Dealing with a list of shows isn't so bad really if you've got more than 4 buttons on your remote. A tablet is a much less compelling replacement for a remote that doesn't totally suck.
Yes. An actual BD player might actually end up being the best "video appliance" since many of them support the same services that the dedicated appliances do.
My upstairs "appliance" was being sold in Best Buy for awhile. Although they tried to hide it. I don't think they wanted people to realize that you could have a $200 PC.
> Was it more than $99? And was it more than 15 minutes?
Some people want more than an iTunes streamer.
What happened to Apple being a premium luxury brand? Now Apple users will gladly "eat dirt" just to save a couple of bucks. Sure the device is cheap but it's a terribly limited experience. The device itself is not terribly capable and then it's even made worse by the artificial limitations imposed upon it by Apple.
It don't touch my HTPCs either. They are built to be appliances and they just sit and do their job.
No. An ARM video appliance can't handle decoding anything in software. This goes for a phone, tablet,or one of these video appliances. That is why there are transcoding servers like Plex.
These video appliances are simply not up to the task.
The ARM is really a terrribly weak CPU. You pay for the lack of power consumption and other "low profile" advantages.
I have no idea what you were "doing wrong". I run and have run GNOME on all manner of hardware big and small and have never felt the need to "flee to XP".
I even rescued an old laptop from XP by using Ubuntu and Gnome. Under XP it ran too hot and too hard and tended to shut itself down for it's own protection.
If anything, I upgrade the XP installs of friends and family to Win7 so that they can get decent wifi. When I see what XP users have to deal with in that regard I am amazed that anyone ever complains about Linux in this regard.
> My memory of web browsing in 1995 was spending forever to get Mozilla to load a page with three graphic files over dialup.
Dealing with the web on a mobile device is very much a blast from the past in this respect. You are limited in bandwidth and the power of the "terminal" device. Quite often you have to scale back the features of the webpage, shrink images, and otherwise adjust the interface of the page to suit a smaller screen with much less powerful machine attached to it.
I have poor relations still on dialup. Dealing with the capacity of mobile web browsers is a bit of deja vu.
> I don't understand why people get so upset when content makers try to control their content.
It's not theirs to control really. It was never intended to be. Copyright is not some sort of virtual land grab and copyright is not property. It is something that is a derivative of the commons and it is something that's supposed to go back into the commons.
The idea that an artist can "control their content" is abusive to the social contract implicit in copyright. It's a legal fiction. It's propaganda. It's corporations pretending they have rights they don't really have it.
Once you publish, "control" is and should be very limited.
People get so upset when content makers try to "control their content" because it inevitably leads to trampling the property rights of the individual.
Your stupidity quite nicely illustrates the problem with trying to treat every scrap of information like it's something that needs to be commercially exploited and subject to copyright. A lot of information simply isn't like that.
My personal papers have never been published and would not do anything to serve the underlying purpose of copyright.
It makes perfect sense. Big Content perverts hardware and software standards to suit their particular use case. They try to have all general purpose technology treated as nothing more as a conduit for their product and then neutered.
HDCP complaince in Windows is a good case in point. So is Silverlight. They get their hooks into technology that's useful for more than just playing tedious derivative spectaculars.
This whole article is about contaminating an open standard to cater to people that want to turn the web into cable tv.
It's not a *buntu problem or a problem in general. "Modern" media is not something that requires a lot of resources or a particularly "modern" machine so long as you've got good driver support.
This is silly. Of course science really isn't the point here. The point is principles. This is all about morality and how Republicans don't really have any. This is an issue where the science shouldn't matter because they have already wrapped themselves up in the flag and are clutching a bible and holding out groups like the Boy Scouts as an example.
Only one thing needs to be said here: "Leave No Trace".
Although "adding a computer" did cause this problem. It caused a simple bit of robust technology to suddenly become exceptionally prone to failure. It created a problem where one did not previously exist.
...and lets not forget TB expansion cards. Not everyone wants to buy a new system or a new system from a particular brand just to get some new feature that obviously can be retrofitted.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like what I was doing with a Tivo in 1999.
Dealing with a list of shows isn't so bad really if you've got more than 4 buttons on your remote. A tablet is a much less compelling replacement for a remote that doesn't totally suck.
The tablet only replaces one of those remotes.
Some people are so busying trying to pretend they are in 2022 or 2383 that they don't bother to pay any attention to where they are now.
Most tablets just pick up the slack for TV setups that were already behind the curve to begin with.
Not PhoneOS, the actual Phone. There's nothing that an iPhone can decode that I want on my big screen TV.
> I wouldnt take a mercedes and try to make it a street racing car either.
I just love it when posers try to make bad analogies by referencing "luxury brands" they clearly know nothing about.
Yes. You are far better of with a region free spinny disk player in this regard.
Anything that can run Plex/XBMC/MCE/MythTV is also a good option in this regard. Liberate the conventional media and do whatever you like with it.
You will never have to worry about your "digital copy" being unplayable because of some DRM glitch.
Yes. An actual BD player might actually end up being the best "video appliance" since many of them support the same services that the dedicated appliances do.
Why buy something that can't do it all?
An HTPC doesn't need a gaming graphics card.
Although a cheap trailing edge graphics card will decode all of the things that a Roku can't handle.
There's a good reason it's a closed box. If you could easily feed your own media to it, it would be far more obvious how limited it is.
> Because people expect to walk into Best Buy
My upstairs "appliance" was being sold in Best Buy for awhile. Although they tried to hide it. I don't think they wanted people to realize that you could have a $200 PC.
ALL of my HTPCs are cheap ready made boxes.
It's not 2003 any more.
> Was it more than $99? And was it more than 15 minutes?
Some people want more than an iTunes streamer.
What happened to Apple being a premium luxury brand? Now Apple users will gladly "eat dirt" just to save a couple of bucks. Sure the device is cheap but it's a terribly limited experience. The device itself is not terribly capable and then it's even made worse by the artificial limitations imposed upon it by Apple.
It don't touch my HTPCs either. They are built to be appliances and they just sit and do their job.
No. An ARM video appliance can't handle decoding anything in software. This goes for a phone, tablet,or one of these video appliances. That is why there are transcoding servers like Plex.
These video appliances are simply not up to the task.
The ARM is really a terrribly weak CPU. You pay for the lack of power consumption and other "low profile" advantages.
Considering the actual level of sophistication represented by Angry Birds, a 486 would have no problem at all coping.
I have no idea what you were "doing wrong". I run and have run GNOME on all manner of hardware big and small and have never felt the need to "flee to XP".
I even rescued an old laptop from XP by using Ubuntu and Gnome. Under XP it ran too hot and too hard and tended to shut itself down for it's own protection.
If anything, I upgrade the XP installs of friends and family to Win7 so that they can get decent wifi. When I see what XP users have to deal with in that regard I am amazed that anyone ever complains about Linux in this regard.
> My memory of web browsing in 1995 was spending forever to get Mozilla to load a page with three graphic files over dialup.
Dealing with the web on a mobile device is very much a blast from the past in this respect. You are limited in bandwidth and the power of the "terminal" device. Quite often you have to scale back the features of the webpage, shrink images, and otherwise adjust the interface of the page to suit a smaller screen with much less powerful machine attached to it.
I have poor relations still on dialup. Dealing with the capacity of mobile web browsers is a bit of deja vu.
> I don't understand why people get so upset when content makers try to control their content.
It's not theirs to control really. It was never intended to be. Copyright is not some sort of virtual land grab and copyright is not property. It is something that is a derivative of the commons and it is something that's supposed to go back into the commons.
The idea that an artist can "control their content" is abusive to the social contract implicit in copyright. It's a legal fiction. It's propaganda. It's corporations pretending they have rights they don't really have it.
Once you publish, "control" is and should be very limited.
People get so upset when content makers try to "control their content" because it inevitably leads to trampling the property rights of the individual.
Your stupidity quite nicely illustrates the problem with trying to treat every scrap of information like it's something that needs to be commercially exploited and subject to copyright. A lot of information simply isn't like that.
My personal papers have never been published and would not do anything to serve the underlying purpose of copyright.
It makes perfect sense. Big Content perverts hardware and software standards to suit their particular use case. They try to have all general purpose technology treated as nothing more as a conduit for their product and then neutered.
HDCP complaince in Windows is a good case in point. So is Silverlight. They get their hooks into technology that's useful for more than just playing tedious derivative spectaculars.
This whole article is about contaminating an open standard to cater to people that want to turn the web into cable tv.
It's not a *buntu problem or a problem in general. "Modern" media is not something that requires a lot of resources or a particularly "modern" machine so long as you've got good driver support.
Nvidia has that. ATI does not.
Not every theist is a Pentacostal Xian.
Not even every Xian is a Pentacostal Xian.
This is silly. Of course science really isn't the point here. The point is principles. This is all about morality and how Republicans don't really have any. This is an issue where the science shouldn't matter because they have already wrapped themselves up in the flag and are clutching a bible and holding out groups like the Boy Scouts as an example.
Only one thing needs to be said here: "Leave No Trace".
...except that didn't quite happen.
Although "adding a computer" did cause this problem. It caused a simple bit of robust technology to suddenly become exceptionally prone to failure. It created a problem where one did not previously exist.
...an inferior solution for people with no taste that can be easily distracted by shiny things.
If your phone can decode it, I don't want it on my large screen HDTV or projector.
Printers are far more interesting and diverse than hard drives.
Although, there are already very well established standards that any printer manufacturer can use. This is not an unsolved problem.
Companies simply continue to exercise what one might call "personal liberty".
We simply don't need Apple to try and impose "yet another standard".
So did any number of other vendors.
What they are great at is giving people no other option.
You get it whether you want it or not and perhaps whatever old technology you were using is discontinued abruptly with no real recourse.
I had an "ultra mini PC" long before it occurred to Apple to make one.
...and lets not forget TB expansion cards. Not everyone wants to buy a new system or a new system from a particular brand just to get some new feature that obviously can be retrofitted.
> Blame Intel
Why? Just don't fixate on Intel. That's what the rest of us do.