Some media files are less "portable" than others. There's plenty of stuff that's too aggressively encoded for "portable" devices. It doesn't have to be huge BluRay stuff either.
A computer isn't necessary but some other sort of device is. That reflects a genuine technological limitation of the TV itself as well as the high cost and long product cycle associated with it.
Replacing a $300 or $100 box makes a lot more sense than replacing a device that may cost thousands.
Fortunately, the actual content may not be nearly as expense as the current typical method of delivery (namely cable). If there's anything that you can get cheaply on DVD, you're much better off just buying stuff outright and "deleting" that particular show off of your list of reasons to bother with cable.
Plus you get it uncut.
Butchering re-runs has nothing to do with any PVR arms race. It predates PVRs entirely.
You know. If you are really interested in that kind of content, then you can just buy it. Search the web. Order from companies that offer such materials for sale, or just pirate it via the Torrents.
What? You thought Torrents only had dreck from Hollywood?
Cable Card is the last dying breath of the dinosaur. It's primarily a means to enforce an outdated status quo. It exists becuase there are too many monopoly vendors in the industry including those that provide particular bits of content and those that can deliver it to the consumer. All of them want to fight the future.
Cable Card and all of it's associated nonsense is the manifestation of that.
It's great. Assuming it actually works and your local cable operator doesn't knarfle it with the wrong DRM codes.
Plus you have to be willing to use your local cable operator since it doesn't work with satellite competitors.
Like I said... It's all about keeping the dinosaur alive.
Everything you are describing isn't TV. It's devices that attach to TV. They are things that are just using the TV as a monitor as if you were hooking your computer up to it.
This is important to note because some people have this idea that the tech of TV itself has a problem. All of these people fantasizing about Apple branded TVs are neglecting the fact that most people don't actually use the interfaces on their TVs.
TV is just something you hook up to another box: cable box, PVR, media player.
Advertising is one of the big things that is currently broken about TV. There's too much of "ads as content" as well as changing rules regarding how much of normal content can be mired in ads. This has led to a dichotomy between "prime time" content and reruns and the butchery of older works.
The creation of my own media stockpile began in earnest when I noticed the escalation of this butchery. They effect has become more pronounced and has negatively impacted the overall experience.
Beyond that, the PVR already liberated us from the centralized planning of network schedules and the problems of trying to chase shows around the schedule. The PVR also helps you find the stuff that's not total dreck.
TV without a PVR is most certainly broken and only getting worse.
...plus you've just lost the ability to use the machine as something other than a dumb terminal. A dumb terminal is fine only so long as you stay connected to the network and the network is fast enough.
Unfortunately, that's very likely not to be the case currently and into the foreseeable future.
Having a dumb terminal means that you are completely incapable of being disconnected from "the cloud". You also have no control and are at the mercy of "IT". This is why PCs became a big thing to begin with.
My "real work" includes using the keyboard a lot. My "real work" also benefits from having a much larger monitor and from having my input device separated from my display device.
This is all just a lame attempt to paint anyone that doesn't want to use the products of a certain corporation as a "hater" or some other term that makes them seem irrational and easy to denigrate.
What you likely have are Samsung USERS rather than "fans" that simply want to be free to buy what they want free from outside interference. You may also have judges that don't see any reason to hand Apple a monopoly on a silver platter.
Short of something that can be reduced to nothing more than using a mouse, a tablet interface is terribly clunky. They had mouse input keyboards in 1985 and they really aren't any better now than they were then.
The whole "touch" thing is just a lot flashier.
It's easy for people to kid themselves into believing things have gotten better when they're really a whole lot worse.
...except the PC uses THE EXACT SAME INPUTS as a VAX or a mainframe.
I even managed to see a law office running WP on a VAX in the late 90s. It pretty much looked like WP on DOS except for the fact that the secretaries used VT-220 terminals instead of a PC.
No. The distance between a VAX and a PC is much smaller than the distance between either and an iPad.
You can certainly compute in the same ways on an iPad.
Although you have to jailbreak it first. Then it can look very much like a VAX running Unix.
Nope. If it's not the Win32 version, then it's not the world's major office software. It's just a bad copy. You're probably better off running the real thing in a VM.
No. If you are going to fixate on "buying commercial software", then you are probably far better off just using Windows (and forgetting the VM).
It's like an overpriced American style subcompact with the lack of power to match. I really wanted to like the Prius but more than anything it reminded me of driving a Pinto or Escort.
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Some media files are less "portable" than others. There's plenty of stuff that's too aggressively encoded for "portable" devices. It doesn't have to be huge BluRay stuff either.
A computer isn't necessary but some other sort of device is. That reflects a genuine technological limitation of the TV itself as well as the high cost and long product cycle associated with it.
Replacing a $300 or $100 box makes a lot more sense than replacing a device that may cost thousands.
...you're lucky.
Hurray for you.
Now the rest of us have to deal with the conditions we actually find ourselves in rather than some idealized fantasy.
Fortunately, the actual content may not be nearly as expense as the current typical method of delivery (namely cable). If there's anything that you can get cheaply on DVD, you're much better off just buying stuff outright and "deleting" that particular show off of your list of reasons to bother with cable.
Plus you get it uncut.
Butchering re-runs has nothing to do with any PVR arms race. It predates PVRs entirely.
It also has pretty crappy resolution and rather limited selection.
All of the streaming services suffer from this same problem.
They actually manage to make the visual quality of cable look good.
Plus there's that whole potential problem of bandwidth caps.
Capturing bits off of a "broadcast stream" makes more sense for a number of reasons.
You know. If you are really interested in that kind of content, then you can just buy it. Search the web. Order from companies that offer such materials for sale, or just pirate it via the Torrents.
What? You thought Torrents only had dreck from Hollywood?
Cable Card is the last dying breath of the dinosaur. It's primarily a means to enforce an outdated status quo. It exists becuase there are too many monopoly vendors in the industry including those that provide particular bits of content and those that can deliver it to the consumer. All of them want to fight the future.
Cable Card and all of it's associated nonsense is the manifestation of that.
It's great. Assuming it actually works and your local cable operator doesn't knarfle it with the wrong DRM codes.
Plus you have to be willing to use your local cable operator since it doesn't work with satellite competitors.
Like I said... It's all about keeping the dinosaur alive.
It also costs more money than what most people are willing to spend on the problem.
....or a $10 universal remote.
...and without being their own little closed monoculture, how are they going to do that exactly?
The technical answers are simple and obvious. Getting all of the multiple involved parties to cooperate is another matter.
Plus there's the whole problem that Apple remotes are total HID defying crap.
That's a highly limited 50 year old approach to the problem that will likely only amplify (nearly) all of the complaints you might hear here.
Network television? You must be joking.
That's once you get beyond the whole "reception" problem and manage to p*ss off your neighborhood with your ugly antenna.
Everything you are describing isn't TV. It's devices that attach to TV. They are things that are just using the TV as a monitor as if you were hooking your computer up to it.
This is important to note because some people have this idea that the tech of TV itself has a problem. All of these people fantasizing about Apple branded TVs are neglecting the fact that most people don't actually use the interfaces on their TVs.
TV is just something you hook up to another box: cable box, PVR, media player.
Oddly enough, there is no Tivo that works with my cable provider of choice and can record it's content at it's "native" resolution.
You're forgetting the guns. The guns. History used to also be the gun channel, or as some have put it: The Guns and Hitler channel.
At least that stuff was on topic.
Advertising is one of the big things that is currently broken about TV. There's too much of "ads as content" as well as changing rules regarding how much of normal content can be mired in ads. This has led to a dichotomy between "prime time" content and reruns and the butchery of older works.
The creation of my own media stockpile began in earnest when I noticed the escalation of this butchery. They effect has become more pronounced and has negatively impacted the overall experience.
Beyond that, the PVR already liberated us from the centralized planning of network schedules and the problems of trying to chase shows around the schedule. The PVR also helps you find the stuff that's not total dreck.
TV without a PVR is most certainly broken and only getting worse.
If you spend most of your time screwing around on Facebook then a device that is mostly a web terminal can probably be your "primary" machine.
Statistics are a wonderful horrible thing.
They are toys for people with money to burn.
Most people are probably fine with this. It just seems to be a noisy minority that can't handle this.
Yes. These people were better served by the WebTV concept from the last century. It just didn't work out for whatever reason.
This is all well and good. Not everyone has the same needs.
The interesting question is why fanboys need to kid themselves.
...plus you've just lost the ability to use the machine as something other than a dumb terminal. A dumb terminal is fine only so long as you stay connected to the network and the network is fast enough.
Unfortunately, that's very likely not to be the case currently and into the foreseeable future.
Having a dumb terminal means that you are completely incapable of being disconnected from "the cloud". You also have no control and are at the mercy of "IT". This is why PCs became a big thing to begin with.
It's like people have forgotten history...
My "real work" includes using the keyboard a lot. My "real work" also benefits from having a much larger monitor and from having my input device separated from my display device.
This is all just a lame attempt to paint anyone that doesn't want to use the products of a certain corporation as a "hater" or some other term that makes them seem irrational and easy to denigrate.
What you likely have are Samsung USERS rather than "fans" that simply want to be free to buy what they want free from outside interference. You may also have judges that don't see any reason to hand Apple a monopoly on a silver platter.
> but when do I need a keyboard?
Just about any time I want to input some text.
Short of something that can be reduced to nothing more than using a mouse, a tablet interface is terribly clunky. They had mouse input keyboards in 1985 and they really aren't any better now than they were then.
The whole "touch" thing is just a lot flashier.
It's easy for people to kid themselves into believing things have gotten better when they're really a whole lot worse.
> From one nerd with a superiority complex to another:
>
> You assume everyone is creative.
It doesn't take much really.
...except the PC uses THE EXACT SAME INPUTS as a VAX or a mainframe.
I even managed to see a law office running WP on a VAX in the late 90s. It pretty much looked like WP on DOS except for the fact that the secretaries used VT-220 terminals instead of a PC.
No. The distance between a VAX and a PC is much smaller than the distance between either and an iPad.
You can certainly compute in the same ways on an iPad.
Although you have to jailbreak it first. Then it can look very much like a VAX running Unix.
Nope. If it's not the Win32 version, then it's not the world's major office software. It's just a bad copy. You're probably better off running the real thing in a VM.
No. If you are going to fixate on "buying commercial software", then you are probably far better off just using Windows (and forgetting the VM).
It's like swimming in syrup.
It's like an overpriced American style subcompact with the lack of power to match. I really wanted to like the Prius but more than anything it reminded me of driving a Pinto or Escort.