Why would we promote a middle man with a monthly subscription fee? We already have that in Cable and Sat. TV. We want shows that are cheap, ala carte, and don't require a subscription.
What do I want to see out of Tivo? Nothing. It works the way I expect it to. What would I like to see out of Tivo2Go? No DRM and faster transfer rates. That's not going to happen so blah.
That's right: it's voluntary. In a country that can trace its origins in part to a dispute about taxes, does this man really think that people are going to voluntarily pay a tax? And what makes it even funnier is that he thinks people in Wisconsin are going to voluntarily pay.
There will be no "Internet Police" according to the article thus it will be the same as what most states (if not all) have now... Voluntary reporting of sales tax that you incurred while shopping out of state (via the Internet or magazines).
This would have been better answered with a search on Freshmeat (see here) but the first hit seems like something mildly useful if you want to do some work that isn't necessarily point and click.
Being that I'm a mobile web user most of the time I really appreciate the addition of text only news.google.com. It's not that the page didn't load fast enough as it was but the text only version is left justified and is rendered a lot better than it normally is.
While you can modify the layout to left justify almost everything now it still doesn't remove the "customize this page" box and a couple of stories (from Top Stories) on the right side. Oh well it's still in beta;)
Yet, Pearlman went further. He said that since this plan puts the onus on a massive Internet presence to distribute all the music in the world, why not have such computer companies as Apple and such major Internet companies as Yahoo simply buy up the world's four major record labels? Pearlman was careful to add, though, that he doesn't see his plan killing off demand for CDs.
And somehow this isn't a pie-in-the-sky idea? Oh give me a break! So what? Apple, Yahoo, Google, Foo buy up the companies and what happens? Their bean-counters decide that well if we can make billions selling songs for.05/download we could make 10x as much if we sell them for.50/download and 20x as much if we sell them for.99/download.
Pearlman said that Pfohl misunderstood the idea. Then again, another record-industry type, casually speaking to Pearlman after the talk, had perhaps the most succinct counter suggestion. Why not charge 10 cents, instead of 5, and double the revenue?
Thank you so very much for proving my point.
It would also obliterate musicians' choices on how their music could be sold by conscripting them into a 5-cents-a-song system. And it would destroy record companies' incentive to invest in new acts, Pfohl said.
Somehow I doubt that most of the musicians that are under the current cartel's contracts care how their music is distributed as long as they get paid. Those that don't give a shit already allow their music to be distributed for free on the Internet.
Let's stop with the whining and bitching about the artists you sleazy fuckers and start talking from your own business perspective. Everyone and their grandmothers know that you don't give one iota of a shit about the musicians unless they are filling your ever greedier pockets with money that you can throw at more shitty musicians and sympathetic lawmakers that will kowtow to your bullshit. Someday you will lose but I'm certain that this plan won't do it to you...
It amazes me that no one looks at the successful bands that have been distributing their music for free for years and says, "hmm, why is this still working for them and we are continuing to put out class acts like Ashlee Lipsynchson and we are hemorrhaging money?"
Some of the more recent big bands that allow their music to be distributed include Wilco and Los Lonely Boys. Wilco won the best alternative album this year. Hmm and yet they allow me to download their shows. Guess what RIAA? I would buy their album ANY DAY over someone like Ashlee who lip synchs her live crap and refuses to let us hear it for nothing. I mean, it's not even her doing anything why shouldn't it be free?
Just a FYI Apple, no matter how cheap something is it is NEVER as cheap as free. Free will always win out.
I mean, is Windows 2.0 ready for desktop? Is Windows 3.1 ready for desktop? Is Windows 95 (98, Me?) ready? Compare all of that with what Linux delivers today. Now compare the number of users still using Windows 95 to number of users of Linux (for desktop!).
I'm not quite sure why you think that bringing up old Windows versions will strengthen your position but we'll go with it.
No, Windows was not ready for the desktop until Win9x (and please note the large migration to it) and it really wasn't stable and ready until 2000/XP.
Compare Linux with old Windows versions? Ok, the stability is similar (and in some cases better depending on various issues) to what Windows offers today in 2000/XP (and no my uptime on XP blows my uptime on Linux away so don't even go there). What Linux offers as far as "desktop software" isn't even in the Win 3.1 days though.
Let me know when it is and when there is sufficient general application support that is acceptable for 90%+ of users and I will agree. That will include being able to view web pages that are IE bug dependent, interoperating 100% with other Office users, and being able to play games.
While I'd love to see Linux win (or winning) it isn't and it probably won't... At least not in the next two years.
Sorry, I have a far more time invested in Linux than I do Windows or OS X. I'd been using Linux "on the desktop" during the Win9x years and only switched during the 2000/XP timeframe. I recently switched to a Mac as well.
With all that time invested and the several years more experience I have had with it over Windows and OS X I am going to say again that you are wrong and Linux is NOT ready for the desktop no matter how many times people like you claim it is.
The Linux desktop is perfectly usable, no matter your level of technical sophistication. People get upset because they're skilled with Windows and can correct problems there, but don't want to learn the same skills under Linux.
People who are interested in "desktop" use aren't interested in learning skills. On Windows (or OS X) they don't need to know anything. They turn on the machine and they surf the web. There isn't much to learn.
I'm trying real hard not to boot Windows but I keep doing it day after day even though I'm wasting all of my free time trying to assemble some usable "free desktop".
Now, now, while Linux is definitly not "ready for the desktop" no matter how many of the zealots tell you it is, I really can't say that it "takes all available free time to assemble some usable 'free desktop'".
Gnome and KDE handle this rather well in recent years and they come pretty standard with most distributions and even bootable CDs... Perhaps your requirements are different than others?
Yeah, it's easier to use all that crap in Windows because you're comfortable with it and it happens to work better in most ways but it's certainly not as difficult as you make it out to be to do it in Linux.
As long as it isn't determined by what the Judge in the Apple case said... He claimed it was writers who were working for a commercial entity.
Somehow I don't see the need for journalists to be identified by how they are compensated for their work. That kind of narrows the field of competition to conglomorate media sources and media outlets that may have financial control over the output of their writers.
Sorry but just because we have lawmakers in the pockets of corporations doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed to hear about it because of money.
Absolutely. People tend to forget that Microsoft is a corporation. They can do whatever they want with their software. Their goal in life is to keep you buying their goods and using their software so that they can lock you in and sell you more! Its all about money. Google is not making software out of the goodness of their heart.
Honestly, if I were using Microsoft's search engine to search for information contained on Microsoft's own site I would certainly hope that they made the most relevant results show first.
We aren't talking about Google and Microsoft dominating the world. We are talking about Google forcing high rankings on their own content on their own search engine.
For now, the implications are simple - If Google can do this on it's own pages, why can ordinary webmasters not? Google's keyword stuffed, cloaked title would be hard to describe as anything other than an SEO tactic not so much frowned upon, but full on hated by the Search giant itself.
Why? Because it's their site and they are in no need to follow their own rules. They aren't going to ban themselves but they will ban you. If you want to be listed on *the* search engine then follow their rules. If you don't care if anyone finds you then you can modify your page during crawler indexing and other sites can pick you up.
Do you really believe there's anyone left in Congress who has a clue what the Constitution says anymore? They sure don't act like it.
That should really have read: Do you really believe there's anyone left in Congress that cares what the Constitution says anymore? They sure are paid not to.
Half of Slashdot is mad at Apple. http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/05/03/04/138234.sh tml?tid=123&tid=153&tid=3
Oh we shouldn't be mad at Apple. They are being businessmen even if they are being assholes. I don't expect anything less. Who I am pissed at is the fucking judge who decided that he can determine who and who isn't a journalist.
Sorry but journalists shouldn't be required to work for a "commercial entity" in order to be considered one. That only gives protections to the employees of media conglomorates who are known to be influenced by threats on their jobs...
The leakers broke the dumb law that was passed by lawmakers that had big IT business in their pockets not the journalists.
According to Vonage Holdings Corp. CEO Jeffrey Citron, intentional blocking of Voice over IP traffic is more than just a competitive dirty trick -- it's an act of censorship against free speech.
No, it's a commercial entity telling you how you can use their network. Don't like it? Give your money to someone who will allow it.
Port blocking of VoIP traffic, he opined, is a step down a slippery slope that could lead to network owners blocking content or Web sites they disagreed with.
As much as I disagree with ISPs blocking any sort of traffic they do have every right to do so as you are using their network and unfortunately for most people you are *usually* under no contract of service w/the ISP that says they cannot stop you from doing whatever it is you want.
Content providers already effectively block content they don't want you to see. There have been reports of ISPs blocking traffic on ports 6881 to 6889 and trackers requiring you to use different ports (see http://tmnsp.net as they require you to use alternate ports because of this). Comcast (the largest consumer broadband ISP) doesn't offer Usenet access except through a third party. Other ISPs don't offer ALL Usenet groups - they are keeping you from some content!
"The FCC could come out and institute the largest possible fine they could, with the sternest of statements saying, 'this will not be tolerated,' " Citron said. "That might send a strong enough message."
Or the large conglomerate providers, who already have the FCC in their pockets, could just pay the FCC off and tell them to ignore the problem. I don't see this solving anything.
Personally, I think Vonage should make their software impossible to trace. Yeah it could make the quality/speed take a hit but it would protect them. They can't ban ALL traffic or no one would use the service. Pipe the shit over 443 and be done w/it.
"It'd be unfortunate to have to pass a law [against port blocking and other types of interference], but we may have to," Citron said. Though he said he has previously testified against the need for port-blocking regulation, Citron may now change that tune, especially if more network operators start using port-blocking or other techniques to selectively control Internet traffic.
The implications are too far reaching. I wouldn't be able to block spammers and hackers from hitting my machine because Vonage can't sell their VoIP service?
"What are people using broadband to do? Communicate," Citron said. "They [network operators who block VoIP] are restricting your ability to communicate with another person. And that's censorship."
People are using broadband to download porn, POP email from their ISP, and CNN.com from the web. As long as they can do that people will be happy. Find and partner with ISPs that will allow your traffic and point possible (and current) users in that direction but certainly don't believe it will stop an ISP like Comcast from blocking your ports. They have millions of subscribers who are clueless (just like Comcast wants them). If you think that anything less than a good percentage of Comcast would make them change their ways, you've got another thing coming.
Welcome to the future of conglomerate communication control!
I don't know which is worse. A plastic piece of shit that sounds like a dying honey bee or a figure that will end up looking like a piece of plastic (after years of botox injections and surgery) that doesn't make any sound while appearing to.
Me? I think I'd pick the little shit w/the kazoo. At least he was trying.
Can you imagine how many new AOL Broadband subscribers there would be if your $20 / month fee included the ability to watch all of the previous seasons Sopranos? or Carnivale?
Do you know how fast they would have shut that shit off once they saw the other media owners making $65+ on a set of DVDs for a recent season and $35+ on a set of DVDs from a show that's from 1983?
You do realize that there are bandwith providers out there that are shutting people off because they are going over their "unknown" bandwith limit, right? Could you imagine the bandwith usage if you could download all the episodes of whatever and whatever for your $20/mo fee?
You did know that most people still don't use broadband right? You know that people that do use broadband just use it to check their network POP account and the network's main website, right?
They didn't miss any boat. They got you to pay out the ass for something that they won't let you fully use and then they get to doublefuck you by attempting to ban you from recording future content AND getting you to pay them ~$50 for the DVDs a year after the season is over.
No, that means that the geeks use bandwith more than the general population does. Most people use their high-speed connections for email and reading cnn.com. They aren't downloading that much.
The technology oriented ones are the people that are keeping their bandwith pegged on BT transfers.
With the FTTP arriving, the bandwidth is getting there now the companies have to get inline.
Says who? Us? LOL. You think that just because a bunch of geeks that prefer to download shows w/o commercials, DRM, and watch them when they want to watch them that the networks will bend over backwards? ROFL! They bend over backwards to the advertisers. The advertisers decide what happens based on who is watching what.
People watch TV and they aren't going to stop just because "they want to download". Personally, I don't know anyone outside of a handfull of friends that care about downloading shows or even watching them timeshifted.
People have been so ingrained with scheduling their lives around their TV that it's just part of life. Oooh, Survivor on Thursday, gotta be home. Ooh, American Idol is on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the past three weeks... Sorry can't see karaoke at the bar because I'm watching sober singers sing worse on TV every day this week.
With FTTP arriving people arne't going to get it. They are getting too good of a deal from their cable company with $5 extra for HD content (even when they don't have an HD TV). They are going to continue to get their $5 package discount because they have cable, TV, and telephone running in from Comcast.
Why would they need to wait to download a TV show when they can watch it live right there on their TV?
Smart offers. If you bail out of watching a recorded show within a few minutes of the end, TiVo asks if you want to delete the recording to free up hard drive space. That's smart; it's assuming that since you're near the end, you've probably watched all you intend to watch. (If you cancel playback in the middle or beginning, though, TiVo doesn't bother you with that offer; it assumes you're not finished with the show yet.)
I don't know if they were talking negatively about the lack of an option to delete if you bail out in the middle of playback or not but, honestly, it's not difficult to delete any recording from the main menu... For most of the shows I watch I have them setup to delete when space is needed. The shows that I absolutely MUST watch get watched or marked later with "do not delete until I say".
I would actually find it relatively annoying if I jumped out of playback in the middle of a show and it asked if I wanted to delete. That's an unnecessary step that I'd have to take.
That's my opinion though, YMMV, perhaps a more detailed configuration of these settings would help TiVo? "Do you want to be prompted to delete if aborting playback before the end?" (something less wordy but you get the idea).
Bottom line? Feature for feature, Windows XP Media Center Edition matches TiVo and even exceeds it in some measures.
Bottom line? You need to have a dedicated machine for the MCE and a TV in/out card plus you need something that's half-decent in speed. TiVo just works and it was cheap (for me). You also need to support Microsoft and personally, as much as I am not terribly happy w/TiVo's recent decisions, I'd prefer to pay them than MSFT.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would we promote a middle man with a monthly subscription fee? We already have that in Cable and Sat. TV. We want shows that are cheap, ala carte, and don't require a subscription.
What do I want to see out of Tivo? Nothing. It works the way I expect it to. What would I like to see out of Tivo2Go? No DRM and faster transfer rates. That's not going to happen so blah.
That's right: it's voluntary. In a country that can trace its origins in part to a dispute about taxes, does this man really think that people are going to voluntarily pay a tax? And what makes it even funnier is that he thinks people in Wisconsin are going to voluntarily pay.
There will be no "Internet Police" according to the article thus it will be the same as what most states (if not all) have now... Voluntary reporting of sales tax that you incurred while shopping out of state (via the Internet or magazines).
Nothing to worry about here.
This would have been better answered with a search on Freshmeat (see here) but the first hit seems like something mildly useful if you want to do some work that isn't necessarily point and click.
OpenTaxSolver with a screenshot here.
Me? I'd pay the $175 to a real live person. They usually save you at least two times what they are worth over a commercial software package. YMMV.
Google is the new iPod which followed SCO. Personally I think it's better than hearing about the Michael Jackson drama.
YMMV.
Being that I'm a mobile web user most of the time I really appreciate the addition of text only news.google.com. It's not that the page didn't load fast enough as it was but the text only version is left justified and is rendered a lot better than it normally is.
;)
While you can modify the layout to left justify almost everything now it still doesn't remove the "customize this page" box and a couple of stories (from Top Stories) on the right side. Oh well it's still in beta
You are totally missing the point. The reason they would charge only 5 cents is to get MILLIONS of more customers to buy songs.
And magically these millions of additional people downloading songs wouldn't require a single bit of extra bandwith or hardware, right?
And I missed the point, sheesh.
Yet, Pearlman went further. He said that since this plan puts the onus on a massive Internet presence to distribute all the music in the world, why not have such computer companies as Apple and such major Internet companies as Yahoo simply buy up the world's four major record labels? Pearlman was careful to add, though, that he doesn't see his plan killing off demand for CDs.
.05/download we could make 10x as much if we sell them for .50/download and 20x as much if we sell them for .99/download.
And somehow this isn't a pie-in-the-sky idea? Oh give me a break! So what? Apple, Yahoo, Google, Foo buy up the companies and what happens? Their bean-counters decide that well if we can make billions selling songs for
Pearlman said that Pfohl misunderstood the idea. Then again, another record-industry type, casually speaking to Pearlman after the talk, had perhaps the most succinct counter suggestion. Why not charge 10 cents, instead of 5, and double the revenue?
Thank you so very much for proving my point.
It would also obliterate musicians' choices on how their music could be sold by conscripting them into a 5-cents-a-song system. And it would destroy record companies' incentive to invest in new acts, Pfohl said.
Somehow I doubt that most of the musicians that are under the current cartel's contracts care how their music is distributed as long as they get paid. Those that don't give a shit already allow their music to be distributed for free on the Internet.
Let's stop with the whining and bitching about the artists you sleazy fuckers and start talking from your own business perspective. Everyone and their grandmothers know that you don't give one iota of a shit about the musicians unless they are filling your ever greedier pockets with money that you can throw at more shitty musicians and sympathetic lawmakers that will kowtow to your bullshit. Someday you will lose but I'm certain that this plan won't do it to you...
It amazes me that no one looks at the successful bands that have been distributing their music for free for years and says, "hmm, why is this still working for them and we are continuing to put out class acts like Ashlee Lipsynchson and we are hemorrhaging money?"
Some of the more recent big bands that allow their music to be distributed include Wilco and Los Lonely Boys. Wilco won the best alternative album this year. Hmm and yet they allow me to download their shows. Guess what RIAA? I would buy their album ANY DAY over someone like Ashlee who lip synchs her live crap and refuses to let us hear it for nothing. I mean, it's not even her doing anything why shouldn't it be free?
Just a FYI Apple, no matter how cheap something is it is NEVER as cheap as free. Free will always win out.
Anything I might "need" Windows for (with the sole exception of certain games) runs fine through Wine and/or VMWare.
You just negated your entire post with that single sentence.
I mean, is Windows 2.0 ready for desktop? Is Windows 3.1 ready for desktop? Is Windows 95 (98, Me?) ready? Compare all of that with what Linux delivers today. Now compare the number of users still using Windows 95 to number of users of Linux (for desktop!).
I'm not quite sure why you think that bringing up old Windows versions will strengthen your position but we'll go with it.
No, Windows was not ready for the desktop until Win9x (and please note the large migration to it) and it really wasn't stable and ready until 2000/XP.
Compare Linux with old Windows versions? Ok, the stability is similar (and in some cases better depending on various issues) to what Windows offers today in 2000/XP (and no my uptime on XP blows my uptime on Linux away so don't even go there). What Linux offers as far as "desktop software" isn't even in the Win 3.1 days though.
Let me know when it is and when there is sufficient general application support that is acceptable for 90%+ of users and I will agree. That will include being able to view web pages that are IE bug dependent, interoperating 100% with other Office users, and being able to play games.
While I'd love to see Linux win (or winning) it isn't and it probably won't... At least not in the next two years.
Sorry, I have a far more time invested in Linux than I do Windows or OS X. I'd been using Linux "on the desktop" during the Win9x years and only switched during the 2000/XP timeframe. I recently switched to a Mac as well.
With all that time invested and the several years more experience I have had with it over Windows and OS X I am going to say again that you are wrong and Linux is NOT ready for the desktop no matter how many times people like you claim it is.
The Linux desktop is perfectly usable, no matter your level of technical sophistication. People get upset because they're skilled with Windows and can correct problems there, but don't want to learn the same skills under Linux.
People who are interested in "desktop" use aren't interested in learning skills. On Windows (or OS X) they don't need to know anything. They turn on the machine and they surf the web. There isn't much to learn.
I'm trying real hard not to boot Windows but I keep doing it day after day even though I'm wasting all of my free time trying to assemble some usable "free desktop".
Now, now, while Linux is definitly not "ready for the desktop" no matter how many of the zealots tell you it is, I really can't say that it "takes all available free time to assemble some usable 'free desktop'".
Gnome and KDE handle this rather well in recent years and they come pretty standard with most distributions and even bootable CDs... Perhaps your requirements are different than others?
Yeah, it's easier to use all that crap in Windows because you're comfortable with it and it happens to work better in most ways but it's certainly not as difficult as you make it out to be to do it in Linux.
As long as it isn't determined by what the Judge in the Apple case said... He claimed it was writers who were working for a commercial entity.
Somehow I don't see the need for journalists to be identified by how they are compensated for their work. That kind of narrows the field of competition to conglomorate media sources and media outlets that may have financial control over the output of their writers.
Sorry but just because we have lawmakers in the pockets of corporations doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed to hear about it because of money.
Absolutely. People tend to forget that Microsoft is a corporation. They can do whatever they want with their software. Their goal in life is to keep you buying their goods and using their software so that they can lock you in and sell you more! Its all about money. Google is not making software out of the goodness of their heart.
Honestly, if I were using Microsoft's search engine to search for information contained on Microsoft's own site I would certainly hope that they made the most relevant results show first.
We aren't talking about Google and Microsoft dominating the world. We are talking about Google forcing high rankings on their own content on their own search engine.
For now, the implications are simple - If Google can do this on it's own pages, why can ordinary webmasters not? Google's keyword stuffed, cloaked title would be hard to describe as anything other than an SEO tactic not so much frowned upon, but full on hated by the Search giant itself.
Why? Because it's their site and they are in no need to follow their own rules. They aren't going to ban themselves but they will ban you. If you want to be listed on *the* search engine then follow their rules. If you don't care if anyone finds you then you can modify your page during crawler indexing and other sites can pick you up.
Do you really believe there's anyone left in Congress who has a clue what the Constitution says anymore? They sure don't act like it.
That should really have read: Do you really believe there's anyone left in Congress that cares what the Constitution says anymore? They sure are paid not to.
What if someone gets through the firewall?
Then you get attacked I guess but I have a feeling that if the firewall is up the would-be attackers would move on to a more vunerable attacker.
Half of Slashdot is mad at Apple. http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/05/03/04/138234.sh tml?tid=123&tid=153&tid=3
Oh we shouldn't be mad at Apple. They are being businessmen even if they are being assholes. I don't expect anything less. Who I am pissed at is the fucking judge who decided that he can determine who and who isn't a journalist.
Sorry but journalists shouldn't be required to work for a "commercial entity" in order to be considered one. That only gives protections to the employees of media conglomorates who are known to be influenced by threats on their jobs...
The leakers broke the dumb law that was passed by lawmakers that had big IT business in their pockets not the journalists.
According to Vonage Holdings Corp. CEO Jeffrey Citron, intentional blocking of Voice over IP traffic is more than just a competitive dirty trick -- it's an act of censorship against free speech.
No, it's a commercial entity telling you how you can use their network. Don't like it? Give your money to someone who will allow it.
Port blocking of VoIP traffic, he opined, is a step down a slippery slope that could lead to network owners blocking content or Web sites they disagreed with.
As much as I disagree with ISPs blocking any sort of traffic they do have every right to do so as you are using their network and unfortunately for most people you are *usually* under no contract of service w/the ISP that says they cannot stop you from doing whatever it is you want.
Content providers already effectively block content they don't want you to see. There have been reports of ISPs blocking traffic on ports 6881 to 6889 and trackers requiring you to use different ports (see http://tmnsp.net as they require you to use alternate ports because of this). Comcast (the largest consumer broadband ISP) doesn't offer Usenet access except through a third party. Other ISPs don't offer ALL Usenet groups - they are keeping you from some content!
"The FCC could come out and institute the largest possible fine they could, with the sternest of statements saying, 'this will not be tolerated,' " Citron said. "That might send a strong enough message."
Or the large conglomerate providers, who already have the FCC in their pockets, could just pay the FCC off and tell them to ignore the problem. I don't see this solving anything.
Personally, I think Vonage should make their software impossible to trace. Yeah it could make the quality/speed take a hit but it would protect them. They can't ban ALL traffic or no one would use the service. Pipe the shit over 443 and be done w/it.
"It'd be unfortunate to have to pass a law [against port blocking and other types of interference], but we may have to," Citron said. Though he said he has previously testified against the need for port-blocking regulation, Citron may now change that tune, especially if more network operators start using port-blocking or other techniques to selectively control Internet traffic.
The implications are too far reaching. I wouldn't be able to block spammers and hackers from hitting my machine because Vonage can't sell their VoIP service?
"What are people using broadband to do? Communicate," Citron said. "They [network operators who block VoIP] are restricting your ability to communicate with another person. And that's censorship."
People are using broadband to download porn, POP email from their ISP, and CNN.com from the web. As long as they can do that people will be happy. Find and partner with ISPs that will allow your traffic and point possible (and current) users in that direction but certainly don't believe it will stop an ISP like Comcast from blocking your ports. They have millions of subscribers who are clueless (just like Comcast wants them). If you think that anything less than a good percentage of Comcast would make them change their ways, you've got another thing coming.
Welcome to the future of conglomerate communication control!
I don't know which is worse. A plastic piece of shit that sounds like a dying honey bee or a figure that will end up looking like a piece of plastic (after years of botox injections and surgery) that doesn't make any sound while appearing to.
Me? I think I'd pick the little shit w/the kazoo. At least he was trying.
If they have trouble using the web they arne't finding the torrents. P2P perhaps but not BT.
Can you imagine how many new AOL Broadband subscribers there would be if your $20 / month fee included the ability to watch all of the previous seasons Sopranos? or Carnivale?
Do you know how fast they would have shut that shit off once they saw the other media owners making $65+ on a set of DVDs for a recent season and $35+ on a set of DVDs from a show that's from 1983?
You do realize that there are bandwith providers out there that are shutting people off because they are going over their "unknown" bandwith limit, right? Could you imagine the bandwith usage if you could download all the episodes of whatever and whatever for your $20/mo fee?
You did know that most people still don't use broadband right? You know that people that do use broadband just use it to check their network POP account and the network's main website, right?
They didn't miss any boat. They got you to pay out the ass for something that they won't let you fully use and then they get to doublefuck you by attempting to ban you from recording future content AND getting you to pay them ~$50 for the DVDs a year after the season is over.
No, that means that the geeks use bandwith more than the general population does. Most people use their high-speed connections for email and reading cnn.com. They aren't downloading that much.
The technology oriented ones are the people that are keeping their bandwith pegged on BT transfers.
With the FTTP arriving, the bandwidth is getting there now the companies have to get inline.
Says who? Us? LOL. You think that just because a bunch of geeks that prefer to download shows w/o commercials, DRM, and watch them when they want to watch them that the networks will bend over backwards? ROFL! They bend over backwards to the advertisers. The advertisers decide what happens based on who is watching what.
People watch TV and they aren't going to stop just because "they want to download". Personally, I don't know anyone outside of a handfull of friends that care about downloading shows or even watching them timeshifted.
People have been so ingrained with scheduling their lives around their TV that it's just part of life. Oooh, Survivor on Thursday, gotta be home. Ooh, American Idol is on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the past three weeks... Sorry can't see karaoke at the bar because I'm watching sober singers sing worse on TV every day this week.
With FTTP arriving people arne't going to get it. They are getting too good of a deal from their cable company with $5 extra for HD content (even when they don't have an HD TV). They are going to continue to get their $5 package discount because they have cable, TV, and telephone running in from Comcast.
Why would they need to wait to download a TV show when they can watch it live right there on their TV?
It's sad but it's true.
Smart offers. If you bail out of watching a recorded show within a few minutes of the end, TiVo asks if you want to delete the recording to free up hard drive space. That's smart; it's assuming that since you're near the end, you've probably watched all you intend to watch. (If you cancel playback in the middle or beginning, though, TiVo doesn't bother you with that offer; it assumes you're not finished with the show yet.)
I don't know if they were talking negatively about the lack of an option to delete if you bail out in the middle of playback or not but, honestly, it's not difficult to delete any recording from the main menu... For most of the shows I watch I have them setup to delete when space is needed. The shows that I absolutely MUST watch get watched or marked later with "do not delete until I say".
I would actually find it relatively annoying if I jumped out of playback in the middle of a show and it asked if I wanted to delete. That's an unnecessary step that I'd have to take.
That's my opinion though, YMMV, perhaps a more detailed configuration of these settings would help TiVo? "Do you want to be prompted to delete if aborting playback before the end?" (something less wordy but you get the idea).
Bottom line? Feature for feature, Windows XP Media Center Edition matches TiVo and even exceeds it in some measures.
Bottom line? You need to have a dedicated machine for the MCE and a TV in/out card plus you need something that's half-decent in speed. TiVo just works and it was cheap (for me). You also need to support Microsoft and personally, as much as I am not terribly happy w/TiVo's recent decisions, I'd prefer to pay them than MSFT.