The reason they are "unskippable" is because they are free. If you don't want the ads, purchase the DVD set or buy the commercial free version off iTunes (or whatever download service they ultimately end up offering their shows through).
Look I love my TiVo, and I love being able to condense an hour long shows into 40 minutes, but for me the real purpose of TiVo was always to be able to watch what you want, when you want. Due to the nature of providing that service (waiting for it to be broadcast and then recording it), being able to FF through shows was an obvious feature. This is an entirely different model. You don't need to pay for cable or for a TiVo or your cable companies' DVR. You just select the show you want and watch it.
I completely agree that the DVD you purchase shouldn't have unskippable ads, but the difference is, you bought that DVD. You aren't sending any money ABC's way when you watch these programs. All you are agreeing to is to give them a little bit of your time in return. If you feel your time is more valuable, then buy the commercial free version or wait for the DVD set.
If only you had used an emoticon or two in your origninal response, maybe that one where the smily face is winking, this kind of mixup would have been more easily avoided. Oh and to avoid continued confusion, I'm kidding. I hate emoticons, yet I love the word... how odd.
I will admit my open source entertainment industry question was inaccurate, mostly because its completely irrelevent to the topic. There is nothing stopping people from creating their own content and releasing it on the internet. Whether or not any of that content is all that good is another question entirely.
"we'll get enough free content to fill several hundred channels 365/24/7",
For me the point of media is not to fill time for the sake of filling time. Maybe you prefer your local high school's theater production instead of broadway or public access instead of cable? Its fine with me if thats the sort of content you want, but don't complain when higher quality productions refuse to give their product away for free. Could Lost be done by a bunch of guys in their garage on the weekend? Maybe. Would I rather pay a couple bucks an episode (or heaven forbid watch a few commercials) if it meant that they had the time and money to hire better actors and have better effects and meant that it was released on a weekly basis as opposed to whenever they had the spare time to work on it? Definitely.
What I don't understand is why people think that all of this content should be free. Do you think that all of those people would donate their time if there was no entertainment industry for them to break into? Do you honestly think what they produce in their spare tiime would be as good as what they could produce if they did that for a living?
You aren't paying for ABC or at least you don't have to be. You also don't have to pay to watch the shows being offered on ABC's website, hence the inclusion of ads.
I completely agree that cable companies are overcharging us for cable channels and including ads, but thats an entirely different discussion. This was about people complaing that the free content that ABC plans to provide will include ads and that they won't be able to skip over them.
My question was "do people honestly expect ABC to offer their programs on the interent for free without any advertising?", and if so "how do they hope for ABC to continue to be able to afford to produce those shows?".
I don't think we're of that much differing an option. I think you're just hung up on the fact that you already pay for cable, but with ABC's model in the future you might not have to. ABC offers the shows with commercials for free or you pay for them commercial free on iTunes. Isn't that what everyone's been asking for? Assuming the quality of the downloads on iTunes gets to HD in the near future, I know most of my complaints will be well on their way to being resolved.
What if you didn't know you wanted to watch it? For example my girlfriend got hooked on watching Gray's Anatomy when we watched the post Superbowl episode. The problem was that this was the middle of the season so it means that she won't be able to find out what happened at the start of the season until the DVD gets released this summer. I think she'd happily watch a couple of commercials an episode to catch up now rather than wait until the summer.
For me the greatest thing about the DVR was being able to watch what I want when I want, not the commercial skipping ability. Thats great, but if I had to choose I'd take being able to watch Battlestar Galactica Saturday afternoon rather than Friday night, even if it meant that I had to surf the internet durring a few commercial breaks.
It is a free TV program that was paid for by the commercials that air durring it. I don't understand why anyone could have any complaints about this. I didn't see what resolution the shows would be at and I'd like for a full HD resolution when possible, but as a first step I think this is excellent.
I don't think commercials are going anywhere, nor should they. If you don't want to watch commercials then buy the episode off iTunes or wait and rent the season from Netflix, but if you want them for free, certain sacrifices should be made. Saying that you'll still download a torrent is part of the problem.
Do people actually think that asking for the network to provide the shows free of charge without advertising is a reasonable request? Is the hope that an open source entertainment industry will sprout up? Based on a sampling of the free podcasts available, you get what you pay for.
Actually, I don't think Family Guy was "critically acclaimed". I recall plenty of harsh reviews calling it a cheap Simpsons knock-off (which is funny because by that point the Simpsons themselves had already become that).
Full Disclosure: I like the Family Guy the least out of the three shows you mentioned, so thats probably why I remember the negative reviews. I still think its funny, but not nearly as funny as it thinks it is.
Plus the same arguement could have been made when the original Playstation came out and went up against both the Saturn and Nintendo 64. I think I recall that working out pretty well for Sony, even though I wouldn't say that they had much video game experience before that.
I think if people want graphics to look better, that we have to move to higher resolutions. Play a PC game lately? Play it at 640 x 480? Does it look that great? Even if its the latest and greatest game, the differences between it and last year's version usually aren't really that dramatic. I think thats the issue that people playing on standard def tvs are experiencing.
People say that Microsoft shouldn't have made HD the standard, but if they weren't going to do that, then why even release a new console? Look at Nintendo, their next console isn't going to be HD, they've said it. They've even said that games won't look all that much different than current generation titles, but they've got a hook with their new controller.
I'm just tired of people complaining that the new games don't look better, but then saying that they shouldn't require HD. Its like people complaining that their PC doesn't run the newest games at a high resolution or framerate. If you keep wanting to use last year's tech, then keep playing last years game. This shouldn't be news to anyone. Technology is an expensive hobby that I guess console gamers are finnaly learning.
Actually, I only had to pay like an extra 5 bucks a month or so for an HD cable box. I belive I pay about 60 bucks a month for cable and about 15 of that is for the HD DVR cable box (I believe standard def is 10 bucks a month) and another 5 for the other cable box in my place. So I guess since I don't really have to pay anything additional for the content itself, might skew my perspective.
You're arguement that they aren't broadcasting HD 87.5% of the time is true, but I could argue that they aren't putting on any good programming at least 50% of the time. I've tried to find something worthwhile between 3-8 AM and its pretty lacking. So I guess I don't really count the time from rougly midnight until 6 PM as possible tv viewing time since I don't watch tv then. When I do watch tv (6-12), they probably have HD contect on any one channel about 30% of the time, which is pretty good to me.
Anyways, its just a different viewpoint about what we count as time that I we would be watching tv that isn't in HD.
Now I live in Boston so maybe that skews what I'm about to say some, but I think people are going overboard in the complaints that there is no HD programming. I subscribe to comcast, own HD and get roughly 10 HD channels (PBS, CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, WB, UPN, ESPN, DISCOVERY, TNT, INHD1, INHD2). I'd say that if I flipped on any one of those channels durring primetime (8-11), there is a good 80% chance that the program I tune into is HD. Its a ton better than it was a two years ago and a lot better than it was last year. Is there HD programming on during the day? No, not really, but during primetime most shows are HD and in HD.
Of course I wish there were more show's broadcast in HD and more channels had HD feeds but I'm pretty happy with the contect I get now. As for ESPN, they aren't that bad of an offender. Sportscenter is in HD, so that takes up about half their programming right there and most of the shows in their Bristol studios are now in HD (NFL Countdown, etc). They still haven't updated their New York (Basketball) and DC studios (Pardon the Interruption), but I don't think I'm missing all that much not seeing Tony and Mike in HD (hell its pretty much a radio broadcast). Sports are hit or miss, but usually their Saturday, Sunday and Thursday sporting events are in HD as well.
I bought an HD tv about 3 years ago and its the one piece of technology I have absolutely no regrets about buying early. Granted, I'm into sports, serialized tv shows (Lost), and a good documentary (PBS) so I appriciate the more movielike experience. If I was into reality shows and sitcoms, then HD content probably won't do much for me. I won't argue that HD sets are still too expensive and if you don't want to buy one because of that, thats fine. I just refuse to believe that people actually can say there isn't a dramatic difference between standard def and hd.
Your right for shows on channels you already subscribe to, but the real allure of this a la carte offering is for channels you don't have access to. I canceled my HBO subscription a couple of years back (my fiance stopped watching when Sex and the City went off the air and we put the money towards a Netflix subscription instead), but I'd still like to catch the latest episodes of Entourage or Weeds (thats Showtime I think) or whatever other original programming they offer these days. If HBO or Showtime start offering shows at 2 bucks a pop, I'd snap them up in a heartbeat. Right now its not a good enough replacement for DVRs because most of the shows offered don't even require cable (last I checked you could snag CBS, NBC, etc with a regular old antenna), but when they start to offer premium shows or shows in advance then I think we'll see a much more dramatic jump in sales.
Your right, I don't like the way it was posted either. It should have read, "a Chicago jackass, who is attempting to cash in on the usual failure rate of a new piece of consumer electronics, has sued Microsoft"... because that is all this is.
All new consumer electronics have a failure rate, I bought a Sony TV a couple of years ago that had problems with the bulbs blowing out on the new sets. It sucked and it was around the holidays and it was my christmas gift, but Sony had a number I could call and I could get a replacement bulb. Just like Microsoft has right now.
Until it becomes apparent that the 360 has an unusually high failure rate or Microsoft is refusing to replace defective units, I'm going to hold off on accusing them of "pumping shit out to the customer before it is ready".
As for "When playing games is THAT important life must truly be sad", get off your high horse and take a look in the mirror. That logic can apply to just about everything. "When you spend a chunk of your day posting on message boards, life must truely be sad", edit ad nauseum. I get it you don't think playing games should be that important. I DON'T CARE. Unless you spend your days having sex with supermodels or curing cancer or curing the cancer of the supermodels you have sex with, I think you're wasting your life as well. Your value judgements mean nothing to me. I'm not even going to toss out the usual disclaimer that I'm not a gamer, or I am a gamer, because that DOESN'T MATTER. Either way I think you're an asshole (see what I did there, if not then my point is entirely lost on you).
It does appear that the 360 will play quite a few old xbox games (hell it even appears to play BMX XXX, so the four people that bought that can breath a sigh of relief), but it does require you to purchase the hard drive. Full list of supported games are on the xbox site:
I'm hoping to purchase a 360 myself, but am glad that I'll be able to play most of the recently released xbox games on it while I wait for the 360 to hit full stride. Although it is intersting that the current version of most of the EA sports titles aren't backward compatible, probably hoping to force people to buy the newly released 360 versions.
Actually, CBS is teaming up with Comcast and NBC with DirecTV to offer the on-demand replays. So its not a blow to satellite tv providers, but to the other cable/satellite tv providers that don't have similiar deals in place (DISH Network, Time Warner, etc.).
Does that make Steve Jobs L. Ron Hubbard or Tom Cruise? Or is Steve the ancient civilization of Aliens? Either way, if buying an iPod means I can have sex with Katie Holmes, I'm in.
I've often wondered if the music industry keeps pushing Apple, what's stopping apple from going around the recording industry and negotiation with the artists individually. They already have their distribution model in place, why wouldn't they actively solict bands to break from their recording contracts and release only on-line through iTunes. Granted the artists would probably sell less, but I would imagine their cut would be better (don't artists see only a fraction of the profits of cds? I thought they made most of their money touring).
I think people get hung up on watching movies on their video iPod, but I think the real market is for tv shows. Look when I watch a movie I want the experience of watching a movie, big screen and surround sound, but when I'm on the train going to work I'd happily watch Sportscenter or PTI or an episode of Arrested Development.
I thought I read an article recently about ESPN and Yahoo working to license all of their content for portables. The winner of the first successful portable video player is the one who manages to convince TV companies to open up their libraries.
Really, the only difference between going to a con and hosting your own is the amount of self-promotion you recieve? No more work invovled?
I'm not a big Penny Arcade fan, but someone hosting a large videogame expo with the kind of turnout PAX had (4 buddies in your basement doesn't count) seems like it would have gotten a Slashdot mention regardless of who hosted it. The thing is I don't think anyone else does host simliar events, and that's kinda the point.
I think the problem with DVD rentals is that you miss out on the experience of being able to talk to other people about the movie. People may claim that waiting for something to come out on DVD means that you'll watch more good films and avoid being swayed by marketing hype. Which it totally true, but at the same time its much tougher to talk to other people about films you watch on DVD. unless you watched the movie with them.
Maybe its just me, but I enjoy talking about a movie after I see it. However I only really want to do it for a couple days after I see the movie. If my friend comes up to me tomorrow telling me how he saw The Matrix the other day, I'd say great but I wouldn't engage in any kind of real conversation with him about the film. Not like I would have had he seen it when I did in the theaters a couple years ago.
Look I watch almost all of my movies on Netflix and they are rarely of the summer blockbuster variety, but I do miss the aspect of feeling like a part of a larger community. A recent preview for "40 year old virgin" confirms I'm not the only person who feels the same way. The crux of the ad was, see the movie or you won't know all the funny lines people are going to be quoting for the next six months. Now, I hate it when people quote films. Quoting something that is funny DOES NOT make you funny, but hell if I don't hate not catching a movie reference.
If you have a plumber over to fix a leaky pipe, and you've got child porn in the bottom drawer of your nightstand, expect him to find it.
You know what though, I don't expect him to find it. If I'm using some of that porn to plug the holes in the leaky pipe, then sure, but otherwise stay the hell out of my stuff. If I take my computer in to have someone put in a new video card (which I think is actually a service Best Buy provides), I don't expect them to search through my hard drive.
Look I search for images whenever I use someone else's computer, but I don't expect to have any kind of legal footing if I try to do anything with what I find.
Its not even on topic, but I also have to say that the ESPN Sunday night football crew are the most annoying announcing crew on tv. I wish their was an option to mute them and not the rest of the game sounds because watching a sporting event in silence just feels strange.
Slashdot Mirror
Along those lines, the next version of Robosapian will be compatable with Lego Mindstorms.m edia-gets-new-lego-mindstorm-nxt-brain/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/08/robosapien-rs-
So thats a cheap option for colleges looking to sex up the CS major.
The reason they are "unskippable" is because they are free. If you don't want the ads, purchase the DVD set or buy the commercial free version off iTunes (or whatever download service they ultimately end up offering their shows through).
Look I love my TiVo, and I love being able to condense an hour long shows into 40 minutes, but for me the real purpose of TiVo was always to be able to watch what you want, when you want. Due to the nature of providing that service (waiting for it to be broadcast and then recording it), being able to FF through shows was an obvious feature. This is an entirely different model. You don't need to pay for cable or for a TiVo or your cable companies' DVR. You just select the show you want and watch it.
I completely agree that the DVD you purchase shouldn't have unskippable ads, but the difference is, you bought that DVD. You aren't sending any money ABC's way when you watch these programs. All you are agreeing to is to give them a little bit of your time in return. If you feel your time is more valuable, then buy the commercial free version or wait for the DVD set.
Ahhh... I'm an idiot.
If only you had used an emoticon or two in your origninal response, maybe that one where the smily face is winking, this kind of mixup would have been more easily avoided. Oh and to avoid continued confusion, I'm kidding. I hate emoticons, yet I love the word... how odd.
I will admit my open source entertainment industry question was inaccurate, mostly because its completely irrelevent to the topic. There is nothing stopping people from creating their own content and releasing it on the internet. Whether or not any of that content is all that good is another question entirely.
"we'll get enough free content to fill several hundred channels 365/24/7",
For me the point of media is not to fill time for the sake of filling time. Maybe you prefer your local high school's theater production instead of broadway or public access instead of cable? Its fine with me if thats the sort of content you want, but don't complain when higher quality productions refuse to give their product away for free. Could Lost be done by a bunch of guys in their garage on the weekend? Maybe. Would I rather pay a couple bucks an episode (or heaven forbid watch a few commercials) if it meant that they had the time and money to hire better actors and have better effects and meant that it was released on a weekly basis as opposed to whenever they had the spare time to work on it? Definitely.
What I don't understand is why people think that all of this content should be free. Do you think that all of those people would donate their time if there was no entertainment industry for them to break into? Do you honestly think what they produce in their spare tiime would be as good as what they could produce if they did that for a living?
You aren't paying for ABC or at least you don't have to be. You also don't have to pay to watch the shows being offered on ABC's website, hence the inclusion of ads.
I completely agree that cable companies are overcharging us for cable channels and including ads, but thats an entirely different discussion. This was about people complaing that the free content that ABC plans to provide will include ads and that they won't be able to skip over them.
My question was "do people honestly expect ABC to offer their programs on the interent for free without any advertising?", and if so "how do they hope for ABC to continue to be able to afford to produce those shows?".
I don't think we're of that much differing an option. I think you're just hung up on the fact that you already pay for cable, but with ABC's model in the future you might not have to. ABC offers the shows with commercials for free or you pay for them commercial free on iTunes. Isn't that what everyone's been asking for? Assuming the quality of the downloads on iTunes gets to HD in the near future, I know most of my complaints will be well on their way to being resolved.
What if you didn't know you wanted to watch it? For example my girlfriend got hooked on watching Gray's Anatomy when we watched the post Superbowl episode. The problem was that this was the middle of the season so it means that she won't be able to find out what happened at the start of the season until the DVD gets released this summer. I think she'd happily watch a couple of commercials an episode to catch up now rather than wait until the summer.
For me the greatest thing about the DVR was being able to watch what I want when I want, not the commercial skipping ability. Thats great, but if I had to choose I'd take being able to watch Battlestar Galactica Saturday afternoon rather than Friday night, even if it meant that I had to surf the internet durring a few commercial breaks.
It is a free TV program that was paid for by the commercials that air durring it. I don't understand why anyone could have any complaints about this. I didn't see what resolution the shows would be at and I'd like for a full HD resolution when possible, but as a first step I think this is excellent.
I don't think commercials are going anywhere, nor should they. If you don't want to watch commercials then buy the episode off iTunes or wait and rent the season from Netflix, but if you want them for free, certain sacrifices should be made. Saying that you'll still download a torrent is part of the problem.
Do people actually think that asking for the network to provide the shows free of charge without advertising is a reasonable request? Is the hope that an open source entertainment industry will sprout up? Based on a sampling of the free podcasts available, you get what you pay for.
Actually, I don't think Family Guy was "critically acclaimed". I recall plenty of harsh reviews calling it a cheap Simpsons knock-off (which is funny because by that point the Simpsons themselves had already become that).
Full Disclosure: I like the Family Guy the least out of the three shows you mentioned, so thats probably why I remember the negative reviews. I still think its funny, but not nearly as funny as it thinks it is.
Plus the same arguement could have been made when the original Playstation came out and went up against both the Saturn and Nintendo 64. I think I recall that working out pretty well for Sony, even though I wouldn't say that they had much video game experience before that.
I think if people want graphics to look better, that we have to move to higher resolutions. Play a PC game lately? Play it at 640 x 480? Does it look that great? Even if its the latest and greatest game, the differences between it and last year's version usually aren't really that dramatic. I think thats the issue that people playing on standard def tvs are experiencing.
People say that Microsoft shouldn't have made HD the standard, but if they weren't going to do that, then why even release a new console? Look at Nintendo, their next console isn't going to be HD, they've said it. They've even said that games won't look all that much different than current generation titles, but they've got a hook with their new controller.
I'm just tired of people complaining that the new games don't look better, but then saying that they shouldn't require HD. Its like people complaining that their PC doesn't run the newest games at a high resolution or framerate. If you keep wanting to use last year's tech, then keep playing last years game. This shouldn't be news to anyone. Technology is an expensive hobby that I guess console gamers are finnaly learning.
Actually, I only had to pay like an extra 5 bucks a month or so for an HD cable box. I belive I pay about 60 bucks a month for cable and about 15 of that is for the HD DVR cable box (I believe standard def is 10 bucks a month) and another 5 for the other cable box in my place. So I guess since I don't really have to pay anything additional for the content itself, might skew my perspective.
You're arguement that they aren't broadcasting HD 87.5% of the time is true, but I could argue that they aren't putting on any good programming at least 50% of the time. I've tried to find something worthwhile between 3-8 AM and its pretty lacking. So I guess I don't really count the time from rougly midnight until 6 PM as possible tv viewing time since I don't watch tv then. When I do watch tv (6-12), they probably have HD contect on any one channel about 30% of the time, which is pretty good to me.
Anyways, its just a different viewpoint about what we count as time that I we would be watching tv that isn't in HD.
Now I live in Boston so maybe that skews what I'm about to say some, but I think people are going overboard in the complaints that there is no HD programming. I subscribe to comcast, own HD and get roughly 10 HD channels (PBS, CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, WB, UPN, ESPN, DISCOVERY, TNT, INHD1, INHD2). I'd say that if I flipped on any one of those channels durring primetime (8-11), there is a good 80% chance that the program I tune into is HD. Its a ton better than it was a two years ago and a lot better than it was last year. Is there HD programming on during the day? No, not really, but during primetime most shows are HD and in HD.
Of course I wish there were more show's broadcast in HD and more channels had HD feeds but I'm pretty happy with the contect I get now. As for ESPN, they aren't that bad of an offender. Sportscenter is in HD, so that takes up about half their programming right there and most of the shows in their Bristol studios are now in HD (NFL Countdown, etc). They still haven't updated their New York (Basketball) and DC studios (Pardon the Interruption), but I don't think I'm missing all that much not seeing Tony and Mike in HD (hell its pretty much a radio broadcast). Sports are hit or miss, but usually their Saturday, Sunday and Thursday sporting events are in HD as well.
I bought an HD tv about 3 years ago and its the one piece of technology I have absolutely no regrets about buying early. Granted, I'm into sports, serialized tv shows (Lost), and a good documentary (PBS) so I appriciate the more movielike experience. If I was into reality shows and sitcoms, then HD content probably won't do much for me. I won't argue that HD sets are still too expensive and if you don't want to buy one because of that, thats fine. I just refuse to believe that people actually can say there isn't a dramatic difference between standard def and hd.
Your right for shows on channels you already subscribe to, but the real allure of this a la carte offering is for channels you don't have access to. I canceled my HBO subscription a couple of years back (my fiance stopped watching when Sex and the City went off the air and we put the money towards a Netflix subscription instead), but I'd still like to catch the latest episodes of Entourage or Weeds (thats Showtime I think) or whatever other original programming they offer these days. If HBO or Showtime start offering shows at 2 bucks a pop, I'd snap them up in a heartbeat. Right now its not a good enough replacement for DVRs because most of the shows offered don't even require cable (last I checked you could snag CBS, NBC, etc with a regular old antenna), but when they start to offer premium shows or shows in advance then I think we'll see a much more dramatic jump in sales.
Your right, I don't like the way it was posted either. It should have read, "a Chicago jackass, who is attempting to cash in on the usual failure rate of a new piece of consumer electronics, has sued Microsoft"... because that is all this is.
All new consumer electronics have a failure rate, I bought a Sony TV a couple of years ago that had problems with the bulbs blowing out on the new sets. It sucked and it was around the holidays and it was my christmas gift, but Sony had a number I could call and I could get a replacement bulb. Just like Microsoft has right now.
Until it becomes apparent that the 360 has an unusually high failure rate or Microsoft is refusing to replace defective units, I'm going to hold off on accusing them of "pumping shit out to the customer before it is ready".
As for "When playing games is THAT important life must truly be sad", get off your high horse and take a look in the mirror. That logic can apply to just about everything. "When you spend a chunk of your day posting on message boards, life must truely be sad", edit ad nauseum. I get it you don't think playing games should be that important. I DON'T CARE. Unless you spend your days having sex with supermodels or curing cancer or curing the cancer of the supermodels you have sex with, I think you're wasting your life as well. Your value judgements mean nothing to me. I'm not even going to toss out the usual disclaimer that I'm not a gamer, or I am a gamer, because that DOESN'T MATTER. Either way I think you're an asshole (see what I did there, if not then my point is entirely lost on you).
It does appear that the 360 will play quite a few old xbox games (hell it even appears to play BMX XXX, so the four people that bought that can breath a sigh of relief), but it does require you to purchase the hard drive. Full list of supported games are on the xbox site:
l itygameslist.htm
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibi
I'm hoping to purchase a 360 myself, but am glad that I'll be able to play most of the recently released xbox games on it while I wait for the 360 to hit full stride. Although it is intersting that the current version of most of the EA sports titles aren't backward compatible, probably hoping to force people to buy the newly released 360 versions.
Actually, CBS is teaming up with Comcast and NBC with DirecTV to offer the on-demand replays. So its not a blow to satellite tv providers, but to the other cable/satellite tv providers that don't have similiar deals in place (DISH Network, Time Warner, etc.).
Does that make Steve Jobs L. Ron Hubbard or Tom Cruise? Or is Steve the ancient civilization of Aliens? Either way, if buying an iPod means I can have sex with Katie Holmes, I'm in.
I've often wondered if the music industry keeps pushing Apple, what's stopping apple from going around the recording industry and negotiation with the artists individually. They already have their distribution model in place, why wouldn't they actively solict bands to break from their recording contracts and release only on-line through iTunes. Granted the artists would probably sell less, but I would imagine their cut would be better (don't artists see only a fraction of the profits of cds? I thought they made most of their money touring).
Both formats support backward compatibility:
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#2.4
Anything else would be commerical suicide. I don't put it past Sony, but in this case they aren't that stupid.
I think people get hung up on watching movies on their video iPod, but I think the real market is for tv shows. Look when I watch a movie I want the experience of watching a movie, big screen and surround sound, but when I'm on the train going to work I'd happily watch Sportscenter or PTI or an episode of Arrested Development. I thought I read an article recently about ESPN and Yahoo working to license all of their content for portables. The winner of the first successful portable video player is the one who manages to convince TV companies to open up their libraries.
I think that the Gameboy/DS/PSP are all pretty good indications that isn't what is holding back the a video iPod.
Really, the only difference between going to a con and hosting your own is the amount of self-promotion you recieve? No more work invovled?
I'm not a big Penny Arcade fan, but someone hosting a large videogame expo with the kind of turnout PAX had (4 buddies in your basement doesn't count) seems like it would have gotten a Slashdot mention regardless of who hosted it. The thing is I don't think anyone else does host simliar events, and that's kinda the point.
I think the problem with DVD rentals is that you miss out on the experience of being able to talk to other people about the movie. People may claim that waiting for something to come out on DVD means that you'll watch more good films and avoid being swayed by marketing hype. Which it totally true, but at the same time its much tougher to talk to other people about films you watch on DVD. unless you watched the movie with them.
Maybe its just me, but I enjoy talking about a movie after I see it. However I only really want to do it for a couple days after I see the movie. If my friend comes up to me tomorrow telling me how he saw The Matrix the other day, I'd say great but I wouldn't engage in any kind of real conversation with him about the film. Not like I would have had he seen it when I did in the theaters a couple years ago.
Look I watch almost all of my movies on Netflix and they are rarely of the summer blockbuster variety, but I do miss the aspect of feeling like a part of a larger community. A recent preview for "40 year old virgin" confirms I'm not the only person who feels the same way. The crux of the ad was, see the movie or you won't know all the funny lines people are going to be quoting for the next six months. Now, I hate it when people quote films. Quoting something that is funny DOES NOT make you funny, but hell if I don't hate not catching a movie reference.
Oh and "40 Year Old Virgin" is hilarious.
Wouldn't a more accurate example be:
If you have a plumber over to fix a leaky pipe, and you've got child porn in the bottom drawer of your nightstand, expect him to find it.
You know what though, I don't expect him to find it. If I'm using some of that porn to plug the holes in the leaky pipe, then sure, but otherwise stay the hell out of my stuff. If I take my computer in to have someone put in a new video card (which I think is actually a service Best Buy provides), I don't expect them to search through my hard drive.
Look I search for images whenever I use someone else's computer, but I don't expect to have any kind of legal footing if I try to do anything with what I find.
Its not even on topic, but I also have to say that the ESPN Sunday night football crew are the most annoying announcing crew on tv. I wish their was an option to mute them and not the rest of the game sounds because watching a sporting event in silence just feels strange.