I never thought of that, but man I think that is an excellent idea. Think about it...
Tv shows are small enough to download in a reasonable time. As well they don't have surround sound tracks to worry about.
The success of selling shows in DVD format already has proven the market for for-pay TV is viable
No one has time to watch all their favorite shows whenever they want, and many people would rather fork over 10 bucks a month to downoa their favorite shows than fork over a few hundred upfront for a PVR.
This would help the networks combat the PVR industry and how it is rapidly making advertisements obsolete. By selling the content directly to the customer they bypass the need for ads altogether
Networks would no longer need to waste budget on crap like "Neilson" ratings that are subjective at best - they would have an exact metric of what shows are popular so they can devote more time / money to them
It would mean less shows would need to be cancelled - if a show did not have a s wide an audience, but the existing audience was very loyal (say, Farscape), you could just charge more money for the show and still make a profit.
I can see you have never pirated movies. Good for you:)
No, the average DivX is not DVD quality, not by a long shot. A DVD ripped to a single CD in DivX format, while decent enough to watch for sure, not only suffers from decreased video quality compared to the original DVD, but it is only stereo sound.
MPEG2 sucks, MPEG4 can achieve the same quality with fewer artifacts in about 1/4th the bandwidth.
This is not true. MPEG4 can compress better yes. but if you have ever successfully ripped a 2 GB DVD to 1/4 it's size (500 MB) without a loss in video or sound quality, I will send you a nice shiny penny, since it is not currently possible.
You can achieve near-perfect video quality at 1 GB if you settle for stereo sound.... but if you want Dolby Digital and perfect video both, even with MPEG4 you are still looking at at least 1.3 GB or more. This is speaking from lots of experience with many MPEG4 codecs.
Really, downloading DVD quality movies is not something I ever see commercially happening until there are major infastructure upgrades in the internet. Pirates do it using lower quality rips, but if I am paying money for a movie then artifacts are just not an option. I am going to want DVD quality, if I don't get it I will just wait a month until the DVD goes on sale used at the local blockbuster.
Downloading a 2 GB DVD over a 1.5Mbit line, assuming *maximum* bandwidth (yeah right) is still going to take you over 3 hours. Why would I pay money to download a DVD, when it is faster for me to just go down to the local store and buy it?
The only way this will ever work is if
It is *significantly* cheaper than buying at a store. iTMS is signnificantly cheaper because you can buy individual songs - this does not work with movies. What good would it do you to buy one chapter of a DVD? DVDs sold to be downloaded would need to be at least 20% cheaper to put up with the hassles.
Client-side bandwidth is significantly upgraded. No one wants to wait 2+ hours for content. Aside from this, if many customers started buying these things the ISPs would be screaming from the hills, since their price models rely on the fact that opnly a small percentage of their customers is every ustilizing their connection to its potential at once.
And dont forget as well, the vast majority of the internet still uses a 56k modem or less. This is fine for downloading a song, which you can do in under 5 minutes. However, downloading a DVD this way would take you over 3 days... not something I would put up with.
... lead to a decline in reading? Time spent on the net *is* reading. Unless you are doing nothing but watching flash movies, or are visually imparied, every thing you do on the net requires substantial amounts of reading. The only decline has been in readnif dead tree media.
Personally, I read way more now than I ever used to. But I read much less books (in fact, the last book I read for pleasure was probably 3 years ago now).
While my reading of books has gone down by near 10%, my reading tim overall has gone up by probably 1000%. I don't have issues with reading large documents online like some, and I do quite frequently.
WEP is a joke. Get a Linksys WRT54G or simmilarly upgradeable router, upgrade the firmware to a freely available Linux, and block all unassociated IPSec traffic at the router level. Then use IPSec for your network.
That, or, run an IPSec firewall between your existing WAP and your internet connection, and do the same thing I just outlined. SUre, they'll be able to hack your WEP keys, but they won't bother when they discover the can't access the internet or even get off of the router.
You can now see a user's online status inside KMail and inside KAddressbook, if you have Kopete running. You can also click on an address to IM them, from inside either of these applications.
GConf, Gimp, Glade, GnuCash, Galeon, Gabby, Gabber, Gaim, GFax, GFontView, Ghemical, GSmartCard, GSwitchIt...and that's just from browsing my menu. And I don't even use Gnome as a primary desktop.
Whenever you shorten a product development cycle, you always cut into QA and testing time. Shorter development cycles will inevitably lead to lower quality for the consumer over the long run.
Now, whether this lower quality will even be noticeable, or whether it is a valid tradeoff for increased functionality, is yet to be seen.
If my SonyEricsson cell phone played mp3s we might be in business.
You can already buy Sony Ericssons that play MP3s off of memory sticks. Just check ebay.
These proprietary standards are reuining what would otherwise be a very competative lineup of products.
The best thing about memory sticks is not that its standard - its that it is a *Sony* standard. If you have a SOny device, it supports memory stick. You don't have to go around guessing. And they have so many devices - TVs, recievers, stereos, PDAs, laptops, MP3 players, cell phones - all excellent quality and memory stick works with all of them. And you can bet when the PSP comes out, and the PS3 is out, memory stick will be the sotrage medium for those too.
This is how Sony locks you in - they make so many great devices, yo uare bound to buy one of them. Then you say "well, I already have a PSP and it takes memory sticks - if I get an Ericsson then they can share the media", etc etc and on it goes.
You have to trust the people working at the election districts who handle the ballots. I don't. Do you?
No you don't. By law any citizen can watch the count - including you - if they so wish. And in any swing district you can be sure there is both a republican party official and democrat party official there to make sure it is "fair" (read: they contest every vote they can).
Now, how are you as an independant citizen going to audit the voting machines? The only relevant way would be independant auditing of the source code. However, since it is closed source this is not possible, thus you get some machine counting god knows what. And most of the time you don't even have a paper trail.
When everyone else is using one format (mp3, compact flash...) you use another (atrac, memory stick...).
Exactly the point. Sony is so big they dont *care* if everyone else is doing X, because they can do Y and still make money.
Look at the memory stick - proprietary format, only Sony devices can use it. But look at how proliferated it is!
Look at it this way - You will be able to go to connect.com and buy an album from Columbia records, copy the ATRAC to a memory stick on your Vaio, play them on your Clie, play them on your Sony Reciever, play them on your deck in your car, play themon your walkman, play them on your TV, play them on your Sony cell phone... and Sony has made profit at every point in the chain, from production to distribution to consumption.
It's all about vertical markets. And Sony can drive the market how they see fit because they are big enough. Apple has no chance of doing this.
For one, Sony has years more experience making consumer electronics than Apple. They already know all the inds and outs of usable design.
For two, Sony is huge enough that they can drive the whole market themselves. (Sony is a much larger company than Apple), especially in this area. I mean, think about it:
- Sony already has its own music store - Sony already has its own removable media, that is cross-compatable with every Sony device - Sony already has inroads into the home theatre market and portable gaming market
Look at it this way - Sony could release a device, right now, that would be as sleek as the iPod, cost less, have automatic hooks into its music store, and not only has an onboard HD but accepts SOny Memory Sticks, so you can download songs directly from Sony Connect into your Walkman, then copy them over to your Clie or PSP with 0 effort.
And they could do all this significantly cheaper than an iPod because Sony could in theory sell the Walkman as a *loss leader* to market it's music. Apple can't do this, since they are not a music publisher like Sony so they sell the music as a loss leader to sell hardware.
Besides - what if Sony just decided all its music on all its labels was no longer allowed to be sold at iTMS? Bye bye iPod.
What is one thing Sun has given to the OS community?
Java is nearly totally closed, and Sun has said repeatly it is not considering opening it (for fear of "forking"). Solaris is closed. Their "Java Desktop" is as closed as they can make it (have you seen the license?) and is mostly just rebranded Gnome. (It is also a POS if you check out the reviews).
From my viewpoint, Sun is a *leech* off the OS community. I can't for the life of me think of anything positive they have contributed. Every other major UNIX vendor (SGI, IBM, HP) have contributed major kernel additions aimed at improving performance and interoperability. They also frequently contribute financially (IBM). What has Sun done?
The channels that have value are the "theme" channels: stuff like Discovery, the Sci-Fi channel, Comedy Central, HGTV, TechTV, etc. If I am bored, want a good laugh, but don't know any of the shows currently on, then chances are Comedy Central has something funny. If I am bored mid-day and want something interesting, then TechTV or Discovery would be a good choice. Theme channels are where you can go to learn what shows you like to watch, so that you can TiVo them later.
Conversely, I see the networks being less and less important as PVRs get more and more popular. I can see all the major shows going into syndication based models, with product placements.
I'm looking through this comment thread, and every other magazine people are listing is porn
For one, Maxim is far from porn. Obviously you have never read it or you wouldn't be saying this. It is hilarious cover to cover, and has huge sections about clothes, gadgets, movies, music, sports, and other things men dig.
Geez, if that's not a statement about slashdot's typical posting audience
By "typical posting audience", I hope you mean men 20-40 ?
Real students of linguistics and languages do not take issues with things like this, only elitists and grammar Nazis do.
The statement "Languages evolve, but that fact is too often used as a cop-out for being too lazy to learn correct use of a language." is utterly nonsensical, because there *is* no correct use of a language. A language is a construct to serve the people, and as people change, so must the language. Languages evolve over time, and should be treated more like a living organism than a rulebook. The only "correct use of a language", by definition, is the way the majority of the populace is using it. In this case, the majority of the populace uses "begs the question" in this sense, so it is perfectly valid, and is not any less so than any other commonly used phrase.
For all of you free software developers who have been waiting for a true GPLed industry standard AV framework, we look forward to working with you."
Er... why would anyone be waiting for this? From the GStreamer and Arts frameworks to players like MPlayer and Xine that are frameworks in and of themselves, there are already many "true GPLed industry standard AV frameworks" that have been available for years.
Real really missed the boat IMO. Likely the only reason commercial distros are partnering with them, is that Real likely has licensing agreement sot legally use formats like MP3 and MPEG4, so it imdemnifys them from potential lawsuits.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see you have never pirated movies. Good for you :)
No, the average DivX is not DVD quality, not by a long shot. A DVD ripped to a single CD in DivX format, while decent enough to watch for sure, not only suffers from decreased video quality compared to the original DVD, but it is only stereo sound.
MPEG2 sucks, MPEG4 can achieve the same quality with fewer artifacts in about 1/4th the bandwidth.
This is not true. MPEG4 can compress better yes. but if you have ever successfully ripped a 2 GB DVD to 1/4 it's size (500 MB) without a loss in video or sound quality, I will send you a nice shiny penny, since it is not currently possible.
You can achieve near-perfect video quality at 1 GB if you settle for stereo sound.... but if you want Dolby Digital and perfect video both, even with MPEG4 you are still looking at at least 1.3 GB or more. This is speaking from lots of experience with many MPEG4 codecs.
Really, downloading DVD quality movies is not something I ever see commercially happening until there are major infastructure upgrades in the internet. Pirates do it using lower quality rips, but if I am paying money for a movie then artifacts are just not an option. I am going to want DVD quality, if I don't get it I will just wait a month until the DVD goes on sale used at the local blockbuster.
Downloading a 2 GB DVD over a 1.5Mbit line, assuming *maximum* bandwidth (yeah right) is still going to take you over 3 hours. Why would I pay money to download a DVD, when it is faster for me to just go down to the local store and buy it?
The only way this will ever work is if
... lead to a decline in reading? Time spent on the net *is* reading. Unless you are doing nothing but watching flash movies, or are visually imparied, every thing you do on the net requires substantial amounts of reading. The only decline has been in readnif dead tree media.
Personally, I read way more now than I ever used to. But I read much less books (in fact, the last book I read for pleasure was probably 3 years ago now).
While my reading of books has gone down by near 10%, my reading tim overall has gone up by probably 1000%. I don't have issues with reading large documents online like some, and I do quite frequently.
WEP is a joke. Get a Linksys WRT54G or simmilarly upgradeable router, upgrade the firmware to a freely available Linux, and block all unassociated IPSec traffic at the router level. Then use IPSec for your network.
That, or, run an IPSec firewall between your existing WAP and your internet connection, and do the same thing I just outlined. SUre, they'll be able to hack your WEP keys, but they won't bother when they discover the can't access the internet or even get off of the router.
They could add the ability to add real NNTP groups in the future.
Is that something like a Tim Horton's?
:)
??!?!
You can now see a user's online status inside KMail and inside KAddressbook, if you have Kopete running. You can also click on an address to IM them, from inside either of these applications.
To me this is a killer feature. Gnome still has a bounty out on it ( http://www.gnome.org/bounties/IM.html
Hrm let's think...
...and that's just from browsing my menu. And I don't even use Gnome as a primary desktop.
GConf, Gimp, Glade, GnuCash, Galeon, Gabby, Gabber, Gaim, GFax, GFontView, Ghemical, GSmartCard, GSwitchIt
Whenever you shorten a product development cycle, you always cut into QA and testing time. Shorter development cycles will inevitably lead to lower quality for the consumer over the long run.
Now, whether this lower quality will even be noticeable, or whether it is a valid tradeoff for increased functionality, is yet to be seen.
If my SonyEricsson cell phone played mp3s we might be in business.
You can already buy Sony Ericssons that play MP3s off of memory sticks. Just check ebay.
These proprietary standards are reuining what would otherwise be a very competative lineup of products.
The best thing about memory sticks is not that its standard - its that it is a *Sony* standard. If you have a SOny device, it supports memory stick. You don't have to go around guessing. And they have so many devices - TVs, recievers, stereos, PDAs, laptops, MP3 players, cell phones - all excellent quality and memory stick works with all of them. And you can bet when the PSP comes out, and the PS3 is out, memory stick will be the sotrage medium for those too.
This is how Sony locks you in - they make so many great devices, yo uare bound to buy one of them. Then you say "well, I already have a PSP and it takes memory sticks - if I get an Ericsson then they can share the media", etc etc and on it goes.
You have to trust the people working at the election districts who handle the ballots. I don't. Do you?
No you don't. By law any citizen can watch the count - including you - if they so wish. And in any swing district you can be sure there is both a republican party official and democrat party official there to make sure it is "fair" (read: they contest every vote they can).
Now, how are you as an independant citizen going to audit the voting machines? The only relevant way would be independant auditing of the source code. However, since it is closed source this is not possible, thus you get some machine counting god knows what. And most of the time you don't even have a paper trail.
When everyone else is using one format (mp3, compact flash...) you use another (atrac, memory stick...).
Exactly the point. Sony is so big they dont *care* if everyone else is doing X, because they can do Y and still make money.
Look at the memory stick - proprietary format, only Sony devices can use it. But look at how proliferated it is!
Look at it this way - You will be able to go to connect.com and buy an album from Columbia records, copy the ATRAC to a memory stick on your Vaio, play them on your Clie, play them on your Sony Reciever, play them on your deck in your car, play themon your walkman, play them on your TV, play them on your Sony cell phone... and Sony has made profit at every point in the chain, from production to distribution to consumption.
It's all about vertical markets. And Sony can drive the market how they see fit because they are big enough. Apple has no chance of doing this.
... to get their music, just like Apple does with iTMS.
For one, Sony has years more experience making consumer electronics than Apple. They already know all the inds and outs of usable design.
For two, Sony is huge enough that they can drive the whole market themselves. (Sony is a much larger company than Apple), especially in this area. I mean, think about it:
- Sony already has its own music store
- Sony already has its own removable media, that is cross-compatable with every Sony device
- Sony already has inroads into the home theatre market and portable gaming market
Look at it this way - Sony could release a device, right now, that would be as sleek as the iPod, cost less, have automatic hooks into its music store, and not only has an onboard HD but accepts SOny Memory Sticks, so you can download songs directly from Sony Connect into your Walkman, then copy them over to your Clie or PSP with 0 effort.
And they could do all this significantly cheaper than an iPod because Sony could in theory sell the Walkman as a *loss leader* to market it's music. Apple can't do this, since they are not a music publisher like Sony so they sell the music as a loss leader to sell hardware.
Besides - what if Sony just decided all its music on all its labels was no longer allowed to be sold at iTMS? Bye bye iPod.
AFAIK Linux did not have securelevel capability at the time, at least not without some custom kernel patches.
Nowadays there is that and GrSecurity and everything else, but this was 3 years ago.
What is one thing Sun has given to the OS community?
Java is nearly totally closed, and Sun has said repeatly it is not considering opening it (for fear of "forking"). Solaris is closed. Their "Java Desktop" is as closed as they can make it (have you seen the license?) and is mostly just rebranded Gnome. (It is also a POS if you check out the reviews).
From my viewpoint, Sun is a *leech* off the OS community. I can't for the life of me think of anything positive they have contributed. Every other major UNIX vendor (SGI, IBM, HP) have contributed major kernel additions aimed at improving performance and interoperability. They also frequently contribute financially (IBM). What has Sun done?
The channels that have value are the "theme" channels: stuff like Discovery, the Sci-Fi channel, Comedy Central, HGTV, TechTV, etc. If I am bored, want a good laugh, but don't know any of the shows currently on, then chances are Comedy Central has something funny. If I am bored mid-day and want something interesting, then TechTV or Discovery would be a good choice. Theme channels are where you can go to learn what shows you like to watch, so that you can TiVo them later. Conversely, I see the networks being less and less important as PVRs get more and more popular. I can see all the major shows going into syndication based models, with product placements.
Mean to type "dd if=floppy.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 count=300"
/dev/fd0 is owned by my user, and I never dd as root anymore :P
Ended up typing "dd if=floppy.img of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=300"
Needless to say the system continued to operate for a week or so, although here were random errors everywhere. Saved most all my data though.
After that day I always made sure
I'm looking through this comment thread, and every other magazine people are listing is porn
For one, Maxim is far from porn. Obviously you have never read it or you wouldn't be saying this. It is hilarious cover to cover, and has huge sections about clothes, gadgets, movies, music, sports, and other things men dig.
Geez, if that's not a statement about slashdot's typical posting audience
By "typical posting audience", I hope you mean men 20-40 ?
.. since, it should be auto-redirecting you to http://news.google.com
Real students of linguistics and languages do not take issues with things like this, only elitists and grammar Nazis do.
The statement "Languages evolve, but that fact is too often used as a cop-out for being too lazy to learn correct use of a language." is utterly nonsensical, because there *is* no correct use of a language. A language is a construct to serve the people, and as people change, so must the language. Languages evolve over time, and should be treated more like a living organism than a rulebook. The only "correct use of a language", by definition, is the way the majority of the populace is using it. In this case, the majority of the populace uses "begs the question" in this sense, so it is perfectly valid, and is not any less so than any other commonly used phrase.
For all of you free software developers who have been waiting for a true GPLed industry standard AV framework, we look forward to working with you."
Er... why would anyone be waiting for this? From the GStreamer and Arts frameworks to players like MPlayer and Xine that are frameworks in and of themselves, there are already many "true GPLed industry standard AV frameworks" that have been available for years.
Real really missed the boat IMO. Likely the only reason commercial distros are partnering with them, is that Real likely has licensing agreement sot legally use formats like MP3 and MPEG4, so it imdemnifys them from potential lawsuits.