Actually, you can buy a lot of DVDs for $10. I've heard the manufacturing costs for an entire DVD plus case is about $1.
People are making money with it being that cheap too.
The "manufacturing" cost of electronic sharing is only in bandwidtn and set up. A peer-to-peer shares the bandwidth costs with many people.
People don't even care for "DVD quality". Lossy compression files are perfectly good for vieweing movies.
The movie and music industry is trying to base pricing schemes on the price-fixing of their old monopoly and trying to keep the prices artificially high. That high of a price just can not stand up to the pressures that market reality is forcing on them. So they are trying to legistilate "protection" when they should be trying to find a level that people would buy and take advantage of the cheap electronic methods of getting to their customers.
I don't think the "big business" understand that the reason that so many people are doing this is not out of some misguided attempt to hurt them specifically or be "criminals". A legitimate means for a legitimate cost needs to happen.
The biggest reason is that their products can be had for a small *percentage* of a penny per dollar that they are charging.
Yes, there are costs to downloading movies off the Internet (bandwidth, getting a "ripped" copy workable, etc.) But the costs are so *low* in comparison to what businesses are offering that they can't justify in their minds paying thousands of percent the real value of the movies.
That's what no judge or lawyer has really hit.
People are carrying their own expenses on distributing movies and music. And it is cheap. Really, really damn cheap. So cheap that they can afford an "entertainment" budget in their ISP high speed costs for the most part.
And until the "real" costs that the movie and music industry come down to what people are willing to buy for purely electronic copies, piracy will be rampant.
Finite as in less than a few billion, yes. You can't make Spider-Man exactly, for example. But you can make a vaguely decent likeness. It just happens to be that their "pieces and parts" creator does give you very flexable ability to create super-heroes.
The part that irritates me is that Cryptic has been playing nice and self-policing. BOO MARVEL.
City of Villains is a "related" game that you can play seperately or at the same time. They are actually trying to swing a deal so that you only have to pay one subscription price.
Customer calls on phone: My computer is running slower than expected. It's brand new, why doesn't it do this calculation in my spreadsheet faster?!
Poor Phone Technician (me!): Is it running slower in anything else?
Customer: No, just this spreadsheet.
Tech: Is there anything odd about this spreadsheet?
Customer: Well, I enter in thousands of lines of data, run a calculation against the entire spreadsheet and inputs statistical data elsewhere in the spreadsheet. I'm going to be doing this daily.
Tech who has worked on databases before: Exactly how big is this spreadsheet?
Customer: Oh, it's only about fifty megabytes right now after a week.
Frustrated Tech: (Starts to explain that spreadsheets are not relational databases.)
Er, POS standing for "Point of Sales", of course. Ie., a fancy cash register.
What a knee-jerk reaction...
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
So a little radioactive battery is now powerful enough to wipe out life on a moon? Does he have any idea how silly the idea is?
That would be like expecting all of the radioactives that dentists use for x-ray machines, if they were all lumped together and dumped in the bottom of an ocean, to wipe out our life.
Radioactivity does not equal *bad* in all situations and places. We use it a lot more than people believe. The thermal-radiation batteries that NASA uses are about as safe as science can make them.
The CD (and packaging) probably set back the people who made that CD by $.50. You might have to tack on a couple of nickles for it to get shipped to whatever store you like to buy from.
Obviously there has to be *some* markup by intermediaries. But 40 times the cost of production seems a bit excessive.
Considering you can buy older DVD copies of movies for the same price or less.
CDs should be costing the consumer about $5. Maybe $10 for a really new, hotly anticipated new release.
I would be more than happy to pay for music online, for what it is worth. But it shouldn't be more cost effective to buy it at the store. It should be far less than half the cost.
The music industry needs to clear itself of all of the pork/middle-men and learn how to make money without gouging its customers.
So, (this begs the question) they can hit within three+ miles of a *fleet*, does that mean that they could have hit with three miles of a single ship in the ocean?
Hmm. I really don't use KAZAA anymore, but the last time I checked for an anime series that isn't available here in the states yet, I found a lot of porn in it.
That they do want they cake and to eat it too. They want grossly high profit margins with little (to them) work.
File sharing attacks the basic premise that music should be *expensive*. And that you really do need to buy "their" music. I typically do not download most music.
Why does the RIAA actually think that I should spend the *same* amount of money for CD or *more* for something that is incredibly cheaper for them?
They are not the ones that made the MP3s (even though I rip my personal CDs to Vorbis Ogg.) They aren't paying for the infrastructure to distribute it, the consumers are. They are not paying for my media, if I decide to mix a compilation of music.
Until I can buy, online, music for about a dollar or two for a CD of music, I won't be buying anything online. That's not just to listen to it for a "day" or even a "week" but for however long I want to. I don't listen to a lot of the music that I have on my computer as is. There's too many albums.
I read an article the other day. *Rent* a movie over the internet (and download it) for about the same price as you can from your local store. And it "self-destructs" after just twenty-four hours. Why the heck would I want to download something when I can go to a local store and keep it for five days and it's more consumer friendly?
What a bunch of morons. Provide a *better* service for *cheaper*, and you'll be drowning in customers.
But they are too stuck on their monopolistic practices. Right now, DVDs and CDs are mostly too high for me to buy regularly (though I did buy a used copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.)
I don't think I'm the only one with liquid cash issues. That might be why people are into arguably-illegal downloading. If they could get their fix of the internet *and* buy their items, most people would.
It causes much less stress.
But they'd rather sue (and alienate) their customers. Real smart! Pretty soon, people will find alternate, legal downloads *just* to spite you.
Nevermind that it can be incredibly cheaper than the alternative means of buying the most expensive ones! And you're right, who the hell modded him up as insightful?
Benchmarks aren't perfect, but in a perfect world God would just implant the knowledge of which card was perfect for you into you're brain.
But some of us don't have God on the brain and have to make the best of our own choices. Choices that are made better when you at least check out the different options and don't automatically totally distrust anyone but your own testing.
...because, oh boy, doesn't it make a lot fairly sweeping declarations without substantiation. It put just enough graphs to look credible, and then never actually showed any proof of their premise.
They never actually showed how the Kyro II actually "out-performed" the GF2 in real life applications.
I could just say that I don't believe there's people being killed in Iraq, it's all a goverment conspiracy. If I had no proof, I *should* be laughed out of town.
Synthetic benchmarks are not *inheriently* bad. As long as the benchmark is not being skewed somehow (cheats, ignorance, mistakes) there's no reason not to use them as a guidline for performance. If you can *also* do real life testing, that's even better, there's more information to infer performance from.
The benchmark "3D Mark 2001SE" is not even a current benchmark. One of the main premises of the 3D Mark series tests is the fact that it is testing graphical items that are not yet *in* games. IIRC, they program in the latest wizbangs that graphics cards are putting in their hardware. So it is an estimation of "future" performance.
Their estimate is better than running current games that don't even test those future features. Their accuracy is not as great as actualy testing with games that will come out in two/three years (they can not and do not expect to replicate all programming tricks that the entire industry will come up with to cludge around some weird problem.)
In short, this article is slanted and bunk. They make sweeping inclusions and fail to back it up with hard data, misinterpet "synthetic benchmarks".
If I was a suspicious person, I'd guess they were hired to debunk 3D FutureMark and thier ilk as spurious testing methodology.
No, I can truthfully say I just lived through a hell-shift at work thanks to this virus. Most (as in 99%) of everyone infected was just wondering why their system just kept rebooting, they had no idea that there was this virus making the rounds.
Broadband users seemed to get hit the worst (they couldn't figure out why their system would "always" reboot.)
Nine hours with very small breaks and pizze (company provided) at my desk.
Their children to drink in the privacy of their own homes while under their supervision. And I believe there is no laws against a parent allowing their children to smoke in their home, either. (Most people would admit, the parents would have to be damn stupid to allow the second example.)
There are several religions that have glasses of wine as part of their religious observance (Judiasm, for one.)
Pretty much, the US law seems to think that children are not able to make adult decisions.
Kids that grow up on farms (in some states) I believe can get a learners to drive on certain roads, so they can help around the farm better.
Me, I feel that adults should follow restrictions, when they make sense. Those that don't make sense, should be publicly disagreed with.
Should violent video games be banned? Hell, no!
Should little Bobbie be allowed to purchase it? Again, Hell NO!
But if Bobbie's *parental figures* feel that he is adult enough to distinguish between reality and fiction while he still wants to play/own it, there shouldn't be a law that bans him from playing it.
Parents should be responsible enough to be a part of their kids lives. Shop owners should be responsible enough to do their best to follow those restrictions too.
Too bad it's a "should" not "does."
Simply enough, some kids grow up faster than others and are more mature. And hence, just like some parents feel that they can take their thirteen year olds to an R rated movie that they want to go to.
Me? I'm a adult at 30, but I'm really kind of coasting at the 20'ish range of "adult behavior" (from choice, mostly.) Don't have any kids, don't see any in the near future either. But that's my choice as an adult.
The video game "anaology"? I mentioned a better value of entertainment dollars.
I just recently purchased Neverwinter Nights ($40.) It has about twenty hours of gameplay (but you can take longer) and it has community added gameplay for even *more* hours. For the $25-$30 bucks I'll buy the expansion pack that just went Gold for *another* twenty hours minimum value game play (but probably even more, as it includes even more stuff for the community.)
I buy an Anime DVD with 1 1/2 hours of anime on it. I'll probably watch it once or twice in a few years.
And what movies have you been buying? Just about every one I've seen (including my Spider-Man DVD) has multiple languages. It's usually only Spanish or French, but it is still there.
Anime may still be a niche market, but it's not as small as you'd think anymore. But at the price they are keeping it at, it *isn't* going to grow to a bigger market.
Littly Tommy can't afford his DBZ (which has over a hundred tapes/DVDs at this point, IIRC.) $3000 is too much for a TV cartoon! And if you get lucky and buy it by seasons at $120 a pop, that's merely $600 dollars? And that's only after they've released all of the single DVD/tapes.
The only thing saving Anime here in the US is Cartoon Network.
And that is just sad.
Arthur Hansen
P.S. (Just noticed today that a lot of older, less "valuable" movies are suddenly hitting the bargain bins at about $8 a shot at my grocery store and convienence stores. Nah, DVDs and Tapes aren't normally over-priced.)
And I almost bought one (an old Stallone flick) because it was affordable. Not because it was great.
And with some 50+ episodes in several series, you'll be lucky to get it for less than $250 dollars.
My BGC2040 series (which is smallish) has about 10 to 12 tapes (23 episodes.) At $30 to $35 dollar apeice, that run at least over $300 dollar up to $400.
They started with only two episodes on each tape, and then switched over to three, IIRC.
Glad they did, otherwise it would have cost even more!
... way too expensive right now. I know people want to make a buck, but I can totally agree with the fellow who doesn't want to spend $1500.00 or so for a *single* series.
And with DVDs "pressing" cost being about a dollar and the packaging being maybe a dollar or two more, exactly how can producers really expect to gouge customers this much?
They are almost forcing people to find cheap alternatives. Crappy copies off of file sharing or Hong Kong pirated copies are becoming not just a means to get stuff just "cheap" but pretty much the only way to get more than one series a year.
I own a very neat collection of BGC2040, legal. It didn't occur to me until just recently that I had paid $400 (before taxes!) for it. At $40 dollars of packaging, that's a pretty big profit margin.
And I'm sure the movie/anime/TV people would rather have me buying more of their products!
But people are too short sighted about making money now, instead of making sure their audience doesn't just...... go away and get a better value for their entertainment dollars.
Video games can give you easily 40+ hours of entertainment for about $40 dollar.
Is the price of producing DVDs and subbing/dubbing them really that expensive?
Slashdot Mirror
People are making money with it being that cheap too.
The "manufacturing" cost of electronic sharing is only in bandwidtn and set up. A peer-to-peer shares the bandwidth costs with many people.
People don't even care for "DVD quality". Lossy compression files are perfectly good for vieweing movies.
The movie and music industry is trying to base pricing schemes on the price-fixing of their old monopoly and trying to keep the prices artificially high. That high of a price just can not stand up to the pressures that market reality is forcing on them. So they are trying to legistilate "protection" when they should be trying to find a level that people would buy and take advantage of the cheap electronic methods of getting to their customers.
The biggest reason is that their products can be had for a small *percentage* of a penny per dollar that they are charging.
Yes, there are costs to downloading movies off the Internet (bandwidth, getting a "ripped" copy workable, etc.) But the costs are so *low* in comparison to what businesses are offering that they can't justify in their minds paying thousands of percent the real value of the movies.
That's what no judge or lawyer has really hit.
People are carrying their own expenses on distributing movies and music. And it is cheap. Really, really damn cheap. So cheap that they can afford an "entertainment" budget in their ISP high speed costs for the most part.
And until the "real" costs that the movie and music industry come down to what people are willing to buy for purely electronic copies, piracy will be rampant.
So no one can actually use it, without using expensive alternate options to a cheap "car".
This is like trying to build a serious engineering project like the Gibralter bridge by sending small fishing boats to carry the materials.
Technically impossible, incredibly unfeasible.
The part that irritates me is that Cryptic has been playing nice and self-policing. BOO MARVEL.
City of Villains is a "related" game that you can play seperately or at the same time. They are actually trying to swing a deal so that you only have to pay one subscription price.
Customer calls on phone: My computer is running slower than expected. It's brand new, why doesn't it do this calculation in my spreadsheet faster?!
Poor Phone Technician (me!): Is it running slower in anything else?
Customer: No, just this spreadsheet.
Tech: Is there anything odd about this spreadsheet?
Customer: Well, I enter in thousands of lines of data, run a calculation against the entire spreadsheet and inputs statistical data elsewhere in the spreadsheet. I'm going to be doing this daily.
Tech who has worked on databases before: Exactly how big is this spreadsheet?
Customer: Oh, it's only about fifty megabytes right now after a week.
Frustrated Tech: (Starts to explain that spreadsheets are not relational databases.)
Er, POS standing for "Point of Sales", of course. Ie., a fancy cash register.
So a little radioactive battery is now powerful enough to wipe out life on a moon? Does he have any idea how silly the idea is?
That would be like expecting all of the radioactives that dentists use for x-ray machines, if they were all lumped together and dumped in the bottom of an ocean, to wipe out our life.
Radioactivity does not equal *bad* in all situations and places. We use it a lot more than people believe. The thermal-radiation batteries that NASA uses are about as safe as science can make them.
Let's add waste of time to wasted opportunities and mindless red-tape to NASA's political problems.
If they are talking about finding a consensus, they will never find one that is worthwhile. Especially if all they have is...
"Hey, wait a second. Is this a good idea or not?"
What we need is someone with some real vision and the ability to sell that vision to NASA and US Politicians.
An almost assured impossibility, I guess.
Arthur Hansen
But it is still price gouging by any other name.
The CD (and packaging) probably set back the people who made that CD by $.50. You might have to tack on a couple of nickles for it to get shipped to whatever store you like to buy from.
Obviously there has to be *some* markup by intermediaries. But 40 times the cost of production seems a bit excessive.
Considering you can buy older DVD copies of movies for the same price or less.
CDs should be costing the consumer about $5. Maybe $10 for a really new, hotly anticipated new release.
I would be more than happy to pay for music online, for what it is worth. But it shouldn't be more cost effective to buy it at the store. It should be far less than half the cost.
The music industry needs to clear itself of all of the pork/middle-men and learn how to make money without gouging its customers.
Arthur Hansen
Yes. Even more importantly, we've done more than plant a couple of flags on the nearest thing we could for propaganda purposes.
The moon shots were almost entirely ego over substance. At least they are attempting to learn how to build an infrastructure with Shuttle/ISS.
Arthur Hansen
So, (this begs the question) they can hit within three+ miles of a *fleet*, does that mean that they could have hit with three miles of a single ship in the ocean?
Hmm. I really don't use KAZAA anymore, but the last time I checked for an anime series that isn't available here in the states yet, I found a lot of porn in it.
Something stinks, methinks.
Arthur Hansen
That they do want they cake and to eat it too. They want grossly high profit margins with little (to them) work.
File sharing attacks the basic premise that music should be *expensive*. And that you really do need to buy "their" music. I typically do not download most music.
Why does the RIAA actually think that I should spend the *same* amount of money for CD or *more* for something that is incredibly cheaper for them?
They are not the ones that made the MP3s (even though I rip my personal CDs to Vorbis Ogg.) They aren't paying for the infrastructure to distribute it, the consumers are. They are not paying for my media, if I decide to mix a compilation of music.
Until I can buy, online, music for about a dollar or two for a CD of music, I won't be buying anything online. That's not just to listen to it for a "day" or even a "week" but for however long I want to. I don't listen to a lot of the music that I have on my computer as is. There's too many albums.
I read an article the other day. *Rent* a movie over the internet (and download it) for about the same price as you can from your local store. And it "self-destructs" after just twenty-four hours. Why the heck would I want to download something when I can go to a local store and keep it for five days and it's more consumer friendly?
What a bunch of morons. Provide a *better* service for *cheaper*, and you'll be drowning in customers.
But they are too stuck on their monopolistic practices. Right now, DVDs and CDs are mostly too high for me to buy regularly (though I did buy a used copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.)
I don't think I'm the only one with liquid cash issues. That might be why people are into arguably-illegal downloading. If they could get their fix of the internet *and* buy their items, most people would.
It causes much less stress.
But they'd rather sue (and alienate) their customers. Real smart! Pretty soon, people will find alternate, legal downloads *just* to spite you.
Arthur Hansen
That ignores the fact that if enough ISP's are black-listed and then "improve" that the Spammers will run *out* of places to send SPAM from.
Or at least to a low enough point that most of my inbox won't be filled with really stupid Spam because I like to post to newsgroups about rocketry.
Arthur Hansen
Nevermind that it can be incredibly cheaper than the alternative means of buying the most expensive ones! And you're right, who the hell modded him up as insightful?
Benchmarks aren't perfect, but in a perfect world God would just implant the knowledge of which card was perfect for you into you're brain.
But some of us don't have God on the brain and have to make the best of our own choices. Choices that are made better when you at least check out the different options and don't automatically totally distrust anyone but your own testing.
Arthur Hansen
...because, oh boy, doesn't it make a lot fairly sweeping declarations without substantiation. It put just enough graphs to look credible, and then never actually showed any proof of their premise.
They never actually showed how the Kyro II actually "out-performed" the GF2 in real life applications.
I could just say that I don't believe there's people being killed in Iraq, it's all a goverment conspiracy. If I had no proof, I *should* be laughed out of town.
Synthetic benchmarks are not *inheriently* bad. As long as the benchmark is not being skewed somehow (cheats, ignorance, mistakes) there's no reason not to use them as a guidline for performance. If you can *also* do real life testing, that's even better, there's more information to infer performance from.
The benchmark "3D Mark 2001SE" is not even a current benchmark. One of the main premises of the 3D Mark series tests is the fact that it is testing graphical items that are not yet *in* games. IIRC, they program in the latest wizbangs that graphics cards are putting in their hardware. So it is an estimation of "future" performance.
Their estimate is better than running current games that don't even test those future features. Their accuracy is not as great as actualy testing with games that will come out in two/three years (they can not and do not expect to replicate all programming tricks that the entire industry will come up with to cludge around some weird problem.)
In short, this article is slanted and bunk. They make sweeping inclusions and fail to back it up with hard data, misinterpet "synthetic benchmarks".
If I was a suspicious person, I'd guess they were hired to debunk 3D FutureMark and thier ilk as spurious testing methodology.
If they aren't, I'll apologize.
It's just bad reporting then.
Arthur Hansen
No, I can truthfully say I just lived through a hell-shift at work thanks to this virus. Most (as in 99%) of everyone infected was just wondering why their system just kept rebooting, they had no idea that there was this virus making the rounds.
Broadband users seemed to get hit the worst (they couldn't figure out why their system would "always" reboot.)
Nine hours with very small breaks and pizze (company provided) at my desk.
Bastards...
Arthur Hansen
Their children to drink in the privacy of their own homes while under their supervision. And I believe there is no laws against a parent allowing their children to smoke in their home, either. (Most people would admit, the parents would have to be damn stupid to allow the second example.)
There are several religions that have glasses of wine as part of their religious observance (Judiasm, for one.)
Pretty much, the US law seems to think that children are not able to make adult decisions.
Kids that grow up on farms (in some states) I believe can get a learners to drive on certain roads, so they can help around the farm better.
Arthur Hansen
Which do you advocate?
Me, I feel that adults should follow restrictions, when they make sense. Those that don't make sense, should be publicly disagreed with.
Should violent video games be banned? Hell, no!
Should little Bobbie be allowed to purchase it? Again, Hell NO!
But if Bobbie's *parental figures* feel that he is adult enough to distinguish between reality and fiction while he still wants to play/own it, there shouldn't be a law that bans him from playing it.
Parents should be responsible enough to be a part of their kids lives. Shop owners should be responsible enough to do their best to follow those restrictions too.
Too bad it's a "should" not "does."
Simply enough, some kids grow up faster than others and are more mature. And hence, just like some parents feel that they can take their thirteen year olds to an R rated movie that they want to go to.
Me? I'm a adult at 30, but I'm really kind of coasting at the 20'ish range of "adult behavior" (from choice, mostly.) Don't have any kids, don't see any in the near future either. But that's my choice as an adult.
Arthur Hansen
The video game "anaology"? I mentioned a better value of entertainment dollars.
I just recently purchased Neverwinter Nights ($40.) It has about twenty hours of gameplay (but you can take longer) and it has community added gameplay for even *more* hours. For the $25-$30 bucks I'll buy the expansion pack that just went Gold for *another* twenty hours minimum value game play (but probably even more, as it includes even more stuff for the community.)
I buy an Anime DVD with 1 1/2 hours of anime on it. I'll probably watch it once or twice in a few years.
And what movies have you been buying? Just about every one I've seen (including my Spider-Man DVD) has multiple languages. It's usually only Spanish or French, but it is still there.
Anime may still be a niche market, but it's not as small as you'd think anymore. But at the price they are keeping it at, it *isn't* going to grow to a bigger market.
Littly Tommy can't afford his DBZ (which has over a hundred tapes/DVDs at this point, IIRC.) $3000 is too much for a TV cartoon! And if you get lucky and buy it by seasons at $120 a pop, that's merely $600 dollars? And that's only after they've released all of the single DVD/tapes.
The only thing saving Anime here in the US is Cartoon Network.
And that is just sad.
Arthur Hansen
P.S. (Just noticed today that a lot of older, less "valuable" movies are suddenly hitting the bargain bins at about $8 a shot at my grocery store and convienence stores. Nah, DVDs and Tapes aren't normally over-priced.)
And I almost bought one (an old Stallone flick) because it was affordable. Not because it was great.
Which series? That must be a really small one.
And with some 50+ episodes in several series, you'll be lucky to get it for less than $250 dollars.
My BGC2040 series (which is smallish) has about 10 to 12 tapes (23 episodes.) At $30 to $35 dollar apeice, that run at least over $300 dollar up to $400.
They started with only two episodes on each tape, and then switched over to three, IIRC.
Glad they did, otherwise it would have cost even more!
From where I'm sitting, this is looking high.
Arthur Hansen
... way too expensive right now. I know people want to make a buck, but I can totally agree with the fellow who doesn't want to spend $1500.00 or so for a *single* series.
... go away and get a better value for their entertainment dollars.
And with DVDs "pressing" cost being about a dollar and the packaging being maybe a dollar or two more, exactly how can producers really expect to gouge customers this much?
They are almost forcing people to find cheap alternatives. Crappy copies off of file sharing or Hong Kong pirated copies are becoming not just a means to get stuff just "cheap" but pretty much the only way to get more than one series a year.
I own a very neat collection of BGC2040, legal. It didn't occur to me until just recently that I had paid $400 (before taxes!) for it. At $40 dollars of packaging, that's a pretty big profit margin.
And I'm sure the movie/anime/TV people would rather have me buying more of their products!
But people are too short sighted about making money now, instead of making sure their audience doesn't just...
Video games can give you easily 40+ hours of entertainment for about $40 dollar.
Is the price of producing DVDs and subbing/dubbing them really that expensive?
Arthur Hansen
Well, except that Space is much more dangerous than flying around in the air. It's magnitudes more difficult *and* dangerous!
:)
As an example, please build a rocket car that can go 10 times as fast as a normal car but you want it to run on a normal dirt road.
There's nothing technically impossible about it, but boy it would take a lot of work and effort.
And I'd bet that you killed an awful lot of people to do it!