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Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions
sg3000 writes "Fans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, rejoice! Reuters is reporting that Apple will provide monthly subscriptions to two of Comedy Central's most popular shows. One question, as TV shows become available for sale on the Internet, will this make it harder to share clips online, such as through Google Video? In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true."
I just subscribed to the Daily Show. I don't have cable and the video quality is better than the files I've found on YouTube or other places online. The "subscription" title is a bit misleading - this is more like subscribing to a podcats - iTunes automatically downloads new episodes as they are made available. You can opt-in to an email notifying you that a new episode is available. It's more like a magazine subscription than a music service subscription since you get to keep the video files you've downloaded even if you don't renew the subscription. Kind of like buying an album on iTunes where they send you a song a week automatically. The DRM is the same as for any other song or video you buy on iTunes. Not a bad model for my needs.
Please show me where I can download the entire show, as it aired on a given night, as a single unbroken clip, at either of those links.
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I was about to buy the 16 episode plan, but I previewed the episode and noticed that both TDS and TCR both have problems in the encoding. The videos are are 320x208 resolution, which is horribly non-standard and causes the stretching of both videos (well, more accurately, squishing, but they have the same end effect), making everyone look fat. I have a blog post with picture comparing Jon Stewart's head in the video with how it should look.
Normally I wouldn't do this, but after seeing about 20 /.ers comment on these words, nobody yet (at least in the comments I've seen so far) have realized this is a tongue-in-cheek homage to the king of sarcasm himself, Stephen Colbert , of the Colbert Report.
Colbert totally rocks, I look forward to his show more than the Daily Show. For those that don't know, Colbert basically pretends to be a right-wing egotistical fact-ignoring pompous talk show host, but everything he says is either cleverly sarcastic, dripping in irony, damn funny, or all the above. So as per the original poster, some of his trademark lines are "I'm not a fan of facts" or "I don't like books, too many words". And of course, his consistent number one threat - bears.
In fact, I'm surprised more /.ers aren't a fan of him, as he was a total geek when he was younger. He played D&D alot, loved LotR and Sci Fi, and sometimes works this geekiness into his show. For example, once when he introduced a guest who's a poker champion, he said "Now, I've never played Poker, but if its anything like Dungeons & Dragons, I'll be up to my baldrics in scimitars before you can say, 'Cure Light Wounds!'". Also, back when he was on the Daily Show and Viggo Mortensen was on, they had Colbert backstage reading Aragorn's family history and list of aliases in a total geeky way, it was pretty funny. And of course, who can forget his epic Sci-Fi novel (still looking for a publisher) "Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure"
So yeah, sorry to have to explain the tongue-in-cheek joke above, it's never funny that way, but seeing how many people didn't catch it was a Colbertism, it needed to be done. Wikipedia has a good list of funny lines by Colbert.
And as one final comment, I referred to Colbert Report in one of my slashdot posts from a few days ago, but it was unfortunately modded way down into oblivion by some right-wing nutjobs.
make world, not war
The reason this price is acceptable has little to do with Steve Jobs or his blessings.
Yes, any way you slice it a DVD is a better deal (high res, six channel sound, extras, etc.), but some consumers don't want to 1) buy a DVD or record a TV show on a DVR, 2) rip it, 3) encode it, 4) move it to their iPod, just so they can watch in while they're sitting on the train to work.
For some of them, amazing as it sounds, paying a buck or two an episode to instantly acquire a commercial free version for their iPod is worth it: even with the low res and DRM.
We live in an instant gratification world now, and that's why this price is perfectly acceptable.