VLC has been my go-to solution for anything that wasn't trivially supported by other apps, and the absence of Chromecast support meant I didn't have easy access to my media server which I have set up to just share the content. Was toying with the idea of grabbing the code and trying to add it myself but they beat me to it (and I couldn't be more thrilled about it).
Only issue will be that the Chromecast will only play what it understands how to play, which likely means no sound from anything in a MKV container if my experience trying to cast the screen to get around this previously is any indication, but that's not VLC's fault. Will be happy to be able to cast from it regardless.
I've been expecting this since that iPad in the shape of a laptop they released a while back--I think they called it a Macbook of some kind at the time - even held up the motherboard that would happily fit in my phone and extolled how clever they were about it all. No hard feelings or anything - Apple should do what they think is best for them obviously; however, the writing on the wall for the ports, actual processor and other goodies which kept me buying the Macbook Air, even though all I really wanted was something Unix-like---was just convenient being able to buy this particular laptop for any desktop applications I might want, while having the Unix-ish support underneath it all.
I'd already been looking around for something comparable and at least Dell seems to still make an XPS 13" with Unix (no MS tax) options which was my next planned purchase anyway (other manufacturers perhaps have options as well).
Worth noting that 15 years ago I wondered openly if the Unix underpinning Darwin lured in the tech crowd, which helped it spread to the mainstream better as well as they had built-in advocates to push it to their non-tech friends. Not that Apple ever saw the advantage to the Unix-side of things. Just legacy to them I'm sure. And here we come full circle as they move toward selling iPads (in different form factors) for $1500 and any tech-crowd users will migrate away to other things. Should be interesting in any case. I wish them the best of luck.
This is also a fair point. To each their own to be sure. I admitted up front I'm a bit paranoid about recording things anyway.
I'll make the same argument though regarding the extended (and older generations) of the family --- those memories are being filtered by someone else. My uncle (deceased) is a larger than life figure in my mind due to the way my father would recall his antics. In my case, I love this image of the worldly playboy for whom anything he touched turned to gold, musician, artist and philanthropist. I suspect his actual life was more mundane, but boy don't let truth get in the way of telling a good story:).
Personal bias though... I'm really into the meta-memories; I can totally respect the desire to know the real person as well. Just not my thing.
So maybe take it for what it's worth. I'm a bit of a tin-foil hat wearing type.
I understand exactly what you're thinking about here, but I'm a huge fan of not second-guessing the universe too much. I have such wonderful memories of my own youth...all seen through the rose coloured lens that is time, and frankly I suspect my memories are better than the real thing was. Better the only record I can muster is my own rose-tinted view of things. Every once in a while I remember the excessive dumb-assery that accompanied the great memories and shudder. I don't need a record of that.
Thus why I don't like recording anything to begin with. If it's worth remembering, you'll remember. If not, who cares. Nothing we do today will change the fact that in five billion years this planet will be a burnt cinder hurtling through cold space...yeah, that VHS recording of my first child's birth is really something to cherish. Actually, it's pretty freaking gross and pollutes the otherwise overwhelming emotion I can remember from that day. It's like I was there.
On the upside, I leave little evidence for others to use against me later;). One person's way to remember the good times is another person's ammunition to strike at you with when you're down.
It's a bit more complicated though. It's not just the carrier, but the phone vendor as well. There are potentially multiple layers of crap you have to navigate from the "free Android" Google makes available to your handset, assuming you aren't running a Nexus device.
I kind of understand it too (not that I like it). What motivation does the phone vendor even have to work on updating for older handsets they no longer sell? Almost none. You might see an update after a handset is discontinued, but you certainly won't be seeing them much a year or more out. Then add the carrier crap on top of it and it can become a mess. That being said, I don't mind so much as although I own a better phone for daily use, I did buy a super-cheap Android 2.3-based device just recently as a cell phone for when I travel in the US and I'm thrilled to have it. A higher-end, maintained, current device would have been prohibitive for that kind of use. So 6 of one, half dozen of the other I guess.
No question it would be nicer if Google controlled the OS distribution like Apple does; however, if they did that originally I doubt it would have been as embraced by the handset makers. The Nexus devices seem to be getting some traction though so perhaps we'll see a new trend. That would be nice:).
Avoiding the meaningless baiting and religious zealotry that brings nothing to this conversation...
I'm a long-time linux user (since pre-1.0 Slackware), but have presentation needs that I personally prefer some software support for. Thus I use a presentation package --- PowerPoint typically. For a long time I would run linux on my laptop and dual-boot windows when I needed to do presentations. The nature of my work and personal preference requires the use of a Unix-based OS to get anything meaningful done.
I first migrated to the Mac when I noticed times had changed and they had built something I had always thought they should do every since they bought the NeXT properties --- tart it up to look sufficiently as they want it to, but leave the Unix underpinnings for the developer/power user crowd (NeXT was great for that --- all the Humanities people I knew that used it had no idea there was a terminal on the machine and loved it...the fact there was a terminal meant I loved it too =). With office available on the Mac, giddy-up - I get the machine I want without dual-booting. Great!
I've always had a worry in the back of my head that my happiness with Macs would be transient --- that as the platform regained traction they would start screwing with it in ways that are unfriendly to the unix crowd. So far, so good, but ever since the iPad I have been concerned they would push toward that being their OS rather than the full-blown OSX we have currently. I do understand the points people make about how developers need a development environment so the desktop OS won't be going anywhere, but that clearly isn't necessarily the case: no reason they can't build a suitable development environment for the more restricted OS, or simply leave it to developers to cross-compile. Bottom line is my utopian "main-stream unix-based OS that is friendly to the non-power user" may well be at risk.
So fine - it's their company, they'll do what they want and probably make oodles of money doing it. But it will ultimately push me back onto linux full-time, and I'll probably just suck it up and learn to live with PDF presentations or OpenOffice as I have no interest in going back to a dual-boot solution...I'm getting too old I guess:).
It will sadden me a little though as in spite of some of the vendor lock-in that Apple tries to encourage, I have been happy using their products and have built up a bit of an ecosystem I enjoy using. I realize I (we?) are not really the market they are concerned with dominating, but it's a shame they jettison the "win-win" product I feel they had in keeping both the unwashed masses and the developer/power user happy with what is available.
Maybe good for Linux longer-term though. We are light years from where we were a decade ago in terms of user-friendliness of the system. Maybe this can be a tipping point and we'll end up with a "win-win" free OS which would be very liberating for everyone involved =).
It's free (but not open source); I've been using it for years and am quite happy with it. It has a slew of preset "iPod" export options which are excellent starting points for transcoding stuff to dump into iTunes (and thus a iPod/iPhone) --- you'll also have to refer to Apple's documentation (which I'd have to search for the link...you can google too I'm sure =) if necessary as iPods have limits to things like the bitrate they'll play back, and don't support B-Frames, etc.
If you run afoul of legal h.264 which exceeds the spec for the iPod hardware it won't sync to the iPod so there is a limit to the bit rate/quality you can practically achieve for iPod/iPhone consumption (if memory serves...never quote me, I could be high), but the software obviously lets you set all the options you'd like.
As a bonus, and for all I know Apple has improved their h.264 codec since I ran into this problem, the one MPEG Streamclip can use was *much* faster than Apple's.
It seems increasingly common for us to be developing tests for things we cannot treat anyway. I wouldn't argue that we shouldn't develop such tests, however the significance of the test's development is debatable at best. I would agree that I don't want to know whether or not I have risks for something I couldn't do anything about anyway. That sounds like a way to increase people's stress levels worring about something that may or may not occur (or even will occur with certainty, but at an unknown time in the future).
Some will argue it's better to know, however I'm almost certain the only outcome of having test results like this available is insurance companies having a reason to say you have a pre-existing condition and screw you for coverage and/or rates. If you never knew you were at higher risk, you'd still end up with the disease (or not) but won't have been bent over in the meantime.
I know which way I'd go (mind you I'm the sort of person who never wants to be lying under a bus regretting I've been eating tofu for dinner for years when I'd rather have had steak).
--
~AC
...your comment may have merit. In the meantime, you are comparing having something shoved down your throat in one domain by a company holding a (virtual) monopoloy in another domain, with a product and service that has single-digit market-share in a crowded and highly competative field. The latter is called "choice", and as many have already pointed out, you have *huge* selection beyong the iPhone for your "smart phone" needs.
--
~AC
Old enough to remember watching the original series on TV, I was thrilled with the mini-series, and Season 1 was solid drama with fantastic characterization. Season 2 started strong, but aside from the odd bit of goodness appearing at random, I'd say the show got pretty sketchy after the whole Pegasus thing.
Making it worse, the entire New Caprica plot line which ended the second season went absolutely nowhere, and the spent the rest of the third season hitting a big red reset button which pretty much rewound us to the point right after the mid-season 2 Pegasus arc. Yippe, I love watching a season and a half of TV where the producers produce random plotlines, and Adama and Rosyln, who had previously been inspired characters, were written as "stupid" and thus even the character drama was removed as well.
A real shame in my opinion; however, I'm happy to hear the fourth season will be their last. Perhaps that will inspire them to tell an actual story and we'll end up with a decent finish (and I can just go on ignoring all content between mid-season 2 and the final season =).
When broadband became widely available, it worked for them to push speed and ignore the issue of traffic volume as only a small minority of subscribers were capable of using large amounts of bandwidth. Safe to advertise the unlimited abyss Internet service as it appeared that way for all intents and purposes to the subscribers.
The explosion of Internet video (and other rich content) has now provided the catalyst for the "average user" to generate significant data transfer volume, and it was never the case that they could actually provide unlimited access to everyone all the time. It was a statistical game really =).
What would interest me is what effect this is going to have on the cost of broadband in the near future. This is my living so I'm content paying more for a better quality connection; however, what kind of service can the "average user" realistically expect for $30/mo. or whatever. A marketing faux pas if they end up hurting their own business getting users used to the idea that unlimited data volume in and out of your home was actually something you can get cheaply.
Further proof from our sacred peers that all that fuss made about needing poker chips to clear our tubes of all that p0rn was a public service. Good thing at least one Centre of Excellence is giving us the information we need to know.
I can tell you that in order to productively "teach" something, there needs to be room for discussion and dissent. More specifically, people don't tend to absorb material as well when it is preached as gospel, regardless of how much of an opinion they may have had on the subject previously. Taking everything at face value is never the mark of a good student.
In this case however, any "teachings" undertaken with regard to copyright will be treated as gospel. If I had to spend time in front of a crowd discussing something as loaded as copyright, something about which basically every person is going to already have some opinion about, I wouldn't assume they will walk away with "my message". More likely I'd be taken aback by the level of opinion (not necessarily legal) being expressed, and more likely than not I'd come away with a broader appreciation of the subject. Needless to say the opinions won't be rooted in legal terms, or formal definitions of the word; however, people already have a life's worth of experience dealing with the issue as they saw it. Someone telling them "you can't do this because it's wrong" means nothing as most of them aren't of the opinion that it's wrong =). Tough sell, even outside the/. crowd.
This should not come as a surprise though, and I'm sure we have many more years of this nonsense ahead of us. The push of the corporate juggernaught has brought us to a time when one of the few genuine homegrown exports coming out of the US (or perhaps "the west" more generally) is entertainment. If they can't leverage their power in other countries (many of which don't care --- and I'm not referring to Mozambique here; I live in Canada and I don't care much about them wanting tighter copyright laws), there is no room for growth.
Tell me we aren't already at the limit of the $200M summer blockbuster machine;).
So, we may be permitted to make a copy or two of product we purchase. How exciting. If I make a copy to put on my media server (for example, as suggested by the article), is this going to preclude me making another copy later if I trash my media server? Does this include *my* media server (which is currently a linux box), or some idealized media server that no one actually owns? Will this all work transparently with my linux server, linux + mac + windows clients thing that I have going right now?
In order to solve certain issues with the Front Row software I already have to make reference movies; however, this enables my entire distributed multi-platform (TV and computer client) home set-up hum. Want me to give you odds that this new "licensed copy" won't work?
I didn't think so.
While it's encouraging that they are noticing that stomping on basic fair use is a Kobayashi Maru scenario for them (as other posters rightly point out, people will just break the DRM and copy it anyway); it should go without saying that a non-interoperable, proprietary system that dictates not just what software (or possibly hardware even) I run on my "media server", but also the software/hardware options for the clients as well?
Thanks, but no thanks. I'd argue they've still dropped the ball, and this does not consitute picking it back up. More like when you see a kid reach for the ball but in reaching for it they kick it with their foot and push it even further out of reach.
...but it sure isn't likely to be running MS software, being completely honest. A compact device with say, even just significant presentation capabilities and a networked terminal, can believably be housed in a phone-like device; however, it would have to be a very tight kernel and nothing from Redmond is remotely suitable.
Slashdot Mirror
Couldn't agree more.
VLC has been my go-to solution for anything that wasn't trivially supported by other apps, and the absence of Chromecast support meant I didn't have easy access to my media server which I have set up to just share the content. Was toying with the idea of grabbing the code and trying to add it myself but they beat me to it (and I couldn't be more thrilled about it).
Only issue will be that the Chromecast will only play what it understands how to play, which likely means no sound from anything in a MKV container if my experience trying to cast the screen to get around this previously is any indication, but that's not VLC's fault. Will be happy to be able to cast from it regardless.
Kudos.
~AC
I've been expecting this since that iPad in the shape of a laptop they released a while back--I think they called it a Macbook of some kind at the time - even held up the motherboard that would happily fit in my phone and extolled how clever they were about it all. No hard feelings or anything - Apple should do what they think is best for them obviously; however, the writing on the wall for the ports, actual processor and other goodies which kept me buying the Macbook Air, even though all I really wanted was something Unix-like---was just convenient being able to buy this particular laptop for any desktop applications I might want, while having the Unix-ish support underneath it all.
I'd already been looking around for something comparable and at least Dell seems to still make an XPS 13" with Unix (no MS tax) options which was my next planned purchase anyway (other manufacturers perhaps have options as well).
Worth noting that 15 years ago I wondered openly if the Unix underpinning Darwin lured in the tech crowd, which helped it spread to the mainstream better as well as they had built-in advocates to push it to their non-tech friends. Not that Apple ever saw the advantage to the Unix-side of things. Just legacy to them I'm sure. And here we come full circle as they move toward selling iPads (in different form factors) for $1500 and any tech-crowd users will migrate away to other things. Should be interesting in any case. I wish them the best of luck.
~AC
I'll make the same argument though regarding the extended (and older generations) of the family --- those memories are being filtered by someone else. My uncle (deceased) is a larger than life figure in my mind due to the way my father would recall his antics. In my case, I love this image of the worldly playboy for whom anything he touched turned to gold, musician, artist and philanthropist. I suspect his actual life was more mundane, but boy don't let truth get in the way of telling a good story :).
Personal bias though... I'm really into the meta-memories; I can totally respect the desire to know the real person as well. Just not my thing.
--
~AC
I understand exactly what you're thinking about here, but I'm a huge fan of not second-guessing the universe too much. I have such wonderful memories of my own youth...all seen through the rose coloured lens that is time, and frankly I suspect my memories are better than the real thing was. Better the only record I can muster is my own rose-tinted view of things. Every once in a while I remember the excessive dumb-assery that accompanied the great memories and shudder. I don't need a record of that.
Thus why I don't like recording anything to begin with. If it's worth remembering, you'll remember. If not, who cares. Nothing we do today will change the fact that in five billion years this planet will be a burnt cinder hurtling through cold space...yeah, that VHS recording of my first child's birth is really something to cherish. Actually, it's pretty freaking gross and pollutes the otherwise overwhelming emotion I can remember from that day. It's like I was there.
On the upside, I leave little evidence for others to use against me later ;). One person's way to remember the good times is another person's ammunition to strike at you with when you're down.
--
~AC
It's a bit more complicated though. It's not just the carrier, but the phone vendor as well. There are potentially multiple layers of crap you have to navigate from the "free Android" Google makes available to your handset, assuming you aren't running a Nexus device.
I kind of understand it too (not that I like it). What motivation does the phone vendor even have to work on updating for older handsets they no longer sell? Almost none. You might see an update after a handset is discontinued, but you certainly won't be seeing them much a year or more out. Then add the carrier crap on top of it and it can become a mess. That being said, I don't mind so much as although I own a better phone for daily use, I did buy a super-cheap Android 2.3-based device just recently as a cell phone for when I travel in the US and I'm thrilled to have it. A higher-end, maintained, current device would have been prohibitive for that kind of use. So 6 of one, half dozen of the other I guess.
No question it would be nicer if Google controlled the OS distribution like Apple does; however, if they did that originally I doubt it would have been as embraced by the handset makers. The Nexus devices seem to be getting some traction though so perhaps we'll see a new trend. That would be nice :).
--
~AC
I'm a long-time linux user (since pre-1.0 Slackware), but have presentation needs that I personally prefer some software support for. Thus I use a presentation package --- PowerPoint typically. For a long time I would run linux on my laptop and dual-boot windows when I needed to do presentations. The nature of my work and personal preference requires the use of a Unix-based OS to get anything meaningful done.
I first migrated to the Mac when I noticed times had changed and they had built something I had always thought they should do every since they bought the NeXT properties --- tart it up to look sufficiently as they want it to, but leave the Unix underpinnings for the developer/power user crowd (NeXT was great for that --- all the Humanities people I knew that used it had no idea there was a terminal on the machine and loved it...the fact there was a terminal meant I loved it too =). With office available on the Mac, giddy-up - I get the machine I want without dual-booting. Great!
I've always had a worry in the back of my head that my happiness with Macs would be transient --- that as the platform regained traction they would start screwing with it in ways that are unfriendly to the unix crowd. So far, so good, but ever since the iPad I have been concerned they would push toward that being their OS rather than the full-blown OSX we have currently. I do understand the points people make about how developers need a development environment so the desktop OS won't be going anywhere, but that clearly isn't necessarily the case: no reason they can't build a suitable development environment for the more restricted OS, or simply leave it to developers to cross-compile. Bottom line is my utopian "main-stream unix-based OS that is friendly to the non-power user" may well be at risk.
So fine - it's their company, they'll do what they want and probably make oodles of money doing it. But it will ultimately push me back onto linux full-time, and I'll probably just suck it up and learn to live with PDF presentations or OpenOffice as I have no interest in going back to a dual-boot solution...I'm getting too old I guess :).
It will sadden me a little though as in spite of some of the vendor lock-in that Apple tries to encourage, I have been happy using their products and have built up a bit of an ecosystem I enjoy using. I realize I (we?) are not really the market they are concerned with dominating, but it's a shame they jettison the "win-win" product I feel they had in keeping both the unwashed masses and the developer/power user happy with what is available.
Maybe good for Linux longer-term though. We are light years from where we were a decade ago in terms of user-friendliness of the system. Maybe this can be a tipping point and we'll end up with a "win-win" free OS which would be very liberating for everyone involved =).
--
~AC
It's free (but not open source); I've been using it for years and am quite happy with it. It has a slew of preset "iPod" export options which are excellent starting points for transcoding stuff to dump into iTunes (and thus a iPod/iPhone) --- you'll also have to refer to Apple's documentation (which I'd have to search for the link...you can google too I'm sure =) if necessary as iPods have limits to things like the bitrate they'll play back, and don't support B-Frames, etc.
If you run afoul of legal h.264 which exceeds the spec for the iPod hardware it won't sync to the iPod so there is a limit to the bit rate/quality you can practically achieve for iPod/iPhone consumption (if memory serves...never quote me, I could be high), but the software obviously lets you set all the options you'd like.
As a bonus, and for all I know Apple has improved their h.264 codec since I ran into this problem, the one MPEG Streamclip can use was *much* faster than Apple's.
--
~AC
It seems increasingly common for us to be developing tests for things we cannot treat anyway. I wouldn't argue that we shouldn't develop such tests, however the significance of the test's development is debatable at best. I would agree that I don't want to know whether or not I have risks for something I couldn't do anything about anyway. That sounds like a way to increase people's stress levels worring about something that may or may not occur (or even will occur with certainty, but at an unknown time in the future). Some will argue it's better to know, however I'm almost certain the only outcome of having test results like this available is insurance companies having a reason to say you have a pre-existing condition and screw you for coverage and/or rates. If you never knew you were at higher risk, you'd still end up with the disease (or not) but won't have been bent over in the meantime. I know which way I'd go (mind you I'm the sort of person who never wants to be lying under a bus regretting I've been eating tofu for dinner for years when I'd rather have had steak). -- ~AC
...your comment may have merit. In the meantime, you are comparing having something shoved down your throat in one domain by a company holding a (virtual) monopoloy in another domain, with a product and service that has single-digit market-share in a crowded and highly competative field. The latter is called "choice", and as many have already pointed out, you have *huge* selection beyong the iPhone for your "smart phone" needs. -- ~AC
Old enough to remember watching the original series on TV, I was thrilled with the mini-series, and Season 1 was solid drama with fantastic characterization. Season 2 started strong, but aside from the odd bit of goodness appearing at random, I'd say the show got pretty sketchy after the whole Pegasus thing.
Making it worse, the entire New Caprica plot line which ended the second season went absolutely nowhere, and the spent the rest of the third season hitting a big red reset button which pretty much rewound us to the point right after the mid-season 2 Pegasus arc. Yippe, I love watching a season and a half of TV where the producers produce random plotlines, and Adama and Rosyln, who had previously been inspired characters, were written as "stupid" and thus even the character drama was removed as well.
A real shame in my opinion; however, I'm happy to hear the fourth season will be their last. Perhaps that will inspire them to tell an actual story and we'll end up with a decent finish (and I can just go on ignoring all content between mid-season 2 and the final season =).
--
~AC
When broadband became widely available, it worked for them to push speed and ignore the issue of traffic volume as only a small minority of subscribers were capable of using large amounts of bandwidth. Safe to advertise the unlimited abyss Internet service as it appeared that way for all intents and purposes to the subscribers.
The explosion of Internet video (and other rich content) has now provided the catalyst for the "average user" to generate significant data transfer volume, and it was never the case that they could actually provide unlimited access to everyone all the time. It was a statistical game really =).
What would interest me is what effect this is going to have on the cost of broadband in the near future. This is my living so I'm content paying more for a better quality connection; however, what kind of service can the "average user" realistically expect for $30/mo. or whatever. A marketing faux pas if they end up hurting their own business getting users used to the idea that unlimited data volume in and out of your home was actually something you can get cheaply.
--
~AC
I'm surprised they aren't highlighting things like this already:
Intelligent Design Sorting
Further proof from our sacred peers that all that fuss made about needing poker chips to clear our tubes of all that p0rn was a public service. Good thing at least one Centre of Excellence is giving us the information we need to know.
--
~AC
I can tell you that in order to productively "teach" something, there needs to be room for discussion and dissent. More specifically, people don't tend to absorb material as well when it is preached as gospel, regardless of how much of an opinion they may have had on the subject previously. Taking everything at face value is never the mark of a good student.
In this case however, any "teachings" undertaken with regard to copyright will be treated as gospel. If I had to spend time in front of a crowd discussing something as loaded as copyright, something about which basically every person is going to already have some opinion about, I wouldn't assume they will walk away with "my message". More likely I'd be taken aback by the level of opinion (not necessarily legal) being expressed, and more likely than not I'd come away with a broader appreciation of the subject. Needless to say the opinions won't be rooted in legal terms, or formal definitions of the word; however, people already have a life's worth of experience dealing with the issue as they saw it. Someone telling them "you can't do this because it's wrong" means nothing as most of them aren't of the opinion that it's wrong =). Tough sell, even outside the /. crowd.
This should not come as a surprise though, and I'm sure we have many more years of this nonsense ahead of us. The push of the corporate juggernaught has brought us to a time when one of the few genuine homegrown exports coming out of the US (or perhaps "the west" more generally) is entertainment. If they can't leverage their power in other countries (many of which don't care --- and I'm not referring to Mozambique here; I live in Canada and I don't care much about them wanting tighter copyright laws), there is no room for growth.
Tell me we aren't already at the limit of the $200M summer blockbuster machine ;).
--
~AC
In order to solve certain issues with the Front Row software I already have to make reference movies; however, this enables my entire distributed multi-platform (TV and computer client) home set-up hum. Want me to give you odds that this new "licensed copy" won't work?
I didn't think so.
While it's encouraging that they are noticing that stomping on basic fair use is a Kobayashi Maru scenario for them (as other posters rightly point out, people will just break the DRM and copy it anyway); it should go without saying that a non-interoperable, proprietary system that dictates not just what software (or possibly hardware even) I run on my "media server", but also the software/hardware options for the clients as well?
Thanks, but no thanks. I'd argue they've still dropped the ball, and this does not consitute picking it back up. More like when you see a kid reach for the ball but in reaching for it they kick it with their foot and push it even further out of reach.
Oh well. Status quo I suppose.
--
~AC
--
~AC