i live in tokyo and have a psx. and it rocks. but the way to think about it is not as a souped up ps2. its a HDD recorder with a whole bunch of extra stuff, including a 24x DVD writer, ps2, optical audio out, built in electronic tv guide, etc chucked in to sweeten the deal. When i first heard of them i thought the same as you guys, 80 000 yen for a ps2 with some extra stuff - bullshit !
but when i checked out the price of HDD video recorders with DVD burner built in, they were all 40-60 000 yen more.
so i bought it, hooked it up to cable, set it up, went to Hong Kong for a holiday and it recorded the entire series of classic 007 films while i was away, from Dr No thru to Live & Let Die. pretty cool.
the GUI also rocks. super simple. one button record. edit. burn to dvd at 24x. plug in a usb keyboard for naming all of those movies. all good.
obviously when it was released it was still in development and pushed out the door for christmas. The second upgrade for it has just come out. includes things like ability to burn DVD-+R/RW, supports some more music playback functions etc but still doesnt include what i'd like - DIVX support and the ability to network it via the ethernet port.
This is the one thing i really want- so that i can network it with my macs and upload movies into it. That is the one "feature" that Sony will not implement but i expect to appear at latest 2 weeks after it appears on the US market, no doubt via/. It won't appear here because seems like japanese just aren't much of a hacker nation.
you can of course transfer DIVX's in the old-skool way by playing them in via line in.. but once this thing can be networked it will totally kick ass..
I live in Tokyo, and many of the Tv shows and movies that BT carries (illegally of course) are simply not available here. In the case of TV shows, there is no cable channel carrying them.
Perhaps some of them i could track down in DVD releases, which would of course be several seasons behind. If there is a local release, they are often dubbed into japanese (like the simpsons), which is not a problem for me to understand, but if you've ever watched one of these you'd understand why they suck.
So the issue is - if there is a minority market existing in a given territory (ie english speakers in Japan), which a given media company is not interested in releasing products for, because they figure its not profitable, then if their product is pirated there, they are losing $0.
And if it is an obscure 1976 john carpenter film (ie Assault on Precinct 13) that i cannot track down here in any format unless i had the time to dig through 1000 second hand VHS stores, then why shouldn't it be made available as a torrent ? If i was the director i'd be happy people cared enough to watch it. And yes it is probably available on amazon as a DVD that if i'm lucky will play in my region, but i dont know whether it blows or not, so do i really want to buy it on DVD ? No. i want to watch it first, then maybe buy a keeper copy if i really like it.
I would happily pay for this stuff if someone made it available for download!!! But the fools in the media companies are still acting like the RIAA.
MOVIE INDUSTRY TAKE NOTE!! HERE IS THE MODEL FOR YOUR FUTURE:
Bittorrent as the backbone of a massive world-wide video store, a la amazon but for download media ONLY. Popular and new releases are $2, delivered by bittorrent, so when 5 million people from around the planet hit the servers simultaneously to download the latest Big Wave/Sword Epic/Tearjerker they stay up and with BT mark II, scale amazingly and everyone gets it in 10 minutes. Thats a lot better than getting on your bike to go to the video store.
2nd tier releases and more obscure films would be delivered thru a combination of bittorrent and a content delivery system like Akamai. This would obviously cost a lot more to deliver than latest releases, but the stores would need to carry this stuff to satisfy those (like me) who dont want just the new releases. These releases should be 99c.
DRM the files, despite many slashdotters viewing DRM as the devil, theres no way we are going to get really cool things like this unless we pay for it. So if i rent one for $2 and i really like it, i pay an extra $2 and i get an unlock code that keeps it from self-destructing. AND i get to download (a) a cd/DVD label template to print on the CD/DVD-R and (b) a file to print for cover/ insert art.
There are many problems to be solved, of course, language, DRM, payment methods etc, but lets face it, THIS WILL HAPPEN. its a cause of when, not if. And the first group who gets it right will clean house.
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i live in tokyo and have a psx. and it rocks. but the way to think about it is not as a souped up ps2. its a HDD recorder with a whole bunch of extra stuff, including a 24x DVD writer, ps2, optical audio out, built in electronic tv guide, etc chucked in to sweeten the deal. When i first heard of them i thought the same as you guys, 80 000 yen for a ps2 with some extra stuff - bullshit !
/. It won't appear here because seems like japanese just aren't much of a hacker nation.
but when i checked out the price of HDD video recorders with DVD burner built in, they were all 40-60 000 yen more. so i bought it, hooked it up to cable, set it up, went to Hong Kong for a holiday and it recorded the entire series of classic 007 films while i was away, from Dr No thru to Live & Let Die. pretty cool.
the GUI also rocks. super simple. one button record. edit. burn to dvd at 24x. plug in a usb keyboard for naming all of those movies. all good.
obviously when it was released it was still in development and pushed out the door for christmas. The second upgrade for it has just come out. includes things like ability to burn DVD-+R/RW, supports some more music playback functions etc but still doesnt include what i'd like - DIVX support and the ability to network it via the ethernet port.
This is the one thing i really want- so that i can network it with my macs and upload movies into it. That is the one "feature" that Sony will not implement but i expect to appear at latest 2 weeks after it appears on the US market, no doubt via
you can of course transfer DIVX's in the old-skool way by playing them in via line in.. but once this thing can be networked it will totally kick ass..
I live in Tokyo, and many of the Tv shows and movies that BT carries (illegally of course) are simply not available here. In the case of TV shows, there is no cable channel carrying them.
.
Perhaps some of them i could track down in DVD releases, which would of course be several seasons behind. If there is a local release, they are often dubbed into japanese (like the simpsons), which is not a problem for me to understand, but if you've ever watched one of these you'd understand why they suck.
So the issue is - if there is a minority market existing in a given territory (ie english speakers in Japan), which a given media company is not interested in releasing products for, because they figure its not profitable, then if their product is pirated there, they are losing $0.
And if it is an obscure 1976 john carpenter film (ie Assault on Precinct 13) that i cannot track down here in any format unless i had the time to dig through 1000 second hand VHS stores, then why shouldn't it be made available as a torrent ? If i was the director i'd be happy people cared enough to watch it. And yes it is probably available on amazon as a DVD that if i'm lucky will play in my region, but i dont know whether it blows or not, so do i really want to buy it on DVD ? No. i want to watch it first, then maybe buy a keeper copy if i really like it.
I would happily pay for this stuff if someone made it available for download!!! But the fools in the media companies are still acting like the RIAA.
MOVIE INDUSTRY TAKE NOTE!! HERE IS THE MODEL FOR YOUR FUTURE:
Bittorrent as the backbone of a massive world-wide video store, a la amazon but for download media ONLY. Popular and new releases are $2, delivered by bittorrent, so when 5 million people from around the planet hit the servers simultaneously to download the latest Big Wave/Sword Epic/Tearjerker they stay up and with BT mark II, scale amazingly and everyone gets it in 10 minutes. Thats a lot better than getting on your bike to go to the video store.
2nd tier releases and more obscure films would be delivered thru a combination of bittorrent and a content delivery system like Akamai. This would obviously cost a lot more to deliver than latest releases, but the stores would need to carry this stuff to satisfy those (like me) who dont want just the new releases. These releases should be 99c.
DRM the files, despite many slashdotters viewing DRM as the devil, theres no way we are going to get really cool things like this unless we pay for it. So if i rent one for $2 and i really like it, i pay an extra $2 and i get an unlock code that keeps it from self-destructing. AND i get to download (a) a cd/DVD label template to print on the CD/DVD-R and (b) a file to print for cover/ insert art.
There are many problems to be solved, of course, language, DRM, payment methods etc, but lets face it, THIS WILL HAPPEN. its a cause of when, not if. And the first group who gets it right will clean house