By replacing the income tax with a sales tax, companies no longer have to pay the "embedded" taxes of payroll tax etc, so cost of manufacturing drops by roughly 22%, effecting about a net 1% increase in price of goods as compared to today's prices.
For goods where manufacturing costs are 100% employee pay derived. Is that an accurate assumption?
You say that now, but I find that I get charged by whoever is the Current party in office.
You talk about voter revolts, but it's always the same old application of power.
I wonder how opinion against these suits would go if that was the level of penalties involved? Seems like it become sort of like speeding, most people would do it a little bit, but the penalties for flagrant transgressions might discourage it. People might download a dozen albums, where they might end up on the hook for a few thousand dollars, but be pretty unlikely to build up libraries of 5000 songs knowing they would make themselves a target for a bankrupting penalty.
Sort of like it used to be when people would tape a friend's records.
Algebra and sex ed aren't that different. They're both things you need to know how to do and both easy to figure out on your own.
"Mom? Dad? Remember when my girlfriend and I were doing our algebra homework in my room a few months ago? Well . . . We did one of the problems wrong, and, well . .."
I'm curious, you and many others here are quoting these prices. You can find virtually any BD movie for less than that. I got Transformers for $27 or something from AMazon, and that was the most expensive blu-ray I have ever bought (other than a coupe of really pricey Japanese discs).
I do see these higher prices for some movies at Best Buy or Barnes & Noble, but lower prices for virtually any movie are pretty easily found at major online retailers. About half my BDs costs as little $12-18 from places like Amazon, J&R and the Warner Bros online store during the near weekly sales events.
Are you saying the price needs to be uniformly low? Because these same brick and mortar places also sell DVDs for as much as $25 when not discounted, but no one claims that is the going price for a DVD. I don't know anyone paying >$30 for BDs routinely so it seems like apples to oranges.
Blu-Ray, costs more and works only on the expensive player in the living room.
Bingo. This is the first and last factor in slow adoption. I have a player and 50 or so BDs, and this is the reason I give all my friends why they should wait, that and that on their size TV it will make little difference.
I have a 120" screen and 1080p projector, and will argue that an upscaled DVD still looks plenty decent with me sitting 8-9' away. Blocky, jagged, ill-defined and blurry are all gross exaggerations. The worst artifacts I see on well produced DVDs are banding, and some macro blocking on things like smoke. Other than that, it is just a bit noisier and lower resolution. It is still plenty involving.
Blu-ray looks beautiful, however. Better than most of the crap box theaters you find most places. I have to go down to one of the nice theaters in Los Angles with a decent D cinema or 35mm rig to make it worth leaving the house.
I agree with the premise of your argument though. BD is overkill for anything but the largest TVs. And it seems like the transfers on some more recent DVDs ahve been allowed to suffer to make the BD better by comparison, compared to the near constant improvement trend we were seeing up until a couple of years ago.
Yes they can actually. The BD spec allows for standard def in MPEG2 or any of the newer supported codecs as well, which gives us something to complain about when all the "extras" on our movie discs look like crap. So they can, in fact, release whole seasons on one BD disc at normal resolution. But you'd still need a BD player to watch it.
BDs are way more scratch resistant than DVDs. Not perfect by any means, but I have had a few titles show up loose from Amazon in their case, and not a mark on them, unlike DVDs which are unplayable after that kind of treatment.
You ahve to really try to damage them. Which kids are good at, so I am not necessarily arguiing your point.
This is what I don't get. I have not had load time on the PS3 ever be more than about 5-10 seconds. On some discs, I barely see whatever "cute" icon they have chosen to amuse you while you wait. You would think at least the newest profile 2 players would have dedicated silicon that does this stuff faster, but no, the PS3 still seems to be the fastest loading player available.
Now the green and purple screen flashes while the PS3 and my display rengotiate everytime it does a 1080p60 to 1080p24 framerate switch are certainly annoying.
Your lowball figures for the TV and player are good, but BDs are not $50 (U.S.) each unless you go out of your way to pay that much. You can find pretty much any title for under $30 easily (still too much to move many discs though).
Dead on. I have about 50 blu-rays. I buy: new movies I really really want if I can find them for $25 or less; New movies I want somewhat that I can find discounted to something under $20; Movies I already have on DVD that are all time favorites (see first category); older titles that are discounted to something on the order of $10-15 (there are quite a few discs in this category, Amazon has a sale this week of such titles.)
If I already have the DVD and it's a title my kid is likely to want to watch in his room or in the car, I keep the DVD. Otherwise, it's a gift to a friend or a $5 sale (my DVDs are all in basically brand new shape).
Agreed. I have a 56" DILA TV, and a 120" screen with a 1080p projector. The difference is plain as day and well worth it on the bigger screen, but on the smaller one, it is visible, but nothing to get worked up over. If I did not have a projector, my blu-ray purchases would be substantially less, if not 0. For one thing, my kid can't watch the BD movies in his room or in the car unless it is one of the few with the digital copy feature.
Slashdot Mirror
THe whole thing's dark, really . . .
THe agents are coming for you now. Take the pill, quick.
By replacing the income tax with a sales tax, companies no longer have to pay the "embedded" taxes of payroll tax etc, so cost of manufacturing drops by roughly 22%, effecting about a net 1% increase in price of goods as compared to today's prices.
For goods where manufacturing costs are 100% employee pay derived. Is that an accurate assumption?
I read this a long time ago:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28589
and found it funny, but after some reflection, thought maybe it was a contributing factor. People hate inconvenience.
You say that now, but I find that I get charged by whoever is the Current party in office. You talk about voter revolts, but it's always the same old application of power.
Down with the Current administration! Voltage party '08!
There is no i in storm.
I wonder how opinion against these suits would go if that was the level of penalties involved? Seems like it become sort of like speeding, most people would do it a little bit, but the penalties for flagrant transgressions might discourage it. People might download a dozen albums, where they might end up on the hook for a few thousand dollars, but be pretty unlikely to build up libraries of 5000 songs knowing they would make themselves a target for a bankrupting penalty. Sort of like it used to be when people would tape a friend's records.
Algebra and sex ed aren't that different. They're both things you need to know how to do and both easy to figure out on your own.
"Mom? Dad? Remember when my girlfriend and I were doing our algebra homework in my room a few months ago? Well . . . We did one of the problems wrong, and, well . . ."
I'm curious, you and many others here are quoting these prices. You can find virtually any BD movie for less than that. I got Transformers for $27 or something from AMazon, and that was the most expensive blu-ray I have ever bought (other than a coupe of really pricey Japanese discs).
I do see these higher prices for some movies at Best Buy or Barnes & Noble, but lower prices for virtually any movie are pretty easily found at major online retailers. About half my BDs costs as little $12-18 from places like Amazon, J&R and the Warner Bros online store during the near weekly sales events.
Are you saying the price needs to be uniformly low? Because these same brick and mortar places also sell DVDs for as much as $25 when not discounted, but no one claims that is the going price for a DVD. I don't know anyone paying >$30 for BDs routinely so it seems like apples to oranges.
Blu-Ray, costs more and works only on the expensive player in the living room.
Bingo. This is the first and last factor in slow adoption. I have a player and 50 or so BDs, and this is the reason I give all my friends why they should wait, that and that on their size TV it will make little difference.
I have a 120" screen and 1080p projector, and will argue that an upscaled DVD still looks plenty decent with me sitting 8-9' away. Blocky, jagged, ill-defined and blurry are all gross exaggerations. The worst artifacts I see on well produced DVDs are banding, and some macro blocking on things like smoke. Other than that, it is just a bit noisier and lower resolution. It is still plenty involving.
Blu-ray looks beautiful, however. Better than most of the crap box theaters you find most places. I have to go down to one of the nice theaters in Los Angles with a decent D cinema or 35mm rig to make it worth leaving the house.
I agree with the premise of your argument though. BD is overkill for anything but the largest TVs. And it seems like the transfers on some more recent DVDs ahve been allowed to suffer to make the BD better by comparison, compared to the near constant improvement trend we were seeing up until a couple of years ago.
Dreamworks titles are the ones he mentioned. He said Disney allows the previews to be skipped.
When this is most irritating to me is when it a DVD you have had for 8 years or so, and the trailer says "Coming to theaters soon".
One of the reasons I kept my Oppo DVD player when I got my PS3. Hacked firmware which killed UOPs. The other reason was region free playback.
The PS3 is limited to 1080i over component when playing back a blu-ray. And it will not upscale DVD at all over component.
Yes they can actually. The BD spec allows for standard def in MPEG2 or any of the newer supported codecs as well, which gives us something to complain about when all the "extras" on our movie discs look like crap. So they can, in fact, release whole seasons on one BD disc at normal resolution. But you'd still need a BD player to watch it.
BDs are way more scratch resistant than DVDs. Not perfect by any means, but I have had a few titles show up loose from Amazon in their case, and not a mark on them, unlike DVDs which are unplayable after that kind of treatment.
You ahve to really try to damage them. Which kids are good at, so I am not necessarily arguiing your point.
This is what I don't get. I have not had load time on the PS3 ever be more than about 5-10 seconds. On some discs, I barely see whatever "cute" icon they have chosen to amuse you while you wait. You would think at least the newest profile 2 players would have dedicated silicon that does this stuff faster, but no, the PS3 still seems to be the fastest loading player available.
Now the green and purple screen flashes while the PS3 and my display rengotiate everytime it does a 1080p60 to 1080p24 framerate switch are certainly annoying.
Your lowball figures for the TV and player are good, but BDs are not $50 (U.S.) each unless you go out of your way to pay that much. You can find pretty much any title for under $30 easily (still too much to move many discs though).
Dead on. I have about 50 blu-rays. I buy: new movies I really really want if I can find them for $25 or less; New movies I want somewhat that I can find discounted to something under $20; Movies I already have on DVD that are all time favorites (see first category); older titles that are discounted to something on the order of $10-15 (there are quite a few discs in this category, Amazon has a sale this week of such titles.)
If I already have the DVD and it's a title my kid is likely to want to watch in his room or in the car, I keep the DVD. Otherwise, it's a gift to a friend or a $5 sale (my DVDs are all in basically brand new shape).
No, it looks pretty much red to me: http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html
Agreed. I have a 56" DILA TV, and a 120" screen with a 1080p projector. The difference is plain as day and well worth it on the bigger screen, but on the smaller one, it is visible, but nothing to get worked up over. If I did not have a projector, my blu-ray purchases would be substantially less, if not 0. For one thing, my kid can't watch the BD movies in his room or in the car unless it is one of the few with the digital copy feature.
You have CA law wrong. It is the merging vehicle's responsibility to merge with traffic flow.
I wasn't aware we were only allowed to concentrate on addressing hazardous groups of drivers one at a time.
Because that's the sound someone's head transorming into steam makes.