You missed the point of that quote that involves not paying someone else for the service. Anyone can go buy a Tivo and pay an additional monthly fee to use their own 3rd party set top.
But what happens when your Tivo's hard drive fails? What if it's something worse? You're out the $300-$600 you spent buying that equipment. If the set top you rent from the cable company fails, you get a new one -- no questions asked.
We rent our digital HD DVR set tops for $14 a month. Lowest priced Tivo with those specs is $300. It will take two years to pay my cable company that much in rental fees. Then you've paid an extra $12/month to Tivo for the programing.
As the the comment about flipping through 200+ channels with out a guide: That was in reference someone who just wants a CableCard to use their TV's built-in tuner. I agree with you. When you have that many channels, you need a DVR. But to use a DVR, you need some sort of programing guide. You can get that for free from your cable company, or pay Tivo an extra $12 a month. The idea that ala carte is going to work for cable services (this comment does not refer to programing) just doesn't work.
You can only pack so many analog channels on one cable line. You have to go digital to get more channels. Cable really is a cooperative entertainment venture. You pay for some of the channels I watch, and I pay for some that you watch. When the group as a whole wants to exceed that analog channel limit, everyone has to go to digital.
Disclaimer: I work in marketing for a local (~12000 subscribers including hotel rooms) cable operator.
We rolled out digital cable only because we had to support CableCard. It took six months of searching to find a digital TV that would work with our Scientific Atlanta CableCards. We haven't found any others since.
Talk about a support nightmare. We've had people ask for a CableCard, only to find out that the slot on their TV doesn't even have power connected to it. Thats right, the TV manufacture just molded a spot in the plastic and put a dummy board in there.
Besides, when you use our set top, you get more features. We give away an on-screen programing guide that wouldn't be available with third-party hardware. Trust me, 200+ channels is a pain to flip through trying to find something to watch.
But a holiday release is the difference between 50 million units and 100 million units. Nintendo would have been smarter to put more programmers on this. Here we are a year after release, and they now lack a major holiday product. What's the Japanese word for Opps?
NBC Uni may have just helped Apple more than hurt them. I'm sure this is going to come up in the impending anti-competitive lawsuit against iTunes that the EU is planning.
Here's my educated guess based on the state-run media's reporting.
Some guy on a long weekend binge of unhealthy snack foods has massive seizure or heart attack. He flops around violently (thus scaring off 100 other people).
Ohh, he just logged into Hello Kitty Adventure Island before he died.
Now we have an example of how gaming kills. Perfect chinese government example of making the evidence prove their point.
I find it interesting to watch the various talk shows that feature some louse husband who is consumed by Warcraft. The logic is it's just a video game, so he should be able to pause and pay attention to his wife or children.
When you're playing a MMORPG, you are entering another world. You are surrendering you perceptions to the "matrix" in a sense, but that world can only be interacted through with sight and sound.
Here's where one gets lost. So much brain power must be expended to compensate for the lack of touch, smell and taste, that unless a player focuses all attention, they cut off the real-world connection. As far as the player is concerned, everything is real. The interactions are real. When I'm distracted and talking on the phone with my wife, she can tell. The same goes for the online world. Unless you fully commit to the medium, the party you are communicating with will be able to tell your aren't really "there".
Why is everyone up in arms about this. When any other company comes out with something cool and must have, people will pay more the 200% the retail price to get it on eBay.
Personally, I'm still gonna hold out till Oct. to buy the iPhone. I want to find out about the secret iPhone colaborative features in Leopard.
For instance, why don't my notes sync with anything? I don't like having to email my todo list to myself. The iPhone is so close, but so far from what I need to justify the cost.
Steve knows what he wants, and he already said he wanted to sell 1 million by the end of Sept.
Once you tap out the rich early adopter market, you have to drop the price for the masses.
Basic internet googling reveals the average Superbowl 30 second tv spot costs 2.4 million.
Roughly 90 million viewers watch the Superbowl at any given time. (Up to 140 million see some of it)
So, an advertiser pays roughly $0.0267 per viewer to the network.
Multiply that cost by 20 thirty second spots in an hour of prime time TV, and the network gets a little over 50 cents per viewer.
Now, I don't know how much NBC is currently getting out of each show sold, but if they think they need another $3.00, they are crazy.
Easier for tech support and users who lose discs far too often.
Funny, I always just cracked open the case and taped the recovery cd(s) to the inside of the case. Always seemed to save me a lot of headaches finding the exact right installer for that paticular revision machine.
I personally would like to thank the internet for saving the trees. Think of all the stupid faxes the office secretary used to forward every day. There is scientific proof the net is saving the planet.
I'd measure downtime. As an admin, your value is in ensuring the other 10, 100, or 1000+ people that rely on your systems can work without interruption. It's pretty easy to quantify the cost in man hours of 1 hour of downtime multiplied by the company's average hourly salary. Not to mention how much lost revenue could be involved.
The easy summary of this measurement, is from Ben Franklin, "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Weren't all the cable companies supposed to be using CableCards in their own new set top boxes by now? How are they handling this problem with those units? I work for a small cable company. Here's what we put on our price sheet if you just want to rent the M Card:
"M Cards are compatible with CableCARD 1.0 certified hosts. Third party devices may require software updates or firmware upgrades to enable all supported functions."
I can't see why anyone would want just the card. Our box/card combo has on-screen programing guides. If you use your own box or plug the card into the TV, you don't get any of that information. Just like the rest of the free market, we offer a superior product to entice our customers away from using something else.
I work for a cable operator who just installed their CableCard system. We're in a small market. Our multi-stream card rental is $2 -- exactly the same price as our analog boxes.
CableCard is a failed attempt at consumer protection. The idea that you would go to Best Buy and purchase your converter box is crazy. We aren't even one of the "evil" national cable operators, and we are still gettting the exact same income from rental fees.
I worked on a network where server kept dropping connections and users were reporting high latentcy. We eventually had to use a processes of elimination to isolate the bad connection before we found the bad line in the server room. We yanked it out and waited for the phone call from someone who couldn't get their email. Turns out they decided to turn off DHCP and self assign an IP address: the same one as the server.
Slashdot Mirror
But what happens when your Tivo's hard drive fails? What if it's something worse? You're out the $300-$600 you spent buying that equipment. If the set top you rent from the cable company fails, you get a new one -- no questions asked.
We rent our digital HD DVR set tops for $14 a month. Lowest priced Tivo with those specs is $300. It will take two years to pay my cable company that much in rental fees. Then you've paid an extra $12/month to Tivo for the programing.
As the the comment about flipping through 200+ channels with out a guide: That was in reference someone who just wants a CableCard to use their TV's built-in tuner. I agree with you. When you have that many channels, you need a DVR. But to use a DVR, you need some sort of programing guide. You can get that for free from your cable company, or pay Tivo an extra $12 a month. The idea that ala carte is going to work for cable services (this comment does not refer to programing) just doesn't work.
You can only pack so many analog channels on one cable line. You have to go digital to get more channels. Cable really is a cooperative entertainment venture. You pay for some of the channels I watch, and I pay for some that you watch. When the group as a whole wants to exceed that analog channel limit, everyone has to go to digital.
We rolled out digital cable only because we had to support CableCard. It took six months of searching to find a digital TV that would work with our Scientific Atlanta CableCards. We haven't found any others since.
Talk about a support nightmare. We've had people ask for a CableCard, only to find out that the slot on their TV doesn't even have power connected to it. Thats right, the TV manufacture just molded a spot in the plastic and put a dummy board in there.
Besides, when you use our set top, you get more features. We give away an on-screen programing guide that wouldn't be available with third-party hardware. Trust me, 200+ channels is a pain to flip through trying to find something to watch.
But a holiday release is the difference between 50 million units and 100 million units. Nintendo would have been smarter to put more programmers on this. Here we are a year after release, and they now lack a major holiday product. What's the Japanese word for Opps?
My guess is the guy had at least a month off on paid administrative leave, so he comes out ahead for being the scapegoat.
I think its already been said that iPods are going to be the hottest thing for the holidays this year.
Geeks and nerds don't spend their money in the casinos, they spend it in the strip clubs.
Real geeks watch Hot Choice, Spice or the Playboy channel.
You would think five years of intense regulation would kill this vile industry.
NBC Uni may have just helped Apple more than hurt them. I'm sure this is going to come up in the impending anti-competitive lawsuit against iTunes that the EU is planning.
Here's my educated guess based on the state-run media's reporting. Some guy on a long weekend binge of unhealthy snack foods has massive seizure or heart attack. He flops around violently (thus scaring off 100 other people). Ohh, he just logged into Hello Kitty Adventure Island before he died. Now we have an example of how gaming kills. Perfect chinese government example of making the evidence prove their point.
When you're playing a MMORPG, you are entering another world. You are surrendering you perceptions to the "matrix" in a sense, but that world can only be interacted through with sight and sound.
Here's where one gets lost. So much brain power must be expended to compensate for the lack of touch, smell and taste, that unless a player focuses all attention, they cut off the real-world connection. As far as the player is concerned, everything is real. The interactions are real. When I'm distracted and talking on the phone with my wife, she can tell. The same goes for the online world. Unless you fully commit to the medium, the party you are communicating with will be able to tell your aren't really "there".
Apple just beat the scalpers at their own game.
Personally, I'm still gonna hold out till Oct. to buy the iPhone. I want to find out about the secret iPhone colaborative features in Leopard. For instance, why don't my notes sync with anything? I don't like having to email my todo list to myself. The iPhone is so close, but so far from what I need to justify the cost.
Steve knows what he wants, and he already said he wanted to sell 1 million by the end of Sept. Once you tap out the rich early adopter market, you have to drop the price for the masses.
Basic internet googling reveals the average Superbowl 30 second tv spot costs 2.4 million.
Roughly 90 million viewers watch the Superbowl at any given time. (Up to 140 million see some of it)
So, an advertiser pays roughly $0.0267 per viewer to the network.
Multiply that cost by 20 thirty second spots in an hour of prime time TV, and the network gets a little over 50 cents per viewer.
Now, I don't know how much NBC is currently getting out of each show sold, but if they think they need another $3.00, they are crazy.
Best email address I could find for responding to them: NBCUniSupport@nbcuni.com
Funny, I always just cracked open the case and taped the recovery cd(s) to the inside of the case. Always seemed to save me a lot of headaches finding the exact right installer for that paticular revision machine.
I personally would like to thank the internet for saving the trees. Think of all the stupid faxes the office secretary used to forward every day. There is scientific proof the net is saving the planet.
I'd measure downtime. As an admin, your value is in ensuring the other 10, 100, or 1000+ people that rely on your systems can work without interruption. It's pretty easy to quantify the cost in man hours of 1 hour of downtime multiplied by the company's average hourly salary. Not to mention how much lost revenue could be involved. The easy summary of this measurement, is from Ben Franklin, "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Opus is political and social issues satire comic. In other words, it appeals to people older than you.
and run all three OS's on the same box.
So, could you see the commmercial you were looking for as the ad in front of the video you wanted to watch? Gawd, I miss adcritic.com
I work for a cable operator who just installed their CableCard system. We're in a small market. Our multi-stream card rental is $2 -- exactly the same price as our analog boxes. CableCard is a failed attempt at consumer protection. The idea that you would go to Best Buy and purchase your converter box is crazy. We aren't even one of the "evil" national cable operators, and we are still gettting the exact same income from rental fees.
I worked on a network where server kept dropping connections and users were reporting high latentcy. We eventually had to use a processes of elimination to isolate the bad connection before we found the bad line in the server room. We yanked it out and waited for the phone call from someone who couldn't get their email. Turns out they decided to turn off DHCP and self assign an IP address: the same one as the server.