There is no real technical information here, this video is targeted to the standard consumer, not a slashdot reader.
What I find most offensive though, is that you get 3/4 of the way in before you realize this is really a sales pitch for 3D. Yes, he really wants us to buy 3D so the installed base gets bigger and more content is available. Sorry. I wear glasses, I will never sit down and watch a 3D movie. I just don't care about 3D, nor do I see any sense in spending the extra money for a 3D set. It doesn't make any sense. I still laugh when I think of a 3D TV purchase for my family of four.... now does this come with 4 glasses? No, just two? Oh, there's a special on extra glasses? How nice. So I pay hundreds more for a 3D set and I need to buy extra glasses.
Most of the information here is just plain wrong, I think Robertson is afraid of something. If you mostly listen online then instead of buying a song for 99 cents you can get it for 10 cents. If you really want to buy it you have to pay 79 cents more for a high quality DRM free MP3 copy.
So please, why is this so bad?
From the how it works page:
What does adding a web song to my collection mean?
When you add a web song to your collection, you're able to listen to it as many times as you'd like, from any computer. You can also create playlists with web songs.
How much does adding cost?
It costs 10 cents to add a web song to your collection. Plus, the first 50 web songs you add to your collection are free, so give it a try!
If you later decide that you also want to get the MP3, the 10 cents you paid for the web song will be applied towards that purchase.
What is the bitrate of a web song that I add to my collection?
We strive to maintain a streaming bitrate standard of 128 kbps for web songs added to your collection. As determined by the labels, some web songs you add to your collection may stream at a bitrate of 64 kbps. Songs that you upload will generally stream at the bitrate at which they were ripped.
How do I listen to the web songs I've added to my collection on a portable device?
To listen to web songs you've added to your collection on an iPod or other portable device, you can download the MP3 file for an additional charge. The 10 cents you've already invested toward this purchase will be deducted from the final MP3 price.
For me it's all about content, which is why HD cable/satellite or downloadable HD content is much more important. I have a 32" widescreen HDTV bought mainly because I didn't want another tube and liked the fact I could plug my laptop into the thing.
So now HD DVD's are out, great, and I can buy an HD movie and watch it a few times in really high resolution.... um... I guess the best thing to say is that's it's too bad most movies these days really aren't that good.
VHS won the format wars, and not because of quality. I think that's probably the most important thing that can be said. The movie studios want me to upgrade hardware and pay more per disc so I can own more stuff that I watch once or twice. Great. And what are the shows that get the most play around the house these days? Kids shows, of course. And what discs are most apt to get damaged? Kids shows. And what discs do I make backups (DVD Shrink) of in case they get damaged? You get the idea.
I think the first review of Last Samurai pretty much summed it up.
But I definitely would never have picked a Tom Cruise movie to kick off a new HD format, let alone one as big-budget, bloated and self-important as 'The Last Samurai' (geesh, even 'Top Gun' would have been better -- at least that has flying jets and Kenny Loggins on the soundtrack). But here I am, picking 'Samurai' as my first-ever high-def DVD review title, if only because it allows me to pay the biggest compliment I can think of to the new HD-DVD format -- despite the fact I would normally hate this movie, I loved every last single second of it.
Sure, he loved it, yea. Which brings me back around to why I think HD TV (or Cable) or downloadable content is more exciting than plunking down some change for one movie on one disc in really bitchin hi res format. I'm just not very excited about paying for more than a few of my favorite movies in HD format.
Google is a publicly traded company. They can be sued or run afoul of regulations if information not intended for public consumption leaks. They hire some guy who withing days (or was it hours) of being employed starts talking about private matters on a public blog. He showed extremely poor judgement. What else would he let slip? Safe thing to do is show him the door.
You get what you pay for, and if its not in writing then you have no rights.
When looking for blogging options I looked at hosted sites and I looked at hosting my own. It was pretty easy to come up with criteris for a good blog, including the ability to back up entries.
I would suggest you're a victim of what the radio wants to play. As a former 97X listener (Cincinnati alternative radio station that was, IMO, the best station in the world). I've had the privledge to be exposed to new music no other radio station would ever play. Forget anything you've ever heard on the radio about "new" music. This new music is corporate, it's not really new. Look around for internet stations playing truely alternative music and take a listen.
I'm 40 years old and I know more new and good music than the kids in my neighborhood.
If your in a plane and the black box records pilot error caused a crash, and assuming the pilot survived, would you want him held accountable.
It seems to me like the current knee jerk reaction is to tie everything to a privacy issue instead of looking at it as an accountability issue. Your worried that a black box that records car parameters in the last 5 seconds before impact will suddenly transform into a black box that records everyplace you've been too? I would call that paranoia (irrational fear).
So then why do only anonomous cowards reply? Go ahead and tell me I'm wrong, exploits are exploits and all should be fixed. I'm rooting for both Windows and Linux, sorry if I'm not radical enough for ya.
and I'll buy my non-complete cd's (2 or 3 good songs per album) online in a second. Right now I don't pay because I think 128kbps is crap. The way it is now, if I really like a CD I buy it, if not...
Your absolutly correct when it comes to COMPUTER USERS. But we are talking about the need to make the shift to computers as appliances. We don't call people that can operate microwaves 'microwave users'. If you want to be successful you have to make it usable by the majority of people. Just turn it on and it works. Microsoft realized this so to win the game they mae everyone pre-install and then tied everything to the OS. This makes it easy for the typical person to just turn it on and have everything work.
If you want to set back personal computing by 5 or 10 years then successfully argue that the end user must install all of their software and Microsoft can't include it. Make it so when they want to watch a video they have to choose to install Real or WM or QT. In other words ask the questions to the exact person who is least qualified to answer them, and then make fun of them for not being able to figure out what to do.
Oh, but watch out, if you do win then you can expect lawsuits over those monopolistic bastards at KDE including their own browser instead of giving the user a choice.
This is not to say, though, that Microsoft was not wrong to threaten vendors with penalties for bundling other op systems with computers. They were wrong and it was quite stupid because I don't believe it would have cost them any sales. As far as Windows goes, however, I support their right to bundle whatever they want with it. Usability IS the key for non computer types. This usability argument you make is only true for people who are what we consider the typical computer user, or techie.
A reply to all the unrealistic - commercial software is broken comments...
If we pay money for something and it doesn't work it goes back. A better argument against what I said might be... so you pay for support and you shouldn't care weather or not it's open source. When evaluating solutions we might prefer open source, but what works gets the nod... plus the question of reliability and upgrade paths has to be answered. When stuff doesn't work people get cold feet.
But then again we have some zealots here saying Microsoft stuff is broken too... and you know what, it IS because monopilies are unhealthy and monopolistic companies can get away with shipping broken crap. Aren't we supposed to be aiming higher?
I hate to say it, and I don't want to make some hard working open source coder accountable for his/her mistakes, but nevertheless it's gotta be one.
I download PHP and some other tools to get a web site running, wham, something doesn't work, research, research, finally find some note that one author made a change to one module that breaks PHP support, but the PHP folks say it will be fixed in the next version.
You think that's gonna sell in the real world? How many commercial packages can afford to ship broken?
Now, how can I sell this idea to a company. Broken is good because hey, we have the source and we can fix it?
Aparrently you are not thinking of the huge screen sitting 20' away? Sure, a 30 inch screen sitting 20' away, but HDTV is made for bigger and better things.
Primarily I believe Mythic is suing because they must to protect their copyrights. If their lawyers don't act like assholes someone elses lawyers will. sue1st4tehwin
DRM is somethign that smaked me in the face. I tried ITunes, loved it, but was concerned about the proprietary format. I looked at MusicMatch (and was planning on looking at the new Napster) because it supports WMA and my DVD player plays WMA files, so I thought cool, an easy way to buy music and have access to it via that ole stereo box.
I was a bit naive. Of course my DVD player can't play protected WMA files, and of course there is no built in way to say store my license file on the cd so my DVD player can read it and decode the music.
WHY?
As a matter of fact, why did Microsoft even push for WMA support on DVD players when they don't support DRM? Am I missing something, is their a standard that my DVD player (or RIO Volt for that matter) needs to support in order to play protected music?
So as it stands now, I am going to use the product with the best interface, and iTunes wins easily.
------- IMHO, Microsoft should be *required* to send critical updates on a CD package via postal mail. The updates should be hands-free, though I doubt that we'll still have trouble getting newbs to run a fix on a PC that doesn't appear to be broken. ------
Should Redhat be required to do the same? Should every operating system vendor be required to do the same? Are other operating systems perfect? Am I missing something?
Careful, you might set a standard that only Micro$oft could afford to meet.
For years slashdotters have been spouting how Microsoft defaults were wrong. How in Linux you have full control but it defaults to a safe mode. Now Microsoft wants to do the same thing and everyone gets all FUD'ed about it.
Slashdot Mirror
> The majority of people feel that DST is a bad idea....
Do you have a source for this?
Too many assumptions here. When cheaters get caught they like to spout lies ... so why believe any of this?
A post from support (a blue) in the thread above:
>> Playing the game on Linux, although not officially supported, will not get you banned – cheating will.
There is no real technical information here, this video is targeted to the standard consumer, not a slashdot reader.
What I find most offensive though, is that you get 3/4 of the way in before you realize this is really a sales pitch for 3D. Yes, he really wants us to buy 3D so the installed base gets bigger and more content is available. Sorry. I wear glasses, I will never sit down and watch a 3D movie. I just don't care about 3D, nor do I see any sense in spending the extra money for a 3D set. It doesn't make any sense. I still laugh when I think of a 3D TV purchase for my family of four. ... now does this come with 4 glasses? No, just two? Oh, there's a special on extra glasses? How nice. So I pay hundreds more for a 3D set and I need to buy extra glasses.
I run IE in Firefox mode, so I think I'm protected. ;)
Researchers?
I hope this makes it to the top.
Most of the information here is just plain wrong, I think Robertson is afraid of something. If you mostly listen online then instead of buying a song for 99 cents you can get it for 10 cents. If you really want to buy it you have to pay 79 cents more for a high quality DRM free MP3 copy.
So please, why is this so bad?
From the how it works page:
What does adding a web song to my collection mean?
When you add a web song to your collection, you're able to listen to it as many times as you'd like, from any computer. You can also create playlists with web songs.
How much does adding cost?
It costs 10 cents to add a web song to your collection. Plus, the first 50 web songs you add to your collection are free, so give it a try!
If you later decide that you also want to get the MP3, the 10 cents you paid for the web song will be applied towards that purchase.
What is the bitrate of a web song that I add to my collection?
We strive to maintain a streaming bitrate standard of 128 kbps for web songs added to your collection. As determined by the labels, some web songs you add to your collection may stream at a bitrate of 64 kbps. Songs that you upload will generally stream at the bitrate at which they were ripped.
How do I listen to the web songs I've added to my collection on a portable device?
To listen to web songs you've added to your collection on an iPod or other portable device, you can download the MP3 file for an additional charge. The 10 cents you've already invested toward this purchase will be deducted from the final MP3 price.
It's a business. Maybe he should run his own search engine, spend millions+ on hardware and then not profit from it.
In other words, I don't have a problem with this in the least.
I donno, some things sounded just ... icky for lack of a better word, then this splipped:
... addicted.
--
I actually gave up herbalism because I didn't have time for it (and I wanted to DE the stuff my ex gave me when we broke up >.>)
--
Oops. Well at least he claims to go out with friends. Sorry, but applying things learned at school twoard a game is just
So now HD DVD's are out, great, and I can buy an HD movie and watch it a few times in really high resolution. ... um ... I guess the best thing to say is that's it's too bad most movies these days really aren't that good.
VHS won the format wars, and not because of quality. I think that's probably the most important thing that can be said. The movie studios want me to upgrade hardware and pay more per disc so I can own more stuff that I watch once or twice. Great. And what are the shows that get the most play around the house these days? Kids shows, of course. And what discs are most apt to get damaged? Kids shows. And what discs do I make backups (DVD Shrink) of in case they get damaged? You get the idea.
I think the first review of Last Samurai pretty much summed it up.
But I definitely would never have picked a Tom Cruise movie to kick off a new HD format, let alone one as big-budget, bloated and self-important as 'The Last Samurai' (geesh, even 'Top Gun' would have been better -- at least that has flying jets and Kenny Loggins on the soundtrack). But here I am, picking 'Samurai' as my first-ever high-def DVD review title, if only because it allows me to pay the biggest compliment I can think of to the new HD-DVD format -- despite the fact I would normally hate this movie, I loved every last single second of it.
Sure, he loved it, yea. Which brings me back around to why I think HD TV (or Cable) or downloadable content is more exciting than plunking down some change for one movie on one disc in really bitchin hi res format. I'm just not very excited about paying for more than a few of my favorite movies in HD format.
Google is a publicly traded company. They can be sued or run afoul of regulations if information not intended for public consumption leaks. They hire some guy who withing days (or was it hours) of being employed starts talking about private matters on a public blog. He showed extremely poor judgement. What else would he let slip? Safe thing to do is show him the door.
I dare them to try and duplicate 97X's playlist!
Simple common sense, IMO.
You get what you pay for, and if its not in writing then you have no rights.
When looking for blogging options I looked at hosted sites and I looked at hosting my own. It was pretty easy to come up with criteris for a good blog, including the ability to back up entries.
I would suggest you're a victim of what the radio wants to play. As a former 97X listener (Cincinnati alternative radio station that was, IMO, the best station in the world). I've had the privledge to be exposed to new music no other radio station would ever play. Forget anything you've ever heard on the radio about "new" music. This new music is corporate, it's not really new. Look around for internet stations playing truely alternative music and take a listen.
I'm 40 years old and I know more new and good music than the kids in my neighborhood.
I don't understand.
If your in a plane and the black box records pilot error caused a crash, and assuming the pilot survived, would you want him held accountable.
It seems to me like the current knee jerk reaction is to tie everything to a privacy issue instead of looking at it as an accountability issue. Your worried that a black box that records car parameters in the last 5 seconds before impact will suddenly transform into a black box that records everyplace you've been too? I would call that paranoia (irrational fear).
So then why do only anonomous cowards reply? Go ahead and tell me I'm wrong, exploits are exploits and all should be fixed. I'm rooting for both Windows and Linux, sorry if I'm not radical enough for ya.
That a lot of vulnerabilities that concern Linux never get posted to slashdot. Usually I read about these on news.com.
and I'll buy my non-complete cd's (2 or 3 good songs per album) online in a second. Right now I don't pay because I think 128kbps is crap. The way it is now, if I really like a CD I buy it, if not ...
No no.
Your absolutly correct when it comes to COMPUTER USERS. But we are talking about the need to make the shift to computers as appliances. We don't call people that can operate microwaves 'microwave users'. If you want to be successful you have to make it usable by the majority of people. Just turn it on and it works. Microsoft realized this so to win the game they mae everyone pre-install and then tied everything to the OS. This makes it easy for the typical person to just turn it on and have everything work.
If you want to set back personal computing by 5 or 10 years then successfully argue that the end user must install all of their software and Microsoft can't include it. Make it so when they want to watch a video they have to choose to install Real or WM or QT. In other words ask the questions to the exact person who is least qualified to answer them, and then make fun of them for not being able to figure out what to do.
Oh, but watch out, if you do win then you can expect lawsuits over those monopolistic bastards at KDE including their own browser instead of giving the user a choice.
This is not to say, though, that Microsoft was not wrong to threaten vendors with penalties for bundling other op systems with computers. They were wrong and it was quite stupid because I don't believe it would have cost them any sales. As far as Windows goes, however, I support their right to bundle whatever they want with it. Usability IS the key for non computer types. This usability argument you make is only true for people who are what we consider the typical computer user, or techie.
A reply to all the unrealistic - commercial software is broken comments ...
... so you pay for support and you shouldn't care weather or not it's open source. When evaluating solutions we might prefer open source, but what works gets the nod ... plus the question of reliability and upgrade paths has to be answered. When stuff doesn't work people get cold feet.
... and you know what, it IS because monopilies are unhealthy and monopolistic companies can get away with shipping broken crap. Aren't we supposed to be aiming higher?
If we pay money for something and it doesn't work it goes back. A better argument against what I said might be
But then again we have some zealots here saying Microsoft stuff is broken too
I hate to say it, and I don't want to make some hard working open source coder accountable for his/her mistakes, but nevertheless it's gotta be one.
I download PHP and some other tools to get a web site running, wham, something doesn't work, research, research, finally find some note that one author made a change to one module that breaks PHP support, but the PHP folks say it will be fixed in the next version.
You think that's gonna sell in the real world? How many commercial packages can afford to ship broken?
Now, how can I sell this idea to a company. Broken is good because hey, we have the source and we can fix it?
Aparrently you are not thinking of the huge screen sitting 20' away? Sure, a 30 inch screen sitting 20' away, but HDTV is made for bigger and better things.
640k will be more than we ever need.
Primarily I believe Mythic is suing because they must to protect their copyrights. If their lawyers don't act like assholes someone elses lawyers will. sue1st4tehwin
DRM is somethign that smaked me in the face. I tried ITunes, loved it, but was concerned about the proprietary format. I looked at MusicMatch (and was planning on looking at the new Napster) because it supports WMA and my DVD player plays WMA files, so I thought cool, an easy way to buy music and have access to it via that ole stereo box.
I was a bit naive. Of course my DVD player can't play protected WMA files, and of course there is no built in way to say store my license file on the cd so my DVD player can read it and decode the music.
WHY?
As a matter of fact, why did Microsoft even push for WMA support on DVD players when they don't support DRM? Am I missing something, is their a standard that my DVD player (or RIO Volt for that matter) needs to support in order to play protected music?
So as it stands now, I am going to use the product with the best interface, and iTunes wins easily.
-------
IMHO, Microsoft should be *required* to send critical updates on a CD package via postal mail. The updates should be hands-free, though I doubt that we'll still have trouble getting newbs to run a fix on a PC that doesn't appear to be broken.
------
Should Redhat be required to do the same? Should every operating system vendor be required to do the same? Are other operating systems perfect? Am I missing something?
Careful, you might set a standard that only Micro$oft could afford to meet.
This is a prime example of blind hatred.
For years slashdotters have been spouting how Microsoft defaults were wrong. How in Linux you have full control but it defaults to a safe mode. Now Microsoft wants to do the same thing and everyone gets all FUD'ed about it.
Credibility is important, RTFA, think, then post.