Time To Ditch Cable For Internet TV?

itwbennett writes "A flurry of announcements from YouTube, Boxee, Dell and Clicker on Thursday brought good news for anyone considering canceling their cable service in favor of internet TV. First, YouTube announced that within the next few days it will start offering full 1080P HD streams; better than your cable company can offer. Next, Boxee announced a 'Boxee Box' that promises to make it easier to get the content off your computer and onto your TV. Or you could hook up Dell's Inspiron Zino HD instead. 'This is an 8" x 8" PC running Windows 7 (with an option for Ubuntu) that you certainly could use as a desktop machine, but the form factor just screams 'Hook me up to your TV!' via its HDMI port,' says Peter Smith. And, last but not least in this roundup of announcements is the launch of Clicker, a programming guide for internet TV that aims to help you find what you want, when you want it."

Comments

I'm sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Next, Boxee announced a 'Boxee Box' that promises to make it easier to get the content off your computer and onto your TV.

Good luck. I'm hiding behind 7 of them right now!

Re:I'm sorry.

[Venim]

oh god lol

Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Dachannien]

But can I keep what I download?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[cryfreedomlove]

Why do you want to?

Imagine a world where anything you could possibly want to watch is available from the internet instantly for a flat rate all you can eat cheap price. That's where we are headed. In that world, why bother maintaining enough expensive disk space (with backups) for a video format that will be obsolete 6 months after you download it?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Dachannien]

Two reasons:

One, I can transcode it to eliminate the commercials.

Two, I never have to worry about my service provider (at the behest of the Content Cabal) revoking my ability to watch something I've saved.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[GameMaster]

Because this can, very easily, turn into one, giant, bait-and-switch. Once the big content companies companies get the entire market to abandon physical media and adopt online, on-demand, delivery it won't take long for them to end the "all you can eat" pricing system and adopt a "pay per view" system. Once that's done, they'll just keep jacking up the rates arbitrarily. We've already seen this kind of behavior from the broadband ISPs and cell phone companies in the US.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Seumas]

Last I heard, the average person watches an astonishing eight hours of television per day. Switching to entertainment on the internet to replace cable won't happen until data caps are lifted. Let's say people don't even have to watch HD content. Just regular digital/standard content. And let us say you have a family of four. Or are a few roommates sharing a place. That's an average of 32 hours of streaming video content per day or almost 700 hours of content per month. Not counting all the other bandwidth suckers you have going on like radio, gaming, etc.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Skreems]

Come on, you really think someone won't find a way around it? If the rates become more than people think is reasonable, they'll pirate it. They already do. And technology in 3 years isn't suddenly going to become impregnable. At the VERY worst, it'll take one guy with a machine fast enough to virtualize Windows, fullscreen a paid Hulu account, and record the screen output to a video file, and you've got an unencumbered video you can share with friends.

No system yet has proven foolproof. If you can watch it, you can record it. And if the default experience becomes irritating enough, someone's going to work their way around it just to spite the media companies if nothing else.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Abreu]

Why is this modded Troll? It is the plain truth!

Besides, some of us are outside the US and cannot access Hulu or any other similar service...

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[TBoon]

Three, transcode for portable devices. Watch on while travelling.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember this early on with cable TV, pre-Internet. If you bought cable, you would get some more channels, and all programming you watched would be ad-free. Then ads crept in between programs. Then eventually the shows you watched on had just as many ads as the over the air TV channels.

Another example is tethering. As time goes by, there are more restrictions, fewer phones that offer this service without jailbreaking or reflashing, and more fees attached for this service.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[martin-boundary]

You can save streaming video. Just use the right kind of media player.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[westlake]

One, I can transcode it to eliminate the commercials.

I watch Netflix downloads almost daily and I haven't been plagued by commercials.

Who has the time to do a clean - professional-looking - edit of every episode of Law & Order?

I never have to worry about my service provider (at the behest of the Content Cabal) revoking my ability to watch something I've saved.

Like revoking the online key that unlocks the encryption? Or embedding a time stamp in the file?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[MichaelSmith]

It could be just like video rental places now. Most movies I watch I just rent when I need them. I have the DVDs of a few I want to keep.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[cryfreedomlove]

You analogy is feeble. Net nuetrality will ensure a highly competitive environment. When one provider abuses its customers, those customers will jump to a better option.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Darinbob]

Yeah, I don't understand the attitude that things are always a click away. It takes a long time to download, and the internet is not always stable or available. If you're streaming you'll still want to back up or skip forward. If you've paid for something, even a measly $1, you'd like the ability to watch it twice. Backing up to DVD is a good option. Maybe not for Cheers reruns of course, but if you're watching next year's equivalent of Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica, it could be worth keeping. Though I suspect there are a lot of younger generation who can't imagine being interested in anything older than a tweet.

I'm still wrapping my head around the idea that some people have internet good enough to stream this high definition video in real time, fast enough to treat the whole thing like it was on Tivo. They've probably got cable modems, which they'd have to give up if they got rid of cable...

And no one is going to let you skip commercials forever without having a subscription fee. The whole "everything should be free, and high quality entertainment will spontaneously produce itself" idea seems very suspect. Too much like the whole dot-com bubble where visions of the future didn't synch up with reality.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Darinbob]

Who modded this a troll? Opinions you don't agree with are not the same thing as trolling.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[darkpixel2k]

Who has the time to do a clean - professional-looking - edit of every episode of Law & Order?

I have no clue, but whoever he is, he used to upload them to The Pirate Bay weekly...

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[DJRumpy]

I don't think the OP is a Troll. I have the same concern. Hulu is already talking about charging for content. I could see me switching to just internet from my cable company, only to find out my sources of entertainment had dried up or all started charging.

As soon as I saw this, the same thought came to my mind.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[DJRumpy]

Net Neutrality won't have any effect on prices. I think he was referring to these sites getting you to switch, and then charging for the content. It has nothing to do with throttling or anything of that sort.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[jedidiah]

Take good commercial detection code and feed it through a scriptable video editor.

This is not 1909. We have things like automation to make things easier.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[jedidiah]

Hulu has commercials. So it's an immediate fail. It is ultimately WORSE than a 10 year old Tivo.

I want bookmarks. I want random seeking. I want to not be subjected to commercials before and after the opening credits.

All Hulu ever does is make me want to record it with my PVR or just get a proper set of DVDs.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Quiet_Desperation]

Sort of getting there with Netflix. I don't mid waiting for DVDs- the turnaround time at my house has hit a theoretical minimum. I drop the discs in the mail Monday mornings, and I usually get new ones Wednesday, and a couple times on Tuesday which blew my mind, young man. And I have the Roku box for streaming.

Still, I like watching shows when they are first airing via DVR. I'll be upgrading from my DirecTivo to HD when the new HD Tivo units come out. I love how DirecTV went crawling back to Tivo. :-) That'll teach you to pointlessly reinvent the wheel, DTV. Should have put the money into better compression schemes and transmission codecs.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[DJRumpy]

Net neutrality basically says that all data is treated equally as far as priority (QOS). It has nothing to do with price that content providers can charge. It just ensures that they deliver what they charge for without discriminataion.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Who has the time to do a clean - professional-looking - edit of every episode of Law & Order?

I find that doing the edit for an hour long show takes roughly 10 minutes or less. If I do the part of setting the cut points while I am watching another show, then that's effectively zero time spent. Given that there are roughly 20 minutes of commercials in an hour long show, it works out to a significant net time savings and at the end of the process, I have a clean, professional looking edit of every episode of tv that I've watched, just ready to share with friends or rewatch a few years later. That's especially nice for shows that are unlikely to ever make it to bluray like sitcoms.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[PitaBred]

Honestly? The commercials on Hulu are less of an effort to watch than they are to try to circumvent. They're few, they're far between, and they aren't horribly annoying and at a different volume from the show. I'll take those any day in return for free content.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[zippthorne]

Wait.. eight hours a day? Add in eight hours to sleep and eight hours to work, where are these average people fitting in time to eat and poop (hopefully not combining the two)?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[evilviper]

In that world, why bother maintaining enough expensive disk space (with backups) for a video format that will be obsolete 6 months after you download it?

Disk space is extremely inexpensive now, and will get far more so in the future.

I have cheap, high-speed internet right now... Where I'm planning to move, I'll have no choice but to switch to expensive, low-speed dial-up. It will be an long time before such places are no longer the norm, and an extremely long time before they become legitimately hard to find...

MPEG-2 has been the overwhelmingly dominant format for video and audio since the early 90s. All other formats, up til MPEG-4 are simply poor proprietary re-implementations with next to no improvements to be had, and tremendous drawbacks. Now, MPEG-4/H.264, with it's few small (REAL!) improvements seems to be finally showing people what crap and smoke and mirrors all the proprietary crap is, and wiping them all out. I can't help but wonder how long it will be until everyone forgets the lesson, and starts falling for the same simplistic tricks again.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[drsquare]

That's got to be horseshit. Supposing someone finished work at 5pm, by the time they've got home, had a shower and some tea, it's 6pm. They then watch TV until 2am?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[theillien]

Do you think this might be something that could finally spur the cable providers to look at a la carte a bit more seriously? If streaming options become robust enough we could see the end of the need for traditional providers and their tiered system of providing crap we don't want. Assuming net neutrality doesn't become an issue they'll will have to make changes to compete.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[greyhueofdoubt]

I would like to imagine that world... However, in the world *I* live in, my connection is throttled down to 30-60kbs after I download a few too many albums or watch too much streaming video from Hulu.

Here's how my life works- I have to prioritize my viewing. Ok, the latest daily show and colbert report should stream just fine because I've been at work all day. Done and done. OK, now I want to watch last night's Conan Obrien- I'll have to watch this in sections, since the hulu player only lets you preload a few seconds of video at a time. I'll use this time to catch up on slashdot and xkcd while I wait for the video to catch up. Ok, after the two hours it took to watch conan I want to watch the latest south park episode. The official south park episode player works like the hulu player in that pausing the player only allows a few seconds/maybe a minute to cache. That won't work for me at this point so I go to a japanese or korean website that uses the youtube version of caching, ie, you can press pause and come back in 20 minutes to find at least 10 minutes have already downloaded.

I do dream of a world where I can download all the video I want, but right now I have to work with what I have. Netflix, boxee, et al won't work for me when my connection gets progressively slower for each ~400MB I use in a 24 hour period.

-b

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Firehed]

I think his point was that the content providers can pull down streams, preventing you from going back and watching content again. Hulu comes to mind, with shows that "expire" though I'm sure there are plenty of other places that do it as well.

Of course, how often is this a problem? Depends on the video, of course. Rule of thumb is that if it's not something they'd sell in a box-set (newscasts, late-night shows, etc) then availability being pulled after a month is typically a non-issue. For the rest... they're greedy, not stupid. So long as they've got advertisers willing to pay for spots, keeping it available is pretty much pure profit. Examples like The Simpsons which is limited to the 5 most recent episodes still leaves me a bit puzzled, yet I find myself going to Hulu whenever I get a Firefly craving despite having it in 720p on my fileserver - I guess the web interface is just easier (even with commercials), and it streams MORE reliably because of the lower bitrate and my finicky WiFi.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[nine-times]

The only thing that might possibly work against what you're talking about is the fact that the media companies lose a lot of leverage once distribution is happening online. That's kinda exactly why they don't really want distribution to move online. Their business is much more secure if they can get you to keep buying DVDs.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Firehed]

Well the good news is that you can put some of that money you saved by canceling cable towards a Hulu subscription. Or, given that this is slashdot and we hate the very idea of paying for content, a faster pipe for more effective torrenting. In either case, you probably still come out ahead (though obviously the latter runs the risk of getting you sued).

The good news is that people tend to be such cheapasses online that web-based content providers simply can't charge much - certainly nowhere near cable rates. And god only knows that the 750 channels you get through your cable package provide, what, two shows worth watching? You could pay $30-50+ for a season and still come out way ahead overall.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[tftp]

Supposing someone finished work at 5pm, by the time they've got home, had a shower and some tea, it's 6pm. They then watch TV until 2am?

Probably they count weekends, so that the TV on Sat/Sun is assumed to be on from 9am to midnight. That gives 15 hours daily; and if we assume that on weekdays the TV is on from 6pm to 11pm (5 hours) then the average would be (5*5 + 2*15)/7 = 7.9 hours, very close to the claimed time.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[drsquare]

I'm not buying 15 hours a day of TV, there isn't enough time including sleep, eating, shopping, household chores, exercise etc.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[nedlohs]

If the average working person watches 5 hours of TV a day on weekdays, but 12 hours a day on weekends.

And the 20% of people who don't have jobs/school watch it for 12 hours a day every day.

Then we have 8 hours a day on average: (0.8 * (5*5+12*2)/7 + 0.2 * 12) == 8.0.

Also some people watch TV at work - think receptionists in waiting rooms with a TV running. And some people get significantly less than 8 hours sleep a night. And lots of people watch TV while they eat.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[nedlohs]

Because it is impossible to have the TV on while you are eating, exercising, or doing chores.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Zen Hash]

Wait.. eight hours a day? Add in eight hours to sleep and eight hours to work, where are these average people fitting in time to eat and poop (hopefully not combining the two)?

When I have to poop, I usually take one of my computers with me so I don't have to stop whatever I'm doing. Sometimes I'll stay there even after I'm done so that I won't have to get up again for the next excretion of bodily waste. I also like to watch shows when I'm eating. Is there something wrong with eating lunch while watching a TV show on your laptop and pooping?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[mcrbids]

Imagine a world where anything you could possibly want to watch is available from the internet instantly for a flat rate all you can eat cheap price. That's where we are headed. In that world, why bother maintaining enough expensive disk space (with backups) for a video format that will be obsolete 6 months after you download it?

I don't have to imagine - it's my life right now! I write this on my Linux laptop, while my bedroom Mac Mini (with a 23" wide-screen monitor) is playing a show, streamed off the Internet. (in this case, it's a Law and Order episode being used as "background noise" to drown out my daughter and friends who are having a slumber party) I watch what I want, when I want, without any kind of scheduling. Although there are occasional "buffering... buffering..." glitches, they amount to perhaps a minute or two every other hour - far less time than an old-school commercial break. Since the switch to digital TV, every TV in my house has disappeared except for one old 19" set used for console video games.

While I tend towards "old school", and watch standard American/British TV on sites like Hulu/Netflix, my kids are far more likely (than I) to also watch foreign shows on Hulu or other flash sites. In particular, they like Anime and obscure Martial Arts shows that are often hosted on oversees websites.

In my household, we watch all our TV off the Internet, on demand. It's not only lots cheaper than Cable/Dish, it's actually a far better viewing experience. And I can take the $1000/year that we USED to spend on our primo Dish service (with all the channels and a 2-head DVR) and buy a rather nice computer.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[mcrbids]

Yeah, I don't understand the attitude that things are always a click away.

OK. For me, they are.

It takes a long time to download, and the internet is not always stable or available.

It takes me something less than 1 hour to download a 1 hour show. This is called "streaming"....

If you're streaming you'll still want to back up or skip forward.

And I commonly do. It takes about 10 seconds for the stream to resume when I do.

If you've paid for something, even a measly $1, you'd like the ability to watch it twice.

So... I push play again? (I don't pay per show, I pay Netflix a flat price, and Hulu has ads, but they aren't nearly as bad as standard TV)

Backing up to DVD is a good option. Maybe not for Cheers reruns of course, but if you're watching next year's equivalent of Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica, it could be worth keeping.

I could see myself buying season DVDs. I'm more likely to rent then as needed from Netflix, because after 2 viewings, I won't care for at least 5-10 years.

I'm still wrapping my head around the idea that some people have internet good enough to stream this high definition video in real time, fast enough to treat the whole thing like it was on Tivo. They've probably got cable modems, which they'd have to give up if they got rid of cable...

I have a 3 Mbit DSL connection. Most shows are honestly not true "HD" quality, but they do come in much higher resolutions than old school TV. I rarely notice bad image quality ruining the experience. I have a "buffering..." incident perhaps 1x every hour or so, and it usually lasts much less than an average commercial break on old school TV.

And no one is going to let you skip commercials forever without having a subscription fee.

With Hulu/Netflix, I can't skip the ads. Since there aren't 6 of them every 12 1/2 minutes, I don't mind. Netflix has no ads. Hulu has ONE ad where you'd normally see a commercial break. Both are acceptable to me.

The whole "everything should be free, and high quality entertainment will spontaneously produce itself" idea seems very suspect. Too much like the whole dot-com bubble where visions of the future didn't synch up with reality.

I agree! I pay Netflix about $15/month. I pay for my DSL service. Sites that I don't pay into have ads. This seems reasonable to me.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Znork]

Imagine a world where anything you could possibly want to watch is available from the internet instantly

If there was no copyright, that would be a possibility, yes.

In the current reality it's unlikely we'll get such a solution in the long term, for many reasons. It does not serve media companies to have to compete with older content. Ubiquitous content is inherently incompatible with exclusive deals, driving down ultimate pricing (compare the whole 'news is dying' thing). Monopoly pricing maximizes revenue when a significant number of potential customers cannot afford the product. Etc.

The only way you're going to get an Alexandrian library of media is if you build it yourself, for yourself, and frankly disk space to do just that is cheap.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[BitZtream]

Damnit, that is a freaking awesome idea and a quick check shows I can do it already.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[zmollusc]

Wow, the future looks good.
Previously I had imagined that a state-sponsored broadcasting company in britain had been formed to educate and entertain. Sadly, like many other areas of human endeavor, assholes got into the management layer and destroyed many many recordings of irreplacable shows.
I don't see exactly how assholes are going to be kept out of the management structure of these future corporations, but I am now reassured I don't need to back up shows i care about.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[benow]

Who has the time to do a clean - professional-looking - edit of every episode of Law & Order?

comdel video.mpeg; mencoder -edl comdel.edl -o trim.mpeg video.mpeg does.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[zmollusc]

Duh! Skip the chores and exercise and you are good. Pass me the chips.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[drinkypoo]

That's very nice for you, but where I live I can only get about 1 megabit, and I have to pay eighty bucks a month. Right now I'm paying fifty for 512kb and getting around 460kbps, so I'm skeptical about paying more... but the point is that in much of the USA this is a non-starter. I would bet that a very small percentage of the population actually has the bandwidth to do what you do smoothly.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[fredklein]

But all Hulu has to do is insert a user ID into the stream. Something subtle, and distributed, so it can't be (easily) removed. When a pirated copy is found, they find the ID, and cancel that person's subscription, permanently.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Patch86]

And another reason- think of the poor ISPs.

The attitude that sending something down the wire is free is receiving shorter and shorter shrift the more traffic finds it's way onto the net. Having to download, download and re-download a program repeatedly whenever you want to re-watch it, or stop halfway through and pick it up another day, or watch parts of it on several different devices (TVs in different rooms, portable devices, etc) is enough to make the fiber-optic-elves cry. And let's not get started on the feasibility of downloading significant quantities of high-quality video via portable cellular networks, as would be required to watch anything streamed while "on the go".

It may suit the content providers, and it may (disregarding the shockingly low price of storage these days and assuming everyone has flawless and unlimited bandwidth allowances) even suit the consumer. But it certainly doesn't suit the actual infrastructure we're relying on to deliver the content going forward into the future.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[zippthorne]

Well, there goes the used laptop market.

six words, my friend: Fecal Coliform Bacteria Under The Keys.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Patch86]

Oh, and to add to myself- regular downloading allows such trickery as downloading content during off-peak times (over night, or during the working day). You can take advantage of the faster speeds, avoid clogging up your own browsing experience, and avoid the snail-pace speeds of internet connections in the evening.

If the whole world were streaming, it makes the whole peak-speed problem even worse, with no sensible way around it. Bad for the savvy consumer- and bad yet again for the ISPs.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[hedwards]

Precisely, and the better providers allow you to tell them whether or not the ad is at all relevant. Sometimes, Hulu advertisers even give you the option to watch the commercial up front rather than small interruptions in the middle. Perfect for when premium channel content eventually becomes available.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Nezer]

"They've probably got cable modems, which they'd have to give up if they got rid of cable.."

This is plain FUD! I have a cable modem with no cable television and have had it that way for years. Maybe some companies force a bundling but many do not. I'm not even sure that would be legal in the U.S. (but IANAL so maybe it is--still it's a bad business decision).

Sure I would get a discount if I bundled the two but I have had no interest in cable TV since the mid to late nineties. For a while I preferred satellite because the quality was much better (inexplicably--in theory the cable companies have a much larger tube into my house) but eventually the cost became a burden as I found myself going online more and more for content. Eventually the only thing I ever watched on satellite was NASCAR races (let the flaming begin) and there are only 12 races a year not shown for free in HD over-the-air. This worked out to be around $30-40 USD a race which isn't worth it (seriously, I got to where I never watched anything else on satellite).

These days I prefer a combination of Hulu and TVTorrents.com. My "television" is now a second display for my PC.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[PitaBred]

And as soon as they get bad, I'll stop watching. Just like I did with cable.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[commodore64_love]

This is why Comcast, Cox, and other cable providers are negotiating with syfy.com, tnt.com, and other channels to move their content behind a central wall. They only want the content to be available to subscribers, not people like me (who have no cable). Of course Comcast makes this sound like a great deal, which will provide users with even more content, but I'm not seeing it. And I don't feel like paying $65/month just to watch Ghost Hunters or Monk online.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Golddess]

Like revoking the online key that unlocks the encryption? Or embedding a time stamp in the file?

Since the discussion is about why someone would want to have a local copy of the file when they could just stream it, more like how the library of streamable content on Netflix constantly changes (some stuff seems to be perma-up, but there are streams that are available only for a limited time.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Golddess]

Perhaps I inferred incorrectly, but I took the method described as basically pointing a video camera at the computer monitor and recording the show like that (taking advantage of the analog hole). Only instead of a physical video camera, you use a WYSIWYG video capture program to record what is displayed on the screen. Since you're recording the resulting image and not the stream used to create the image, there will be no user ID in the resultant file.

Though I guess they could try and watermark the user ID into the image itself by shifting a few pixels a few bits off the original color. That way to the naked eye every stream looks the same, but on a closer inspection pixel 123 is ff0001 on one stream and ff0002 on another. But I suspect that any watermark undetectable to the naked eye would also be tiny enough that when the output from the WYSIWYG program is encoded, any ability to link the file to a single account would be lost.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[glitch23]

Who has the time to do a clean - professional-looking - edit of every episode of Law & Order?

I try to do that for American Chopper every week. Out of 152 episodes I'm only "missing" about 20 episodes and really missing about 3. The "missing" ones I actually have but want to re-record those episodes because I started recording them using coax rather than S-video so the quality isn't the greatest and I'm anal so I want my collection to be consistent (which is why I don't download them from anyone else). The other 3 or so the recording got messed up for one reason or another so I don't have them. Because I'm anal about how they look I make sure when I remove commercials that the cuts are clean and smooth (the way the show fades to commercials helps with this tremendously). I record the shows in 720x480 format (yes, I know they aren't broadcast in that resolution but it means I don't have to convert them to burn to DVD format), spend ~10 minutes removing commercials and then I burn 2 episodes to a DVD with a custom menu. I don't post my files anywhere online. I just do it for my personal use because I'm not going to spend $20 for *each* episode to buy them from discovery.com

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[fredklein]

I always wondered why they didn't do something like this with screeners. (In case you don't know, 'screener' refers to a copy of a movie that is sent to movie critics and censors before the movie is available to public). Take a minor detail, like the color of the purse a women in the background walks by with, and change it. Then when a screener is uploaded, all they have to do is download it, and look at that scene. By looking at the color purse, they know who's screener was copied.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[CaPn Corelian]

With Hulu/Netflix, I can't skip the ads. Since there aren't 6 of them every 12 1/2 minutes...

Not yet. Let the thing get popular enough, let TV get unpopular enough and let's see in a few years.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[nathanh]

But all Hulu has to do is insert a user ID into the stream. Something subtle, and distributed, so it can't be (easily) removed. When a pirated copy is found, they find the ID, and cancel that person's subscription, permanently.

And all the pirate has to do is use a stolen credit card and a fake name.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[altern1ty]

You watch NASCAR? BWAHAHAHA... ... ... ... Do you think Mark Martin's gonna take the points lead from Jimmie Johnson?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[toddestan]

The actual statistic is 8 hours of TV per day per household. Once you factor in households with more than one TV with more than one person watching a TV at a time, the number is a bit more realistic. Slashdotters have to remember that not everyone lives by their lonesome selves :)

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[fredklein]

So, when they get caught eventually (Hulu does have records of IP addresses), they can get charged with credit fraud, ID theft, etc, on top of the Intellectual Property offense?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[RoseCityRemona]

I agree with GameMaster, without a doubt. That's just how it is-how corporate america works. The history has unfolded time and time again. The way to overcome it is to constantly be working to stay ahead of the creeps - Napster is no more and many ppl have been hit with court cases against them for their music downloads - how common is it to get that kind of unfettered music downloading now? Pirating sites are not a lot of help because so many hackers go thru those sites & I personally won't download from them unless desperate. Wouldn't be surprised if the big corps hired some of those virus creating freakazoids.... I nixed my cable tv because 1) it was expensive as all get out and 2) it gave me very little for the money. I hate feeling cheated & ripped off. I do still use them for high speed internet but, that is a much much lower bill every month. (it has more real competition than cable tv). I nixed my landline phone company before them. That's 2 times a month I don't have to bend over & take it for nothing (paleese - I want the big O for my effort at least!). Now I'm watching all my tv programming online - tho' I'm watching for improvements to make it easier & better quality. It's well worth the effort. I have no problem with ads for free content (I do realize those guys gotta make a living - I just want something in exchange for paying for their houses on the hill), I make note on the sponsers for content I particularly like the delivery of and vice versa. I make my money do my talking - it's what they (the big corps) are after after all isn't it? Ramblings of a mad woman...

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[nathanh]

So, when they get caught eventually (Hulu does have records of IP addresses), they can get charged with credit fraud, ID theft, etc, on top of the Intellectual Property offense?

These days identity theft and credit fraud are minor crimes compared to copyright infringement.</tongue-in-cheek>

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[evol262]

The thing is, at least in every part of the country I've lived in, it's cheaper by $20/month or so to get basic, no-frills cable plus cable internet than cable internet by itself.

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[AP31R0N]

Wasn't there a South Park episode about this very thing?

Re:Is it live, or is it Memorex

[Mister_Stoopid]

That sounds interesting, who is "we" and, realistically speaking, would I get disconnected or bill-raped at the end of the month if I'm constantly torrenting?

I've canceled mine

[LiQiuD]

I've canceled my cable, and I don't think I'll go back. It's me, my 3 kids, and my wife. They have all adjusted to streaming from Netflix and Hulu. About the only downside is missing out on life sporting events. I'm contemplating just adding a tuner card to my HTPC, and then getting those over the air.

Overall I'm very happy with the new setup though, it is saving me about $100/month (canceled phone as well) and we still watch the same shows. Of course YMMV.

Re:I've canceled mine

[rotide]

I've done the same. However, I did actually build a HTPC with a dual QAM tuner for Boxee and OTA HD stations. Although, I did keep the $13 a month cable plan just so I don't have to fiddle with antennas. They pipe the OTA/QAM HD stations with this basic basic package.

I've rediscovered the simple pleasures of PBS, etc. I know I've had them all along, but the ability to just put reruns on was so great that I'd never actually watch PBS. Now I enjoy it again!

Why did I switch? Internet TV is so much easier. No, the quality, in general, isn't there yet, but it's so convenient to watch day old shows on Hulu and other sources. Come to find out, I was paying about $75 a month to pretty much watch NBC, CBS, etc. The only channels I miss now are Discovery and Disc Science. Other than that, screw it. Paying $75 a month for a bunch of channels I don't watch, no thanks.

The funniest part, the cableco was charging me $9+ for the DVR/Cable box and an ADDITIONAL $7 for the DVR _function_. $16/mo just for a metal box that sucks up electricity. Now I pay them $13 a month for the convenience of not needing an antenna.

Re:I've canceled mine

[mattack2]

The funniest part, the cableco was charging me $9+ for the DVR/Cable box and an ADDITIONAL $7 for the DVR _function

That's the sad part that most people don't realize -- that, EVEN if they were paying monthly(*), getting a Tivo or other DVR(**) likely would SAVE them money in the long run, and be less junky than the cable DVRs.
(*) Personally, I would not do that and have always bought lifetime subscriptions for mine.
(**) There's a new Moxi out that has *3* tuners.. but they ONLY do cable, not OTA, and you need an additional adapter to do analog at all. However, they *don't* require cablecards for guide data (for digital *cable* channels), which a Tivo does. (To clarify, Tivos work fine with OTA and analog cable WITH NO CABLECARDS.. to get guide data for digital channels, you need cablecards, unfortunately.)

Re:I've canceled mine

[EEBaum]

If it's anything like previous versions of Moxi, I'd just as soon not watch television.

Re:I've canceled mine

[mattack2]

OK, I've not actually ever *used* a Moxi. They're just the first competitor to Tivo to come out in a long while for customer owned DVRs. (Of course there are some non-guide-based or TV Guide On Screen based recorders, but those are much much closer to VCR-like programming slots, and I don't know if any of those do HD.)

Moxi's 3 tuner announcement was very recent. I wanted to mention something besides Tivo, even though I'm a user of them and great fan.. just wanted to show that there were multiple kinds of "consumer DVR" that weren't from the cable company that were cheaper in the long run *and* potentially better.

Re:I've canceled mine

[rotide]

Honestly, I was considering getting a Tivo and being done with the cable box. Then I researched it a bit. The problem ended up being that I would have had to rent a cable card for the Tivo from them anyways. The savings just wasn't there anymore.

Re:I've canceled mine

[mattack2]

Cablecards are typically about $1.50/month *additionally*, with the first being free with the digital cable subscription. I did say "typically" and it can sometimes be more, but those are relatively rare situations. That is, you'd probably still save that $16/month, or else save at least $14.50 or so a month (the difference being what you'd pay for a cable card).

Personally, I can't stand watching without a recording device of some kind.. Even for PBS shows (no commercials in the middle except for pledge break season), I want the ability to pause, FF, etc..

Re:I've canceled mine

[nomadic]

That's the sad part that most people don't realize -- that, EVEN if they were paying monthly(*), getting a Tivo or other DVR(**) likely would SAVE them money in the long run, and be less junky than the cable DVRs.

What a lot of people don't realize is you can stop paying for cable, and not get a Tivo or other DVR, and save even more money. Then you can read, go outside, etc.

Re:I've canceled mine

[Z00L00K]

I also scrapped my cable now, but I haven't even considered the Netflix or Hulu options.

I'll have to survive without the Discovery Channel, which is about the only thing I miss out on now.

The main reason for me to scrap was that the channels provided started to get really crappy (among that Eurosport lost MotoGP and started to send a lot of football) and any good channels were requiring an extra payment. In addition to this the agreement was updated and went down the drain for me as a customer so I took the safe route and canceled before the new agreement went into effect since the new agreement was turning into a slave agreement.

Cable companies wants us as mindless slaves paying in blood.

Re:I've canceled mine

[Ratbert42]

For sports, you can try ESPN 360. My ISP doesn't carry it, but my neighbor's does. Justin.tv carries a lot of sports coverage and ESPN and others don't seem to mind enough to take down the streams.

Re:I've canceled mine

[Rydia]

A good antenna and HTPC will get you good mileage, especially now that MythTV 0.22 is out. It's a fantastic release.

Re:I've canceled mine

[spgass]

I've canceled mine, too, but don't watch Internet TV... just free over-the-air tv. More info here, if interested.

Using cable to distribute video

[inKubus]

I don't have cable and I use a DSL modem. I have a cheap $30 gforce with an svideo out and what I did was get a RF Modulator at Home Depot and I feed the svideo (well, composite, after a quick convert) and audio into it. Then I connected it to my house cable (it was wired for cable already). Outside I disabled the feed from the cable company. Anyway, I connected my TV to my home cable and I just set it to channel 4 to view any content I want.

Netflix includes Instant Play which has a TON of movies, all included with your $8.95/month membership. Lots of TV show DVDs, especially. It's a great deal.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[badboy_tw2002]

Interesting. Could a similar system be used for HD?

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[inKubus]

For HD you'd need an ATSC modulator. They are available but like $500+, not $22 ;)

Some other details, I set resolution to 800x600. NTSC has 525 scan lines, around 500 of which are visible. But it really looks good, full screen fills the screen perfectly centered. The gforce handles the downconvert to TV pretty perfectly (and I'm going svideo to composite also). TV's are pretty blurry anyway so it's not noticable. The splitters in the system in this case act as a multiplexer in reverse. I was lucky that they all went into a hub type splitter.

My next purchase will be an RF remote and maybe an RF wireless keyboard. It's not sharp enough for serious text but movies look great and netflix uses gigantic thumbnails so you can browse movies pretty well on the TV.

Netflix instant play is a hit, I'm also doing youtube playlists, Hulu is ok (I hate ads), music with visualizations might be fun at a party. I'd like to have a entertainment center PC but for under $100 I couldn't be happier. Anything to get me out of this chair and onto the couch ;)

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[mattack2]

The audio will always be mono with RF modulators that regular people buy.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[Darinbob]

And then you yell upstairs "Honey, can you hit rewind on the computer for me?" :-)

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[jedidiah]

Any tuner attached to a cable box is pretty much totally interchangeable.

They all have the same problems and disadvantages. This goes for a Hauppauge PVR-150, a Hauppauge HD-PVR or an S2 Tivo.

OTA is it's own different can of worms.

Both are still better than commercials and being at the mercy of someone else's schedule.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[jedidiah]

????

If you want a system that outputs to an HD TV just get a modern video card with a DVI or HDMI port.

An entire ION based system can be had for $200 (nevermind $500) and it will fully accelerate video playback.

A modern TV is just another monitor to a computer.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[WidgetGuy]

It's an even better deal if you get the $99 Roku box. Plug it in and it jumps right on your WiFi network. Also hooks up to your router or modem with an RJ45 cable. Connects directly to your TV via composite or HDMI. I've had mine with my $15/mo Netflix subscription for over a year now. Roku also carries MLB (Major League Baseball) and Amazon's Video on Demand (rip off prices, but they do carry more recent DVDs and TV programs than does Netflix's Watch Instantly offering).

The stuff from Netflix is free (no extra charge) with your standard, snail-mail subscription (as low as $9/mo). NO COMMERCIALS. You can even watch current-season TV programs (they are automatically added to your Netflix instant queue every week on the day after they air via cable TV). I watched CSI, Numb3rs and Dexter like that last year. And, what you put in your queue (by selecting them on-line at the Netflix site) STAYS in your queue until YOU delete it. Even the TV episodes. You select the Amazon and MLB stuff directly via the Roku box (you rent the Amazon stuff for a limited time, another reason to avoid them -- don't know about MLB since I've never used it). You can watch the Netflix content over and over again. Did I mention NO COMMERCIALS.

The Roku box is rock solid and its software is maintained and upgraded automatically over the 'net. Excellent customer service (although you probably won't ever need to use it 'cause the unit is so reliable and easy to set up). Simple remote control and a coverflow-like queue viewer (with descriptions of each DVD or TV episode). Top notch engineering and UI design all the way around. You will completely forget you are watching streaming video. It's really that good.

I changed my $100/mo cable TV/Internet subscription to just Internet over two years ago (RoadRunner was the only ISP offering 15Mbps down around here). I'm Pandora (also no commercials) and Netflix/Roku equipped now. Life is good.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[nine-times]

I just recently cancelled my cable and signed up for Netflix, and I have to say it's working pretty well for me. I play stuff on my TV via a PS3, and it's pretty close to what I think video should be. Big selection, I can play whatever I want whenever I want however much I want, and the monthly cost isn't very much. They only way I can think of off-hand to improve it would be to make everything available for streaming, and to have all TV episodes for every show available at their normal air date.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[julesh]

And then you yell upstairs "Honey, can you hit rewind on the computer for me?" :-)

I'm sure that as we speak, somebody somewhere is working on an Android/iPhone/Palm-pre app that lets you use your phone to hook up to your wireless lan and operate as a remote control for VLC.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[7213]

I've got a very smiler configuration for SDTV distribution of my HTPC output over existing Coax throughout my house.

I've looked for an ATSC or QAM modulator before, and my searches resulted in substantially costlier solutions then 500$. Try 4 times that for DVI/SPDIF or HDMI to QAM modulator, I couldn't find one that did ATSC. And it would seems ridiculous that low cost solutions for this don't yet exist.

Could you share some information about the ATSC modulators you've found at a ~500$ price point? Sounds like it could be a perfect solution for me if I ever by another HDTV.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[7213]

RF IR extenders are a godsend for this sort of thing. I recently purchased a "Next Generation Remote Control Extender" that I HIGHLY recommend. I've got my HTPC in the basement and can use the remote control from my bedroom on the second floor without issue.
http://www.amazon.com/Next-Generation-Remote-Control-Extender/dp/B000C1Z0HA

Basicly it comes with a very small rechargeable battery that can be put in either an AAA or AA sleeve (The sleeve houses an RF transmitter) . You put this battery & sleeve into the remote control's battery holder and it senses the IR LEDs load on the battery. Turns that data into RF and sends it to a base station placed where your video source is, the base station then sends out the original IR signal. Replaces the 'wife/gf remote' w/a more submissive model ;-) (Un)fortunately it doesn't have all the features of the wife/gf, so you should keep at least one of them around as well if those features are important to you (I often question if the tinkering & effort to keep 'em functioning properly is worth it).

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[sowth]

It would be far cheaper to just use a computer monitor than buy a HDTV setup. They have as good or better quality than any given TV. Last time I checked, you can buy ATSC card for the computer, so you won't miss out on anything.

Stringing your house with ethernet costs less than with HDMI cable, and you can do more with computers than just a TV.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[jedidiah]

This is 2009. Wire CAT5 or CAT6 and not worry about nonsense with modulating to coax. You can even use CAT5 for a variety of other things including video distribution.

As far as legacy wiring goes. You probably don't even want what some clueless low-bid contractor put into your house originally.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[jedidiah]

No you don't.

A computer can handle any input that comes in and can handle any output that's needed.

For $500, you can buy yourself an entire frontend, backend or HDTV.

Once it's in, you can distribute it with any mechanism you like including wireless.

Even if you want to "distribute HDMI, there are cheaper ways of going about it".

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[harshaw]

no... my company builds an HD encoder / modulator that takes VGA/component in and outputs QAM. zeevee.com. Unfortunately still a bit too expensive for residential installs.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[ceoyoyo]

Yes. You can get an EyeTV or similar USB dongle that will do ATSC no problem. Or something integrated into your video card if you want to go that way. If you find you only get a few channels, add on a $30 antenna.

Re:Using cable to distribute video

[7213]

ooh, pretty shiny!!!

At a quick glance that seems to be exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the link, I don't need it today (only one HDTV directly connected today) but certainly bookmarked for they day that I do.

I'd rather go the QAM encoder route, then buy one of those balun(sp?) arrangements encapsulating HDMI (even if its more expensive up front). Those things are not very future proof IMNSHO, they remind me of those old vcr rabbits. QAM on the other hand should be around for a while.

Good show, I hope you guys do well with selling those things.

YouTube

[nxtr]

What YouTube content equates to broadcast TV? Just come out and say it that you're going to be automating TV show torrents.

Re:YouTube

[Shikaku]

http://www.southparkstudios.com/

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

http://www.hulu.com/

http://www.youtube.com/movies

http://www.getmiro.com/

I haven't paid for TV for over a year now. Neither did I torrent.

Re:YouTube

[mattack2]

Really only your second to last answers his question..

http://www.youtube.com/shows?p=None&s=None
"equates to broadcast TV" since it is (at least partially) broadcast TV Shows.

Re:YouTube

[nxtr]

Actually, I would like to thank you for showing me Miro. Hulu et al don't work for me in my foreign land of Canada.

Re:YouTube

[melikamp]

The first two are very decent, I use them all the time. Hulu, however, is at war with AdBlock, and is utterly unwatchable. I would rather do micro-payments than watch a single ad, and until providers get it through their thick skulls, the free version will remain a superior product.

Re:YouTube

[earlymon]

Don't forget this one:

http://www.slashcontrol.com/

Unlike hulu - all of the Babylon 5 episodes are there.

Re:YouTube

[trytoguess]

Last time I used Hulu, they'd just tell you to adjust your adblocker and make you wait around 30 seconds if you blocked a commercial. Something change?

Re:YouTube

[melikamp]

30 seconds breaks were perfectly tolerable and kind of funny to read. But after a while they started actively fighting AdBlock, and there is no cure for that.

https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2456&start=45

AdBlock is a great technology, and it won't be long before we have trainable (Bayesian?) filters, I think. But Hulu has an upper hand in this fight: they can always default to gluing ads into the video stream, which would put us back to square one. But hey, whatever. I can write a script that detects new torrents and downloads them automagically. Eat that, Hulu.

Re:YouTube

[trytoguess]

Thank you. That was very informative, not to mention useful. :)

Re:YouTube

[TheRaven64]

Perhaps you're unaware that YouTube carries complete episodes of some shows and even a few movies. Most of them are not available outside the USA (and their UI sucks; you select a different country and it still shows you loads of things that only work in the USA and only tells you that they won't work when you hit play).

The whole idea that you need cable seems to be a US thing. On this side of the pond most people don't have cable (or satellite, which is more common), and we have fewer terrestrial channels. I did have cable for a bit because it was about £5 on top of my Internet subscription. I cancelled it after a while because I realised that I found the adverts too irritating on the cable channels and was mainly watching things on the BBC and it wasn't worth paying for the occasional show on Sky One. My TV broke about a year later, and I'd watched so little on it in the preceding few months that I didn't bother getting it repaired.

Now that I don't have a TV, I actually watch more than I did before. I rent DVDs through the post and the same company offers a streaming service. I have an old laptop connected to a projector which can play the streaming shows (a relatively limited selection of films and TV shows, but no limits on the number you can watch), shows on iPlayer, and so on. I never see adverts and I watch things when I want to watch them, without having to remember to record them in advance.

Re:YouTube

[Terranis]

I sti

Waytago, Dell!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The inspiron uses a dual-core AMD chip.

Which means no Intel AMT security risks.

(Somebody wake me if AMD also does something as stupid as building "IT management" hooks into their chips to let your machine be remote-pwned without the OS having a say in it.)

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The inspiron uses a dual-core AMD chip.

Make that "Inspiron Zino HD". Other boxes in the Inspiron line DO use Intel chips, some with AMT hooks (though it's not clear to me whether they have enough additional AMT support to make that a risk).

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[Sepodati]

Where's the Ubuntu option, though? Only options I saw were Vista or 7...

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[steve.howard]

I don't know much about it, but shouldn't disabling AMT in the BIOS essentially solve the problem?

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[jedidiah]

This is the part that is silly...

If you want a box like that for Linux then you get an ION and not one of these Zino boxes.

Dell's insistence on using ATI GPUs in their low profile boxes has always been rather annoying.

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I don't know much about it, but shouldn't disabling AMT in the BIOS essentially solve the problem?

How do you know it's disabled? The BIOS TOLD you it was disabled. If you believe it I've got some land in Nevada to sell you...

AMT can rewrite the BIOS - as can the machine itself if it gets cracked even with AMT actually off. Once the BIOS is tweaked (assuming it doesn't come from the factory that way - to keep the security agencies happy, because the FACTORY got cracked, or due to a bug) the tweaked BIOS can lie and you can't tell from anything running on the main processor(s).

(There's already been ONE BIOS exploit I've heard of that flips a couple bits in the OS' IP stack while booting it and then erases itself from the RAM image of the BIOS. The flipped bits reinsert a bug that enables a one-packet root-connection exploit. From the OS' view the only evidence of the BIOS exploit is the flipped bits in the OS RAM image. Look at the BIOS code and you see the RAM image of it with the exploit removed - just what should have been there. And the disk image of the OS is intact, too.)

Also: If there's a bug in the BIOS / WAN interface firmware, an exploit of THAT might successfully utilize some AMT functionality even if it's "turned off" - potentially leading to turning it all on or otherwise pwning the machine.

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[julesh]

How do you know it's disabled? The BIOS TOLD you it was disabled.

If you don't trust your BIOS, there's a jumper on your motherboard that resets AMT to its default state (i.e. no authentication methods configured, so nobody can access it except locally).

AMT can rewrite the BIOS - as can the machine itself if it gets cracked even with AMT actually off.

Well, yes. You can't _entirely_ trust a machine that you haven't built yourself from individual transistors.

At some point you have to trust that something works as advertised, and AMT is designed to be disablable. So you have to trust your machine's vendor hasn't hijacked something to prevent you from disabling it, but here's some news: there are a lot of other ways they could do this if they wanted. They could insert their own back door in the system's chipset, something that snoops on the bus for a certain network packet being received and then takes over the system, for example. I fail to see, however, why any of them would bother.

Also: If there's a bug in the BIOS / WAN interface firmware, an exploit of THAT might successfully utilize some AMT functionality even if it's "turned off" - potentially leading to turning it all on or otherwise pwning the machine.

Yes, but it could well do so even without AMT being present. In order to achieve this, the firmware would need to contain a bug that allows an attacker to pretend to be interacting with the machine via some local method (usb port, keyboard, etc.). Such a bug would be a serious problem, and would almost certainly allow the attacker the ability to execute arbitrary code, and therefore give them the ability to (e.g.) reflash your bios, install a rootkit in your OS, or any other such insidious method of taking over your system. I fail to see why the presence of AMT would make this any worse than it already is.

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[sowth]

Not strange. It means you can install Ubuntu if you want it. Just because they don't sell you a system with Ubuntu preloaded doesn't mean it won't work. It also tells you it probably also works with other Linux distros too, since Ubuntu runs mostly the same software. :-)

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[sowth]

Oh, and since this is slashdot, I should mention they probably don't offer a Linux option because the guy who decided belongs to the cult of Microsoft. That or Microsoft is back to their anti-trust law violating ways. Would not be surprising since they weren't really punished the first time.

And to keep this on topic... I'd rather watch Gentoo compile all my source for days and days than watch any cable TV.

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You can't _entirely_ trust a machine that you haven't built yourself from individual transistors.

And not even then - because you'll probably introduce vulnerabilities yourself. B-b

However this "feature" is deliberately designed to make the machine untrustworthy - giving several pieces of control and observability to someone elsewhere on the network, overriding the intentions of the operator of the machine and the functionality of any software on it, while hiding this from them and making it inaccessable to them.

[a BIOS] bug [allowing activation of part of the AMT functionality] would be a serious problem, and would almost certainly allow the attacker the ability to execute arbitrary code, and therefore give them the ability to (e.g.) reflash your bios, install a rootkit in your OS, or any other such insidious method of taking over your system. I fail to see why the presence of AMT would make this any worse than it already is.

It makes it worse by having the components for the attack already installed. Without them they must be constructed externally and "squeezed through the crack". With them, the malware is already present - and "properly" so. Thus the vulnerability only needs to be "big enough" to get them activated. The attack doesn't need to bootstrap itself up - just get a state changed, a key inserterd, and/or an already present function activated. The code itself doesn't need to be injected.

The only difference between a compromised machine and an uncompromised one is that there is an authentication method for the attacker and perhaps that the AMT is activated when it should not have been. AMT is designed so the software and user of the machine can't detect that it is operating or what it is doing (except by noticing the effects if they are disruptive). So if you're hosed you don't know it and can't find out.

Sorry: Shipping machines that have "big brother's minion" deliberately built in, no matter for what noble purpose, is too Orwellian for me. It's an extra door from the alley into the vault, with its "security" handled (as far as I can see so far) by obscurity, bypassing all my own layers of protection. Such misfeatures mean the product is off my purchase list.

Re:Waytago, Dell!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

A couple more points:

there are a lot of other ways they could do this if they wanted. They could insert their own back door in the system's chipset, something that snoops on the bus for a certain network packet being received and then takes over the system, for example. I fail to see, however, why any of them would bother.

That's exactly what AMT *IS* - except that for this part of the functionality, instead of "snooping on the bus", is actually in the path between the IO and the CPU, examining and forwarding the packets (except those it grabs for itself or modifies before forwarding). This is precisely so that, when it sees a "certain network packet" it can take over the system. And because it eats the packets rather than just snooping them the system can't even see the magic packet and raise an alarm before it is enslaved.

Obviously they "bothered". They're proud of it. They market it to corporations as a feature.

In order to [utilize a firmware bug to inject an AMT order], the firmware would need to contain a bug that allows an attacker to pretend to be interacting with the machine via some local method (usb port, keyboard, etc.).

Not at all: The AMT "man in the middle" is its own little router. It has its own network stack, separate from the one in the OS, and forwards the packets between the OS and the network interfaces. When it's "disabled" does it hook the interface directly to the CPU bus? Or does it just forward unconditionally? I'd bet on the latter. It's simpler.

Which means a bug in the network stack of the AMT processor can let the network interface inject orders from a malformed packet directly into its little "brain". No need to masquerade as being on some local interface.

The cable co will just set low caps. also live spo

[Joe The Dragon]

The cable co will just set low caps. also live sports are fully on line.

you need cable or sat to see most of your NHL, MLB and NBA teams games. Same thing for BIG 10, some nascar. At least all your team NFL games* are on OTA for free. *if they sell out games played in your area.

Playstation 3

[Nursie]

iPlayer, youtube, DLNA, all you need. Stream your ... eh ... legitimately acquired media from any old linux (w. mediatomb) or windows vista or 7 (w. media player) machine.

Plus you get to play games.

Re:Playstation 3

[tepples]

Plus [with a PS3] you get to play games.

Only PS3 and PS1 games, not the bigger selection of PC games, and definitely not Free games.

Re:Playstation 3

[JoeMerchant]

Wanker! I was perfectly happy in my ignorance, but now I not only know what iPlayer is, I also know that Sony doesn't deliver it to the states. Are there stateside work-arounds? I found the old site with a message that it's "in your XMB now" - bah!

Re:Playstation 3

[abigor]

I don't think by "games" he meant all games. He just meant some games made for the appropriate console, including a bunch of very high-quality ones. It's nice that your $299 media centre also kicks ass at video games.

The PS3 just rocks. Best mid-range purchase I've made in years. Guess I'll fire up Modern Warfare 2 now.

Re:Playstation 3

[kramerd]

The sad thing is, linux is good because it handles most codecs and you can ignore drm with it (big win), but it always seems like getting 1080p and 7.1 surround out, and blue ray playing is iffy.

You were close./sarcasm

Windows is good because it handles most codecs and you can ignore drm with it (disturbingly easily, I might add), but it always seems like getting 1080p and 7.1 surround sound out and blu-ray playing are independent of an OS. These are hardware issues.

Re:Playstation 3

[TheRaven64]

Not sure how you missed knowing what iPlayer is before, given the number of times that it's been covered in Slashdot (including one article in the last two weeks). Sony doesn't deliver it anywhere. The BBC delivers it, Sony just ships a front end for the PS3. You can only access it from a UK IP address. If you can find a proxy server in the UK, then you can just go to the iPlayer site using it. If you want to avoid Flash, then use get_iplayer, which downloads the videos (play them back with VLC for about half the CPU load of the flash plugin...).

Re:Playstation 3

[Nursie]

Hey, sorry to post that and then leave...

I did install linux on it but I've barely used that capability. It's a pretty capable media player without needing linux. You can put stuff onto an external drive if you want, either a USB flash drive or (what we do) you set up media sharing on another box and stream video over the network.

I have a headless linux server that does torrents. There's a program called "Mediatomb" that allows you to share media over UPnP. The PS3 just finds these servers on the local network and allows you to browse the shares. Windows (vista or 7) can share using media player and appear in the same way. It's pretty cool. Most stuff doesn't even need to be transcoded in any way. And if the network's being crap, as ours sometimes is, you can tell it to copy the video to its internal drive, then watch it locally.

I know a lot of folks dislike the PS3, but I love it. We use it as a media box more than a games machine now.

Re:Playstation 3

[CronoCloud]

Older model PS3's like my CECHE01 model, play PS2 games just fine. As for Free games, does Nethack running on YDL6.2 qualify?

Re:Playstation 3

[CronoCloud]

You're forgetting that since older model PS3's can boot into Linux, they also have torrent clients and media transcoders. So you could torrent the stuff in Linux, transcode with ffmpeg/mencoder (if necessary), and put the finished videos on external storage for viewing under GameOS.

Re:Playstation 3

[tepples]

Older model PS3's

are no longer produced. The current model is compatible with neither PlayStation 2 games nor Yellow Dog Linux, so forget about targeting that platform unless you're an established company.

wishing for

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want a way to watch the tv shows I want *using a portable HD* so that when on the road, or at the folks place (with dial-up), ect, I can watch my programs off that external HD without a net connection. I can download shows at work and watch them whenever....and I don't want to have to tediously rip DVDs and wade through broken torrents, legal would be nice.

Was the internet meant for this?

[Provocateur]

Has the tech caught up to provide us with shows When we want them, Where we want them? Or will (example only) iphone users or wireless users start feeling the crunch as the bandwidth is being hogged by ex-TV viewers? Will it be less information interchange and more of movie watching?

I don't want the creators of the internet to be rolling in their graves. Oh, wait...

Re:Was the internet meant for this?

[timeOday]

Will it be less information interchange and more of movie watching?

I think that threshold was passed long, long ago. As for the creators of the initial Internet, well, they're not paying the bills for it any more.

Still, I'm amazed how fast video stormed the Internet. There was widespread skepticism that the Internet could be scaled to do it, until youtube proved them all wrong.

Re:Was the internet meant for this?

[FrankieBaby1986]

Well, imagine how much internet bandwidth will be available in the existing cable tv infrastructure once ALL broadcast channels go away, and PPV and etc.

Re:Was the internet meant for this?

[Darinbob]

Youtube is low resolution low quality videos, which is why they can compress so well. HD videos, or even NTSC resolution without compression artifacts, take up a lot more bandwidth.

Re:Was the internet meant for this?

[camperdave]

There's a big difference between broadcasting a video signal, even a digital broadcast, and a transmitting an internet signal. Everyone gets the same video signal, so all you need is (one way) repeaters. With internet, everyone needs to get their own stream of bits. The bandwidth is a lot narrower.

Re:Was the internet meant for this?

[TheRaven64]

Not sure what the creators of the Internet wanted, but the Web was subverted when people started installing clients with no associated server. Every machine on the Web was intended to be both and some of the early browsers combined this functionality, providing both a server, HTML editor, and browser in the same app. Opera seems to be the only company interested in reversing this trend.

I still pass

[buss_error]

I'm not feeding the copyright cartel until they quit treating me like a criminal and going to insane lengths to monetize every last drop of creative talent. (And that's giving them credit and assuming that they have any.)

Re:I still pass

[popo]

Not to mention the fact that TV actors are the most overpaid, undertalented idiots I've ever known. Why is it that starving waitresses suddenly make a couple hundred grand when they get a recurring sitcom role? Is there some shortage of actresses that I'm unaware of?

(And told tell me it's because they're talented)

Re:I still pass

[popo]

*don't

Re:I still pass

[alvinrod]

If you look at it from the network's perspective those actors are quite talented. Their talent is getting a few million people to park their butts in front of 15 minutes of commercials while entertaining them with 45 minutes of content. The ad revenues are quite good, so why shouldn't the actors get a decent cut? If your TV show draws 15 million viewers each week, I'd be asking for a decent cut as the network wants to keep that show running for as long as it can do so.

To reply to the original poster, why shouldn't they monetize everything? They're in it to make money, not art. If you want creative television, go ahead and make your own. Don't complain when almost no one watches it either as the general public doesn't share your tastes. The criminal part is fear on the part of the cartel, and it's actually quite rational. They probably don't realize it yet, but they're going to be replaced by a new cartel soon. Once YouTube (Google), Apple, Boxee, or any other company trying to change the game actually succeeds, it's more likely that we'll see a sitcoms produced by these companies rather then CBS, NBC, or other current networks. Do you expect the current cartel to willingly give up their position?

They've already played their hand wrong up to this point in time and it seems as though they're grasping at whatever solution they think might save them from extinction. Profits were probably going to go down for them no matter what path they decided to take, but it's probably better than going bankrupt. I give the current media cartels of the world 30 years at most before they're replaced. The death throws will be ugly, but they're going to die.

Unfortunately the new straw boss isn't likely to be much better than the old one. You'll still treated like a criminal, just someone else will be doing it.

Re:I still pass

[camperdave]

What about the sound crews, the camera operators, the lighting people, the key grips, and the thousands of others that only get a flat rate no matter how popular a show gets? Surely they deserve the same cut of the profits, because without these people, the show does not go on.

Re:I still pass

[BikeHelmet]

Nitpick: It's 42 minutes of content, 18 minutes of commercials. Close to a third of what you're watching is commercials.

Re:I still pass

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the fact that TV actors are the most overpaid, undertalented idiots I've ever known. Why is it that starving waitresses suddenly make a couple hundred grand when they get a recurring sitcom role? Is there some shortage of actresses that I'm unaware of?

(And told tell me it's because they're talented)

Because the series may only last 3-4 years, after which she may never get another major role ever again (or even a one-episode guest role). So those few hundred grand (and hopefully some residuals from re-runs) may have to last her for several years before she gets another full-time gig. After the Iron Eagle franchise, have you ever seen Louis Gossett, Jr. in a mainstream role? He once won an Oscar and has fairly good acting chops, but even he's in B- and C-list projections now.

The term "starving artist" was invented for a reason.

Re:I still pass

[sowth]

It is because of the actor's union (Screen Actors Guild - sag.org). The big music companies hire untalented musicians for cheap because they have no union.

To sum it up for the entertainment industry:

• Union: untalented employees get paid absurd amounts of money.
• No union: employees get paid almost nothing. Anyone with a brain would not bother, so they get untalented employees.
• In both cases, the people buying products produced by these systems get screwed.

Re:I still pass

[oboeaaron]

The big music companies hire untalented musicians for cheap because they have no union.

Actually, there is the American Federation of Musicians. Granted, it is far and away the most inept and least effective collective bargaining unit in human history, but it does exist. A lot of musicians I know consider their AFM membership as just a really expensive compulsory newsletter subscription.

Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[piltdownman84]

For me I will never give up cable until I can get sports with the ease and quality that I can on my TV. Sports really need to be watched live, and unless streaming makes leaps and bounds the internet is not going to catch up with HD TV anytime soon. I always find that on the internet the term HD is used very loosely. HD movies on Youtube don't compare to cable, neither does a single TV show downloaded with bittorrent that is labelled "HD". I have seen some "HD web streams" and they are ... if your lucky ...the same quality as digital cable.

Don't get me wrong, I hate my cable provider with a passion, but I can't give them up.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[inKubus]

Justin.tv is like a streaming version of youtube. Most people are using VLC and it works pretty well. I watched the NBA playoffs on that (since I don't have cable, so no TNT). Dubious on the legality front, of course, and streams do get shut down on occasion.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[timmarhy]

most of the bit torrent stuff you are refering to is labeled HDTV, meaning is was recorded from hdtv, not nessacarily that's it's hd quality. but none the less you are totally wrong, I can record free to air tv in hd and transmit it via a torrent if i wanted, it'd be hd quality.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[PitaBred]

If you'd get over your addiction to paying companies that hate you (pretty much any major sports league), it helps. I used to care... I just can't be bothered any more, what with all the lawsuits against fantasy leagues and charging through the ass for actual tickets. Fuck them.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[BikeHelmet]

HD movies on Youtube don't compare to cable, neither does a single TV show downloaded with bittorrent that is labelled "HD". I have seen some "HD web streams" and they are ... if your lucky ...the same quality as digital cable.

Really? My cable provider sucks. You wouldn't want to sit closer than 10 feet away or you can see distortions. And at that distance, a 350MB XviD actually has the same or better quality.

Online, "HD" is usually used to refer to 480p. But I watch TV on my "HD" 2048x1152 monitor with fancy quality enhancing GPU shaders. It makes it so much more enjoyable.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[Bourdain]

a 350 meg XviD/Divx is markedly better than Dish Network quality (SD)

some "true HD" torrents are indeed 720

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[MtViewGuy]

Sorry, but I'm not ditching cable TV for the Internet for two reasons:

1) Real cable TV can transmit a large number of real HDTV channels at 1080i or 720p resolution with only very occasional issues with stuttering and loss of signal. I've never seen it work well at resolutions beyond 480p on Internet Protocol TV transmissions unless you have a Verizon FIOS fiber optic or Comcast cable Internet subscription with its above 10 mbps sustained download speeds.

2) Because ISP's are imposing download caps, you can forget about downloading TV shows at high resolution through an Internet connection if you want to download a lot of shows.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[sowth]

I am a big sports fan, but you do have a point with sports and image resolution. If you think about it, all the cameras are just a poor substitute for one high resolution shot of the entire field.

Re:Sports and Crappy Slow Internet

[TheQuantumShift]

Since I watch sports usually with a 30-60 minute buffer (to FF through ads), I'd prefer this: Drop the price on league pass by $100 and integrate it into the xmb on my ps3. And let me record it as well in actual HD. I'd definitely pay $50 a year for that. Everything else on cable (worth watching) is on hulu/netflix or OTA broadcast.

Already did

[headhot]

Boxee + http://ezrss.it/ + pytv + 25 Mbs Fios = better then cable.

Re:Already did

[0100010001010011]

Sabnzbd + RSS

It's as damn near VOD as you can get. An hour long HD TV program in 15 minutes. 30 minute SD TV in 3-4.

As much as I loved Bittorrent. The $11/month is worth it. NzbMatrix has TONS of old movies that would never be popular enough to be on BT.

Just one problem

[rossdee]

My internet connection is via the cable company...

Re:Just one problem

[TubeSteak]

My internet connection is via the cable company...

That's why so many of us advocate net neutrality.
Your ISP shouldn't be fucking around with your connecting because
their parent company sees it as competition for their media offerings.

Re:Just one problem

[dkf]

My internet connection is via the cable company...

All that's needed is for your cable company to deliver content using IP. (Without telling you...)

Re:Just one problem

[ISoldat53]

Same here and my phone company DSL sucks.

Telecoms...

[recharged95]

"Time To Ditch Cable For Internet TV?"

Not do-able if you get internet from your cable provider (Fios, or Uverse too).... If they see a shift, guess what: internet bandwidth costs will go up.

Re:Telecoms...

[PsychoSlashDot]

"Time To Ditch Cable For Internet TV?"

Not do-able if you get internet from your cable provider (Fios, or Uverse too).... If they see a shift, guess what: internet bandwidth costs will go up.

That's just it. We get cable, then get Internet over that, then get our TV over the Internet over the cable. The next logical progression is to have our Internet data transcoded into what we're watching via some stenography trick. Then we can have Internet over cable over Internet over cable.

But really, what the question is trying to ask is "Time to turn all data-providers into Internet providers only and get our services and content that way?" The summary title is pithier. Now I don't know if I'll get +5 Insightful, +5 Funny, or -5 Guy Who Used Pithier In A Sentence. My guess is +0 Ignored Like Usual.

Re:Telecoms...

[JoeMerchant]

I just posted that I gave up cable service a long long time ago, and I guess that's not true, I do get basic (14 channel) cable bundled with my broadband connection, it costs an extra $3/month - we haven't turned it on more than 3 times in the last year... Thinking of it that way, it's not really worth $12 per hour of use to me, maybe I should cancel it after all.

Re:Telecoms...

[shacky003]

If they see a shift, guess what: internet bandwidth costs will go up.

They already do this - Comcast and Time Warner charge extra for net service when you don't bundle video ($10-30 more per month)

Similar to what Verizon does with DSL if you don't order their voice service..

Re:Telecoms...

[nine-times]

Would you mind spelling out why you think that's the case?

Re:Telecoms...

[mrmeval]

I don't see watching the excrement on cable since the last time (2007) I watched cable there were ads *in front* of what I'm watching. Slide ups, slide downs, shit splats slide lefts, slide rights and the regular commercials which still had the cable logo splattered at the bottom. This was done without a box of any kind. One of the slide ups had *sound* DURING the show.

I'll download the show or buy the DVD without the crap. If they come out on bluray only I'll pay someone to capture it off the screen.

Re:Telecoms...

[TheRaven64]

The question is simpler: 'Time to separate network and content provision?' If you want a competitive market place, you need to prevent the people who control the pipes bundling the services. Mobile phone companies should offer network connectivity and termination as separate items. Cable companies should offer network connectivity and content as separate items. Then you'll see real competition.

Re:1080p Youtube?

[TheKidWho]

You should be able to do 1080p with a 50mbps connection no problem.

Uncompressed 1080p requires nearly 350mbps, but of course no one would be foolish enough to try to transmit uncompressed HD to the masses.

Already canceled mine...

[krovisser]

I cancelled mine not too long ago. We just weren't using it all that much (me and the gf). We have a home server with Mediatomb, and she's got abc.com, and our homemade antenna.

I spent just over 30 minutes "cancelling" the cable service. I was on hold for about 28 of those minutes. Don't tell me they don't do that on purpose... grrrr

Deaf

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi.

That's all fine and dandy, but I'm deaf. I *need* captions and subtitles. Guess what, there's no legal reason for them to be on all these internet services.

Looks like I'll be paying Cable TV Raepage until the end of time.

Re:Deaf

[headhot]

Almost all of the dvd and blueray rips enclude subtitles now. VLC usually has it on by default.

Re:Deaf

[TheRaven64]

iPlayer includes subtitles (and some content with sign-language overlays), so there's no reason why other services couldn't do the same...

Won't last forever

[c0d3g33k]

Cancel your cable if you want to save a little money and what you are interested in is available online. Free shows and movies online won't last forever, though. Free everything is just not sustainable, and right now they are just trying to capture eyeballs and prove the concept. At some point, expect paywalls to appear, at least for 'premium content' or selected episodes of a season or whatever. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Re:Won't last forever

[geekboybt]

I'd rather pay $30 (or more) for a season of an enjoyable TV show box set or downloadable content than $50 a month for hundreds of channels of garbage and commercials.

Re:Won't last forever

[JoeMerchant]

Maybe we can start paying for the shows we like instead of being coerced into $70/month plans to get a channel that carries a decent show once in awhile.

Re:Won't last forever

[VocationalZero]

Free shows and movies online won't last forever, though.

IME, when something free dies on the internet, two more just like it instantly spawn.The internet is the world's largest distribution and advertising medium and you would be a fool not to try and use it [for free], if only for market exposure.

At some point, expect paywalls to appear, at least for 'premium content' or selected episodes of a season or whatever. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Whats wrong with 'premium content'? Doesn't that already exist on every source of media, hell every facet of life anyway? The "paywalls" argument I've heard again and again over the past two decades and it still ranks among the lowest things I fear actually happening, right after that 2012 bs.

Re:Won't last forever

[AusIV]

I pay $8.99 a month for a subscription to Netflix, which gets me 1 DVD at a time and unlimited access to Netflix watch instantly. When I started using Hulu, I looked to see if there was some way I could pay a monthly fee to get rid of ads and was stunned that there wasn't (though it sounds like there may be soon). I'm happy to pay a small monthly fee for the shows I want to watch rather than paying $40 a month for the same shows plus several dozen channels I'm never going to watch.

Re:Won't last forever

[misexistentialist]

The TV networks demand big money. You aren't going to see ads go away unless you are willing to pay something like $10/hour.

Re:Won't last forever

[greyhueofdoubt]

At some point, expect paywalls to appear, at least for 'premium content' or selected episodes of a season or whatever.

I don't mind that. No, seriously. When cable TV started, the idea was that if you paid for content, you wouldn't have to deal with commercials (we all saw how that turned out).

I would be happy to pay for the content I watch as long as I am only paying for the content I *want* to watch. This will save money for me and funnel money into the kinds of shows that I watch. It seems like a win-win situation to me.

I would be happy if my money went into a system with futurama and arrested development and NOT everybody loves raymond. That would mean that I got what I wanted and the producers would see that one more person wasn't willing to pay for crap (or what I consider to be crap).

-b

Re:Won't last forever

[TheRaven64]

Do they get anything like that much from advertisers? The figures I found indicated that they get closer to $0.20 per viewer-hour from adverts (often less). I'd happily pay that much to not see adverts. More to the point, I'd happily pay that much directly to the studio and bypass the network altogether. Let's say they make a 22-episode season of a show. The network gets around $4.40 per viewer for showing this. They probably pay something closer to $3, maybe even less.

So here is my offer to the studios: make content that I want, and let me download it in a DRM-free format, available as soon as it's finished, worldwide, and I will pay $5/season in advance (i.e. before you've made it, based on seeing the previous season or the pilot, just as the networks do). You cut out the middle man and get twice as much money per viewer. Why do I want it DRM free? So I can transcode it and play it on any device that I like. Does this mean it will end up on file sharing site? Probably, but it will anyway, so don't let that worry you unduly. And if people see it without paying, then they are people you get a chance to persuade to pay towards the next season; just put something in at the end of each episode telling them how they can contribute to ensure that more of the show that they've enjoyed can be made.

Re:Won't last forever

[skeeto]

Yeah, if the ad-supported model actually worked they would be broadcasting all sorts of television stations over radio waves by now.

Re:1080p Youtube?

[headhot]

Actually truly uncompressed 1080p is more then 8Gbs.

I made the switch

[tool462]

I made the switch about 2 months ago, once FiOS become available in my neighborhood. With the 20Mbps pipe to the house, and full HD digital TV signal available OTA, we had no further use for cable. The vast majority of shows we watch are either broadcast TV or available online (legally).

We have an AppleTV and an HD TiVo connected to the TV, so between those we can watch TV and movies using:
iTunes
Netflix Instant Queue
Amazon Unbox
Boxee (for Hulu, Comedy Central, etc)

The variety of options makes up for the shortcomings of any individual service.

The OTA digital signal is better than our digital cable signal was, too, which is a nice bonus.

Hulu Dekstop??

[rocketPack]

The article made no mention of it this, but Hulu desktop has revolutionized the TV-watching habits of my girlfriend and I since we got it on our Macs; paired with the Apple Remote control it's better than my Comcast and much more responsive and easy to use that onDemand. Also, we have a Netflix when we're in the mood for a movie.

I still don't think I could get her to kick the Cable just yet though...

Re:1080p Youtube?

[gEvil (beta)]

How many mbps is needed for that? Right now I get 50mbps downstream via Verizon FiOS. I thought you need at least 60mbps for that?

1080p Blu-rays with losslessly compressed audio average ~30Mbps. Highly compressed 1080p with lossy 5.1 audio can easily be done at DVD bitrates (7-8Mbps) and still look fairly decent. You will notice some banding and minor blocking, but it generally won't be so bad as to be distracting.

No

[Fizzol]

And not likely to any time soon. The internet isn't nearly good enough to replace cable. Unless you're will to steal content there's not enough decent stuff to watch. Maybe in ten years, maybe.

I support your efforts to lower my cable bill...

[cfa22]

...too bad my cable company is also my ISP.

I already do that.

[Codex_of_Wisdom]

I only watch two shows anyway, so I just watch them off Hulu on my wide screen monitor. Fewer commercials and I can watch whenever I want :)

where da Ubuntu machines?

[Tumbleweed]

Where's the Ubuntu option, though? Only options I saw were Vista or 7...

Dell used to (still does?) keep thier Ubuntu machines on a different path at the site, something like dell.com/ubuntu - it's not done as one would expect/prefer, as an OS option, as that would be enabling consumers to easily choose something other than Windows. I really don't consider Dell all that Linux-friendly, considering this, and the fact that they don't offer the same hardware options (even when it has NOTHING to do with Linux compatibility) as the same hardware with Windows. Dell is full of WeakSauce(tm).

Re:where da Ubuntu machines?

[sowth]

I would suspect they do this because of the clueless minions brainwashed by Microsoft. You know the type. They insist everyone must use a Microsoft OS, even if it is not suitable.

Then you also have the people who need / want to use software they bought somewhere which isn't Linux compatible, and don't know Ubuntu is a different OS. If, for example, this person bought a car and was mad because the wheels he bought without checking didn't fit, would you think him reasonable?

Not in Canada anyways

[gehrehmee]

Hulu shows are locked to U.S.A I.P addresses.

I'm thinking of ditching Cable for BitTorrent if I genuinely can't buy what I want legitimately...

Re:Not in Canada anyways

[Xaximus]

I'm in the same boat. I might purchase a subscription with a VPN service, but I don't know how much of a hassle, or how reliable it might be. Of course, our bandwidth might get a whole lot more expensive and/or limited in the coming weeks, so that would make this possibility even more remote. I'm wanting to ditch satellite TV though, so I'm planning on buying and installing an antenna, as well as an HTPC with a dual-tuner. I should be able to grab most of the major networks in Toronto and Buffalo.

Re:Not in Canada anyways

[Yvan256]

Just because they're made of wood logs doesn't mean they don't work.

How is this possible

[goombah99]

Where I live comcast promises 6 or 8 Mb/sec but can't sustain a netflix movie even once without rebuffering and quality degredations.

Is there some place on the planet where netflix actually does work over comcast?

I finally gave up on comcast lieing about 6Mb/sec (it works all day long till I and everyone lese gets home from work, then it barely makes 1Mb/sec) and when I went to quit they offered me their unadvertised 1Mb/sec line which costs far less. Now this one is capped but they actually can deliver that. So I'm at least getting what I pay for now. I pity all the idiots who pay comcast for their fictitious bandwidth.

Re:How is this possible

[orlanz]

Try out DSL, it won't matter how many of you get on the pipe. I don't like the telco, but value wise, my current trade off is cheaper net (AT&T) or basically uncapped net (Charter). But do ask your telco what the final price on your DSL will be as their advertised price is no where close to what they do charge you.

Re:How is this possible

[praxis]

I used to have a cable modem, now I have a 1.5mb/s DSL line. There are a few differences. I get 10ms pings to anything on the West coast and sub 100ms pings to the east coast. I also get a static IP address, no caps of any sort, someone on the phone in under a minute 24 hours a day, and the ability to put whatever kind of traffic I want in or out on any port. My friends with FiOS laugh at my "pitiful" speeds, but it's latency I care more about, and 1.5mb/s when you actually get that all day long is more than enough to stream Netflix video, download sizable files (sure it might take me 15 minutes to grab what it takes my friend 5, but really, it's not a big difference unless you are downloading terrabytes a month.

Anyhow, I never looked back, and would never leave my ISP.

Re:How is this possible

[pcjunky]

While it's true DSL doesn't share the last mile bandwidth with other users, it doesn't mean the bandwidth you get isn't shared. The local Telco, Embarq (now Centurylink) provided DSL to a large part of our county with a single DS-3 (45Mbps). A friend I have who lives in the area who has no other choice,(no cable TV cable in his part of town), started complaining a couple of years ago that in the evening his connection would "get like dialup". After months of calling to complain (thats how he found out how much bandwidth they were piping to the areas headend) they told him they would be upgrading the DS-3 to and OC-3 (155Mbps). Things were fine for over a year and problem came back. He again called to complain. Would they upgrade the network again? Not this time. They told him they were going to "groom the network" whatever that means.

Bottom line, all ISPs even huge ones operate on a oversubscription model. They buy only as much bandwidth as demanded. If they are the only ones suppling broadband to a area then the "demand" just isn't there. Alter all where else are their customers going?

Re:How is this possible

[darpo]

I can confirm this. I am with Qwest DSL. Recently I moved literally 20 blocks, from one part of town to another. At my old place, I'd get rock-steady 5.5 Mb/s down at any time of day. At the new place, I can still get that speed in "off peak" hours like early morning, but in the evenings, it drops down to as low as 0.75 Mb/s. I'm still paying the same $52/month, still have the same modem, same computer. All that's changed is my location (and that not by much).

I might switch to Comcast cable Internet at some point, but their past shenanigans with interfering with Bit Torrent, etc. make me wary.

Re:1080p Youtube?

[OnlineAlias]

Never gonna happen. Everything you see today is compressed in one way or another, whether it is delivered by cable, satillite or faux fiber (U-Verse, FIOS). More bandwidth just means more crappy content, and subsequently more advertising...

Increased competition will drive down the prices

[nanospook]

Unlike cable companies which pretty much hold a monopoly, we may find ourselves with a multitude of internet TV companies. Now we will see true competition keeping the prices down.. PS Got rid of the TV and cable services more than a year ago. Have saved over a grand which went on the credit cards. PSS Unless these internet TV services offer full captioning, I will probably stick to torrents.. hearing loss..

A better question:

[popo]

Is it time to ditch Hulu for Clicker.com?

The PVR functionality of Clicker makes it a no brainer for me (as I'm sure it will many others). But there's a larger issue here, and that's that the nature of online services is changing quickly towards more of a quasi-ownership model of the media -- which reduces the amount of control the networks have even more.

http://tekobot.com/better-than-hulu-clicker-com-launches-new-comprehensive-new-web-tv-and-movie-aggregator-service/

Youtube?

[Hamsterdan]

Seriously...
they (buffering) have trouble (buffering) offering (buffering) (waiting) standard video.

I don't think starting a movie 45 minutes after it starts streaming a good idea :)

Re:Youtube?

[PitaBred]

Really? Get a better connection. I watch Netflix movies within a minute or so of queuing them up, and Youtube in even less.

Re:Youtube?

[julesh]

Seriously...
they (buffering) have trouble (buffering) offering (buffering) (waiting) standard video.

The problem I have with youtube isn't buffering. It's the fact that the video often freezes for no apparent reason even when the bar shows there's like a minute or more's worth of video in the buffer and ready to play.

Re:Youtube?

[u38cg]

Update your graphics card drivers. Presuming your system is handling the load OK, which it should be these days, the fault lies with your card and driver. Not much Youtube can do about it.

Re:Youtube?

[Hamsterdan]

It does the same thing on two different connections (10Mbit cable and 7Mbit DSL) on different computers, so either those 2 ISPs don't have the external bandwidth, or some external bandwidth provider.

Re:Youtube?

[julesh]

Update your graphics card drivers. Presuming your system is handling the load OK, which it should be these days, the fault lies with your card and driver. Not much Youtube can do about it.

Except everything else works fine. It's just flash doesn't seem to be able to cope with playing videos without stuttering.

Actually, I'm not convinced it isn't a firefox issue. Doesn't seem to happen when I'm using Internet Explorer.

Does anybody stream in 5.1?

[HockeyPuck]

Currently netflix doesn't stream in 5.1. Only stereo. Not a problem if you watch movies on your home computer, but my TV is connected up to my 5.1 receiver.

How many of these streaming services provide live feeds? For free.

Most sporting events you need to pay to watch online. Unless broadband provide gives you access to say ESPN360.
I don't recall too many news sites that stream the 6:00 news and many times I don't want to sit around and read news articles, because maybe I'm eating dinner, washing the dishes and can't scroll a webpage at the same time.

Re:Does anybody stream in 5.1?

[DrOct]

I don't recall too many news sites that stream the 6:00 news and many times I don't want to sit around and read news articles, because maybe I'm eating dinner, washing the dishes and can't scroll a webpage at the same time.

That's what your antenna is for!

I ditched TV in 1998

[JoeMerchant]

Actually, I've never paid for cable TV (got my own place in 1992 and just installed an antenna), so maybe I'm not their target demographic anyway.

Last night I watched a 35 minute lecture by Robert Sapolsky on YouTube the night before, a random TED talk. The night before that, hulu, and Netflix has been cheaper than premium cable forever. My parents-in-law gave up their TV in about 2001 and we gave them a cheap PC and Netflix subscription instead, they love it.

Yeah, cable service has been as dead to me for a long long time now.

Re:I ditched TV in 1998

[hazem]

I'm the same way... I've never had a cable subscription since I left my parents' house a couple decades ago. By virtue of higher mathematics and assuming $50/month, that's $12k.

If you like TED, you might like FORA http://fora.tv/.

I also find video.google.com is a great way to find content across a variety of video sources. And of course, there is the local library.

Ready for Prime Time?

[physburn]

I don't think this is ready for prime time yet, while digital terestrially TV offers real time high definition TV for your set or wall screen, the computer (if the home has one), still sits in the bedroom and office. Bandwidth is usually low enough that you have to predownload programs before you watch them. When the BBC rolled out they Iplayer a custom player for all BBC programmes, ISP went nuts, complaining about the huge bandwidth increase. In fact the Iplayer repeat programmes while popular weren't so popular as to deluge broadband connections. I doubt Internet TV will be popular for quite a while, maybe creaping up in popularity slowly and being mainstream in the 2020s, but thats just my guess.

---

Interactive Television @ Feed Distiller

I'm on the fence...

[BLKMGK]

I own a TIVO HD and it's setup to grab all of my favorite shows. I use KMTTG to pull the video off, VideoRedo to to strip commercials, and I am working on figuring out ways to best compress this down from HD to a good looking SD. Trying for the 350meg an hour size I can get from torrents.

Here's the killer. Video comes off my TIVO at about 1meg a second and 8Gig files take time. Then I get to encode, this takes a little while but I'm using an overclocked I7 @4.2ghz - it FLIES. I haven't quite automated this but it's not faroff - I just need to get the encoding profile nailed down. Sounds good right? Last night while I was tinkering with encoding profiles and getitng pretty frustrated I had managed to get the RSS feed for uTorrent working and it had pulled up the SAME shows I was recording as being available for download. After spending HOURS frustrated playing with this I downloaded the torrents. They took about 6-15mins apiece! Talk about frustrating! If I can better automate my processing off the TIVO I'll be pretty happy but it sure is way easier downloading! I'd like to be a little more legit but damn it's much more work. The DVD and BD files I've got nailed down, I don't ever download movies.

So what do I store and watch this with? I use unRAID for storage. ALL of my DVD\BDs are ripped and stored as well as my MP3 on a server that holds a bit over 8TB and growing. My second server holds my backups, misc files, and my TV shows - it's about 8TB too. With the latest software upgrade to unRAID it's WAAAY faster too. That's the storage end..

Viewing is even easier. I use an ASROCK 330 dual core ATOM box. It supports VDPAU under Ubuntu and I use XBMC to view the content. Streaming audio stations, pictures, and all of my stored video. I've not really tried BOXEE much, it's a fork of XBMC. So is Plex. All of them work well I'm sure, XBMC updates their code in SVN constantly and it just keeps getting better. I get 5.1 surround sound via HDMI and I can play high bitrate video without dropped frames thanks to the VDPAU code.

The ASROCK consumes little power, the unRAID storage spins down drives when they aren't being used, my desktop probably uses more power than all of them combined!

Re:The cable co will just set low caps. also live

[sayfawa]

Not so true anymore. MLB, NHL and NBA offer online viewing, for a price. If you're only casually into sports, it's not worth it. But if you only have cable in order to watch sports, it's a no-brainer. Their price is cheaper than a cable package, and offers more games.

And I, for one, welcome our new TV overlords. I already ditched cable 'cause I was sick and tired of paying for 100+ channels, when all I wanted were the 3 sports channels. I haven't signed up yet, but when March Madness comes around, I probably will.

Time? You're 7 years late!

[Hurricane78]

I ditched TV entirely in 2002, when I noticed that I could switch trough all the channels on a random evening, and find nothing even remotely worth watching. Besides, it's not as if I got any real news from there anyway.

I switched to the obvious: eDonkey and BitTorrent (with mldonkey) for TV shows.
And RSS websites for news. (Well, going to news sites, as RSS was not used much yet.) Nowadays many of those are called "blogs". :)

I must say that while I miss some "old media only" news/"scandals", etc, which I'm not interested in much anyway, I'm very happy with my descision.
Instead of sitting in front of a device that allows passive usage only, I get to really deal with the subjects. Like commenting on news stories. (I avoid sites without comment functionality like the plague.) Or going to forums to talk/read about a TV show afterwards.

In my opinion my level of intelligence and education grew extremely trough all the things I learned by thinking and discussing things with others.
So it's pretty strange to get together with TV-only people and see them watch something like "big brother" or another pointless stupid mind-numbingly boring plastic fantastic show, or fake "real news". It's impossible to discuss things with them, since they have no idea of what's really going on in the world, or in general. You only hear those pre-formed mass-opinions that everyone of them thinks are the correct ones, without them putting a single thought into asking or answering question.

Also I play a lot more games, which belong in the same category as TV shows anyway.

So as a summary, I can only say:
Improve yourself! Throw away your TV! (If you must have a big screen, buy a beamer. ^^)

But.. It's tv! It's TV!

[Cathoderoytube]

People are just thinking about this now? I've been without tv for months. It's beautiful. Now it'll take a bit to get adjusted I grant you. The complete Simpsons is a big file. But once you get that on your system it's smooth sailing from there. Plus there are other forms of entertainment that're better than tv. Like books. I know you've seen them around. But seriously they're like big DVD box sets. You just sit there and read them, and it's entertaining. You're like 'I wonder what Elric of Melnibone's gonna get up to today? Life's not easy for Elric of Melnibone that's for sure'. Then when people talk about tv, you say 'Hey have you heard of Elric of Melnibone?' and the people you talk to will think you're cool because they'll think you're talking about some new TV show that you can only get on fancy extended cable. But you'll never tell ;)

Home Theater PCs and Cable

[PJC1]

Just when Internet TV and HD OTA are gaining popularity the cable companies are making it more difficult to get cable content on your PC. Currently I have an NTSC/clear QAM tuner which receives about 70 digital and analog channels (the same channels are simulcast). Soon however, Comcast will be dropping the analog channels besides the local broadcast and PEG stations (if they haven't already in your area). Also, I've heard they will begin encrypting all digital besides the locals, since the FCC approved their proposed encryption scheme for their DTAs. So now you either need use CableCard (few tuners available and only works with Windows Media Center) or you need to use a cable box and an IR blaster (not as high quality as the digital signal must be decoded and encoded again plus the additional rental fee for an extra receiver).

Hulu ...

[NoYob]

With many of their "shows", all they have up there are clips. Some series have only a few episodes - see "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

What they do have is pretty good.

They will be charging next year AND having advertisements.

Hulu may charge.

[NoYob]

Cancel your cable if you want to save a little money and what you are interested in is available online. Free shows and movies online won't last forever, though. Free everything is just not sustainable, and right now they are just trying to capture eyeballs and prove the concept. At some point, expect paywalls to appear, at least for 'premium content' or selected episodes of a season or whatever. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Of course, all they're saying is "may" charge.

"What you want, when you want it"

[emurphy42]

Surely I'm not the only one here who twitches whenever they see that phrase?

check

[__aazsst3756]

Dropped our cable about 2 years ago, when the price went from $40 to $50 a month. With Netflix, Hulu, and Boxee streaming through our $50 off lease Dell, the only thing we miss is sports. May put up an antennae just to pull in the local teams in HD.

It's called BitTorrent...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and it was time to ditch cable a couple years ago.

PVR?

[__aazsst3756]

Why would you need a pvr with a stream?

Re:Inspiron Zino HD - no 5.1

[pushing-robot]

Based on the GPU (ATI HD3200 / HD4330) it should support audio over HDMI. I'd be a bit more concerned about the low-end CPU—the best you can get is a 1.8GHz Athlon x2, which could very well choke on HD flash and other CPU-bound decoders.

for USA eyes only?

[pbjones]

Didn't take long to see several 'for USA eyes only' messages on links via Clicker.

Re: Hulu

[shacky003]

It's been reported that Hulu will start charging people towards the end of next year since they have enough people (they think) hooked to their service - it was the plan since its' inception..

Local Live Blackout: are on the online packs so yo

[Joe The Dragon]

Local Live Blackout: are on the online packs so you need to have sat or cable to see most of the games and it likely with the new cubs owner more games will be on CSN CHI and less on wciu / wgn.

Re:where da will be available shortly machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell's "Tech Specs" state ubuntu 9.04 available... But no way to order it.

Did an online chat:

Q - "How can I buy this box with ubuntu?"
A - "as if now we don't have option to get with Ubuntu"
A - "will be available shortly"

Q - "so I should check back... Any estimate as to when?"
A - "we don't have exact update"
A - "can I email it you"
.
.
.

8" x 8" pc

[hldn]

now, i enjoy two dimensional PCs as much as the next guy, but.....

ultimate Acai Max

[sandyortion]

I hear you! I would recommend switching to Dish Network TV due to the Free DVR-HDTV upgrade they have right now. Installation is free in up to four rooms. It's much cheaper than any of the cable tv services. You can get an awesome HD package for less than $30/Month right now. I had Charter HD and switched to save some money. ultimate Acai Max

Already did that

[aneremite]

I ditched my cable for internet "tv" almost a year ago. With a combination of netflix, hulu, and others here and there I haven't regretted it once. I work from home and have 2 paths to the internet and with the exception of 1 power outage when my cable wouldn't have been viewable anyway I've never not been able to watch something I chose when I chose.

Barrier to entry is still high

[SlappyBastard]

To do it right, you need: OTA, Hulu, Netflix, Boxee and uTorrent.

While for the average geek that's a nothing proposition, for the average mom that's like taking an engine and rebuilding the carburetor, alternator and transmission plus machining the heads.

No manufacturer is going to build all of that into a single box. Can you ever see Sony doing much more than heavily pimping Blu-Ray? It's just too many competing interests.

That's why your average media center geek builds their own.

My situation

[spaceyhackerlady]

I'm currently auditing my cable usage, with an eye to cutting back to what I actually watch. Which isn't much, as it turns out.

I get the local news and Canadian stuff (e.g. Rick Mercer Report) over the air in HD.

I get BBC stuff over the internet with iPlayer.

I get Australian stuff on DVD from my favourite DVD place in Melbourne.

About the only thing I watch on cable is Mythbusters, and I'm sure I could come up with it online if I put my mind to it...

...laura

censored content

[Hellswaters]

Not going to happen until the borders are eliminated over the internet. 99% of the LEGAL (aka not torrent) content is only to Americans. Everyone else gets the shaft.

Done it

[hoggoth]

I canceled cable and put away my Tivo almost a year ago.

I have an original XBox running XBMC, and an old PC in the corner with an S-Video out and a looooooong cable going to the TV.
Between them I can watch downloaded video, Netflix, and Hulu. That covers everything. It's been great.

Combination internet+terrestrial

[Casandro]

I guess the best combination would be internet and terrestrial televison, as satellite television, the most economical way to distribute it, is scrambled in the US. Here in Europe I have a system set up which gets about 1000 free to air channels, including all the relevant german and brittish channels. It works via VDR and uses the streamdev plugin to stream video to the internet.

In the US many people could provide such streaming services for their local programmes. Kinda like peer to peer streaming. Unfortunately I haven't seen any software for that yet.

HTPC + OTA = No cable bill (savings $840yr)

[Fishdoctor]

I read up on AVSforums how to build a HTPC. That is an excellent starting place for anyone interested in building a home theater PC. I ditched cable in the beginning of 09' and have not looked back since. Yes, there is maybe 4-5shows I miss, but for $70, they are not worth that. I use Windows 7 Media Center for recording all my shows via OTA in HD. I have been checking some shows online too; the quality is not quite there.

Time to ditch TV

[knarf]

I'd say it is past time to ditch TV alltogether. You want news? Find it on the 'net. Want movies? Find them on the 'net, rent them through whatever service, etc. The only thing you should not want is the next installment of 'who wants to be an idiot|zillionaire|etc' but if you want that... you might as well keep watching TV...

Time for internet TV?

[GNious]

No

Mod parent INFORMATIVE: Dell says no Ubuntu yet

[KWTm]

Mod parent INFORMATIVE: Dell says no Ubuntu yet

Re:1080p Youtube?

[TheRaven64]

BluRay is only 30Mb/s, so you definitely don't need 60Mb/s for it. iPlayer manages 720p looking reasonable in under 4Mb/s, so I'd imagine that you could get a decent-looking 1080p stream into 100Mb/s, you'd just lose a bit of quality.

Re:What Not To Wear :-(

[sowth]

Perhaps you should give her a digital camcorder for christmas and plant the suggestion she make her own fashion program. You could even offer to help edit the video. If she is like most women I know, you won't need cable TV for much longer. Really, who doesn't want to have their own TV show?

When one is a child, one needs to watch and learn, but when one becomes an adult (or teenager), one can produce one's own content. A lesson not learned by generations who grew up watching TV I suppose. We must learn this lost lesson. In fact, the generation which grew up with the internet seems to already know this...at least from what I have seen.

Peer-To-Peer TV The Answer To Sporting Woes?

[TheReal_sabret00the]

Streaming is great, but in terms of sport, with the army of lawyers the Premiership/UEFA has, the streams fall down very quickly. There needs to be some sort of viable option in place and it seems that the Powers That Be aren't interested in streaming games for a decent price. Thus we're stuck hoping that P2PTV comes up to scratch quickly.

But

[AttillaTheNun]

I get my internet through my cable provider you insensitive clod!

Re:The cable co will just set low caps. also live

[Mashiki]

The cable co will just set low caps

Well that's what they did in Canada. My ISP has a 60gb/mo cap, so does their next competitor(bell) on DSL. I'd end up paying oh $20ish a month more for 20gb extra. Yet they're both happy to have VOD services that use your internet connection and suck up your bandwidth.

Bandwidth caps?

[QuietLagoon]

The ISP will love the excess bandwidth usage charges.....

Internet not optimal for this

[pcjunky]

While it is possible to broadcast video and use the Internet as your delivery method, the Internet was meant for two-way communications. Protocols that were developed for broadcast never (Multicast, Mbone) really took off.

If you want to send the same content to thousands or even millions of people broadcast makes more sense. If you think about it satellite makes the most sense. Once you have your stuff in space you can send the same content to virtually every person on an entire continent for same cost as sending to one person. You have no other scaling of infrastructure needed to "grow your network".

With this system the more customers you have the less it should cost per customer. The only reason this doesn't work in reality is that satellite companies don't charge based on what it costs them, they charge "what the market will bear". They adopted the pricing structure of their competition (Cable companies) when they started and see no reason to change. After all there are really only two of them (not enough to provide real competition).

The thing satellite can't do very well is Internet. The system isn't setup to allow two way connection. Yes they can do this for a relatively high price, but even when they do it doesn't work very well (speed of light is not fast enough). I don't know anyone who uses satellite if they have any other choice.

Lets leave the Internet to do the things it does well and use other methods for what they do well.

Negroponte's gonna be right?!!

[gilgongo]

On page 173 (softback edition) of Nicholas Negroponte's "Being Digital" he makes what for him is a pretty confident prediction:

        “I think videocassette rental stores will go out of business in less than ten years.”

The book was published in 1995. Viacom was looking to sell Blockbuster in 2004, but so far the rental market is fairly good. Maybe this might just get Negroponte's prediction to squeak in if we include DVD rentals and cable?

I love Negroponte. He once replied "About ten million dollars" when asked by a TSA official what the value of his laptop was before it passed through an x-ray.

Re:The cable co will just set low caps. also live

[ceoyoyo]

With my 100 GB cap (which I pay through the nose to get so high) I don't think they'll have to set it any lower.

I dont see Ubuntu on the Zino as an option at Dell

[nfsilkey]

I clicked through the DIY offering ($229), and I was only offered Vista or Windows 7. Ubuntu was _not_ on the list. Not that I care (would wipe the Zino once unboxed), but its worth nothing that these do not appear to be shipping from Dell with Ubuntu as a pre-installed option. I didnt check the other systems, but Im sure all us GNU/Linux users would opt for the low-end, no-frills offering if we wanted to build an open-source HTPC, etc.

FWIW ...

Re:You can still watch sports?

[dodongo]

There are sports other than football, y'know.

Hooking PCs up to your TV

[blake182]

As far as the Dell "yet another little PC" announcement, we've been able to hook PCs up to our TV for years. What matters is making it work well in that environment, which no one has done. No, not even Apple, Microsoft or Boxee.

My cable company is the *only* internet provider!

[cwgmpls]

Its great if you have the choice. In my neighborhood, broadband internet is only available through my local cable company. If I sign up for internet and drop cable -- I still have cable! The U.S. feels more like a third world country every day.

Re:Sports live and in person

[piltdownman84]

I agree. I have season tickets to the local 2nd div (USL D1),4th div (USL PDL) and 5th div(PCSL) soccer teams, as as my local 3rd div hockey team (ECHL). I also try to go to all my old University's Soccer games (I still live in the same city). Although because of the other games I was only able to catch a single match. I also have traveled to four games out of country this year, and am going to seattle next weekend for the MLS final. I still play league soccer and the odd fill in game playing hockey. I have a sailboat and go out about twice a week, and try to hit up the gym three days a week. So yeah I might watch a dozen games a week on tv, but I think its fair to say I'm not too lazy.

Re:You can still watch sports?

[toddestan]

I have to agree. I used to enjoy watching football games, but the major networks have done their best to make them nearly unwatchable.

If you still like sports, I suggest trying the audio-only feeds (aka radio). The announcers are far better, the advertising is far less in your face, and they generally concentrate more on the play rather than a bajillion useless statistics and promoting whatever crappy show airs after the game.

Easier?

[KiwiCanuck]

Step 1: buy computer with DVI video card (can you buy one without DVI?) and 5.1 sound card. Step 2: connect sound card and video card to receiver (AUX in). In reciver menu select AUX in. That was hard!

neutral

[fulldecent]

Watching TV on the Internet?

Good, then people will finally be up in arms about net neutrality.