This is a good thing (to the city of Madison anyway.) I am a DSL victim here in Madison and the thought of a relativity cheap alternative to the local telcos would be great! I worked on the University of WI campus for 10 years and the idea of an alternative option would rock.
If they fail, they'd fail because they can't provide. I have TDS, and I am pretty happy. The idea of a company having sole access to a market to a market frightens me. The more options the better!
Now the way it sounds, if you pay, you get access. If I am willing to pump up the "volume" of my signal to access it downtown (I have local hub with WiFi); no harm, no foul. But for a campus and city population of 200k+, God bless ya. The rate the city is asking ($20-30/month), is about equal or to or less than local tecos.
Less then five years ago, for $30 a month all I could get was 128k asynch and a prayer for no traffic at 5am! I teach at a local tech college, and the biggest complaint is no access. If the poor bastards don't pay for access, make them. If they don't, I will (pay, for my share anyway)!!! If I can roam the city and get WiFi, well the revolution was worth it.
The tech ain't hard. Schlotzskys and Starbucks did it, so why can't anybody else.
From a fiscal conservative and social liberal! I pay the taxes, so I should have some say!
Working in the TV production biz, we have been looking for q cheap way to build and preview a disc before they are sent to the duplication house.
We have a MacG4 with a SuperDrive in it, but now we are looking for a DVD player that will allow us to view a test disc. We use DVD-R General discs because they are cheap and allow us multiple tries without toasting a $25 disc and then find an error. We're thinking of going to DVD-RW because after a several burns, they are cheaper. We are also not opposed to going to +R or +RW if the cost/benefit is there.
In the Aug 2002 issue of DV Magazine, they review the different formats (DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW but not DVD+R). They look at compatiblity w/players, disc failure rate by disc manufacturer, and other factors. It offers a good read and lots of info if you are interested. They even list players that can accept all of the formats. It has helped us make a decision on a player (Apex makes a nice model).
I work for a PBS affiliate, and we just bit the bullet last year and bought the new transmitter and other bits to broadcast digital. I believe it cost us $800,000 plus reoccurring expenses. Our electricity bill per month can be several thousand dollars. And we still have 5 transmitters left to convert in my state. Once most stations convert to digital, the only thing they can afford to do is take their analog signal and convert it to digital. It looks horrible, but it's cheap. All the pretty demos you see at Best Buy are meant to make you buy the TV. It will be a long time before most stations can/will actually make content to look like that.
As far as my opinion as a consumer, it's WAY to expensive. I just bought a new TV several years ago because I could not wait any longer for a relatively inexpensive digital TV. Yes, new TVs will be probably can contain a digital receiver, but I don't like it. Most of the television engineers I talk with recommend you buy the TV and the receiver separately. Ypu know in a few years receivers will be better, with great new features they say you can't live without. The TV is not going to get much better, but receivers will.
And for those of you who don't want to buy a new TV just to get a digital signal(myself included), most of the receivers I have seen will transcode the signal for your current analog TV. That's what I going to do anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a good thing (to the city of Madison anyway.) I am a DSL victim here in Madison and the thought of a relativity cheap alternative to the local telcos would be great! I worked on the University of WI campus for 10 years and the idea of an alternative option would rock. If they fail, they'd fail because they can't provide. I have TDS, and I am pretty happy. The idea of a company having sole access to a market to a market frightens me. The more options the better! Now the way it sounds, if you pay, you get access. If I am willing to pump up the "volume" of my signal to access it downtown (I have local hub with WiFi); no harm, no foul. But for a campus and city population of 200k+, God bless ya. The rate the city is asking ($20-30/month), is about equal or to or less than local tecos. Less then five years ago, for $30 a month all I could get was 128k asynch and a prayer for no traffic at 5am! I teach at a local tech college, and the biggest complaint is no access. If the poor bastards don't pay for access, make them. If they don't, I will (pay, for my share anyway)!!! If I can roam the city and get WiFi, well the revolution was worth it. The tech ain't hard. Schlotzskys and Starbucks did it, so why can't anybody else. From a fiscal conservative and social liberal! I pay the taxes, so I should have some say!
We have a MacG4 with a SuperDrive in it, but now we are looking for a DVD player that will allow us to view a test disc. We use DVD-R General discs because they are cheap and allow us multiple tries without toasting a $25 disc and then find an error. We're thinking of going to DVD-RW because after a several burns, they are cheaper. We are also not opposed to going to +R or +RW if the cost/benefit is there.
In the Aug 2002 issue of DV Magazine, they review the different formats (DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW but not DVD+R). They look at compatiblity w/players, disc failure rate by disc manufacturer, and other factors. It offers a good read and lots of info if you are interested. They even list players that can accept all of the formats. It has helped us make a decision on a player (Apex makes a nice model).
to expensive to die.
I work for a PBS affiliate, and we just bit the bullet last year and bought the new transmitter and other bits to broadcast digital. I believe it cost us $800,000 plus reoccurring expenses. Our electricity bill per month can be several thousand dollars. And we still have 5 transmitters left to convert in my state. Once most stations convert to digital, the only thing they can afford to do is take their analog signal and convert it to digital. It looks horrible, but it's cheap. All the pretty demos you see at Best Buy are meant to make you buy the TV. It will be a long time before most stations can/will actually make content to look like that.
As far as my opinion as a consumer, it's WAY to expensive. I just bought a new TV several years ago because I could not wait any longer for a relatively inexpensive digital TV. Yes, new TVs will be probably can contain a digital receiver, but I don't like it. Most of the television engineers I talk with recommend you buy the TV and the receiver separately. Ypu know in a few years receivers will be better, with great new features they say you can't live without. The TV is not going to get much better, but receivers will.
And for those of you who don't want to buy a new TV just to get a digital signal(myself included), most of the receivers I have seen will transcode the signal for your current analog TV. That's what I going to do anyway.