they can measure how much it gets watched" or anything of the like, the point is control over distribution.

They think that we can't get a copy of it (which we can) and therefore they can control the release of the video by taking it away whenever they feel like it (yes, it's a fallacy, but that's how people think, they want control over you, and this is the one way they comfortably feel like they have it)

Re:This rules

[NoMercy]

Watched the whole thing, wont spoil it.. resolution was ok just below what my 14" tv gives at full screen, contrast was dubious, no serious glitches, no bugffering delays.

The 5 years it'll take till its on terestial brittish TV - Unacceptable.

Re:This rules

[Locutus]

I looked at the resulting stream and it looks like it's not THE stream since it's just a repeating section. Or atleast that's what it looked like in vi.

I've not been able to get either RealPlayer or HelixPlayer to play the original URL even after installing both just now. Their website says rtps is supported in Helix but not Real.

BTW, it really pisses me off we can't purchase channels from the cable monopolies. Paying $25/mon for 2 watchable channels is a rip off IMO.

LoB

Re:This rules

[Locutus]

I'm all for an online subscription system for HQ video. As I mentioned in another thread, our cable company will not sell individual channels even when all we want is Discovery and SciFi. They want way too much for the bulk worthless junk that comes with it.

Getting the feed directly from the provider would be great as long as they didn't force MS DRM or some other viewing restrictions.

LoB

Re:This rules

[jeanicinq]

That site to stream data over the event of the slashdot effect just survived. It's good. It's real good.

Re:This rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the header bytes, they've found a way to deliberately mangle the file such that while RealPlayer can play it, it's a far enough of a deviation from specification that stops others from knowing why.

Re:This rules

[ralphclark]

BTW, it really pisses me off we can't purchase channels from the cable monopolies. Paying $25/mon for 2 watchable channels is a rip off IMO.

Pretty much the same situation in the UK, as BskyB has not only a monopoly on satellite TV but also controls most of the content available to cable. i.e. there is no effective competition. Prices are high, bundling is not consumer friendly, and you can only access the BskyB service via licenced hardware, i.e. no satellite PVRs apart from BskyB's own braindamaged offering and definitely no PCI DVB cards.

I explained this recently as the failure of government regulators and was modded down as flamebait. I've no idea why though.

Re:This rules

[Ilgaz]

Ever wondered why they offer stream only?

Maybe they are experimenting magnatunes.com type licensing stuff. Well, as tens of gui utilities exist, I am not blaming the wget using guys of course.

I'd pay to stream all sci fi channel on demand if existed. Hope they are experimenting how to make money from the downloads and offer service. So, my type of people can subscribe to "sci fi plus" etc.

Amazing is, there exists Real superpass and Playboy is there. I am showing Playboy as example since it is the scheme SciFi needs. Why doesn't scifi channel speak with real as they use the server already and make money from people like me? I'd pay $10 a month instead of setting up $2000 or more Satellite. (I am in Europe)

Re:This rules

[Ilgaz]

If everyone streamed the thing and didn't offer it on p2p in some geek format, the suits in Sci Fi channel would get impressed and sit with real networks to make sci fi real superpass.

Its already been done. Playboy the p2p paranoid offers itself on real superpass scheme (seperate money of course).

Isn't it funny to pay $25 for a damn copper cable coming to your house while you have 2mbit (guessing) bandwidth?

People hating real, wmedia, drm are keeping cable monopolies in business. Its same everywhere. I work at a tv and we can't simply offer 56k stream even over the web since distributors of series goes nuts. They go nuts about DRM enabled technologies imagine the plain mpeg, ogg etc.

Not a download

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not avaliable for 'download' - it is a streaming Real Media file. Eww.

Re:Not a download

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to escape realplayer, google for "Real alternative codec". Install it and you'll be able to stream Real through any media player on windows.

Dupe!

[Anonymous Coward]

This was already covered in the announcement for the 2nd season of BSG...

First post

[goodzilla]

i like the idea of the free sample :)
not an original one but nice that it comes to TV too

Geez

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda takes the fun out of pirating when you can download stuff legitimately. Way to go, SciFi. Thanks a lot.

Re:Geez

[Sentry21]

I'd never gotten around to watching the series, but now that my interest is piqued, I've decided to hit up bittorrent to continue watching this fantastic show.

A little ironic, to be sure, but it's mindshare - now when it comes out on DVD, I might buy it and watch it again, instead of just downloading DVD rips and watching for the first time.

Re:Geez

[Tassach]

Bah, it's still not as good as what you can get off Bittorrent. 15fps in a propriatary format? No thanks, I'll take something which I can burn to VCD and watch on my TV, thanks.

Of course, converting a PAL .avi into an NTSC .mpg in (S)VCD format took time as well as some playing around with transcode. I'd have paid a buck or two per episode to be able to just download an iso I could burn directly to disk.

direct link

[castlec]

the show

33 or 1

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that everybody is watching the show, as nobody is posting. Now answer this question... is it episode 33 or 1? I'm a little confused.

Re:33 or 1

[calibanDNS]

The first regular episode of the new series is titled '33'. Every time the fleet, lead by the Galactica, makes a faster than light jump to get away from the Cylons, the Cylons show up 33 minutes later forcing another FTL jump. The episode deals with the extreme stress that this puts the crew under.

Re:33 or 1

[Pyrion]

It's episode 1, titled "33".

Re:33 or 1

[drxray]

But it's not actually the first episode, since there was a miniseries before... it starts with a "previously, on Battlestar Galactica", which is a bit annoying... still, it's free.

Re:33 or 1

[CrazyTalk]

I happened to catch that episode when it was rerun on another channel - USA, I think. Anyhow, one thing bugged me - if they knew the cylons would show up every 33 minutes, why not leave in 32 minutes to avoid fighting them altogether???

Re:33 or 1

[Glendale2x]

Various characters made references that some of the ships had trouble keeping up with 33 minutes as it was - their FTL drives weren't designed to be used in such short timespans. The Galactica's was, but it's also a big ass military ship. The FTL drive on the Colonial One was not up to the task.

Besides, the Olympic Carrier probably had a spy on it relaying their coordinates. The ship shows up late for one jump and the Clyons arrave shortly after; it gets destroyed and the Clyons aren't showing up anymore. Explanations in the eipsode aside, I recall Moore not wanting to go the technobabble route of explaining why it took 33 minutes - it's just 33 minutes.

Re:33 or 1

[Anonymous Coward]

They couldn't leave before the cylons arrived because every time they were hoping "maybe the cylons won't arrive this time".

*cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont have cable , nor do I watch TV. I have a crappy connection. But im slightly interested in the series.

Is this worth it for me to see one episode?

Re:*cough*

[mveloso]

Yeah, it's worth it.

Instead of their stream, just head on over to your favorite bittorrent site and download the 4-hour pilot (DivX). Then download all the other episodes you missed.

Re:A shame

[thedustbustr]

Me neither; I've always been a fan of Fake Audio myself. Much crisper silence.

Already covered.

[zmarty]

Oh come on guys... Don't you read the older news before you post ? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/24/155722 8&tid=214&tid=1

Re:Already covered.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously not.

Re:Already covered.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh come on guys... Don't you read the older news before you post ?"

you must be new around here...

Easiest and Best way

[hardcoredreamer]

If you're on windows, Real Alternative and MPC Media Player Classic will do the job without having to install evil realplayer.

Re:Easiest and Best way

[Oopsz]

Or get real enterprise player. Corporate version of realplayer, more compatible than real alternative and no crap.

Very smart marketing move

[sammyo]

For this 'demo' it is unlikely to hurt eventual dvd sales, there'll probably be 2-3 special feature dvd's over the life of the product anyway. The show has enough hooks that it could very well give a big boost to the ratings.

Ah, but ohhh that evil red dress robot!

It should be obvious...

[kb9vcr]

...that they're not going to release all of episodes on the web for free(I'd be surprised if we see more then this one episode). Give up DVD sales?! Forget it.

Being one of the best and highest rated SciFi shows ever, I'm sure they feel that if you watch just one episode you'll be hooked. It's hard to argue with that logic; it's awesome.

Re:It should be obvious...

[Sloppy]

They're pretty much just doing what musicians do -- make a few mp3s available on their website, and if you like the free sample, then you can get the rest of the songs by buying the CD.

Will it always be so....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will "corporation+internet" ALWAYS = the SUCK?
RealMedia my ass -nothing Real about it.
bah!

Re:Will it always be so....?

[Anonymous Coward]

real shitty media , at least we have the codecs for mplayer so we don't have to use real player

Anyone get it to play under Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm gettin an error with Realplayer 10.

Re:A shame

[Leo McGarry]

Why? You should check out the stream. Apart from being small, it's actually very well encoded. It looks and sounds spectacular by Web video standards.

Battlestar Galactica Available for Download

[p0rnking]

Having Episode 33 on their uncut and comercial free (whether it be Streaming Real Adio or otherwise) is a good way to expand the fan base.

Most of you who hate real audio, and won't download/stream it/view it, are probably the same people who have already seen a few episodes of the series already, so I don't think that you fit into the target that they are aiming for.

But then again, there are probably a few, like myself, who won't download/install Real Audio, and haven't seen any epeisodes, let alone any comercials for it yet.

One last thing, it's kind of funny, how no matter what people do, people will bitch. Sci-Fi didn't have to release the episode + extras, and you would have to wait till the DVD comes out.

Re:Battlestar Galactica Available for Download

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but I wanna see the extras, why can't they put them up in mpeg or theora for us geeks?

Re:Battlestar Galactica Available for Download

[LiquidCoooled]

I would certainly not object paying for legal access to hidef torrents of these shows (BG, Enterprise hell the missus would pay for Angel, the list goes on).

It would be in our best interests to keep shouting loudly about wanting something like this.

Subscribing to a favorite series, more like a magazine subscription model than a blanket tv channel package we are currently forced to digest.

A better idea

[drinkypoo]

Come up with a bittorrent-based streaming client, and just put them ALL up, with commercials. It's probably the only way you'll get people to actually watch the commercials anyway, in this PVR-laden age. Especially sci-fi fans.

Re:A better idea

[ThisNukes4u]

That would be pretty difficult, as bittorrent sends data to the downloader in whatever order it feels like, so it would be pretty inapporpriate for streaming.

Re:A better idea

[drinkypoo]

There are bittorrent implementations which prioritize blocks at the beginning of the file. Even if there weren't it would be [relatively] trivial (and necessary) to create one.

Re:A better idea

[owlstead]

With bittorrent and 6,4 MB down, I actually would not care for streaming. Now I know most people are not that lucky, but we are quickly getting there.

Re:A better idea

[Minna Kirai]

It's probably the only way you'll get people to actually watch the commercials anyway, in this PVR-laden age.

What you propose is yet another example of "security through obscurity". The commericals viewed this way would be secured against skipping only as long as very few sci-fi movies are distributed in this manner. Once they become common, someone will publish a modified video-player application including the same commerical detection+avoidance techniques as in any set-top PVR.

Re:A better idea

[drinkypoo]

You are quite right. However, if you just give away a good client (perhaps by making it small and embedded into the webpage) then most people won't use it, and most of them will watch (or at least sit and try to ignore) the commercials. While you are 100% correct that it will not stop people from downloading and trading it will get most people to just watch the damn thing the way they want. It's only when it's a pain in the ass to do things your way that most people start looking for another way to do it.

Re:A better idea

[Darthmalt]

New Buisness model. TV on demand available by bit torrent. trackers located at the studios website. Files playable only in a program you d/l from the company so you can't fast forward through commercials. Yes someone will crack it but the masses wont know how to get the cracked version that lets you skip the commercials.

Re:A better idea

[SlimFastForYou]

Although many BT clients let you prioritize, the rest of the network seems to have to make up for the prioritization. It would take a lot longer to get a torrent rolling if every single client prioritized the first parts of the file. It would make the whole network depend on the seeds a lot more, because everyone would keep requesting the same part again and again from the seed (it would take longer for a seed to upload the entire file to the network).

Personally, I start BT before I go to bed, and have it running when I'm doing some non-Internet task (such as watching video). I rarely torrent during "peak times", and almost always have something ready to watch or whatever. Though not everyone cares to plan what they are going to watch the next day.

I could see a set-top system down the road that would use a broadband connection and torrent media from trackers run by content distribution networks or TV stations. People could decide what they would want their box to "record", and watch it an hour later. TV would no longer have to adhere strictly to a broadcast schedule. Though for this to happen, there would have to be more (and hopefully somewhat faster) broadband connections. Also, the entertainment industry would have to get used to the idea of such a new business model. Unfortunately, I think the social aspects of this would pose a greater challenge than the technical challenges.

Re:A better idea

[drinkypoo]

It would definitely make sense to use bittorrent to distribute files to download-on-demand customers. If you can't get to the tracker the first time you can't get peers and you can't download, at least not without cooperation from someone who has access to the tracker. That won't be hard to get but it will convince most people and besides, people getting unauthorized access to your signal will actually improve the speed of all downloaders. While a modem won't cut the mustard unless you have good speeds on a multilink connection with two or more 56k modems, ISDN is definitely up to the task. In Texas you could get flat rate ISDN pretty reasonably, and you can make and or receive phone calls on it as well, which cuts you to half your bandwidth. One wonders if you could also run X.25 on the D channel at the same time, and use it to allow you to take two phone calls and still have SOME data transfer left over. Regardless, ISDN is 56 or 64kbps per channel for two channels, and you could receive MPEG4 movies in a reasonable time at 128kbps. 1.4GB is enough to get a roughly DVD-quality movie, for example. It would be slower than you watch TV, but it would be able to download 24/7. For instance one could utilize interactive sessions (like ssh) or play games on ISDN and websurf and download via satellite if they lived in a remote area.

Re:A better idea

[Kaorimoch]

I think they should have put it up so that you could download it, with commercials, and then sell it to fans. That would make it a good candidate for the commercial viability of selling downloadable TV shows over the internet and show them the untapped potential of the market. They did it with music and its going well with that market. Now is a good time to start selling TV shows direct to the world so that we don't have to sit in front of the TV at a particular time of the week in order to catch the show. Or program your DVD-Recordable. I'd certainly buy it to make up for my....earlier indiscretion.

Re:How free is it?

[Leo McGarry]

What the hell are you talking about? Download the player (which is FREE), double-click it to run it once, it'll say something about wanting to install your browser plug-in. Let it, then go to the URL. Ta-da. Surprisingly high-quality streaming Web video.

Is this just some random troll post that you copied and pasted into this discussion?

Streaming Real Media?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a Cylon trap if you ask me.

Old News

[slaad]

This was mentioned the other day already....

Not that anyone really reads the headlines anyways apparently

Re:Old News

[makotyn]

Ok, this is about the 45 time someone has mentioned it. Some of us read the headlines but don't go back 20 times to check if they have been updated with new matterial as the battlestar headline was.

Re:Old News

[Ohreally_factor]

What's most troubling is that it took almost two days for Cowboy Neal to dupe the story. Two days!! We should be on the third dupe by now, people. I think maybe the editors are slipping. How else can you explain them missing dupe milestones like this?

Re:Old News

[slaad]

Actually that was the first time it was mentioned in this thread...

Also I can't say as though the original headline had been updated....it made mention of the download when I first saw it. At the time it was still on the homepage so it couldn't have been too old...

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Leo McGarry]

Do they officially offer the miniseries for download anywhere?

Yes. Blockbuster. It's been out on DVD for two months now. Hoist yourself off your lazy ass, fork out your three dollars and rent the damn thing.

Re:How free is it?

[HyperChicken]

Don't feed the trolls, sir.

look on eBay!

[burbs]

Before season one was broadcast on SciFi, around the time that they were doing the miniseries I went onto eBay to look for any BG Classic stuff for sale. As I was scrolling through the list, some supposedly had the entire first season of the new series on DVD, and he was selling them for like $80. WTF? The only thing I could think of is that he's going to make an agreement with the buyer to give them the DVDs after the season was over. Even now there's a more reasonable "pre-order" auction or two going on, but at least those people are admitting that they're selling something that will come out in the future.

Re:look on eBay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, dude, the first 13 episodes were aired in England last fall, before it premiered in the U.S., and torrents of each episode have been making the rounds for months. That's the source of these DVDs (they're homemade, I'm sure.)

Re:look on eBay!

[burbs]

Really? That's good to know! Thanks for the reply!

Re:look on eBay!

[Anusien]

The full series was broadcast on SkyOne in Europe first, and has been available on shuntv.net for quite some time.

Re:How free is it?

[computerme]

people ever call you ungrateful?

IT'S COMPLETELY FREE!

oh wait. maybe you want to get into some free as in pretzels splitting hairs.... not me i've got much better things to do... like watch the free episode of BG on the scifi site...

Re:How free is it?

[LWATCDR]

No he is talking free as in Speech free. The same is he seems to not know that Real has released a free as in speech version.
Dumb Zealots are well... Dumb

More an negative than a plus

[3vi1]

...or an extremely bold move since the series isn't even out on DVD yet?

Then WTF did I buy last week at Suncoast?

Would this not be the "first" (+ others) episode? : 2003 Miniseries

Re:More an negative than a plus

[3vi1]

Ah... I see now, S1E1 != "first"

Re:More an negative than a plus

[jaxdahl]

Not the same thing

Battlestar Galactica Miniseries (2003)
Battlestar Galatica TV Series (2004+)

This is from the TV Series, not the mini.

Re:How free is it?

[Richard_at_work]

Ahh the standard response on slashdot 'its not EXACTLY how I want it, therefor I shall continue infringing copyright, infact I think I shall use this as an excuse for my actions'.

Understand that somepeople actually have to get on with their lives - not everyone subscribes to the 'anything but REALLY FREE isnt good enough' dellusion.

For the realplayer and streaming chalenged..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate realplayer?

- Install Mplayer and the codec pack, problem solved.

Wanna watch it on your laptop at 1 am on an airplane?

- Install Mplayer and the codec pack, set output to disk instead of video/audio.

Ain't technology grand?

- Mad props to those crazy Hungarians.

Re:For the realplayer and streaming chalenged..

[oddityfds]

Look for an old RealPlayer8. That'll work.

This problem is fixed in HelixPlayer HEAD, so I suppose eventually it'll get fixed in a RealPlayer 10 release as well.

Re:A shame

[Mr. Arbusto]

Not problem with the codec, only the application. I haven't used it since version 6. I just downloaded version 10 for OS X and it wasn't crappy. Needless to say, now I do use real audio.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

A commercial scifi chan opens up a show for streaming on their site, and all the slashbots can do is complain that's in real player. Sheesh, get a grip guys.

BTW Real Player isn't so bad if you use the Helix version (I'm on linux so thankfully I don't have to use the bloated one for windows).

Oh wait, what's this? I need a codec: application/x-pn-imagemap

WTF?

Missing Informaton?

[CypherXero]

I'm watching the streaming video, and for a Season 1, Episode 1 show, it's lost me. Was there a Season 0 or something?

Re:Missing Informaton?

[Uhlek]

There was a four-hour miniseries that aired in December 2003. It's available on DVD now.

Re:Missing Informaton?

[Richard_at_work]

Yes, there was the 3 hour miniseries that came out end of 2003. Its out on DVD now if you feel like catching up.

Re:Missing Informaton?

[Depili]

There was the miniseries before the real series, so there was season 0, sort of..

Re:Missing Informaton?

[wiredog]

The pilot was a mini-series. It's out on DVD. Worth buying.

When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wall

[scotty1024]

I will happily PayPal $1 per episode to download HDTV LOL XVID of Battlestar, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis. Which is far more than DirectTV is giving them on my behalf right now.

Please note that's download, not stream you ignorant broadcasters! And content in a real format, not Real format. Real is a bigger sell out than even Microsoft when it comes to hurting the consumer in order to brown nose the MPAA/RIAA.

And why PayPal? Because I wouldn't trust any broadcaster with my credit card. They're technical idiots and would be handing all my info out to any 13 year old script kiddie.

As it stands, this is just one more sad pitiful example of how broadcasters really really really just don't get it!

If they keep blowing it like this, when the revolution comes, Sci Fi is going to be standing there with their back against the wall along with NBC et al. I really don't think the current broadcasters know how to adapt, even to save their corporate existence.

real player

[DanielJS]

if you guys want to download a light real player, go to bbc's web site and get it there... its a spyware free latest real player... bbc threatened real that they will go with the windows media player if real doesnt offer a stripped down version... its very good!

Not a bad idea...

[dopelogik]

Honestly, I don't see how just releasing one episode can hurt them. Obviously, they are looking for extend their fan base by making an episode easily accessible, legally. I think it's a good step towards how TV should be embracing the internet instead of fearing it.

Requires "Realplayer"

[fresca]

No thanks. I'm trying to cut back on the amout of spam and crap I invite into my home.

Re:Requires "Realplayer"

[Creepy Crawler]

Oh Sheesh. Yeah, back in the 90's they were the #1 WORST company to have spyware, crapware, slowware and everything else to jam up your PC.

I think Real 'Real'ized what they were doing wrong, and now have embraced the open-source community by releasing a full-powered player called Helix.

Go try it out sometime, and if you feel vulnerable, go make a linux acct and jail it, whilst running Helix.

Its seriously good. And its the 1'st "legit" way to play MP3's (they paid fraunhouffer MP3 fee so it can be included in pay distros).

Re:Requires "Realplayer"

[luna69]

> And its the 1'st "legit" way to play MP3's

SO you're saying that NO OTHER players have paid the fee to Fraunhoffer? I don't buy it.

Re:Requires "Realplayer"

[Creepy Crawler]

Players for Linux. Or did you think that there's MS Windows free distros?

Face it, they're the only ones who can legally include MP3 decoders for pay-distrobutions. Why you think Red Hat took out the libs to decode?

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there's a Blockbuster in every town of the world...

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Physician]

Why would you pay $1 for a LOL capped show. The reason for LOL's existence is to spread TV shows for free.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Mini-Series Spoiler ALERT!!!!!

Basically all you need to know is that the cylons are religious and believe that its their god given destiny to destroy man for his wicked ways. After the first war they made a treaty to leave eachother alone (the humans didn't realize that it was a religious war and thought the cylons just wanted their freedom.. they still don't understand this). The hot chick the guy keeps dreaming about was one of the new cylons who are perfect human replicas. She worked with him in the defense ministry as a spy and suduced him into giving her access to many secrets. She obtained secret codes that could be used to shut down any defenses. This is how the cylons made their attack and were so successful and they nuked every major city in several different human controlled worlds.
Battlestar Galactica was a large carrier ship from the first war, as was in the process of a decommisioning celebration when the attack happend. It was the only one that survived as it had resisting having any new computer components especially any networks installed on it, as was the protocol in the first war. So the deactivating codes didn't work on it. So it and an enterage of other ships that had come for the celebration are the only surviving military group left and humanities only hope.

first time viewer

[rejecting]

I saw the episode, and i really enjoyed it. The Quality blows though, and the MTV handiecam shakey-ness made me kinda wanta vomit. Otherwise looked like quality stuff...

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[John Harrison]

Fine. Buy it at Amazon. I've had a copy for two months now. If that is too painful you could probably find a place to download it.

Downloading

[ucblockhead]

I have a funny feeling that they noticed that people downloading the series before it premiered in the US created a word of mouth that resulted in better ratings.

Re:Downloading

[The Wicked Priest]

Absolutely. I probably wouldn't have watched it myself, but for that. Contrast this with their own marketing efforts, which had actually turned me away from wanting to see the show. (I mean, there was Olmos himself, saying that fans of original shouldn't watch it! He was wrong, BTW.) It was only the fans who brought me around.

too late..

[TheHawke]

I already got a copy off of the usenet feeds that is 1000X better than the joke of a media format that they call real.

Re:How free is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Alternative?

e.g. http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1054136293/1

Does not play on linux

[mattr]

If someone succeeds please post about it!

mplayer couldn't read it, and the url has an asterisk in it, anyway it wants realplayer.

Well I tried my old copy of Helix Player 0.4.0 and it gave an error (can't handle type x-pn-imagemap), so I updated the rpm to the latest 1.0.2 Gold. That didn't work, it said it was available only in RealPlayer not HelixPlayer. Okay, I buckle under and install the linux RealPlayer rpm 10.0.2 Gold. Same problem! I google and it seems that they have been waiting since October for Real to give them some information which is why they didn't get it into the code, and it has now been postponed?!?!

So nobody involved in the website or production uses linux, and no slashdot people have viewed it on linux? Or is there a secret I don't know about (hope so).

I would really like to view it as an open format file as I neither wish to use pay to use windows in a cafe, nor view it with what I perceive as a lossy protocol over an international connection. This is the broadband age, and bittorrent or a fiber (like I finally got) beats rtsp! Just give me the file! In the end we are done in by a clickable menu? Sheesh!

Can somebody record it to a file and post it?

Re:Does not play on linux

[KlomDark]

Same here with RealPlayer 10.0.2 Gold for Linux, will be watching this thread to see if anyone else figures it out.

Somebody clue us in!

Re:Does not play on linux

[The Wicked Priest]

I had no trouble opening it under Linux just now in my old Mozilla 1.0 / RealPlayer 8.0 setup. But I agree, streaming sucks.

As far as the asterisk in the URL, just put quotes around the URL if you're typing it on a command line.

Re:Does not play on linux

[rgammon_real]

Hey guys, The image map plugin wasn't helix-ified in time for RealPlayer 10.0.0. It was available with RealPlayer 8/9a for linux, one option is to download RP8/RP9a for linux, and point it at the url: pnm://rx-wes-sea138.rbn.com/farm/*/usanet/usanet/g 2demand/scifi/battlestar/33/33.rm The image map stuff is now helixified... I'll try to get something going for tomorrow's bleeding edge nightly build, which will show up on http://forms.helixcommunity.org/helix/builds/ under current.

Re:Does not play on linux

[rgammon_real]

There's a forum thread in the helix community on this: Summary of BattleStar Galactica issues

Re:Does not play on linux

[mattr]

Thank you! You are very cool.

Regards from Japan!

Matt

Why is this news?

[wertarbyte]

It has been available since the very first episode...Oh, this one is legal? That's news :-)

Well done, now, do it properly

[__aailob1448]

Low quality, streamable only real media? This isn't 1997 you know...

I believe the people want something of comparable quality to what's available in torrent sites. Non-proprietary 2-pass high quality mpg4 files.

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[berzerke]

...And why PayPal? Because I wouldn't trust any broadcaster with my credit card. They're technical idiots and would be handing all my info out to any 13 year old script kiddie...

I can't speak for other credit cards, but Discover does offer a way to generate single use credit card numbers (called Deskshop). Requires Windows though. :(

Registrizzle frizzle.

[loraksus]

Registrizzle frizzle.
http://software-dl.real.com/26624ed225ac 7a5b7c16/r ia/entinst.exe
http://get.real.com/RBR3/200.96.99 .13/26624ed225ac 7a5b7c16/ria/entinst.exe
Thanks btw. Real alternative works pretty well, but I will have to check it out.

What you missed...

[sammy baby]

What you missed in the pilot.

Humans build Cylons. They rebel, fight to a standstill, then they leave. Now they're back, and they're bad, and they can look like humans, and they essentially wiped out humanity except for this little fleet. Plus, the brilliant scientist (Gaius Baltar) who is supposed to be figuring out how to defeat them is also the guy who enabled them to wipe out our heroes' defenses, and is sorta seeing one of them. Like, a really hot one. In his head, all the time.

Oh, and Adama had another son named Zack who died and Apollo blamed him for it and and blah blah blah.

I think that about covers it.

For clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

Dipping babies in vats of mercury would be Assault Causing Bodily Harm, not murder, provided the dip was short enough to avoid drowning and said baby doesn't swallow any.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Physician]

I have never heard that. Too bad I wouldn't be caught dead with a Discover card, not that it's accepted at most places anyway.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Zathras26]

Battlestar Galactica was a large carrier ship from the first war, as was in the process of a decommisioning celebration when the attack happend. It was the only one that survived as it had resisting having any new computer components especially any networks installed on it, as was the protocol in the first war.

This isn't entirely certain, btw. There were 120 battlestars, and only thirty of them were confirmed destroyed in the war. It's possible that some of the others may have escaped destruction somehow. For example, a few may have been in deep space when the attack happened, heard the reports that the Cylons were somehow "deactivating" all the craft that they encountered, and stayed away from the colonies to avoid destruction. Mostly speculation, of course, but it's not farfetched speculation.

Subtitles?

[EnglishDude]

Does this has subtitles? I bet you that it doesn't... wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't either.

It's great to see the rapid rise of internet video/broadcasting etc but very worried about subtitles - it's extremely rare to get subtitles (apart from Japanese video like anime) - not even BBC subtitles their online videos. :(

Re:How free is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They have released a free as in speech version but it doesn't seem to support the stream mentioned in the article.

helix-player 1.0.1-1 says just

"This player does not have the capabilities to play this content. This content is supported by RealPlayer.
The following components are required: protocol_rtsp_rdt"

Are you using some cvs snapshot?

Battlestar Galactica Series available for purchase

[GamesOver]

The series has already played out in Australia and UK back in 2003... the DVDs will be released on March 1st and 28th. Just go to http://www.amazon.co.uk/ and search for "battlestar" in the DVD section.

If you go to the US Amazon store, it probably won't be released until the SciFI series has ended.

Low quality or not, good stuff

[broKenfoLd]

Props to the makers of BG, best SciFi series out in years. I'm an addict.

Re:Is the whole series this bad? - No

[Anonymous Coward]

33, while story wise important, was a bad episode in my view. The whole show was more annoying than fun to watch. But not all the episodes are like this. They get out of the "law and order" mode of jumping scene to scene with no transition a few episodes later.

The "water" episode is better, but still close to what 33 was, but the few after that get better each one. The average person will hate 33, if they didn't see the miniseries that started the series, Scifi should be streaming those not this one.

real player

[Free_Trial_Thinking]

Worthless

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Deliveranc3]

They're toast... the cylons are crazy powerful... and badass.

I'm starting to suspect they are leaving BG around more from a Moses flood standpoint.

Re:-1 Fan

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you don't see anything besides some naked skin :-(

Were you hoping for some blood and guts? O_o

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[akshunj]

Hello! Netflix! Rent it and keep sitting on your lazy ass. --Akshun J

Re:haha!

[rob_squared]

The US says we get everything first. There's no such place as the UK, it's just an urban legend.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[strider( corinth )]

The war isn't a religious war. The cylons at the end of the pilot debate among themselves about allowing the last humans to go free. They decide that the humans will spread and come back for revenge eventually, so they can't afford to. If they believed it was a divine edict to kill all the humans, they wouldn't've had that discussion.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[YrWrstNtmr]

I will happily PayPal $1 per episode to download HDTV LOL XVID....

You are waaaaay out on the bleeding edge.

SciFi shows + HDTV resolution + downloading TV shows/movies + paying w/ PayPal + getting that video to your HDTV to enjoy the HD part = 0.0001% of the population.

They're not ready for you yet. And that 0.0001% is being generous.

Re:Battlestar Galactica Series available for purch

[Maserati]

Actually, Australia has only just started getting the series. They started a few weeks after the US broadcasts.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[John Bokma]

of the new cylons who are perfect human replicas What? What? No more "By your command" in a metallic voice and those awesome lights, later stolen by Knightrider? There goes another childhood miracle down the drain.

Re:A shame

[Anonymous Coward]

RealPlayer for OS X is surprisingly not-crappy, though unlike Windows Media Player and QuickTime, it will litter your desktop (or other downloads folder) with reference files.

Just to illustrate Real's not completely with it yet, though, they claim this is a bug in Safari and that Windows Media Player does it too.

C'est la vie, at least they're moving in the right direction.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[sabernet]

the old model cylon have something like a cross between the old cylon lights and a Gundam Xaku red dot eye. It is rather cool to look at still.

Monthly Subscription

[NitroWolf]

I would so pay a monthly subscription to download my TV shows off the respective channels.

Like $5 a month or something per channel/show would be fine for me and would allow me to finally get rid of my "traditional" TV subscription for satellite, AND it would get me exactly what I want.

Re:Monthly Subscription

[zakezuke]

I would so pay a monthly subscription to download my TV shows off the respective channels.

Like $5 a month or something per channel/show would be fine for me and would allow me to finally get rid of my "traditional" TV subscription for satellite, AND it would get me exactly what I want.

$5 for all you want when you want on demand download a copy comercial free? HBO multi plex a la carte for me would cost $13.99/month, showtime / TMC / Sundance is $12.99, Cinimax $10.99 and Starz is $9.99. Given that people are willing to pay for premium movie channels, I would think that any sort of on demand net system would base it's price based on existing options... and tack on a little extra.

Re:Monthly Subscription

[jimthev]

I would so pay a monthly subscription to download my TV shows off the respective channels.

I do this already, it's called tivo. I've already made a DVD of episodes 1-6 that I pulled off my tivo.

Re:Monthly Subscription

[NitroWolf]

$5 per show, not for unlimited content.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Doesn't mean some of them don't have a heart. Either way I know that in the original book it was as I described it. The religious part has become obvious in the new series, but they havn't eluded to the idea that the war is for this reason. So how the writters of the new series take this I cannot assume.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[The Wicked Priest]

No, that stuff's still in as well. "By your command" was spoken at the end of the miniseries. The back-and-forth horizontal red light in place of eyes still appears on the new model centurions, as well as on the Cylon fighters, which are now "living" ships. The humanoid Cylons are only one type. (Incidentally, humanoid Cylons first appeared in "Galactica 1980", though that has basically nothing to do with the new show.)

Total FUD

[flithm]

I have never had a problem playing windows media, aac, or quicktime files in Linux.

In fact, most the trouble I've had has come from Real Media files.

Re:Total FUD

[anagama]

I've had less problem with real than windows media files, but not significant problems with wma. I'm not terribly clear on the legality issues, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is some EULA violation going on if one uses the windows codecs on a linux box ... not trying to FUD here, saying "I don't know but it wouldn't surprise me." You know, everyone gets there codecs from mplayer who has servers in Hungary or something like that. If it was completely on the up and up, wouldn't we have mirrors provided by suse, red hat?

By the same token, rm files are usually really low quality. That's why I don't like them. But perhaps that is just content providers being cheapskates on bandwidth. This BG episode could be higher quality, but it is acceptable in full screen on my laptop. I wouldn't want to watch them all this way, and had I seen these at full detail previously it would bug me. But for a sample to the unitiated, it isn't bad. Anyway, I wonder how much the prejudice (I have it too) agains RM is due to the format itself, or due to people over compressing. I suspect it's a mixture.

Re:Total FUD

[The_Dougster]

I agree. Mplayer at least can play almost everything. I can usually play things in Linux using Mplayer that my wife can't manage to play in Windows because Media Player usually complains that it can't find or download the correct codec.

RealPlayer stuff just sucks, Windows or Linux. The only people who seem to like that format are computer challenged corporate executives.

Re:Total FUD

[acroyear]

see my comment here. i wasn't talking about whether or not one could play protected/licensed WMA, but specifically on microsoft releasing a legal player (or at least codec) as per their announcement 14 months ago.

but for my self, i've had hassles with every linux player ever for playing video, from the mid-90s onwards. none have been reliable for me, and i get tired of being told "just upgrade your OS again to get a better player" because the player upgrade was built with a newer GTK or what the hell ever. in the end, aside from real, i've had bad luck with any video player i've tried, including mplayer.

Re:Total FUD

[flithm]

You certainly don't need to upgrade your OS to get a better player... just upgrade that specific app!

Also, it's not the video player you need to be worrying about. And btw mplayer has no such dependencies as GTK or any other graphical toolkit (you can even use it without x windows!).

Even then if you're having problems you just need to upgrade that specific component. For example, if you're trying to play a divx5 movie and you've only got divx4 support installed, just upgrade that specific component (ffmpeg), recompile mplayer, and boom you're done.

Also of note is that if you ask any number of people from the Linux community, I think you'll find the general consensus is that playing video on a Linux box is way better, easier, more convenient, and stable than on windows. There are almost always zero problems with the default install of every single major distro, whereas with windows you have to install codec packs and a bunch of other crap.

Ever watch a newbie try and figure out how to play a divx movie? Windows media player can't download the codec automatically so the program just plays sound and no video. It's hilarious!

What I'm saying is, you're totally spreading FUD and you know it. ESPECIALLY in this area, Linux is leaps and bounds ahead of windows.

And let me be the first to say that there's many areas where Windows is leaps and bounds ahead of other operating systems, so I'm not just being a fanboy here.

Re:Total FUD

[acroyear]

as i said, invariably upgrading the player usually has involved upgrading the version of gtk or some other dependent library, which involves upgrading another, and/or pre-built binaries aren't compatible with my version of libc or libc++ simply because i'm a year out of date (outside of security fixes) and i have too many other things to do that need a stable, unchanging system to worry about upgrading my box every 6 months to keep up with a video player i barely use. i don't WANT to have to upgrade my distro, 'cause for my programming purposes (100% java), its FINE the way it is and i don't want to muck with that. latest and greatest distro likely will include software that will put a load on my (old) cpu and relatively low memory (firefox alone is heavier than anything thrown on that box before it besides running 2 jvms).

i also am sick and tired of the "just recompile it" crap. we should be past that now. i lived that life in the 90s when it was the only way to do anything at all, and now, i'm sick of it. i'm not that kind of geek anymore; i've got better things to do with my time. this is what happens to geeks when they cross age 30, get married, and find things outside of computers to actually be involved in.

its like my being "out of the loop" with regards to video cards and crap like that -- i don't play games so i don't need the "latest and greatest" hardware that the "latest and greatest" games require.

i'll live without upgrading my box for mplayer or whatever. its as simple as that. i don't need it that badly (well, at all, really). i have an XP box i use specifically for multi-media and little else.

yes, windows doesn't work "the best", but it works enough, "out of the box" for what i need. it sucks as a development platform for java, but its what i'm stuck with at work (though i have a linux box at work too, specifically for web development on a LAMP system 'cause that's one place linux WILL always be better than windows at). yes, i tire of having to upgrade windows media or quicktime 'cause they like changing their codecs every 6 months when crackers reverse-engineer them, but at least in windows its "one-click" (+ agreeing to sell your firstborn to Microsoft in the EULA).

its not "upgrade the player by searching for the damned rpm, finding out i need 3 other rpms to get it to work, one of which doesn't exist for my particular dist because of an incompatible library rpm that was upgraded only in the next full version of the distro entirely".

its not FUD -- it is my specific experiences with every video player i've ever installed from redhat 6 to fedora core 2, and i'm not in the mood to "keep upgrading and all will be better" any more. i don't have time to blow an afternoon upgrading my box, finding out i need more memory, or what the hell ever. i'm tired of that lifestyle. i know that there are better distros for desktop/media work, but they get in my way as development platforms.

and it still doesn't make my statement about the legality of WMA on linux FUD at all. codecs to view protected AAC or WMA on unlicensed software are technically illegal by virtue of the DMCA. its bullshit, and i'm the first to support those willing to be consciencious objectors engaging in civil disobedience.

but for myself, i have more important and personal battles to fight.

Re:Total FUD

[flithm]

I totally understand where you're coming from... but it's really easy to see you're just not willing to change your mindset away from that of the typical Windows way of doing things. First of all, recompiling apps is generally just as easy as installing most windows apps! And it's not like it takes that much longer. If you want to use Linux, you should drop all your preconceived ideas of how an operating system should work... and what's easy, or good. Recompiling is totally where it's at. It doesn't mean you have to spend 8 hours in your basement looking through source code. It means you hit a button, watch it compile and install for a few minutes, then run your shiny new program. Regardless of what operating system you use, it's going to take work to maintain. It's all about where you want to put that effort.

Re:Total FUD

[acroyear]

i think you don't know who/what i am and where i'm coming from.

look at my slashdot ID number (hint: it has 2 fewer *digits* than yours). i was running open-source software on Suns, decstations on ultrix, aix boxen, data general, minix, and (god what a pain in the arse) variations of system five including SCO and Esix for 386es, plus VMS and pre-windows DOS, all more than a decade before "Open Source" became a term and GNU was only known for its compiler, emacs (which was a usability nightmare before we even knew what THAT term meant), and a pipe-dream of an OS that was known to be unachievable until some upstart Finnish dude actually achieved it before they did.

for all of my college existence and more than half my professional life, "compile your own damn version" was all we had. i've lived that life, and i don't see the point in living it anymore.

now, i'm the usability specialist at my company (the only one) because i'm willing to flat out say "we don't need to do shit like this anymore." and just as i'm willing to say it for my company's own products, i'm willing to say it about certain ways of working with linux as well as windows.

"just compile from the source and all will be ok" is no longer the way to do things. its the right way for distro managers to manage distros, but not the way to distribute products for an end user anymore.

A video player is an end-user product. it should work "out of the box", not be dependent on obscure libraries (or always run latest-and-greatest versions of said libraries), be near-totally transpearant in looking up codecs its missing (no, windows products don't do that right either), and not upgrade the core system except for significant usability fixes (meaning eventually, stop upgrading 'cause it should just look good and work right...again, windows products suck at this regard just as much as linux, especially when they're used to "preview" the next OS look&feel, which both quicktime and windows player are infamous for).

Re:Total FUD

[flithm]

Well you've obviously been around the block enough to get annoyed all to hell and back. With one of the source based distros (Gentoo being the most popular), or one of the BSD operating systems the packaging is done for you, and recompiling / upgrading is as easy as clicking a menu in a GUI (if you wish). At any rate, since you're a seasoned veteran, I'd have thought you'd have enough money to purchase a mac by now :o). You clearly want to have your cake and eat it too. So why not do it?! I actually disagree that compile-it-yourself isn't the way to go, and that prepackaging is where we should be going. I just don't think prepackaged binaries lend themselves well to any Unix class OS. You're totally dependant on the settings that the packager deems worthy. I think the BSD ports system is the way to go. It's way easier to maintain a BSD system (which you probably know), and in the process you get a system that's totally customized to suit your needs, not someone elses. Anyway... of all the things you listed as requirements for your dream OS, seems to me like OSX is the only thing going that fulfills them all.

Re:Total FUD

[acroyear]

osx is not of a "dream" os, in that the apple gets in my way as much as windows does. i respect its achievements, but its not "done" either. (and i've 2 mac f[r]iends who've been trying to convert me for years. on the other hand, i don't see the point in paying apple's more-so-than-ever artificial price-point markups for their proprietary hardware and how, more so than windows, they're willing to say "screw backwards compatibility".

and quicktime and windows media for the apple suffer from the same usability problems as their windows counterparts (frequent upgrades of the whole interface just to stay codec compatible, and codecs changing for artifically-induced business "needs" rather than actual technological improvements), even if the video "looks better" on a mac (a subjective judgement at best).

yes, one is a "slave to the distro", but in the end, its either that or linux remain utterly the tool of the geek, not just those who are sick of microsofts vendor lockdowns. take your pick -- either linux usability improves to the point that issues like i've run into continually don't happen, or linux remains the tool of "intellectual elites" using it as a way of saying "i'm better than you 'cause i know this".

one or the other, but linux can't serve as both, and its use at the latter isn't really solving peoples real computing problems.

again, start looking at life from a usability standpoint and not a "well it can be done if you know how, therefore its fine" viewpoint, and things REALLY change. not just computers, but all of life itself. Go read "The Design of Ordinary Things" (likely in the science and technology center of borders / bn).

we did things one way out of need. that need is gone, so we shouldn't have to do things that way anymore.

open source is still critical, especially for products in their early stages and for those that need to manage optimizations and bug fixes without turnaround times (i.e., distro makers and ISPs and the like). but the effects of opensource (rapid bug-fixes in immature products, high security and robustness levels) should be felt by all without the inherent responsibility of actually having to compile source code, once products reach a reasonable level of robustness.

linux media players have had 10 years since awt-tv to get that way. they still haven't. every time a product started to get somewhere, the developers abandoned it for the next big thing, still in source-code/alpha stages. OR they abandoned it for a new pet project or actually doing their day job. that pattern repeated itself for years. its time to stop, pick an app, make it usable (by the standards i've defined in the previous post) and be done with it, rather than move on to a new framework 'cause you got bored with the old one. (that in itself IS a valid open-source negative: products survive only as long as someone feels like maintaining them).

gtk alone has had at least 6 media players since the library's 1.0, plus music and movie players that used gtk for menus while having their own proprietary look&feel (xmms, e.g.). some players claim to be browser plug-ins while in reality force the movie into a separate app (bad usability juju). and *still* don't work right in that form.

there are better ways to do it, but i don't have the time or resources to write (or manage) an opensource project to do it the right way.

Re:Total FUD

[flithm]

You make a lot of good points.

One thing I thought of recently: I wonder what would happen if instead of shelling out $200+ for a new copy of Windows, people donated that money to the Linux Fund.

I think a part of the problem with OpenSource is that people are really quick to code the fun parts of the programs, but some of the not so fun parts (that add up to a really polished feel) get left behind. If there was more paid development (ie. "This is your job monkey boy. Do it and you get a banana.") Maybe some of the things you're looking for wouldn't take so long to implement.

I myself am an OpenSource developer, and I know from experience how easy it is to start over, because no one's paying you... you get to do it your way, and that's why it's so fun.

On the other hand, if someone was paying me to fix/imlement some of the things that I'm not so inclined to do, I might actually do them.

Just thing what Linux could be if it had another billion or so dollars a year backing its development.

I know it's not possible... people don't really spend money on Windows anymore, it just comes on their computer and they absorb the cost other ways (most of the time). But it's still a nice thought.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I accused you of being a green-backed n00b, or some such similar thing. I can totally get where you're coming from. I can see how for some people recompiling their video player to gain support for the latest codec isn't exactly a vision of a picnic in the woods with naked wood sprites.

Then again... for some of us, that's exactly what it is :o).

Re:haha!

[LnxAddct]

In defense, sci fi is not a big thing in the states. Its kind of the geekiest thing that anyone can do, and there is a very small market for it. Of course the sci fi geeks that live here will tell you differently because they surround themselves with other sci fi geeks, but the truth in the matter is, there is no market here.
Regards,
Steve

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably didn't know LOL is a group.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Not all of the new cylons are of human appearance. There is a mix of old style cylons and human style cylons in the show. There are also new spaceships that are cylons (meaning the ship is its body, so it doesn't have a pilot). So I'm guessing the cylons have masters biology and are designing themselves to whatever function is needed.

Season One IS on DVD already

[anakin513]

You can buy Season 1 on DVD from amazon:
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00 064AFBE/q id=1109440928/ref=pd_ka_0/702-9131852-4448811

Re:Season One IS on DVD already

[RichMeatyTaste]

This is not what is currently on TV, this is the miniseries that lauched the "current" season. The title is a little misleading.

Sorry to disagree...

[Orne]

Please, let Enterprise die an honorable death, and I will love you more!

The worst thing I felt was wrong with Enterprise was the unneccessary trip down time-travel lane... SciFi just can't seem to leave that plot device alone, and it corrupts many more stories than it helps. You start out Enterprise with this great start to a story (human kind just learning warp travel, the universe is open!), and years of canon material, and what do they do? Introduce a time-travelling war between two factions barely mentioned in the other series, and you've scrambled any hope of living up to your audience's expectations.

Battlestar Galactica has quite a different approach, an almost documentary like feel to the action. Everything has a matter-of-fact explanation (so far) with no magicks, psychics, time-travelling, quantum flux capacitors, whatever. Like Firefly, and any good science fiction story, the characters' storyline progresses outside of the science that carries it... There were some good character building episodes to Enterprise, don't get me wrong, but when you have things like the Fast Aging Clone episode, I can't put that aside. That's what I feel is the biggest difference, and why Enterprise disappoints.

Re:Sorry to disagree...

[minairia]

(If you haven't seen this season's episodes of BSG or Enterprise up until last week, SPOILER ALERT ... )

I agree, I love how the writers on BSG have done things. I felt a cold fear when they loaded that Boxy kid on the ship during the initial mini-series. However, when he turned up again as Starbuck's sidekick, instead of sugary cute and vulnerable he was a greasy, angry, pissed off cynical asshole. Nice. His best line was when Commander Ty asked where is mother and father were, and Boxy answers, "Dead." Also so far, and I pray never, no stupid robot dog.

I like the humanistic way the characters do things, as when Starbuck was lost and Ademna just refused to move the the fleet or stop the search. As utterly wrong a command decision as that was, his character had obviously decided that at that point, there would be no more retreats, surrrenders or fallbacks. It was completely real (and would have gotten him relieved of duty during normal times, of course).

When Archer did the same kind of thing to help attempt to recover the son of the transporter inventor re-materialize after the scam was revealed (and the half materialized son had melted off one guy's face and done major damage to the ship) it was just stupid. A commander of warship would just never do something like that or if he did, it would be the last thing he'd do as commander. (I don't know how it works in the real Navy if the captain starts giving crazy orders, if people on the crew just wait till the ship docks and report it or if the XO takes over right away.)

I think because The SciFi Channel is shooting for a smaller, specific audience (us) and doesn't have to care about reaching out to all demographics, being family conscious, etc. they can really let loose. Another really funny scene you'd NEVER see on Enterprise was when Baltar was trying to talk to the to other guy taking a dump in the john. Even more funny was when the Cylon chick came in to use the toilet. You wonder if she's crapping out machine oil or something. Do StarFleet ships even have toilets? And what about the femdom scene on the roof of the building on Caprica, where the Boomer cyclon gets its ass kicked by the blond one? Wow.

StarTrek is also caught in the complexity of its universe. With the history, mentalities, etc. of all the aliens worked out, it comes off more like a history channel documentary. If they diverge too far (and they've really pushed it as it is ... ) away from the established canon, the show isn't acceptable to hardcore fans. But, at the same time, to someone channel surfing, Enterprise would be very hard to get into because of so many things assumed to be known. BSG is much simpler: evil robots want to kill everyone. (And some of the robots are hot fembots who hold sexy parties ... lol)

Re:Sorry to disagree...

[kaiidth]

Hm. Having just watched the streaming episode of Battlestar Galactica, I think that baldly stating that everything in the series has a matter-of-fact explanation might be at least a slight exaggeration, because much of the plot doesn't seem to make total sense. For example, if that transport ship had nukes on it, wouldn't you be a touch bothered about blowing it up that near to the rest of the ships? Or are we talking very, very small nukes? What's with the Terminator-style humaniform thing, and why does nobody ever suggest taking a few minutes out to identify Cylon spies? Are they totally organic, in which case, how do the Cylons know they haven't created something that's going to turn right back at them? What's with the blonde hanging out in that dude's head? Why bother with all this blonde clone stuff at all, when they clearly won already? Why, and here's the question that's bugging me most, do the humans wait 33 minutes every time for the Cylons to come find them before jumping away? Surely you'd be better off leaving before they arrive?

Based on that episode, and I appreciate that I very probably am a closed-minded person with no capacity to appreciate good TV, the only obvious assumption to make is that this BG is basically a sort of 'Cube' rerun; you know, that Canadian doodad with the basic plot of 'postulate an experiment in which the inexplicable kills people in unusual ways for non-apparent reasons'. Now, that's not to say that I don't like it - I'd watch a couple more episodes at least - but frankly I think that describing BG as in the style of a documentary possibly hits the metaphorical nail on the head. Nobody has made any effort to explain anything, which accounts for the total lack of unconvincing explanations, but also means that there aren't any explanations available whatsoever for most of the questions above. Much of this is presumably for dramatic purposes, or possibly was answered in the pilot, and I am just fine with either of those, but I have a nasty feeling that some of it is just as much dramatic licence as Star Trek, sold in a way that appears to require no explanation. That episode displays FTL travel, sound in space, cloned humaniform robots and apparent telepathy/mind control; that's a decent set of sci-fi magic elements right there. In fact, the only major difference would appear to be a disinclination for technobabble and a commendable resolve to avoid permitting exposition about the story's universe to get in the way of the drama.

Re:Sorry to disagree...

[ElGuapoGolf]

So many questions, all very good. All I can honestly say is that you get explanations as the show goes on. Of course, more questions are raised, but that is part of the charm of the whole thing.

Re:Sorry to disagree...

[Gilgaron]

A lot of that is explained in the miniseries that preceeds the first episode of the season. That's why it seems straightforward to those of us that saw the miniseries, and not straightforward to you.

Re:Sorry to disagree...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think one of the reasons for the "trip down time-travel lane" was to try to get away from the years of canon material.

Consider that a Klingon arrived on Earth long before he was "supposed" to. Suddenly, Enterprise's first mission was a trip to the Klingon homeworld and they suddenly have this Vulcan on board. That's completely different from how history was "supposed" to happen.

Or was it? It's not like Kirk ever sat down in some episode and laid out the whole thing. Maybe what we're seeing in Enterprise is an alternate time-line. Maybe Star Trek is a different time-line from Star Trek: TNG.

I think one reason they went that way from the outset was to create this doubt. Are we seeing prehistory or just a version of it? I think it also helps because they can get away with "little" differences that might set off the fan base.

Re:haha!

[The Wicked Priest]

There doesn't seem to be a huge television market, at least as perceived by the suits, no. And certainly, there's some distortion of perspective among fans. Enterprise is a good example of both -- everyone I know online watches it, yet apparently its overall ratings are poor. (It's not even the top show on UPN, despite the fact that everything else they run is crap.)

But how would you explain the "summer blockbuster" phenomenon? Almost every one of those huge-budget, huge-revenue pictures is science fiction.

Re:The doctor is a cylon

[Anonymous Coward]

The doctor on BSG is a cylon. I don't know what you're talking about...

Mormon's in Space

[Ranger]

I watched it. I still hate the bouncing camera shots, pioneered by shows like NYPD Blue. I suspect that technique started off as an accident. The cameraman was drunk that day. So rather than reshoot, they called it art. The rest was history. And it was 'for streaming' NOT 'for download'. I talk to people all day long who are trying to download stuff from a CD to their computer. It's fucking install, you retards! It's not download. And the CPU tower is not a fucking modem or a fucking hard drive. It's the fucking computer. It has the modem and the hard drive inside. But I digress...

Anyway, I enjoyed 33. Maybe the title was a subtle reference to LP's that played at 33 and 1/3 RPM's and was showing how Hollywood can regurgitate crappy sci-fi shows like a broken record. But I digress again...

I couldn't tell from watching that one episode whether or not they kept the Mormon mythology from the original series. I did notice they modeled the new Cylons based on the premise: what if the Neocons and Al Qaeda married and had babies, turned themselves into robots, and settled a planet of their own? I liked the old Cylon's better. I miss the red eye that goes back and forth. And they would say "beedy-beedy-beedy-beedy-beedy". Oh, wait that last bit was that stupid fucking robot from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Never mind!

Re:Mormon's in Space

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, thanks for that completely fucking worthless post. I'm sure you thought that was very witty. I've got a news flash for you. It wasn't. Cheap imitations of Maddox haven't been relevant since about 1998.

And learn how to use an apostrophe, retard. It's fourth grade English. Despite the low quality of your rant, I think you have a good shot at mastering it.

Re:Mormon's in Space

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I don't know what the point of your post was. However, if you are not installing something it is not called install. The correct term for copying files from a cd to a hard drive is downloading. Not that your post has anything to do with anything.

Re:Mormon's in Space

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post. You have me LMAO.

Mormons in space was so ridiculous. I saw the original ABC miniseries where the planet blows up. Oops, we crashed our little ship and the whole planet blew up like a bomb! Oh wait, this is a bomb. Fucking Mormons. This is classic scifi? Wake me when there's a B5 movie.

Did you see the Cylon hijinks on Robot Chicken? (Ep 1--downloaded on bittorrent--cheaper than TiVo!) Awesome. Totally awesome.

Re:Is the whole series this bad?

[The Wicked Priest]

No, they never get rid of the shaky cam. Can't say it bothers me though.

WRT 70's show ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

doppleganger race

New for the current re-envisioned show. In the 70s they were all chrome.

wing-commander-like military comradery

A major theme of the original show, which predated WC and which has a basis in the real world. I read a little on WW1 pilots, people are about the same, much of the tactics are the same, the technology changes.

I've set my MythTV box to record anything battlestar-related

If it every records anything with 1980 in the name delete it without viewing. If you somehow miss the title, or if they had changed it, and you see earth and boy scouts, stop, delete immediately. :-)

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[IAmNotACowboy]

so when the guy is dreaming about the hot chick is it some sort of guilt induced psychosis or a more direct form of mental fuckery on the part of the cylons?

Re:Is the whole series this bad?

[antime]

Thanks, looks like I'll give it a miss then.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MeanMF]

It's mental fuckery caused by a microchip implanted in his brain.

Works great on my TV too!

[antdude]

Since I don't have HDTV, big screen, and cable/satellite for clear picture, it the streaming feed video quality is decent. It is almost like a VCD quality.

Re:How free is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than complain that it isn't EXACTLY how I want it, I would prefer to say the following:
Why NOT offer it in three or more formats?
Why NOT offer it in multiple sizes, for modem and bandwidth users alike?
Why NOT offer it as both streaming and a downloadable file?

That's my complaint. They COULD have offered all of these, with very little extra work whatsoever, and they did not. That is just lazy.

Re:How free is it?

[HyperChicken]

How was that flamebait?

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[John Bokma]

How does the series compare to series like Farscape and Babylon 5? To me, Farscape is still the best SF series I ever saw.

Too bad

[Z00L00K]

that they are requiring Real Player, which is one of the more annoying players around.

No alternatives in sight?

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Really, I thought that might be the case, do they ever directly reveal this fact?

Galactica 1980

[OrangeTide]

I just realized that I hate Battlestar Galactica because I've only seen Galactica 1980. Just reading a summary of episodes makes me queasy. It makes the later seasons of Sliders seem great.

Re:Galactica 1980

[QuaZar666]

I don't know about that. The last few seasons of sliders did not even try to follow the orginal ideas of teh show. The show started to go downhill as soon as they tell us that Quinn homeworld is not really his home and he was given to his parents by their doubles.

Re:Galactica 1980

[AHumbleOpinion]

The 70s version of the show was pretty good in its day. It was terribly expensive to produce and as time went on they tried various cost saving measures, ex. same flight/combat scene every episode. They re-run on SciFi every once in a while, it might be worth it to check it out in order to get some perspective(1). You may need to watch two or three episodes in case you get one of the weeker ones.

(1) I think one of the things that makes the new show so popular is the contrast with the old. A darker more realistic feel. At least for us old farts who remember the 70s. :-)

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MeanMF]

She tells him that directly.. Of course if he's just imagining her, I guess he could have dreamed up that conversation as well.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Its interesting, but to be honest I prefer shows that you develop an intimate relationship with the characters. Most of the characters on BG are interesting and provoking, but not all that likable.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Ok must have missed that part, believe it or not my tivo fucked up in the middle of the second half of the miniseries. I didn't worry about it much and continued watching the rest of the series without worrying about it.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep that's basically it, the Cylons are fundamentalist, imperialists.....

Can't fast forward?

[antdude]

Is anyone having problems fast forwarding to start at a later point? I got cut off at 42(?) minute mark after the baby was born announcement.

Re:Can't fast forward?

[b00le]

...after the baby was born announcement.

That's the end...

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[John Bokma]

I prefer shows that you develop an intimate relationship with the characters

Yeah, that's what I like so much about Farscape :-D. I especially like John Crichton, he looks very convincing to me, as a person. The other characters I like a lot are Chiana, Aeryn and Rigel.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent about a week watching every episode of farscape back to back. A few weeks ago I watched all the episodes of BSG in one day. Farscape was better, and is my favorite SF ever too. BSG is still worth watching, and even addicting. I'm looking forward to the next season. Since you're in Mexico, I suggest finding a torrent with all 13 episodes.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen the old series but I'd rather prefer the new girl in red skirt than the old guys with the red eyes.

Re:How free is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Dr. Stallman to you, AC.

Yes, it plays fine

[Anonymous Coward]

I got it working with no problems. I installed Realplayer version 8.0.3.465, which I downloaded from the Real site a while ago. Then I played it from the command line:

realplay 'http://play.rbn.com/?url=usanet/usanet/g2demand/s cifi/battlestar/33/33.rm&proto=rtsp'

(Note the ' marks.) And it worked fine. I also tried it using Mplayer 1.0.6 with the codec pack, and for some reason that did not work. Maybe my URL is wrong or something, I don't know. I'm sure it is possible to play it with MPlayer and therefore save the stream to a file, but I don't know how to do it.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[CrazyTalk]

I remember in the original series they found another surviving Battlestar - the Pegasus, I beleive. Would be cool if the same thing happened on the new series.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[bhunachchicken]

Basically all you need to know is that the cylons are religious and believe that its their god given destiny to destroy man for his wicked ways."

How weird... that sounds just like that plot to Halo...

I know this is OT...

[ConceptJunkie]

I'm just impressed someone on /. knows the saying is "interest is piqued" rather than "peaked". Finally someone around here who has actually read a book. Good job, Sentry21.

I'd love to watch it, but I refuse to deal with RealMedia for any reason. Those people are scum and their software sucks.

Download with "NetTransport"

[johnjaydk]

There is a nice tool named "NetTransport" that will handle the download under doze. Google for the homepage.

Feed it this link: http://play.rbn.com/?url=usanet/usanet/g2demand/sc ifi/battlestar/33/33.rm&proto=rtsp

And your in business. Same way i grabbed h2g2 part 3.

Re:Download with "NetTransport"

[Anonymous Coward]

ACTUALLY..... FEED IT THIS LINK:

rtsp://rx-wes-sea75.rbn.com/farm/*/usanet/usanet /g 2demand/scifi/battlestar/33/33.rm

For Sarge newbies

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone could explain how to capture the stream to disk, it would be really appreciated. I've captured streams in the past by watching /temp/user/something for media downloads and copying/pasting before the stream finished playing, but I'm sure there's a better way of doing it.

Also, I read in this week's debian weekly news that a free version of mplayer may hit or already has hit the debian main servers, so I'll be trying to install it on my fresh debian sarge install. If it is only available on unstable, as long as it is in the debian servers, I may still be able to install it, as I have a second computer with unstable sources available in the sources list even though it is 99.9% testing. The computer I'll be trying to get it working on though has only the testing sources that were originally installed when I installed sarge through the rc installer. (great job btw, sarge developers, and thanks again!)

In addition to capturing the stream and getting mplayer working on debian sarge, is there a method of transferring the file from realplayer to mpeg, similar to ps2pdf? Or some other method? Thanks again for any guidance.

That's a lot of bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

HDTV quality is 19Mb/s. With a 40 minute show, you would need to download 45,600 Megabits = 5.7 Gigabytes. Major ISPs sell bandwidth for $2/GB. At that rate, the bandwidth alone would cost $11.40.

No doubt a major publisher could purchase bandwidth much cheaper, but $1.00?

Re:That's a lot of bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

You are on the low end or residential price. That may be some DSL reseller. Major publisher would get something for flat price.

Re:That's a lot of bandwidth

[Grishnakh]

That's why you use MPEG4 or XVID, not old MPEG2. The compression rate is much higher.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[anethema]

Not sure if by miniseries you mean the first season or not, but she tells him right out at the end of th e pilot i think.

Re:Battlestar Galactica Series available for purch

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? It just started in Australia on Wednesday.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember in the original series they found another surviving Battlestar - the Pegasus, I beleive.

Right, and it was commanded by (IIRC) a guy who wanted to go off and do his own thing without the burden of a bunch of civilian ships. I think it popped in a couple of times, and vanished again in circumstances (exploding fuel tanker?) that left its fate unknown.

Would be cool if the same thing happened on the new series.

I think we can count on it, if the series goes on long enough. It'd almost be a letdown if we didn't see it.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of population watches latino soap opera or reality crap. Do you really want to watch the same thing?

Wow!!!!!!

[mretallack]

i just clicked on the "available for free, uncut and commercial" link and Konqueror open and started to show the real video embedded in the web page just like in ie (made lower case because my English teacher told me that capital letters are important) i am sorry but i seam to have been asleep for the last 4 years!! the last time i tried that i needed to extract the file to the HD and play it from there. long live suse linux and all ho sail in her!!

Re:Wow!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

i => I

seam => seem

ho => who

Perhaps you should pay more attention to your English teacher ?

Re:Wow!!!!!!

[antispam_ben]

I was HOPING to save it to HD so I can view it later at full speed/resolution, so I can view it offline at any time and without any possibility of Net hiccups. But this brought up Real[I'm-Real-ashamed-I-have-it-installed]Player in Firefox on Windows, I looked at the first minute or so, the audio was there, but the video was mostly a still picture every second or two, and when I did see motion it was fairly 'pixelly.' I want to see real video, not RealStreamingCrap.

I saw a recent episode of PBS's NOVA online (streaming), and was very impressed with the video quality, especially on this aging PIII-450. Nova has alwsys had good standards. But I still wanted to save it. Disk space is SO cheap...

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Anonymous Coward]

I will happily PayPal $1 per episode to download HDTV LOL XVID of Battlestar, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis. Which is far more than DirectTV is giving them on my behalf right now.

Sure, most of us would pay $1 for a digital copy of any show, in HDTV. Except they sell DVDs with a handful of episodes for $20 each, and that's not even HD.

But hey, I pay $0 per episode beyond what I pay DirecTV. I just record the shows I want, and burn them to DVD. Not HD, but we all know BG is coming to Universal HD "real soon now" and then I'm set. Totally legal, works great ... as long as I don't pop in during the middle of the season. :-)

And why PayPal? Because I wouldn't trust any broadcaster with my credit card.

Are you kidding me? When it comes to trusting others with my credit cards, I'd rather give the nod to the first seventeen people I meet on the street than PayPal.

They're technical idiots and would be handing all my info out to any 13 year old script kiddie.

Better a script kiddie than an unethical, dishonest, totally unaccountable pseudobank.

I really don't think the current broadcasters know how to adapt, even to save their corporate existence.

Of course they'll adapt. They're greedy and unethical, but not stupid.

Remember streaming over 14.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

"real underwater audio"

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[shark72]

"As it stands, this is just one more sad pitiful example of how broadcasters really really really just don't get it!"

Ah... irony!

Either way, it seems obvious that you're clearly in the wrong business. On Monday, why don't you start producing a multimillion dollar TV show, and then give away HD copies for a buck.

For extra credit, write a 100-word essay on one of the following topics:

• "The analog cassette tape: the ten year journey from the technology's inception to widespread consumer acceptance and the full embrace by the record industry"
• "The compact disc: the ten year journey from the technology's inception to widespread consumer acceptance and the full embrace by the record industry"
• "The VHS tape: the ten year journey from the technology's inception to widespread consumer acceptance and the full embrace by the film industry"
• "The DVD: the ten year journey from the technology's inception to widespread consumer acceptance and the full embrace by the film industry"

You can compare and contrast this with HD video downloads, and why it is reasonable for you to expect the industry as a whole to be supporting them right this second.

Leave feedbacks to SciFi!

[antdude]

Use its feedback (feedback@www.scifi.com) and tell them your compliments and rants.

I wrote to tell the folks to make a higher video quality, downloadable version, etc.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[j-beda]

I would have thought that the porn industry had solved this technical type of problem by now. Partner up with "wet&wild inc." and use their existing infrastructure.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[dr.badass]

I will happily PayPal $1 per episode to download HDTV LOL XVID of Battlestar, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis.

The going rate for a five-minute downloadable 128kbps song is $1. Whether you agree with that pricing or not, you're asking for 45 minutes of several-megabit video for the same price. That same video which costs much more to produce and distribute.

In other words, you're asking for something like 100 times the content (in bits), for the same price. I think that counts as an example of not getting it.

for windows

[Errtu76]

you can also use NetTransport to save streaming media.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Nachtfalke]

Then again, DVDs cost almost the same as CDs, so 1$ sounds about right :-)

Go the full Monthy for bunny's sakes!

[jotaeleemeese]

I have never watched the show. Sorry, have more important things to do.

But, when I saw this article and knowing the reputation of the show I was willing to try since I could transport a file on my laptop or media player.

And what do I get? The aberration of streaming media. No wonder, they are are a TV channel, they still think in broadcasting terms.

The first "TV" company that realizes the potential of giving stuff away for free (unencumbered, without lousy stupid formats) as an enticement for paid for services, will make loads of money and lead the industry during the nes couple of decades.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Anonymous Coward]

...when the revolution comes...

There won't be a revolution. It'll be sued out of existence before it even begins.

I really don't think the current broadcasters know how to adapt, even to save their corporate existence.

They adapt, just not technologically.

Executive: We've gotta start adapting our business models to these new technologies, or we're going to be made obsolete in a few years.

Assistant: Yes, sir. I'll set up a meeting with the lawyers and the lobbyists for tomorrow.

Many of your questions were covered

[St3phen]

in the 2003 miniseries (now available on DVD). Did you see that? It covers the blonde-in-head thing, for example.

Also, they obviously waited the full 33 minutes hoping that each time, no Cylons would arrive and it would be unnecessary to FTL jump again.

Re:Many of your questions were covered

[kaiidth]

No, I haven't seen the miniseries. I have a strange and unusual TV watching schedule, unfortunately. As it's worth seeing, though, I'll see if the video club will locate a copy.

As for obviously waiting the full 33 minutes hoping, well, I don't know about you but comedy by repetition rather gets me down. After the first one or two times I'd be thinking about varying my act a bit. Having said that, though, I didn't catch how many times they had gone through that cycle; I just assumed it was a lot due to the one hundred and whatever it was hours without sleep, and the dialogue line about "Why thirty-three minutes?".

Basically the idea just seemed a little odd; jump. Wait 33 minutes. Whoops, Cylons. Darn, they found us. Jump. Wait 33 minutes. Whoops, Cylons. Darn, they found us. Jump. Wait 33 minutes. Whoops, Cylons. Darn, they found us. Jump... and so on. It's eminently possible that there's a related scene elsewhere where they try jumping five times in rapid succession and discover that the Cylons find them in 33 minutes anyway, thus proving the pointlessness of the strategy. I'm not dissing the series, just pointing out that all is not clear.

Re:Many of your questions were covered

[Macgruder]

This subject was hashed out at length over on the SciFi BBS when '33' first aired.

As I recall, the follwoing points were brought up.

a) It takes the humans a considerable amount of time to calculate an FTL jump, and dissemenate the accurate coordinates to the rest of the fleet.

b) Jumping has an entropical effect on the responsible systems and require maintainence and upkeep to be performed before the next one.

c) take the maximum available rest and recuperation for the human crew.

and a bunch of other things too, but I can't seem to locate the thread any longer.

Re:Many of your questions were covered

[aztracker1]

This was about the same as my view on it.. beyond all of that, if I had any mod points to give, you would have one from me.

Battlestar

[Anonymous Coward]

Galactica is one of the best scifi series I watched recently. Far more refreshing than enterprise and for much more intelligent audience. It has that phylosophical aspect and truly good scriptwriters.
I expect it to become very succesful as soon as it's completely aired in the US. Btw. cliff is hard at the end (episode 13), and now I have to wait for summer and 2nd season:)

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[bbc]

"In other words, you're asking for something like 100 times the content (in bits), for the same price. I think that counts as an example of not getting it."

Somebody forgot to notify the producers of DVDs.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[dr.badass]

Somebody forgot to notify the producers of DVDs.

Where can you download DVDs for $1?

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[dr.badass]

Then again, DVDs cost almost the same as CDs, so 1$ sounds about right :-)

Where can you download DVDs for $1?

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[OverlordQ]

Further speculation would be that there's the presense of other types of combat ship besides battlestars. The battlestar represents a combo carrier/battleship type systems which leaves room for other destroyers/cruisers/etc

Re:Is the whole series this bad?

[nedron]

Yes, it is so far as I've seen.

I'm not sure why your message was mod'd to flamebait, but I've seen that happen other times when someone "questioned" the quality of a /. favorite (e.g. the lametable Firefly).

-David

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[bbc]

"Where can you download DVDs for $1?"

I have no idea. Why is this relevant? You were comparing 1$ song downloads with the pricing of DVDs, not 1$ CD downloads.

What is the matter with you people

[Lee Ben]

Has everyone gone mad!!!? This show sucks so much that I am in a vacuum. 1. Quit using shaky handy cam effect. Worked well in Firefly. Not here 2. Having cylons religiously biased made me sit on the edge of the seat waiting, anticipating the hideous appearance of Osama Bin Cylon... Imposing current US vs. the World situation to SciFi show so much sucks. Hey, they even have an Air Force One with President's wife (Independence Day) as a new President. Guess she run for presidency when his 10th term finished. 3. Mixing old technology with future one is NOT always a good idea. Sure, it works well in some Manga and in some 'alternative history' comics and even in Firefly (ok, ok, I AM a Firefly fan) but NOT in BG. White board and markers... come on!!! 4. Sure, the original BG sucked once they arrived to Earth and got mangled with boy scouts etc. But the original Space Soap Opera was kick ass. When Cylons were mean mf robots and Apolo was Apolo and Starbuck his buddy. 5. Starbuck a girl... hmhmh... ok Apolo will get a chance to sleep with his buddy now. BAD, BAD, BAD idea. If they wanted more female characters they should have introduced new characters (new women fighters) This BG is just so lame and boring. Wake up.

Re:What is the matter with you people

[inertia187]

5. Starbuck a girl... hmhmh... ok Apolo will get a chance to sleep with his buddy now. BAD, BAD, BAD idea.

Yes, this *could* be very bad. Although Apolo always had a chance to sleep with his buddy even before, now that Starbuck is a chick it's even more probable, I'd agree.

But perhaps the new BG writers are trying to disassemble the "When Harry Met Sally Fallacy" that describes how no man can just "be friends" with a woman. Maybe we can finally get some real story writing where this isn't such a pressing question on everybody's mind. To do this, you have to come up with some characters to model after. Maybe Apolo and Starbuck are just those characters.

Re:What is the matter with you people

[Lee Ben]

A desirable thought.
And that would be very good. Not to put them in kissing "with just a bit of a tongue" situations, not to put them in "let us sleep together now, we will continue kicking Cylons ass tomorrow".
If they manage to do this, then just for it, I will eat my words (of harsh criticism ;-)
Unfortunately, past experiences tell us that, if everyone in the screenwriters' department fail to make Apolo and Starbuck lovers, there will have to be, this really 'smart' producer's nephew's brother of a friend who will share the greatness of the idea of having the god old l'amour between A and S...

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[dr.badass]

I have no idea. Why is this relevant? You were comparing 1$ song downloads with the pricing of DVDs, not 1$ CD downloads.

No, no I wasn't. I was comparing $1 song downloads to (hypothetical) $1 TV episode downloads. Yours was the first mention of DVDs.

The parent said :
I will happily PayPal $1 per episode to download HDTV LOL XVID of Battlestar, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis.

While you can store hours of multi-megabit video on a DVD, they aren't downloadable and they don't cost $1, so I don't see how they apply.

Read before posting.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two months, you say? That'll be quite a shock to my local video store, who've had a copy for almost a full year... it's nice to see the US getting fucked over on release dates for a change.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[Grishnakh]

Ok, how about this:

A song costs $1 on iTunes. A whole album (of 12 songs) will cost $12. Typical CDs cost about $16-20 at the mall stores. A typical DVD costs between $8 and $22.

Obviously, the cost to produce the material, and the amount of physical data on the discs don't matter, as we're comparing prices, and the prices are fairly similar for the two.

A typical DVD box of a season of a TV show has 5 DVDs, if I'm not mistaken. That's 4 episodes per disc, maybe 5 (I've never bought one). So, if a downloaded album is 75% of the price of a physical one, the price for a single TV episode, downloaded, should be between $1.50 and $4.13.

So, the $1 per episode price really isn't that far off.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[rhuntley12]

I can't believe none of the networks have done this. With the shows I watch I'd probably pay less a month to watch the few of them then it would to pay for cable and have to Tivo them. 1$ even sounds extremely reasonable for an hour long show, I'd pay $2 for an hour. Hell they could also save some on bandwith by using some type of torrent. I would have no problem sharing some upstream that I'm not using while I buying this. Too bad they don't read slashdot I guess.

Thanks

[glsunder]

I cancelled digital cable (cabal?) because my wife and I just didn't watch much tv and scifi is on the digital channels here. I liked being able to see it, and I'll probably rent the series through netflix.

Re:haha!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Almost every one of those huge-budget, huge-revenue pictures is science fiction."

Please be careful about what you call science fiction. I live near the grave of one Isaac Asimov, and the sound of him spinning in his grave reaches an annoying whine when he hits around 4,000 RPM. Needless to say, it's been damn noisy since "I, Robot" hit theaters...

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[jafac]

I don't think the cylons are really religious. My take on it was that the bimbo used religion as a weapon, same way she uses her sexuality. To "hack" poor, demented Gyes Baltar. He is so pwned.

However, since they sent the suicide bomber to blow up his "project" - I suspect that they haven't fully succeeded in pwning him.

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[YrWrstNtmr]

The bandwidth (truck space) to ship and shelve 1 DVD is exactly the same as it is to ship 1 CD.

The same can't be said for 1 iTunes song vs 1 TV episode.

Re:Is the whole series this bad? - No

[pimpimpim]

I was also thinking that I was watching some 13 in a dozen laywer series instead of sci-fi. Two weeks ago I saw the DVD of the original 1978 movie ( hidden away on imdb http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0076984/ ) and I must say I was pretty impressed by it, exciting storyline, interesting plot, and good effects. Ok, maybe the bad-destroying-all-humans-without-a-cause-robot-gu ys were not exactly the most intriguing enemies one can think of, and they probably improved that in the new series. But why is everyone talking so softly, should that make it more (artistically) interesting? Does that girl have to wear that dress all the time? Really, they've been messing their genres up on this one.

Throwing their hands in the air, and acknowledging

[AndyChrist]

the reality...that this show is already MASSIVELY downloaded. How many people in the US saw the UK airings before they came out in the US?

Hell, I ONLY saw it because I downloaded it (no sci fi channel at osan AFB).

Thanks SciFi about the format (mac user)

[Ilgaz]

No sarcasm here. Thanks for using real format instead of wmedia so I can watch.

WindowsMedia, especially on embedded stuff never works on Mac/Mac browsers.

btw, keep away from reply button if you will say mpeg etc. They need some sort of protection.

It was great

[indigo78]

I'm Italian and I think I've seen all the original episodes when I was 8 years old or so. I've watched all the first episode on this site, and I can't wait for it to come out in Italy!

Why not RV10?

[Ilgaz]

I know lots of people from Real Networks reads slashdot and submit stories including the boss :)

I wonder why on earth those companies still use rv8 while realvideo 10 (mpeg4 like) and realaudio 10 (aac like) exist?

I see the url is rbn (real broadcast system) which makes me more surprised.

To see what you miss if it was rv 10, check:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/codecs/realvi deo.html

Re:When the Revolution Comes They'll be at the Wal

[andycal]

Its apples to oranges, the replay value of a 40 minute show is far less than a 3 minute song. and with p2p networks bandwith is free( to the distubuter) They won't change the model until they stop thinking they will make more money the way they do now.

For this to change, Advertisers have to stop being willing to spend more than $1 per eyeball per show. The number of PVR/TIVOs out there is still like 1 or 2% of the market, the advertisers still think adds work. ( most people are idiots and still watch ads)

That is what has to change first

It's rubbish, apart from some boobs

[Anonymous Coward]

The original, I still enjoy watching.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Also expect to see allies with Cylons who are sympathetic to the humans.

Re:Not so good if you're completely new...

[MindStalker]

Did you see the most recent episode with the captured Cylon? Obvious religious intones. Either way as I mentioned in another post, in the original book (written by a Morman btw) the cylons were very relgious and belived they were made by god through man to destroy man for worshiping other gods. How far the writters of the new series take this I can't guess, but its become pretty obvious to me that this has becomes an integral part of the plot.

on linux and where should the money go

[acroyear]

well, "linuxfund" would have to actually worry about specific usability issues. they would have to be willing to go to ALL of the distros and collect their various thoughts on what apps actually work (functionally) and what their customer complaints are about *how* they work (as far as layout and process to get something done goes).

this is precisely the kind of thing that happened with Firefox. they let mozilla-proper (seamonkey) deal with one aspect of the work (the security and standards-compliance issues of actually getting a browser to work at all, especially after the nightmare of the first Netscape source release...*ick*) and concentrated on what was mozilla's #1 flaw: an unintuitive UI oriented towards its target customer, being other programmers. making it look good and work well become the priority of Firefox, and in that, it became open-source's #4 success (behind BSD, apache, and linux, in that order).

OpenOffice already addressed such usability issues while it was still a proprietary product, competing (with microsoft) on usabiliy while playing catch-up on features. therefore, that doesn't count. OpenOffice's post-"free" work has mostly been in bug-fixes, format support, and portability. StarOffice *should* be looking at improving usability to surpass Office, but Sun doesn't have a clue about usability (if they did, Swing's "native" emulation would be a whole lot better than it is; Sun has always played catch-up in usability by trying to go their own way first (OpenLook vs. Motif, e.g.)).

So what else is there? GUI configuration tools for "LAMP" -- everybody's making them their own way, as part of their distro's "improvements over the core". with 60 reinventions of that wheel, they all suck. An independent company should work on that and all the linux distros contribute money and "use-cases" to make it good. Ditto with network configuration, printer configuration, etc. take the best one or two, combine them, and go from there.

*especially* stop making them dependent on loading a config file that was only configured with *their* tool. if the application can parse the file and make sense of it, the configuration tool should be able to do the same. if it can't deal 100% with every valid data entry in the config file, it sucks and get rid of it or fix it 'cause you'll always end up costing the customer time and money cleaning up the mess. (that's another clue -- treating your audience as clients and customers, even if they're not specifically paying you. they want value or they'll move on. and when you ARE being paid, don't consider the distro with the money to being the customer; you still code to your end user, not to the middleman with the checkbook, because that middleman wants paying end-users.)

Nautilus is far to heavy-weight to work with. a simple file manager should be among the lightest components in memory and cpu, not the heaviest (outside of firefox and any JVM, its the largest memory signature of any app on my box). Gnome needs to start over with that and trim it down...WAY down; externalize the lesser-used features into their own processes if necessary; that's what unix was designed for. Nautilus's usability still sucks, too.

the GTK and QT style guides should be more explicit, and programs that don't comply (*especially* with resizing windows...GOD i hate it when i make a window bigger and i get a ton of white-space) should be told they have a BUG and should fix it...and they should NOT be let into the distro or "desktop" until its fixed.

side rant follows:

trouble is, coding standards for gui apps never really got standardized reasonably. i didn't get into the open-source world in my motif days 'cause reading other people's motif (particularly those who knew less than i did, which was most) sucked. they hard-coded so much crap that it was impossible to modify reasonably. i didn't bother to get into GTK 'cause the problem was similar -- i was reading the same crappy kind of code, and didn't want to bother to lear

What about...

[inertia187]

What about the episode before this? I understand there was a mini-seriese, so technicially this isn't the first episode. I'd kinda like to see why they're running.

Re:How free is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you're a dickhead?

Download to Hard disk

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, as you know it is a streaming episode.
Thankfully, there are many programs about that can stream the media and save it for you on your hard disk for later viewing.

Myself, i use net transport 2.

Since i have a very fast connection, i set it to use
10 simultaneous download streams and downloaded all 100 MB of it in a matter of a few minutes.

Once you have installed net transport 2 or any equivalent program, all you need to do is tell it where to grab the stream from.

The direct URL you want is this :
rtsp://rx-wes-sea138.rbn.com/farm/*/usanet/usanet/ g2demand/scifi/battlestar/33/33.rm

enjoy!!

P.S.
If you install media player classic (very good player) you can then play real files (like the download) in media player.

That's if you are too lazy to convert it to an avi file (get the apropriate tool for that ;) )