Slashdot Mirror
Can iTunes Resurrect Old Time TV?
An anonymous reader writes "With iTunes selling a couple of popular TV shows now there has been significant hesitation from other television producers to follow suit and put their content on the Web. It has also sparked activity from the actors unions who want additional compensation for what appears online. But there is also existing content that stands to be revived in this new context, older television shows from the 50's and 60's that have been squeezed out of the traditional broadcast by popular shows of more recent vintage. It was suggested to a producer who is presently digitizing 27 episodes of a 1950's show called Captain Zero to offer it up on iTunes for a buck an episode. Is this an opportunity for these old shows to strike while the iron is hot and while the owners of more contemporary content are caught like deers in a headlight? As the Captain Zero article points out purveyors of old time radio programs have enjoyed a significant revival by embracing web-based technology. Why not old time TV?"
Have you seen the bargain DVD rack at your local Wal-Mart?
You can get entire seasons of old TV for a buck....
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I really hope they strike when the iron is hot. I would enjoy watching some old shows again, especially those from before my birth.
Programmers are not compensated for every copy of their software they develop for their employers. Actors are no different.
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson got paid an average engineer salary to develop unix, yet only Bell Labs and now the open group make money off of every copy sold. They agreed to work for x amount a year.
http://saveie6.com/
If you want me to be a customer, you need to offer me several things:
+ I don't want to view it just on my ipod.
+ I don't want to be able to view it only with Quicktime.
+ I don't want to have severe DRM limits that hamper my ability to store and watch the content any time I want on any device I want.
+ I don't want to pay through the nose for the content.
+ If I watch it on a non-iPod device, I want higher quality downloads available.
+ You should have at least the selection that Netflix does. Even if you're just the "Netflix of television".
I'm one of those consumers who is not opposed to paying for information/entertainment/data on any real basis other than I want it to be affordable and flexible. Don't place silly restrictions on me that hamper my enjoyment and don't charge me so much that I have to seriously think if each download is worth it.
Also, isn't most of the content they're talking about already public domain? Hell, some of it can be downloaded from the Internet Archive already.
I've got all the old Commando Cody series on DVD, Flash Gordon, etc. Love that stuff. Plus in black and white the file sizes would be small.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I can't wait until a true itunes style tv system is a reality. I would love if al tv were available pay per view, with some type of ala carte system.
I am sure I will get made fun of for this, but I actually subscribed to the Hallmark channel to get Walker Texas Ranger. I would love to be able to buy the episodes iTunes style.
I think most media will go the itunes route- just like music. 10 years ago I would have thought you were talking crazy if you told me I would be able to say, in 2005, I haven't bought a physical music CD in a few years.
Not to sound melodramatic- but I don't like being a slave to tv schedules (not that I watch much tv). Like most people of the digital generation, I want what I want, when I want it....
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
I'd consider $1. an episode for some stuff, IF I could:
1) store it in the format of my choice
2) make a backup copy in the format of my choice
3) be assured that sometime within my lifetime the copyright will expire and the broadcast / show / performace would enter the public doman, say 25 years after first broadcast. Heck, I'd settle for 25 years after the death of the major actors.
Enough of this mickey-mouse (yes, that was a direct jab) bullshit about extending copyrights and trademarks.
If the actors are all dead and only their estate remains, then sorry for their estate, but stop profiting off of the work of dead people.
Also, isn't most of the content they're talking about already public domain? Hell, some of it can be downloaded from the Internet Archive already.
Not in general. No TV is old enough to enter the public domain naturally. What happened with some programs and movies (even such famous movies as the original "Night of the Living Dead") is that they were never officially copyrighted or were incorrectly copywrited during the time when copyright was not automatically granted.
The interesting thing with doing this, is that the amount of bandwidth needed for these older shows is far lower than that of the modern programs, such as Lost. Many of these older television shows only need to be encoded in greyscale and given a mono soundtrack. This could be a great, yet, inexpensive way to give the itunes video store some credibility.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I don't know about anyone else. But give me the opportunity to buy Get Smart episodes on the internet*, and I will take it.
* As long as it doesn't require Windows to do so.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
So long as it was an expansive selection..
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I wrote on my blog about a similar idea to resurrect the StarTrek franchise. Eugenia
Because most of it wasn't very good.
It could probably resurrect your mom.
I would like to watch TV shows (cartoons and sitcoms) from the 80s, not just before I was born.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
They need to realize that, with those old shows, they have a very different market. The amount of people who desperately want their old shows to the point that they'll pay what they would for a recent one is very low, while the amount of people who will say, "Hey that was a kinda cool show. I'd like to have a copy of that for a couple of cents," is very high. And, since the entire show has already had its run and made its money, selling them at $0.25 or $0.50 a show instead of $1 per episode is still making a profit.
Naturally, I'd consider paying a half-dollar an episode for one of the good slightly old shows, like The Prisoner or The Six Million Dollar Man.
I see a market for this, driven by the need of someone, somewhere, who wants to see an episode of some older TV show, or even a current TV show that doesn't have mass appeal. Appeal that's in the upper 20% of overall demand that is.
iTunes is a very effective distribution medium, and has helped the careers of many a smaller label / band, and even moved significant amount of back catalog.
Currently the networks are marketing to the top 20% in terms of demand, and ignoring the remaining 80% because they don't have the broadcast capacity.
Teaming up with iTunes they do. Another example of The Long Tail .
I see this working.
A message from our sponsor
I don't care if it's Quicktime only. I don't care if I can't make a "backup" copy to give to my friends. I don't really even care about the quality all that much because the quality of 50's and 60's tv shows was generally pretty bad over the air anyway. As long as the price is right (under a dollar) and I can get a wide variety of old shows such as Ripcord, The Man From Uncle, Fireball XL5, or even old kids shows such as The Junior Forest Rangers or Razzle Dazzle, I will buy them. Package sets would also be nice.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
And that's why you're not seeing it released already. I mean the video iPod is just another storage format as far as a content exec is going to see it. You could ask the same questions about all kinds of other media. Why didn't they release all those old TV shows on VCD in 1995? Or DVD in the last few years? Yeah, you get some, but I don't see vast quantities compared to what must exist in the archives. The big hits are out there, but I haven't seen gobs of obscure TV re-runs from the sixties and seventies.
There's a few obvious reasons this isn't done and the first and foremost is that there's already a huge longstanding media glut even without opening up all the TV archives. Eyeballs are much, much too valuable to release old content at low prices thus detracting from the high profit new media and since the companies that own those media resources are usually controlled by the same investors that doesn't make any business sense.
So, the iPod is not going to change the fact that copyrights are all about corporate control of media consumption. That's not what video iPods do. The good news is that there is something going on that is changing that --massive global copyright infringement. Real change happens when people simply rip shows that do get broadcast and then trade them on-line disregarding the will of big media.
The video iPod almost seems to be intended to fail anyway. Where the audio iPod hit precisely because it walked the line of appearing legit from a business perspective while drawing its primary audiance thought supporting MP3s which could be freely downloaded, the Video iPod excludes DivX which is beyond any doubt the most popular video format traded on-line. This product, like the iPod phone seems to be a sort of intentional failure. The only people excited about these products are the consumers and those insignificant peons are hardly the ones calling the shots in this so-called free market.
The next Apple service, iTv.
NO~, I read Slashdot because I think it's stupid.....
just bury the old TV shows in that Pet Cemetary on the top of the hill? I'm sure with the added demon possession it will be easier to market.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
I can download all of the Wile E. Coyote episodes uncensored. It kills me that they see a need to hack the shit out of the classic looney tunes cartoons to protect kids from viewing violence. It was okay for a whole generation of children and adults alike and now suddenly it's not okay, so they need to censor them.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
DivX is compliant with MPEG-4, I believe, meaning that the new iPod is compatible with it (although it does have to be resized, maybe). Either way, video transcoding (even on linux) is getting to the point where its easy enough to not be a bother.
Also, they could offer both the American and forgin versions, in the UK the show is exactly the same just without the laugh track (acording to a friend who lives there)...this would be an amazing thing if I could buy the whole seriese sands canned laugh.
The big problem is getting the rights from the copyright holder (and finding the copyright holder!). These old shows were made in a time when broadcast on TV was the only distribution option, and the only thing covered in the contract. To sell by another method you need to get the rights & make a new contract, otherwise you're opening yourself up to a big fat lawsuit.
Even today, to release recent (1970s) TV shows on DVD, the hardest part is getting the rights to the music used in the TV show.
Since everyone in the entertainment business is aware of the fiction of "net profits" they want to have a share of the gross.
Just like with the music store, the big money is in the back-catalog sales. There are hundreds of thousands of TV shows from the 20th century, and only a few of them live on in syndication the way that the Andy Griffith Show or I Love Lucy have. There's only so much room in broadcast and even satellite TV schedules, so most of those old shows just sit on a shelf, making no money at all for their owners.
I know there are hundreds of episodes of old cartoons I'd love to get, for a start.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No one buys theatre tickets because of the stage crew.
Ritchie and Thompson may have agreed to work for "x amount" a year, but actors don't. The concept of "residuals" is as basic to them as free coffee, sick days, and Christmas off is to the 9-5 cube-dweller. No one group is better or worse, they just have different and long-entrenched schemes of compensation.
It cannot.
Deer in the headlights!
So says ToeNipples
Xvid, and 3vix are standards compliant MPEG-4 level2 (A)SP codecs afaik , but I've heard Divx diverges from the standard a little bit.
The iPod will actually play standards compliant MPEG4 level 2 SP encoded video with =230400 pixels (that's 480x480, but any resolution with that many or fewer pixels works, even if it's more than 480px wide, like wide-screen movies encoded at 640x360, so a good deal of stuff that's already out there will work without re-encoding). You just have to put the video in a standards compliant MPEG4 container file (or a quicktime movie) instead of an avi file.
I think those rabbit ears will be a big problem on an iPod. You need those to watch old time TV - at least that is my recollection. It was a long time ago. I could be mistaken.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I would pay for old Playhouse 90, Hallmark Theater, and American Playhouse specials. Those were often wonderful experiences that have been lost to the monopolization of our media industry.
And that's why you're not seeing it released already. I mean the video iPod is just another storage format as far as a content exec is going to see it. You could ask the same questions about all kinds of other media. Why didn't they release all those old TV shows on VCD in 1995? Or DVD in the last few years?
Because at the prices people are willing to pay for these old shows, they won't make back the shipping, packaging, or media costs--none of which are relevant to online sales.
Maximum Bob was a GREAT mini-series...something like 7 episodes. I loved every one of them. It show on TV, then sank from sight, never to be seen again.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
...Les Nesmond on WKRP in Cincinnati broadcast the great turkey drop during their first season. It might be one of the greatest comic episodes of US television history. Of course we might NEVER see it because of music licensing...
I would give my eyeteeth for episodes of Mission Impossible, Secret Agent/Danger Man, and the Avengers. And by "eyeteeth" I mean less than the $10/ep that it looks like Amazon wants for those old series.
Well, maybe the Avengers isn't that much at Amazon, but gee, I dunno, it seems like such a commitment. Whereas if I bought one or two, I think I'd wind up spending a lot more by Christmas.
There are a LOT of old shows that have more interest than their contemporaries, yet appear to be almost out of print or hard to find. Whereas once they're digitized they can provide a residual income for ever, even if just one a year is sold--it's not like they're taking up space on a shelf.
--
$tar -xvf
They're (they == you know who) are simply asking for too much money. The only reason they haven't been selling this stuff already is that it used to cost too much (fixed + variable) to distribute the bits.
My ass wasn't born yesterday, so I'm gonna pull a number out of it and say that distribution costs have gone down by a factor of 100 since the VHS days (vs bittorrent).
I don't care about fancy menus and stupid commentary tracks. Spare me the pleasantries. Just lemme put the shows on my shelf and i'll give you some buckos. WTF do they need ITunes for? They have the bits, I have the money. We're only as far away as a google search, a URL, and a credit card number. Make it happen at my price and I'll donate a MythTv plugin. Kudos to Steve Jobs for interposing his company as another layer of needless markups.
I recently STOLE the first two seasons of "WKRP", a better than average 70's US sitcom. You can't buy it, largely do to the fact that it contained so much copyrighted music. The way I see it, they're all so busy trying to screw each other they're neglecting their own core business.
I'd happily send someone $15 if they would make an "honest man" out of me for those 50 episodes, but it won't happen. They're too greedy. C'est la guerre.
Here's an idea (all rights reserved), make a "reality" tv show about maximizing viewer satisfaction and distributor profits by efficiently distributing the product.
One man's opionions, take them or leave them.
Along the same lines, I'd love it if I could download complete coverage of cycling events - all the European classics, the TDF, etc. I'd be happy to get it the day after it happened for a couple of bucks. Right now I basically have no options for cycling coverage, unless I pay tons of money to get OLN from Comcast... and even then the coverage is completely anemic and limited to only a couple of events. Why not make money selling something like this, instead of making nothing on it in the US market right now?
This is AWESOME! I would love to see old TV shows to get a second chance. Granted most of us weren't even born when these shows first aired, but they are by far something that needs to be preserved. It's part of the American culture and of broadcasting history. I for one, would gladly get some of these shows. Especially if they leave the old comemricals intact!
"Old Gold! A Smooooth flavor you can enjoy!"
---- You have been programmed by the Illuminati to not see the word ""!
Not that any of you people care, but I want the TV series "The Tick" (both the animated version and the real-life version - both were great).
I'd love the old Dragnet TV series. It never seems to have come out on DVD except for a few of the first black and white ones. I want the one with Harry Morgan!
I keep hoping it will come back on TV Land or something so I can get it with my Tivo and then record it to DVD or something, but if it were available electronically in a format that I could somehow get to the normal TV that would be great too.
What on earth do you mean "the video iPod almost seems to be intended to fail anyway"? It is the new version of the iPod. If you want an iPod, it now can do video as well. It is not an alternative (except to their nano and shuffle forms), it is an upgrade.
Plenty of people still want an iPod - now they get one that can do video too. I don't see how it could possibly fail, unless you think that the iPod itself was about to fail. So far, the market would appear to disagree with you on that.
Nick-at-Nite, and even TV Land, are showing shows from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Now there's no place to turn for quality programming from the 50's and 60's!
Sure, there's been a great resurgence of old-time radio. I love the stuff and I have a bunch of it. But let's be fair here: most of it is bootlegged. The original creators are not the ones posting it online, streaming it online, selling it online. It's other people either giving it away or making money only for themselves, with no licensing fees at all being paid to or by anyone. The original creators or performers aren't seeing a dime. So to paint that as the ideal model for old-time television isn't quite right, although it's a great example of what *will* happen if the TV people don't starting putting up a lot of content, and quick, on services like iTunes. The bootleg market for online OTTV (to coin an acronym for old-time television) will soon be so huge there will be no room for legitimate producers--just like happened with today's television, too.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Every one of these copyrighteous people is freeing that playable media. As it transmits across dying carrier media, as on the tapes on which so many analog images made it that far, the spirits of those memepools and puddles fly into the next media, across a dimensional boundary. Living in public to document its public life, irretrievably in the public domain once put there by a person. Wave on!
--
make install -not war
Release Marineboy on any media and I'm there...
If the current term stands, we'll start to see 50s TV shows enter the public domain 40 years from now. But of course it won't. Not unless Congress magically finds the backbone to stand up to the media monopolies. Or until the Supreme Court realizes that allowing retroactive extensions makes a joke of clause 8 and reserves itself on this issue.
Give me episodes of get Smart and I'll sign up.
There are no stupid headlines. Only stupid people. For example: Can iTunes ressurect old time TV?", "How many times should we pay for our software?" "No Porn for You, iPod" Oh, wait there are stupid headlines. Never mind.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Looney Tunes. They're old, and I don't think they are regularly broadcast anywhere. Furthermore, they are short, so you can toss a bunch on your iPod due to smaller file sizes, and actually watch a big number of them before your battery runs out due to their short run time.
We all know that the best movies evar have all been made the last 10 years.
Kurosawa, Tarkowski, Wells, Hitchcock.
Seven Samurai, Solaris, Citizen Kane, Psycho.
They are old!
Burn them!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Overly generous terms without reciprical obligations doled out allows producers to be negligent with said material.The responsibility of eventual public release is NOT being looked after. Active destruction of heritage occurs every day - they incinerate filmstock, rather than 'give it away'. This needs to be stopped.
Old Dr. Who tapes gone forever, Beatles tapes, Elvis recordings and outtakes - the list goes on. Once the destoy button is pushed - its gone - cost centre decisions at 1/4 year report time Vs. over-riding national heritage.
The producer is on a sure winner. Make SFA by traditional 'channels' ie Wal*bog bargan bin, or say to 'Apple' go for it. Easy risk/reward decision, moreso for early adopters. A smarter producer decision would be to make the first episode free. All publicity is good publicity
They don't care because they are in business to make money, not to meet every billeted list of everyone in the "me" generation. Several items on your unreasonable list are direct impediments to making money, such as having files without DRM, or making them playable on anything other than Mac's, iPods or PC's.
And as far as viewing the files goes, if you have a computer capable of running iTunes, you have a computer capable of playing these videos.
Tips are expected by the staff merely for showing up, so they're not a motivation for better service. Tipping is only insurance against getting deliberately bad service the next time you visit.
Before the U.S. government started counting tips as taxable income, that might have been true. Afterwards, however, that is nonsense. Because tips are taxable income, it means restaurants can pay waiters *less than the minimum wage*. Getting half or more of your income from tips is a very, very, very strong incentive to provide good service.
I can't even stand to watch the original Star Trek series the effects are so bad. I can't imagine older sci-fi. Now if the acting is good and they aren't movies with effects then thats another story, but i bet that old tv shows were much much worse than old movies.
I want new shows on iTunes. I want to be able to pick up a show I missed because maybe my DVR wasn't setup right. Now its not perfect and yea I'd like higher resolution media to view on my computer and a lower rez for my ipod. Sure I'd like to rip dvd's into itunes, but i'm not going to watch a full length film on a 2.5" screen. Music videos and video podcasts and tv shows are all good enough for me.
-Xen
Looney Tunes. They're old, and I don't think they are regularly broadcast anywhere.
Funny thing about Looney Tunes, they have been available for years on DVD. So it was a simple job over the last few years to rip them to a video Archos and enjoy them, Or on a Treo. Or a phone. Or a PSP. I'm sorry for so many people that it's taken the iPod so long to finally get some kind of video playback. Portable cartoons rule. It's nice having complete runs of Simpsons and Futurama ready to go at the click of a button...
Da Blog
honestly, the lack of resolution is one of the few things that i think will coax the [entertainment] industry into licensing it's content. i'm a filmmaker, and we are currently negotiating a distribution deal for our latest film. we were approached by a large company (as recognizable as, say, "disney") and one of this company's pitches was an online distribution model (video ringtones, ipod style downloads, etc). my business partner had a lot of hesitance about selling our film online in an ipod-style format at such a large discount, especially when it might be easily pirated. then i told him it was 320x240 .. which was mostly greeted by silence on the other end of the line. then i explained that 320x240 is "webcam" quality, and he was all for the idea. zero real cost to us, lots of potential profit. when you look at the fact that the final retailer (i.e. Best Buy, etc) actually gets the largest slice of the sale price, there isn't actually that much difference in my profitshare of a $2 download online, and a $19.99 DVD, assuming the online download has fewer "middle-men" taking percentage points. and, with the online download being "inferior" to our DVD product, it won't hurt DVD sales with buyers that actually care about content.. hell, some buyers may buy both (look at guys like George Lucas.. the friggin' master of getting nerds to buy the same 3 movies several times over in different 'box set' form).
so, if you WANT to actually see good content available at a reasonable price online.. don't push for VGA+ resolution so quickly haha. let the mainstream content start appearing, and then let the indie producers eventually start offering a VGA+ resolution option, and ultimately the mainstream content will follow suit. expecting mainstream studios to immediately offer up DVD quality downloads of their movies at a reasonable price without some VERY strict piracy safegaurds in place.. is unreasonable, imo. no way the bean-counters will do it, heh.
my $.02*
*disclaimer: i didn't proof read.. i hope this was semi-coherent.
There is no video iPod. There is only iPod, with a larger screen and longer battery life. So even if nobody wants videos, people will still buy iPods for the audio. Seems like a hard idea for Apple to lose.
The iTunes Music store only sells AAC files, but it's grabbed the vast majority of the market (like 80% of sales). I suspect the Divx problem will be the same. I'll recode a few of my files to fit the iPod.
I went to Look at these and saw that they had night stalker. I was all set to buy some episodes when I relized it's the new show. In the revision there is a man and a woman, and they look for strange phenomonom...Sound like XFiles to me.
So Yeah, there are some shows I would by.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
some old movies already are public domain and available online: archive.org
I think ultimately what we need for IPTV is for the internet to become everyone's video collection, everyone's DVR timeshifter. The technology is ripe for that.
There are many shows that are so voluminous that the only practical way to consume them is with an all-in-one jukebox with a beefy search engine behind it (think google video indexing closed captioning).
Think of these long-running shows:
The Simpsons
Married with Children
Bonanza
Gunsmoke
Doctor Who
Cheers
Imagine also being able to dig into old news shows, like every episode of 60 Minutes, 20/20, or Nightline.
Imagine being able to watch any old airing of the Tonight Show back to the earliest B&W days based on a search for a celebrity guest. For instance, you could line up all of Tom Hanks' appearances and watch his fro shrink and his hairline recede.
DVD is fine, but it is just not practical to reserve the shelfspace to own it all. And DVDs do little to help you get from "gee, I wish I could see the episode where Ricardo Montalban guested on Gunsmoke" to it actually playing on the screen. You have to go figure out the episode number online, then find the right disc, pop it in, wait through the ads, navigate through the menus, and go. The convenience at the macro level is not there, just as maintaining a large audio CD collection is a drag.
So much of our content viewing habits these days is a result of search results. That's the whole idea of web surfing. So the ideal video viewing experience, to me, is to sit down casually and just improvise search terms until you come up with interesting enough results. You won't know what you want to watch until you see what comes up. Or you have the preference engine (ala Amazon) do it for you.
Instead of using the web to index information about media, it could index the media directly and let you jump right into it.
For instance, let's say you typed in a particular line or phrase like "Do'h" and every instance where Homer says "Do'h" pops up with the timecode right in there. You might even be able to set up in/out playlists for custom highlights reels.
Really, this stuff is all doable technically. Google video is a good proof of concept. It's purely a matter of working out the DRM and the business side of things.
Censoring 'racist' behaviour from the past is almost as bad as being racist in my opinion (and I'm black so I can say something about this). If you censor racist material and attitudes from old shows, you are effectively denying the past and the autrocities that happened. It would be like denying the holocaust happened - an insult to everyone who had to endure it.
I want to see the racism, the bigotry and plain stupidity of the past - people need to see it and understand why it was wrong, and not just sweep it under a rug somewhere.
It needs to be brought out into the open, discussed and accepted that "yes people did act like that" and we need to see why it was wrong and how much of an asshole thing it was to do.
Granted, I think what there needs to be is a disclaimer stating the fact that the show contains bigoted material and attitudes and maybe rate it Mature. (I'd rate it lower but I doubt most children or even teens would have the opportunity to discuss the attitudes in the movies with an adult or other person with enough moral and ethical character to see how wrong it was)
I dont know if this AC's comment will reach the light of day, but hopefully a couple people will read it. That will be enough.
Back in 1999 or so I bought a portable CD based MP3 player that also plays VCDs! And it works great till this very day. Plugs into any TV or VCR or whatever is connected to your TV that has some sort of imput with RCA video jacks. Works in hotels even. Plays crispy MPEG2 video no problem. Even back then when digital video was cutting edge and DVD was just coming on this product cost forty bucks in Taiwan which conveniently happened to be a place where you could rent VCDs.
Now, it had no built-in screen and obviously it didn't have gobs of flash memory since it was a CD based device. But it was extemely cheap both in terms of initial cost and in terms of blank media. Most importantly it didn't have any DRM. Moreover, that seven year-old el cheapo Taiwan toy has far better video resolution than this new iPod.
What I'd like to emphaize is that if this ultra cheap DRM free portable video player device was already done at a cheap price seven years ago, it will most likely be done again with flash storage, and an MP4 codec support. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like this from Samsung and even as an OEM through BanQ Compal Foxconn etc branded as Dell or HP. This is the same group of generic OEMs, by the way, that already produce Apple's hardware to begin with so it's not really a quality or even a design issue as much as it is a branding and marketing issue. This is not about tech, this is about marketing.
The final point then is that the DRM tie-in is a huge mistake. Apple is following Sony's missteps here and Sony is clearly losing its way due to its relentless insistence on DRM across the product line. The video iPod is a great opportunity --for every CE company except Apple.
However, even at bargain bin prices, it's not worth it. $5+ for a movie that's 20, 30, 40, 50 or even 60+ years old is not worth it.
I suppose if you buy your movies a WalMart, that kind of world view is not surprising.
The good ones aren't available from WalMart, you get them from Criterion and a number of foreign DVD companies. Criterion DVDs start at $30 and go up from there, and most of them are older than 20 years.
Have a look at the DTV project, also covered on Slashdot.
Those new platforms integrate digital video with RSS and BitTorrent for widespread distribution. The DTV UI is also well-adapted for easy browsing and viewing. And Broadcastmachine provides simple creation and distribution of content.
DTV and Broadcastmachine are open source software (mostly Python and PHP). Right now, they have a preliminary Macintosh version and are working on Windows. They need help with Linux.
ultimately what we need for IPTV is for the internet to become everyone's video collection, everyone's DVR timeshifter
It's been done for years with Poopli for ReplayTV.
Da Blog
Mod parent up.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
Two things: First, my walmart has a $1 bin with DVD's containing double features of movies from the 50's and earlier. Two, your right its not worth it! Not because I wouldn't pay $0.50 a movie for a classic like the original House on Haunted Hill, but because it has got to be the worst conversion to DVD I have ever witnessed. This DVD was not up to iPod video standards.
Think Deeply.
I would love if al tv were available pay per view.
Yeah, I would love it if Al TV was available.
I think there is a huge market for the semi-obscure show from the past.
I loved the Greatest American Hero as a kid, for the short time it was on, but you never see re-runs and I've only been able to find one episode online, and none for sale.
This would be a great way to distribute it, and I'd pay a buck an episode for reasonable quality (good enough to enjoy on something larger than a 2" x 2" screen).
There are plenty of others as well, like Fall Guy, Buck Rogers (re-runs), Hawaii Five-O, etc, etc.
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Well yes you are right, except I wanted to point out that I have been the subject of racism and stupid stereotypes. Not that it gives me any more validity than any other person, but as someone who has experienced some form of racism, I wouldn't want the past candy coated and twisted to reflect modern PC standards. Things from the past need to also be studies in the context of their era - just because its wrong now doesnt change the fact that it happened.
And yes you are right that racism isn't just against black people - it works in all directions and against all people. Heck theres tons of people who cry foul at racism against them and then turn around and act in racist ways against other races. The ironing of those situations is delicious.
(Dammit, I really should try to remember my account password)
I knew XviD was compliant, but I thought DivX was as well... shows what I know. Here I was, thinking it was likely to be the other way around. Either way, it's good; I've also been hearing good things about H.264, regarding size vs. quality, even though the resolution can't be as high.
The networks have pilots made all the time, they (and others) are investing in them, and most of the time they don't pass muster with their review board. Why not put them on the cheap rack on the iTunes store? Perhaps if the board doesn't give a pilot a solid thumbs up, put it on iTunes, see how it does. Make a whole section for pilot movies/shows.
Sometimes, I just want to get a sense of what small screen hollywood is entertaining these days as possible entertainment for the masses next season. Like, NBC, the family oriented network doing "My Name Is Earl", can't say I was expect it. This would allow the networks additional feedback.
Cancelled TV:
You know the shows, the ones that didn't hack it, or suffered at the hands of network stupidity. The shows that have no chance to make it to DVD, and probably not even playing on a network that gobbles up old shows. There's always a fan for the show, and to pick it up on the cheap iTunes rack would be great. These show are probably lucky if they made it to a full (20+ episode) season. While those full season shows might show up on some obscure cable channel, the less fortunate ones are never to be seen again.
For example, "Action" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206467/), I'd love to be able to see the episodes I missed. Just to watch a supurb rant that Jay Mohr goes on against a hypocritical senator would be excellent.
Who knows, maybe this would help those shows that got cancelled by the networks get some extra life out of them, perhaps enough to put in a pure internet TV season, maybe to wrap up loose ends for the fans. "Farscape" comes to mind before they did the mini-series to wrap it up.