Not only was it for protection of different news sources, but it also keeps advertising rates in check. There are some suits going on regarding clear channel. I hate to sound like a clear channel taking over the world alarmist because I've already posted once about them, but they are a problem. I read a while back (sorry I don't have a link handy) that they sometimes sell radio stations to small companies, whose ownership is unclear, when they approach the limit in a particular market. Then they operate that station for the other company. Some of these things are fact, the unclear thing is the ownership of the small company.
The point is, when one media conglomerate controls a significant amount of a single media type (radio, TV, newspaper) in one market, they then control the ad rates in that market. That's a major problem.
Not to mention the fact that there's evidence that clear channel creates psuedo-companies to own stations so that they can skirt the current rules. There's no telling how many they actually own.
Sorry, I'm not meaning to imply most people use it. I'm just saying that people who use DeCSS have already paid by purchasing the DVD-ROM drive. My assumption is that people using DeCSS to play DVDs they purchased aren't really costing anybody any money.
Also as far as CSS goes, I believe that the members of DVD-CCA (I believe they control CSS) are for the most part the patent holders of DVD technology. I'm sure some of the patents these guys control are those that govern the implementation of CSS.
This article raises an interesting question for me. If the DVD-ROM manufacturer paid a license fee to sell the drive, aren't they getting their money from DeCSS users? It has no application to this case, but only in regards to DeCSS. If the Phillips, etc. get their money from the drive manufacturer, and they get their money from the disc producer, why is it so important that they also get their money from the software producer? It can't be that much. Considering that even licensed DVD players are sold for less than $200, we know the licensing fees aren't too high.
The real money is in the software. Yet they are so paranoid about that small minority that wants to pirate, that they refuse to let people play software they bought on their linux or other OSes without a licensed player. This just doesn't make a lot of sense.
One thing that can be done is to mod certain players. There are companies out there that specialize in this and in some cases you can order a kit to mod your own player. This is player dependent of course, and as long as modding things like the PS2 is still legal in some places, these things will continue to be manufactured. BTW, the latest PS2 mods also remove region coding.
I got mine from a Canadian company (avdeals.com) without much trouble. However I've heard of several US companies selling them also. I have a Malata DVD-n996 and its a damn good region free player, with PAL to NTSC conversion.
You may want to consider the Malata DVD-N996 instead. Its region free and does a very good job of PAL to NTSC conversion. I don't know if its licensed or not, but at $300 it is one very capable player.
He's combining a couple of issues here. Phillips and other hold all sorts of patents on DVDs. The technology is new enough, they developed it, they want to make money off it. That's no big deal. Granted I imagine the unlicensed manufacturers are also violating the CSS copyrights, but that's not what they care about in this case.
Its on at 7pm Eastern time on Sunday night. Now do you see why you don't know when its on? For a good part of the year its not shown because of football. The rest of the time people just aren't watching that much TV then.
I do watch it, thank you, and so do a lot of other people, when its on. Fox has killed it, not the lack of viewers. It would be nice if it was actually given a prime time spot, not this 6pm (Central) bullshit. Fortunately my Tivo picks it up for me so I never miss it. But not everyone has a PVR, so guessing when it might be on is a pain in the ass. How does fox expect it to get decent ratings if they don't show it at a halfway decent time?
Last spring I came home and found my remote control sitting in a puddle of water. It has a 1" x 2" LCD on it and the thing was soaked. Turned out something was wrong in the AC, it was leaking water and it ran across the ceiling and dripped directly on the remote. Anyways, the LCD was a mess and wouldn't light up right at all. I took the batteries out, and placed the remote standing up inside one of my PCs. I placed it directly in front of an intake fan and left it there for a day or so. Sure enough it dried out and to this day it works fine.
Were you trying to be funny? I consider myself a pretty smart guy, and I enjoy TV. Frankly I get sick and tired of that damn superiority kick so many people have about how they don't watch TV. Well they're missing out. What would life be without South Park and the Simpsons? Or Junkyard Wars, Battlebots, and tons of other stuff on Discovery, TLC, History, and PBS? By having a TiVO you can record the shows you want to watch. It helps prevent people from sitting around watching mindless shows because there's nothing else on. Instead you can always have something good to watch that you enjoy.
My modem went out in a lightning strike, and they replaced the unit free of charge. Others I know haven't had trouble. Sure there are some occasional problems, but I don't think its very bad overall.
The TiVO's software is the significant part. Can you tell your computer to record every Simpson's it can find? Can you tell it to record Enterprise at a higher priority? Can you tell it not to record duplicate episodes of a particular show? Can you tell it to record every show with your favorite actor? Can you tell it to record everything with "Tick" in the title so in case the cartoon is aired again you pick it up? Will it record things that are similar to other shows you watch when it has free space? Can you easily connect cable and satelite to it and have it record shows from both?
Sure your computer can do a lot of stuff, but when you buy the TiVO you're buying more than a small PC, you're buying software that kicks ass. IMHO it has one of the most intuitive UIs of just about all the software I've ever used.
I buy a lot of DVDs. I mainly buy them because I think they're an excellent value. For the most part I pay just under $20 for new releases, sometimes less. In fact I've bought more DVDs than CDs. And with LD and VHS I was never really motivated to buy much. But lately the studios have been releasing some great special editions of various movies such as Holy Grail, Shrek, Star Trek The Motion Picture and so on with tons of extras for really good prices. I'm happy to spend my money on things like that.
Even if I did find pirated movies, how much would I save? And what would the quality be like? In the case of some bootlegs, I've heard they're pretty poor. About the only reason I'd ever go for pirated DVDs is if its something I just can't get here legally. And if George would just release his movies on DVD, I'd never even have to think about it.
Personally I think a lot of people are more like me than the handful of pirates the studios are so worried about. The studios are making a ton of money on DVD, probably with the addition of DVD they're now making more on home video sales than ever before. If they continue to provide quality products at reasonable prices, they got nothing to worry about. Besides, those determined to steal it will find a way, they always have before.
I think you're right. It will degrade the more you watch it, which will most likely cause problems. And it will be more important to keep the heads clean. I've had a DVD player for four years and haven't had to clean it yet. And my older discs that have been watched a lot are just fine also.
As long as they keep the price reasonable on DVD I can't see much piracy being an issue. Let's face it, some people are just going to steal it, that's the way it goes, but others are more than willing to pay a fair price. I've bought more DVDs than I've bought Laserdisc, VHS and CDs combined. The reason why is simple, I get a lot for my money and I don't feel like I'm being ripped off.
My first generation Sony player handles just about everything thrown at it. I've found two discs that glitched on it, but that was a minor annoyance. I've had it for four years and all is well.
A good quality first generation player will work fine. The only thing it can't do is DTS audio and SACD/DVD-Audio.
It's also read via physical contact, thus another reason it will degrade. Everytime you watch it, it gets a little wear. And if you rewind and fast forward a bunch, its even worse. This is just a bad idea all around. They're going to have to come up with something a lot better for me to give up DVD.
Nope, its still PAL. The framerate and resolution are in PAL, its just compressed using MPEG 2. Without a converter, whether its in the DVD player, TV, or a separate box, the image will be squished.
I agree with you on this. I knew I would get some enjoyment out of it before I bought it, but I kept putting it off because I didn't think it would be that great. I finally bought it when they had a good rebate going, and now I don't know how I could watch TV without it. Its wonderful to get to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it.
Also, to all those that think it makes more sense to build your own out of a PC, I think you don't realize what you're missing. TiVO has a great interface, and you get more than just a TV schedule. You can record shows based on actors and subjects. You can pick up first run shows or repeats. As long as they have the proper info from the networks, it is smart enough to only pick up unique showings of shows like South Park in a given week. And it will allow you to schedule around conflicts with relative ease.
A little while back AT&T@Home started doing the 128kbps cap in the DFW area. Before that I had managed uploads of around 600kbps if I remember correctly. As NetJunkie pointed out, 15KB is roughly 128Kb so this isn't news and I don't think its worse than most DSL providers. Now AT&T has limited the downstream stuff, but it hasn't really had a noticeable impact on me yet. After all, mine was faster than many servers I went to anyways.
Go to real.com just to see how bad it is. They throw up a pop up for RealOne, and for X10! I went there recently looking for the linux version, what a pain in the ass. I kept poking around trying to find the right page, and anytime I ended up on certain pages, upped pop two pop-up ads. That was annoying.
I think that applies only to Audio CD-R and CD-RW discs, not data ones. Consider how cheap you can by data CD-Rs, do you think the RIAA would be satisfied with only a small portion of that? If they have there way I'm sure all blank discs will be taxed at some point.
You're mixing two cases here. The private anti-trust case is the one where the proposed settlement involves MS giving software to schools. This is the government (fed and state) case that is being dealt with here.
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Not only was it for protection of different news sources, but it also keeps advertising rates in check. There are some suits going on regarding clear channel. I hate to sound like a clear channel taking over the world alarmist because I've already posted once about them, but they are a problem. I read a while back (sorry I don't have a link handy) that they sometimes sell radio stations to small companies, whose ownership is unclear, when they approach the limit in a particular market. Then they operate that station for the other company. Some of these things are fact, the unclear thing is the ownership of the small company.
The point is, when one media conglomerate controls a significant amount of a single media type (radio, TV, newspaper) in one market, they then control the ad rates in that market. That's a major problem.
Not to mention the fact that there's evidence that clear channel creates psuedo-companies to own stations so that they can skirt the current rules. There's no telling how many they actually own.
Sorry, I'm not meaning to imply most people use it. I'm just saying that people who use DeCSS have already paid by purchasing the DVD-ROM drive. My assumption is that people using DeCSS to play DVDs they purchased aren't really costing anybody any money.
Also as far as CSS goes, I believe that the members of DVD-CCA (I believe they control CSS) are for the most part the patent holders of DVD technology. I'm sure some of the patents these guys control are those that govern the implementation of CSS.
This article raises an interesting question for me. If the DVD-ROM manufacturer paid a license fee to sell the drive, aren't they getting their money from DeCSS users? It has no application to this case, but only in regards to DeCSS. If the Phillips, etc. get their money from the drive manufacturer, and they get their money from the disc producer, why is it so important that they also get their money from the software producer? It can't be that much. Considering that even licensed DVD players are sold for less than $200, we know the licensing fees aren't too high.
The real money is in the software. Yet they are so paranoid about that small minority that wants to pirate, that they refuse to let people play software they bought on their linux or other OSes without a licensed player. This just doesn't make a lot of sense.
One thing that can be done is to mod certain players. There are companies out there that specialize in this and in some cases you can order a kit to mod your own player. This is player dependent of course, and as long as modding things like the PS2 is still legal in some places, these things will continue to be manufactured. BTW, the latest PS2 mods also remove region coding.
I got mine from a Canadian company (avdeals.com) without much trouble. However I've heard of several US companies selling them also. I have a Malata DVD-n996 and its a damn good region free player, with PAL to NTSC conversion.
You may want to consider the Malata DVD-N996 instead. Its region free and does a very good job of PAL to NTSC conversion. I don't know if its licensed or not, but at $300 it is one very capable player.
He's combining a couple of issues here. Phillips and other hold all sorts of patents on DVDs. The technology is new enough, they developed it, they want to make money off it. That's no big deal. Granted I imagine the unlicensed manufacturers are also violating the CSS copyrights, but that's not what they care about in this case.
Its on at 7pm Eastern time on Sunday night. Now do you see why you don't know when its on? For a good part of the year its not shown because of football. The rest of the time people just aren't watching that much TV then.
I do watch it, thank you, and so do a lot of other people, when its on. Fox has killed it, not the lack of viewers. It would be nice if it was actually given a prime time spot, not this 6pm (Central) bullshit. Fortunately my Tivo picks it up for me so I never miss it. But not everyone has a PVR, so guessing when it might be on is a pain in the ass. How does fox expect it to get decent ratings if they don't show it at a halfway decent time?
Last spring I came home and found my remote control sitting in a puddle of water. It has a 1" x 2" LCD on it and the thing was soaked. Turned out something was wrong in the AC, it was leaking water and it ran across the ceiling and dripped directly on the remote. Anyways, the LCD was a mess and wouldn't light up right at all. I took the batteries out, and placed the remote standing up inside one of my PCs. I placed it directly in front of an intake fan and left it there for a day or so. Sure enough it dried out and to this day it works fine.
Were you trying to be funny? I consider myself a pretty smart guy, and I enjoy TV. Frankly I get sick and tired of that damn superiority kick so many people have about how they don't watch TV. Well they're missing out. What would life be without South Park and the Simpsons? Or Junkyard Wars, Battlebots, and tons of other stuff on Discovery, TLC, History, and PBS? By having a TiVO you can record the shows you want to watch. It helps prevent people from sitting around watching mindless shows because there's nothing else on. Instead you can always have something good to watch that you enjoy.
My modem went out in a lightning strike, and they replaced the unit free of charge. Others I know haven't had trouble. Sure there are some occasional problems, but I don't think its very bad overall.
The TiVO's software is the significant part. Can you tell your computer to record every Simpson's it can find? Can you tell it to record Enterprise at a higher priority? Can you tell it not to record duplicate episodes of a particular show? Can you tell it to record every show with your favorite actor? Can you tell it to record everything with "Tick" in the title so in case the cartoon is aired again you pick it up? Will it record things that are similar to other shows you watch when it has free space? Can you easily connect cable and satelite to it and have it record shows from both?
Sure your computer can do a lot of stuff, but when you buy the TiVO you're buying more than a small PC, you're buying software that kicks ass. IMHO it has one of the most intuitive UIs of just about all the software I've ever used.
I buy a lot of DVDs. I mainly buy them because I think they're an excellent value. For the most part I pay just under $20 for new releases, sometimes less. In fact I've bought more DVDs than CDs. And with LD and VHS I was never really motivated to buy much. But lately the studios have been releasing some great special editions of various movies such as Holy Grail, Shrek, Star Trek The Motion Picture and so on with tons of extras for really good prices. I'm happy to spend my money on things like that.
Even if I did find pirated movies, how much would I save? And what would the quality be like? In the case of some bootlegs, I've heard they're pretty poor. About the only reason I'd ever go for pirated DVDs is if its something I just can't get here legally. And if George would just release his movies on DVD, I'd never even have to think about it.
Personally I think a lot of people are more like me than the handful of pirates the studios are so worried about. The studios are making a ton of money on DVD, probably with the addition of DVD they're now making more on home video sales than ever before. If they continue to provide quality products at reasonable prices, they got nothing to worry about. Besides, those determined to steal it will find a way, they always have before.
I think you're right. It will degrade the more you watch it, which will most likely cause problems. And it will be more important to keep the heads clean. I've had a DVD player for four years and haven't had to clean it yet. And my older discs that have been watched a lot are just fine also.
As long as they keep the price reasonable on DVD I can't see much piracy being an issue. Let's face it, some people are just going to steal it, that's the way it goes, but others are more than willing to pay a fair price. I've bought more DVDs than I've bought Laserdisc, VHS and CDs combined. The reason why is simple, I get a lot for my money and I don't feel like I'm being ripped off.
My first generation Sony player handles just about everything thrown at it. I've found two discs that glitched on it, but that was a minor annoyance. I've had it for four years and all is well.
A good quality first generation player will work fine. The only thing it can't do is DTS audio and SACD/DVD-Audio.
It's also read via physical contact, thus another reason it will degrade. Everytime you watch it, it gets a little wear. And if you rewind and fast forward a bunch, its even worse. This is just a bad idea all around. They're going to have to come up with something a lot better for me to give up DVD.
Nope, its still PAL. The framerate and resolution are in PAL, its just compressed using MPEG 2. Without a converter, whether its in the DVD player, TV, or a separate box, the image will be squished.
I agree with you on this. I knew I would get some enjoyment out of it before I bought it, but I kept putting it off because I didn't think it would be that great. I finally bought it when they had a good rebate going, and now I don't know how I could watch TV without it. Its wonderful to get to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it.
Also, to all those that think it makes more sense to build your own out of a PC, I think you don't realize what you're missing. TiVO has a great interface, and you get more than just a TV schedule. You can record shows based on actors and subjects. You can pick up first run shows or repeats. As long as they have the proper info from the networks, it is smart enough to only pick up unique showings of shows like South Park in a given week. And it will allow you to schedule around conflicts with relative ease.
A little while back AT&T@Home started doing the 128kbps cap in the DFW area. Before that I had managed uploads of around 600kbps if I remember correctly. As NetJunkie pointed out, 15KB is roughly 128Kb so this isn't news and I don't think its worse than most DSL providers. Now AT&T has limited the downstream stuff, but it hasn't really had a noticeable impact on me yet. After all, mine was faster than many servers I went to anyways.
Go to real.com just to see how bad it is. They throw up a pop up for RealOne, and for X10! I went there recently looking for the linux version, what a pain in the ass. I kept poking around trying to find the right page, and anytime I ended up on certain pages, upped pop two pop-up ads. That was annoying.
I think that applies only to Audio CD-R and CD-RW discs, not data ones. Consider how cheap you can by data CD-Rs, do you think the RIAA would be satisfied with only a small portion of that? If they have there way I'm sure all blank discs will be taxed at some point.
You're mixing two cases here. The private anti-trust case is the one where the proposed settlement involves MS giving software to schools. This is the government (fed and state) case that is being dealt with here.