Movies
Dear YouTube
03/07/09 07:42 AM Filed in: Media
Please stop removing my
favorite videos. As of late, it’s becoming very
frustrating.
You used to be a place where I could go when sitting with a group of friends, chatting about music or something equally culturally relevant, and when someone would say, “Woah, you haven’t heard? Dude, pull it up on YouTube,” without fail it would be there for us to listen to. Unless it was some obscure Indi band; but we can understand you taking those down. But no longer. I am now forced to find other means of streaming the song for my friends or, even worse, purchase the song off iTunes. I’m sure this is just what you’ve been planning all along, but you know copyright laws are as vague as any, so you’re silly attempts to abide by them by removing all videos you deem “illegal” is just silly.
It’s becoming a bit excessive the rate at which you’re taking these videos off lately. As in, I’ve more than once been watching a video when you take it off. I’ll be half way done with it, the video will freeze, go black, and the words, “This video is no longer available” will appear in its place. This is horribly disappointing, especially as it always seems to happen at the most climactic parts.
It’s even worse than that though. I’ve even see you remove copyrighted content from the copyright holder. Okay, not specifically, since bands don’t usually hold the copyright to their own music once the evil record companies get a hold of it, but ... come on! A band makes a profile, a band posts their videos, and you remove them. If you ask me, bands should have every right to share their own content if they want to. But it doesn’t go just as far as bands as music. Oh no. You’ve taken it levels beyond that.
You know what I find most humorous? You’ve taken off the video that made you. Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about you. You were founded in February, 2005, and the viral video Lazy Sunday from SNL came out in December of the same year. That video is what got the name YouTube to spread all over the country with some 5 million views before it was removed. I realize it was probably NBC Universal that made you remove it, but you should have fought back! You owned that video, YouTube! Now all that can be found are horrible parodies of the thing on your website. Let me tell you, some of those videos in and of themselves should be deemed “illegal” for viewing by the general public.
So you’re scared of the courts and you remove all your copyright movies, music, and music videos. To some degree, I can accept that. Only because I have no idea what 13 million dollars looks like, especially in a lawsuit against. But, again, you don’t stop there.
Why is that I can be reading the funnies over at Cracked, a humor column that frequently embeds your videos into its articles, and the videos get removed from your site before I can even read the article. If you want to talk about anti-climactic, try reading an article where a guy talks up a YouTube video for 1,200 words and when you finally go to click play it says the content has been removed. And even worse, the video isn’t even copyrighted. No, it’s just that some guy watched it, got offended by some religious slur in it, and reported it to you guys, so you chickened out and removed it. I can understand you removing adult content; I can understand you removing horribly graphic content of any kind, really. What I can’t understand is you removing a video of some guy getting hit in the head with a 2-by-4. Look, it’s funny. If somebody finds it disturbing, they probably shouldn’t be on the internet.
Here’s what gets me even more. You leave commercials up. Those are copyrighted. You leave videos of people beating video games in less than ten minutes up. Video games have copyrights. You always leave content from other countries up, for instance, Soviet Winnie the Pooh or pretty much anything from Turkey. I know their copyright laws don’t always apply in the United States, but if we’re going to play by those rules we should all forget about YouTube and just download our content from The Pirate Bay, a Swedish website that you can download anything from full length movies to out of print TV series to full books in PDF format.
Before I end my rant, I do have to speak briefly on behalf of YouTube for some idiots out there. YouTube always removes complete movies. There’s actually logic behind that. You see, a movie company will sue the pants off you (and probably the rest of your wardrobe if they have their way) if you distribute their content. Heck, they won’t give up on The Pirate Bay and they aren’t even under US law. So why do they keep suing them, you ask? Well, because the movie industry is greedy. And stupid. But I digress. My point is, when someone puts up Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in a twenty-part series on YouTube, it makes perfect legal sense for them to remove it.
So when this genius wonders why YouTube keeps removing it when he uploads the seven parts of the Zeitgeist movie, I can only help but laugh. He claims YouTube is censoring their content. Well, of course they are, but only to protect young children from violent and adult content; YouTube doesn’t have a religious agenda. The reason your video keeps getting removed is because you don’t know the copyright. His argument is that the movie is left on Google Video and that’s it’s available for free at the Zeitgeist Movie’s website, so he’s disgusted with YouTube for constantly removing it. But just because the video is freely available on the director’s website doesn’t mean it’s still not bound by copyright. The owner of the copyright put it on that website, and the owner of the copyright put it on Google Video. This doesn’t give you the right to then take it and put it on YouTube.
On top of that, you do realize YouTube is owned by Google, right? So saying YouTube is stupid for censoring when they leave it on Google Video is just the silly. You, my friend, are paranoid.
This is awkward, because after those three paragraphs it’s difficult to transition back to my original point. You’ll just have to deal with it. My conclusion is, aside from the heavily copyrighted material of full length movies, I’m annoyed with you, YouTube, removing all of my favorite content. Never mind that your tagline is “Broadcast Yourself” and not “Broadcast Sweet Stuff That Other People Made” ... I want my music and music videos back!
Endnote: I’m too tired at the moment to care if I completely contradicted myself in this article. If I did, you can probably figure out my intent behind it. Quit being hypercritical.
You used to be a place where I could go when sitting with a group of friends, chatting about music or something equally culturally relevant, and when someone would say, “Woah, you haven’t heard? Dude, pull it up on YouTube,” without fail it would be there for us to listen to. Unless it was some obscure Indi band; but we can understand you taking those down. But no longer. I am now forced to find other means of streaming the song for my friends or, even worse, purchase the song off iTunes. I’m sure this is just what you’ve been planning all along, but you know copyright laws are as vague as any, so you’re silly attempts to abide by them by removing all videos you deem “illegal” is just silly.
It’s becoming a bit excessive the rate at which you’re taking these videos off lately. As in, I’ve more than once been watching a video when you take it off. I’ll be half way done with it, the video will freeze, go black, and the words, “This video is no longer available” will appear in its place. This is horribly disappointing, especially as it always seems to happen at the most climactic parts.
It’s even worse than that though. I’ve even see you remove copyrighted content from the copyright holder. Okay, not specifically, since bands don’t usually hold the copyright to their own music once the evil record companies get a hold of it, but ... come on! A band makes a profile, a band posts their videos, and you remove them. If you ask me, bands should have every right to share their own content if they want to. But it doesn’t go just as far as bands as music. Oh no. You’ve taken it levels beyond that.
You know what I find most humorous? You’ve taken off the video that made you. Don’t try to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about you. You were founded in February, 2005, and the viral video Lazy Sunday from SNL came out in December of the same year. That video is what got the name YouTube to spread all over the country with some 5 million views before it was removed. I realize it was probably NBC Universal that made you remove it, but you should have fought back! You owned that video, YouTube! Now all that can be found are horrible parodies of the thing on your website. Let me tell you, some of those videos in and of themselves should be deemed “illegal” for viewing by the general public.
So you’re scared of the courts and you remove all your copyright movies, music, and music videos. To some degree, I can accept that. Only because I have no idea what 13 million dollars looks like, especially in a lawsuit against. But, again, you don’t stop there.
Why is that I can be reading the funnies over at Cracked, a humor column that frequently embeds your videos into its articles, and the videos get removed from your site before I can even read the article. If you want to talk about anti-climactic, try reading an article where a guy talks up a YouTube video for 1,200 words and when you finally go to click play it says the content has been removed. And even worse, the video isn’t even copyrighted. No, it’s just that some guy watched it, got offended by some religious slur in it, and reported it to you guys, so you chickened out and removed it. I can understand you removing adult content; I can understand you removing horribly graphic content of any kind, really. What I can’t understand is you removing a video of some guy getting hit in the head with a 2-by-4. Look, it’s funny. If somebody finds it disturbing, they probably shouldn’t be on the internet.
Here’s what gets me even more. You leave commercials up. Those are copyrighted. You leave videos of people beating video games in less than ten minutes up. Video games have copyrights. You always leave content from other countries up, for instance, Soviet Winnie the Pooh or pretty much anything from Turkey. I know their copyright laws don’t always apply in the United States, but if we’re going to play by those rules we should all forget about YouTube and just download our content from The Pirate Bay, a Swedish website that you can download anything from full length movies to out of print TV series to full books in PDF format.
Before I end my rant, I do have to speak briefly on behalf of YouTube for some idiots out there. YouTube always removes complete movies. There’s actually logic behind that. You see, a movie company will sue the pants off you (and probably the rest of your wardrobe if they have their way) if you distribute their content. Heck, they won’t give up on The Pirate Bay and they aren’t even under US law. So why do they keep suing them, you ask? Well, because the movie industry is greedy. And stupid. But I digress. My point is, when someone puts up Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in a twenty-part series on YouTube, it makes perfect legal sense for them to remove it.
So when this genius wonders why YouTube keeps removing it when he uploads the seven parts of the Zeitgeist movie, I can only help but laugh. He claims YouTube is censoring their content. Well, of course they are, but only to protect young children from violent and adult content; YouTube doesn’t have a religious agenda. The reason your video keeps getting removed is because you don’t know the copyright. His argument is that the movie is left on Google Video and that’s it’s available for free at the Zeitgeist Movie’s website, so he’s disgusted with YouTube for constantly removing it. But just because the video is freely available on the director’s website doesn’t mean it’s still not bound by copyright. The owner of the copyright put it on that website, and the owner of the copyright put it on Google Video. This doesn’t give you the right to then take it and put it on YouTube.
On top of that, you do realize YouTube is owned by Google, right? So saying YouTube is stupid for censoring when they leave it on Google Video is just the silly. You, my friend, are paranoid.
This is awkward, because after those three paragraphs it’s difficult to transition back to my original point. You’ll just have to deal with it. My conclusion is, aside from the heavily copyrighted material of full length movies, I’m annoyed with you, YouTube, removing all of my favorite content. Never mind that your tagline is “Broadcast Yourself” and not “Broadcast Sweet Stuff That Other People Made” ... I want my music and music videos back!
Endnote: I’m too tired at the moment to care if I completely contradicted myself in this article. If I did, you can probably figure out my intent behind it. Quit being hypercritical.
|
Test Your Code
12/13/08 09:09 PM Filed in: Media | Technology
There are reasons
software goes through rigorous testing (on multiple
levels) before it is released to the public.
My parents have this fancy DVD player that skips over crap they don’t like. It’s called ClearPlay. You can select what type of stuff you want it to cut out, and you can connect to the internet once a month or so to update the library of movies it knows. For graphic or violent scenes, it knows the time codes for the scenes in each movie which the user wants to skip over.
It’s an interesting concept, but ClearPlay has a few glitches in their programming. After all, entertaining software that intentionally skips over scenes of a DVD that is meant to play through continuously (and skip such scenes in a seamless manner without the user’s knowledge) can present significant problems if. For instance, poor programming could result in one DVD being confused for another DVD which would require skipping during a certain sequence. Or poor programming could call a skip method for no apparent reason. Who knows how these things work ... Either way, the premise of this machine seems to break one of the cardinal rules of programming, and that is that if you’re going to do so something significant (i.e. skip an entire scene in a movie) you’d better tell the user.
We were watching Prince Caspian, a movie that probably doesn’t need any skipping. Naturally, we watched the movie with the ClearPlay Filter off. Apparently it didn’t get the memo ...
One moment we’re at the scene where Caspian first enters the woods (at night) and meets the dwarf, the next moment we’re seeing the completion of the bridge by the Tel Marines (a scene near the end of the movie). The time code on the DVD player was still showing that we were only nine minutes into the movie. We rewound and fast forwarded several times, skipped around the chapters, but it continued with this glitch. We decided to give the DVD player one more chance. It did it again a few minutes later. We then realized we had never even seen the scene where the children actually enter Narnia. Something was terribly wrong.
My parents have this fancy DVD player that skips over crap they don’t like. It’s called ClearPlay. You can select what type of stuff you want it to cut out, and you can connect to the internet once a month or so to update the library of movies it knows. For graphic or violent scenes, it knows the time codes for the scenes in each movie which the user wants to skip over.
It’s an interesting concept, but ClearPlay has a few glitches in their programming. After all, entertaining software that intentionally skips over scenes of a DVD that is meant to play through continuously (and skip such scenes in a seamless manner without the user’s knowledge) can present significant problems if. For instance, poor programming could result in one DVD being confused for another DVD which would require skipping during a certain sequence. Or poor programming could call a skip method for no apparent reason. Who knows how these things work ... Either way, the premise of this machine seems to break one of the cardinal rules of programming, and that is that if you’re going to do so something significant (i.e. skip an entire scene in a movie) you’d better tell the user.
We were watching Prince Caspian, a movie that probably doesn’t need any skipping. Naturally, we watched the movie with the ClearPlay Filter off. Apparently it didn’t get the memo ...
One moment we’re at the scene where Caspian first enters the woods (at night) and meets the dwarf, the next moment we’re seeing the completion of the bridge by the Tel Marines (a scene near the end of the movie). The time code on the DVD player was still showing that we were only nine minutes into the movie. We rewound and fast forwarded several times, skipped around the chapters, but it continued with this glitch. We decided to give the DVD player one more chance. It did it again a few minutes later. We then realized we had never even seen the scene where the children actually enter Narnia. Something was terribly wrong.
Even Ernie was confused, and he can’t even understand
movie plots.
A normal DVD player could probably never have this
issue. Sure, if the disc were scratched, it could
jump to a later portion of the movie, but the time
code would jump with it. Introducing such
“functionality” as skipping scenes intentionally
without alerting the user and without advancing the
time code can present serious
issues if you don’t
test your code rigorously, while we just now
experienced as we watched Prince Caspian.
After restarting the DVD player, ejecting the disc,
and putting it back in, we skipped to the second
chapter and were greeted with the scene in which the
children enter Narnia. It worked!
Must be a Windows-based DVD player ...
The Happening
06/15/08 05:07 PM Filed in: Media
*** SPOILER WARNING ***
M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated movie?! Oy vey. Could you not think of a better way to market this, Shyamalan? The trailers were good until the most recent one was released with the narrator saying, "The director who brought you The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable now brings you his first R-rated movie." Really? Do I cared what the movie is rated? Convince me to go see it some other way ...
However, the trailers did convince me to go see it. I enjoy Shyamalan's movies and the twists he chooses to put in them, so I thought I would give this one a try too. If you haven't seen the a preview for the movie and don't at least know the synopsis, click here or here. Then again, if you haven't seen a the movie or even a preview, why are you reading my blog post that starts with "SPOILER WARNING?"
The Happening stars Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) Moore in a Horror/Thiller/Drama movie in which an event seems to be killing people in the Northeast of the United States. Initial thoughts are that the virus was released (airborne) by terrorists, but it is later understood (and even given away in the trailer) than it is a natural virus. It seems to start in city parks and then spread from there, taking smaller and smaller populations as it goes. The first stages of the virus cause you to lose speech and simple motor skills. The second stage causes you to become disoriented, and the third stage causes you to kill yourself. Though all three stages happen within a few moments of each other. Elliot and Alma along with their best friends daughter, Jess, are on the run, trying to escape the virus' fatal spread. Unfortunately, everywhere they try to run to seems to be the next place the virus breaks out.
The movie is rated R for violent and disturbing images. Which, for a movie about people killing themselves, you would think that would make sense. However, the people I went with and myself can't seem to figure out where the disturbing images were. The movie wasn't too graphic; it mostly left the goriest details up the to viewer's imagination, as any good director will. (Yah, sorry Quentin Tarantino.) There was no language, and no inappropriate sexual material of any kind to help warrant an R-rating. I don't work for the MPAA, but according to their lousy standards, I'd say the movie should be PG-13. Maybe they're trying to make up for all the movies they accidently rated PG-13 that should have been rated R.
In and of itself, the movie was alright. However, when you bring it into perspective and realize that M. Night Shyamalan was the writer and directed, it becomes far more disappointing. For one thing, there was no twist! (There may have been a twist, which I will discuss in a moment, but it's a far stretch.) This is going to be a huge turn off for Shyamalan fans. However, far more painfully, the dialog was a lot of terribly cheesy one-liners, usually coming from Mark Wahlberg's mouth. When you understand the movie is a Sci-Fi Thriller, it could be an entertaining watch without the horrid scripting.
One theory my friends and I came up with is that the movie may have been an attempt by Shyamalan to lessen to Earth's population. Since it was a movie about killing yourself, and we were all feeling horribly depressed about spending $6.50 and wasting an hour and a half of our time on it.
On a brighter note, the movie did have excellent sound mixing and creative camera shots, which Shyamalan has always been good at. I would certainly sit down and watch the movie again simply for the fact that it was well directed on the video/audio side. It's just a shame it missed the mark completely when it went through scripting. If you're into that sort of thing, watch the movie for those elements. In fact, I'd recommend the movie because it is a good movie with a shallow script. However, since the majority of people care more about the overall plot more than the audio/video aspect of the movie, I'll critique that.
Within the first few minutes of the movie my friends and I placed it was most likely going to be an environmentalist movie. It was. The "twist," if you want to call it that, may have been that we need to think carefully before infecting the Earth's plants with our pollution. They might get mad at us for it and try to kill us.
If you stretch your mind a lot, you may realize that the character Alma Moore's name is the Spanish word for "soul." Though a bit far fetched (a bit?), it may be more comforting to think that Shyamalan's twist was that everyone in the movie had lost their soul (the ability for their heart and mind to reason with each other). That the virus never really existed at all, and that the entire epidemic was psychological. At the beginning of the movie, people start killing themselves due to the alleged virus. It is then broadcast over nationwide news that a virus seems to be infecting victims in parks. They describe the initial signs and say the final stage is that you kill yourself. People freak out and begin to believe what they're hearing, then they start to believe they to are getting the virus. People love to believe what they here, even if it is detrimental to their health. (War of the Worlds, anyone?) This is simply one theory, and there are no reports that Shyamalan intended for this. More than likely he meant to have no twist at all.
I liked Filmcritic.com's comment on the movie saying, "Instead of scares [...] we get unintentional laughs. Instead of though provoking sci-fi speculation, we get the Alan Tichmarsh version of Armageddon." All too true. The parts of the movie which seemingly were planned to be the scariest end up being the parts where the majority of the theater was trying not to chuckle.
Though the movie was significantly better than Shyamalan's last ditch effort, Lady in the Water, and actually had a plot, unlike Cloverfield, he falls short of his reputation on so many levels, it's sad. I hope he hasn't completely lost his touch and can direct another fine movie in the years to come.
M. Night Shyamalan's first R-rated movie?! Oy vey. Could you not think of a better way to market this, Shyamalan? The trailers were good until the most recent one was released with the narrator saying, "The director who brought you The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable now brings you his first R-rated movie." Really? Do I cared what the movie is rated? Convince me to go see it some other way ...
However, the trailers did convince me to go see it. I enjoy Shyamalan's movies and the twists he chooses to put in them, so I thought I would give this one a try too. If you haven't seen the a preview for the movie and don't at least know the synopsis, click here or here. Then again, if you haven't seen a the movie or even a preview, why are you reading my blog post that starts with "SPOILER WARNING?"
The Happening stars Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Alma (Zooey Deschanel) Moore in a Horror/Thiller/Drama movie in which an event seems to be killing people in the Northeast of the United States. Initial thoughts are that the virus was released (airborne) by terrorists, but it is later understood (and even given away in the trailer) than it is a natural virus. It seems to start in city parks and then spread from there, taking smaller and smaller populations as it goes. The first stages of the virus cause you to lose speech and simple motor skills. The second stage causes you to become disoriented, and the third stage causes you to kill yourself. Though all three stages happen within a few moments of each other. Elliot and Alma along with their best friends daughter, Jess, are on the run, trying to escape the virus' fatal spread. Unfortunately, everywhere they try to run to seems to be the next place the virus breaks out.
The movie is rated R for violent and disturbing images. Which, for a movie about people killing themselves, you would think that would make sense. However, the people I went with and myself can't seem to figure out where the disturbing images were. The movie wasn't too graphic; it mostly left the goriest details up the to viewer's imagination, as any good director will. (Yah, sorry Quentin Tarantino.) There was no language, and no inappropriate sexual material of any kind to help warrant an R-rating. I don't work for the MPAA, but according to their lousy standards, I'd say the movie should be PG-13. Maybe they're trying to make up for all the movies they accidently rated PG-13 that should have been rated R.
In and of itself, the movie was alright. However, when you bring it into perspective and realize that M. Night Shyamalan was the writer and directed, it becomes far more disappointing. For one thing, there was no twist! (There may have been a twist, which I will discuss in a moment, but it's a far stretch.) This is going to be a huge turn off for Shyamalan fans. However, far more painfully, the dialog was a lot of terribly cheesy one-liners, usually coming from Mark Wahlberg's mouth. When you understand the movie is a Sci-Fi Thriller, it could be an entertaining watch without the horrid scripting.
One theory my friends and I came up with is that the movie may have been an attempt by Shyamalan to lessen to Earth's population. Since it was a movie about killing yourself, and we were all feeling horribly depressed about spending $6.50 and wasting an hour and a half of our time on it.
On a brighter note, the movie did have excellent sound mixing and creative camera shots, which Shyamalan has always been good at. I would certainly sit down and watch the movie again simply for the fact that it was well directed on the video/audio side. It's just a shame it missed the mark completely when it went through scripting. If you're into that sort of thing, watch the movie for those elements. In fact, I'd recommend the movie because it is a good movie with a shallow script. However, since the majority of people care more about the overall plot more than the audio/video aspect of the movie, I'll critique that.
Within the first few minutes of the movie my friends and I placed it was most likely going to be an environmentalist movie. It was. The "twist," if you want to call it that, may have been that we need to think carefully before infecting the Earth's plants with our pollution. They might get mad at us for it and try to kill us.
If you stretch your mind a lot, you may realize that the character Alma Moore's name is the Spanish word for "soul." Though a bit far fetched (a bit?), it may be more comforting to think that Shyamalan's twist was that everyone in the movie had lost their soul (the ability for their heart and mind to reason with each other). That the virus never really existed at all, and that the entire epidemic was psychological. At the beginning of the movie, people start killing themselves due to the alleged virus. It is then broadcast over nationwide news that a virus seems to be infecting victims in parks. They describe the initial signs and say the final stage is that you kill yourself. People freak out and begin to believe what they're hearing, then they start to believe they to are getting the virus. People love to believe what they here, even if it is detrimental to their health. (War of the Worlds, anyone?) This is simply one theory, and there are no reports that Shyamalan intended for this. More than likely he meant to have no twist at all.
I liked Filmcritic.com's comment on the movie saying, "Instead of scares [...] we get unintentional laughs. Instead of though provoking sci-fi speculation, we get the Alan Tichmarsh version of Armageddon." All too true. The parts of the movie which seemingly were planned to be the scariest end up being the parts where the majority of the theater was trying not to chuckle.
Though the movie was significantly better than Shyamalan's last ditch effort, Lady in the Water, and actually had a plot, unlike Cloverfield, he falls short of his reputation on so many levels, it's sad. I hope he hasn't completely lost his touch and can direct another fine movie in the years to come.
NBC Decides to Play Nice
04/21/08 10:11 PM Filed in: Technology
| Media
Remember back
when NBC got a
little too full of itself a while back and decided to yank
its shows from iTunes? They pressured Apple to
increase the prices of songs and shows that were
more popular in order to make more profit;
thankfully, Apple refused to cave. NBC threatened
to not resign their contract renewal
with Apple for their Digital Media. Apple
one-upped them; they pulled all NBC shows and
music immediately, proving they didn't need NBC to
survive (though NBC does hold a
large portion of the television side of the
iTunes Store.
I've been waiting for NBC to come crawling back like a baby. Of course, NBC had to think of a way to do this without looking like a complete idiot. Coincidently, NBC didn't even try to bring up the pricing problem again. This time they said they would be OK with Apple's pricing policy, but before they would return their programming to iTunes they wanted Apple to incorporate some form of anti-piracy measures.
This could be both good and bad, as I see it. NBC wants to take advantage of the DRM Apple already incorporates, except they wish to expand it. They would like everything in your iTunes library to have the DRM written to it, which could get really frustrating and, to me, is a huge invasion of your own music rights. However, I don't deny that I think Apple will probably agree to this.
After all, I think it's only a matter of time before the FCC and RIAA crack down like mad on the internet. It will be the day when all internet freedom disintegrates and Big Brother constantly watches over your shoulder; a day I shudder to see come. Since the internet is most frequently viewed in the comforts, and privacy, of your own home, I believe their shouldn't be any type of ISP or government restrictions on it. Sure, if a corporation or parent wants to add filters for various things, that's completely legitimate. But we want the internet, our music, movies, and all types of media (yes, I'm talking to you, Adobe) DRM FREE!
I've been waiting for NBC to come crawling back like a baby. Of course, NBC had to think of a way to do this without looking like a complete idiot. Coincidently, NBC didn't even try to bring up the pricing problem again. This time they said they would be OK with Apple's pricing policy, but before they would return their programming to iTunes they wanted Apple to incorporate some form of anti-piracy measures.
This could be both good and bad, as I see it. NBC wants to take advantage of the DRM Apple already incorporates, except they wish to expand it. They would like everything in your iTunes library to have the DRM written to it, which could get really frustrating and, to me, is a huge invasion of your own music rights. However, I don't deny that I think Apple will probably agree to this.
After all, I think it's only a matter of time before the FCC and RIAA crack down like mad on the internet. It will be the day when all internet freedom disintegrates and Big Brother constantly watches over your shoulder; a day I shudder to see come. Since the internet is most frequently viewed in the comforts, and privacy, of your own home, I believe their shouldn't be any type of ISP or government restrictions on it. Sure, if a corporation or parent wants to add filters for various things, that's completely legitimate. But we want the internet, our music, movies, and all types of media (yes, I'm talking to you, Adobe) DRM FREE!
The Future of Digital Media
12/25/07 08:03 PM Filed in: Technology
Since I want to be able
to claim credit for this before it happens, I decided
to blog about where I think the future of Digital
Media lies.
The current fight is between whether to produce solely HD DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs, though that fight is almost over seeing as how the HD DVD format has swept the market leaving Blu-Ray lagging behind and being used mostly by Sony on videos and games.
For years we've been trying to find the an unscratchable disk. We have yet to find one that is practical and cheap enough to mass produce. So the nagging question remains: What will the next Digital Media format be?
In large part, the Adult Film Industry (AFI) has always lead the way in choosing the next format which the public will use. Why? Because the AFI has enough billions per year to throw around on such things (yes, more than Hollywood). The AFI was one of the first to catch on to the VHS, it was the one of the first to realize the possibilities of the internet, it was the first to test out the DVD technology, it's paving the way for High Definition Technology, and it will pave the way for the next medium. The AFI has announced that it will accept the HD DVD as it's format of choice; first of all, the HD DVD is significantly cheaper to produce. Second of all, Blu-Ray discs are almost entirely produced by Sony, who has long refused to produce Pornographic films (go Sony!), so the AFI is almost forced to use the HD DVD. Blu-Ray players have been much more expensive than HD DVD players in the past, but they are coming down to a more competitive price.
With the release of the AppleTV, my guess is the next medium for our Digital Media is going to be small Flash Media, similar to the SDRAM chips for your Digital Camera. Currently those sell for about $10 a gig, so I'm guessing once they come down to around $5 for four gigs, the AFI will start looking at them (and so will the rest of the market.) Think how simple it will be! You'll have two ways to purchase a movie. You'll have a massive External Hard Drive which will be attached to your Entertainment System; You'll purchase the movie from somewhere in a small case, something like a GameCube video game comes in, I suppose, and bring it home. You'll open it to find the small Flash chip inside. No discs, so no worries of scratching! Plug the chip into the front of your AppleTV (or whatever the competition is by then). You'll need leave it plugged in for only a few minutes while it automatically copies the movie onto your External Hard Drive (in a High Definition format, of course). Once the video file is on your External Hard Drive, you can pull out the Flash chip, put it back in the case, and place it on a shelf to forget about. The movie is now on your External Hard Drive, easy for you to access by simply scrolling through all the movies on the drive, much like you would scroll through things you saved on DirectTV.
What if we don't want to go to the store to purchase that crazy Flash chip? Easy! It just so happens your TV will be hooked up to your wireless internet (does that make sense ... hooked up to wireless?) You'll be able to easily peruse the iTunes Music/Movie Store (or any digital media store that's available at that time) directly from your TV, select the movie you want to buy, iTunes will automatically charge your credit card and begin downloading the movie to your External Hard Drive immediately. And look, you didn't even have to go anywhere! Yet another excuse for American obesity.
The technology is almost there with Apple's AppleTV. It just needs to be pushed a little bit more, and the price of Flash media needs to come down. My guess is by the time my generation graduates from college and is beginning to purchase our own Home Entertainment Systems, we'll be making a choice for this medium! And, of course, by that time, there will be many more options for something like this; Microsoft will have their own soon enough.
UPDATE 1/7/2008:
Warner Bros. has announced that it will be adopting the Blu-Ray Disc format over HD DVD. Sony and Warner Bros. are two huge producers, and Hollywood has declared that it wishes to also complete the transition early into 2008. This makes the HD DVD essentially worthless. While it is good to have finally made a decision (so retailers can finally stock only one format), I'm not very pleased with the decision, though it seems final as 70% of the production market is now producing solely Blu-Ray (Disney, Fox, Sony, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema), leaving Toshiba as just about the only company in support of HD DVD.
On that note, this is good news for Apple, since they have been planning to include full support for Blu-Ray (and only marginal support for HD DVD) in the upcoming MacBook Pros and Final Cut HD. Microsoft has been in support of the HD DVD format, however they will most likely change soon enough.
UPDATE 1/9/2008:
Paramount Pictures has abandon the HD DVD and has said it will be returning to producing the Blu-Ray Disc, leaving Universal as the only large company still in support of the HD DVD and over 75% of the market turning to Blu-Ray.
For a fancy graph, check out this article here.
UPDATE 2/15/2008:
After Best Buy and Netflix declared on the 12th that they would be carrying Blu-Ray exclusively, rental Wal-Mart announced today that it also will be stocking only Blu-Ray discs! Following these announcements, it is rumored that Toshiba will withdraw support of the HD-DVD and move solely to Blu-Ray, joining the rest of the pack.
The fight is almost over!
UPDATE 2/19/2008:
Game over! Toshiba has said it will discontinue use of the HD-DVD disc format, switching to Blu-Ray. The battle is over ...
The current fight is between whether to produce solely HD DVDs or Blu-Ray Discs, though that fight is almost over seeing as how the HD DVD format has swept the market leaving Blu-Ray lagging behind and being used mostly by Sony on videos and games.
For years we've been trying to find the an unscratchable disk. We have yet to find one that is practical and cheap enough to mass produce. So the nagging question remains: What will the next Digital Media format be?
In large part, the Adult Film Industry (AFI) has always lead the way in choosing the next format which the public will use. Why? Because the AFI has enough billions per year to throw around on such things (yes, more than Hollywood). The AFI was one of the first to catch on to the VHS, it was the one of the first to realize the possibilities of the internet, it was the first to test out the DVD technology, it's paving the way for High Definition Technology, and it will pave the way for the next medium. The AFI has announced that it will accept the HD DVD as it's format of choice; first of all, the HD DVD is significantly cheaper to produce. Second of all, Blu-Ray discs are almost entirely produced by Sony, who has long refused to produce Pornographic films (go Sony!), so the AFI is almost forced to use the HD DVD. Blu-Ray players have been much more expensive than HD DVD players in the past, but they are coming down to a more competitive price.
With the release of the AppleTV, my guess is the next medium for our Digital Media is going to be small Flash Media, similar to the SDRAM chips for your Digital Camera. Currently those sell for about $10 a gig, so I'm guessing once they come down to around $5 for four gigs, the AFI will start looking at them (and so will the rest of the market.) Think how simple it will be! You'll have two ways to purchase a movie. You'll have a massive External Hard Drive which will be attached to your Entertainment System; You'll purchase the movie from somewhere in a small case, something like a GameCube video game comes in, I suppose, and bring it home. You'll open it to find the small Flash chip inside. No discs, so no worries of scratching! Plug the chip into the front of your AppleTV (or whatever the competition is by then). You'll need leave it plugged in for only a few minutes while it automatically copies the movie onto your External Hard Drive (in a High Definition format, of course). Once the video file is on your External Hard Drive, you can pull out the Flash chip, put it back in the case, and place it on a shelf to forget about. The movie is now on your External Hard Drive, easy for you to access by simply scrolling through all the movies on the drive, much like you would scroll through things you saved on DirectTV.
What if we don't want to go to the store to purchase that crazy Flash chip? Easy! It just so happens your TV will be hooked up to your wireless internet (does that make sense ... hooked up to wireless?) You'll be able to easily peruse the iTunes Music/Movie Store (or any digital media store that's available at that time) directly from your TV, select the movie you want to buy, iTunes will automatically charge your credit card and begin downloading the movie to your External Hard Drive immediately. And look, you didn't even have to go anywhere! Yet another excuse for American obesity.
The technology is almost there with Apple's AppleTV. It just needs to be pushed a little bit more, and the price of Flash media needs to come down. My guess is by the time my generation graduates from college and is beginning to purchase our own Home Entertainment Systems, we'll be making a choice for this medium! And, of course, by that time, there will be many more options for something like this; Microsoft will have their own soon enough.
UPDATE 1/7/2008:
Warner Bros. has announced that it will be adopting the Blu-Ray Disc format over HD DVD. Sony and Warner Bros. are two huge producers, and Hollywood has declared that it wishes to also complete the transition early into 2008. This makes the HD DVD essentially worthless. While it is good to have finally made a decision (so retailers can finally stock only one format), I'm not very pleased with the decision, though it seems final as 70% of the production market is now producing solely Blu-Ray (Disney, Fox, Sony, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema), leaving Toshiba as just about the only company in support of HD DVD.
On that note, this is good news for Apple, since they have been planning to include full support for Blu-Ray (and only marginal support for HD DVD) in the upcoming MacBook Pros and Final Cut HD. Microsoft has been in support of the HD DVD format, however they will most likely change soon enough.
UPDATE 1/9/2008:
Paramount Pictures has abandon the HD DVD and has said it will be returning to producing the Blu-Ray Disc, leaving Universal as the only large company still in support of the HD DVD and over 75% of the market turning to Blu-Ray.
For a fancy graph, check out this article here.
UPDATE 2/15/2008:
After Best Buy and Netflix declared on the 12th that they would be carrying Blu-Ray exclusively, rental Wal-Mart announced today that it also will be stocking only Blu-Ray discs! Following these announcements, it is rumored that Toshiba will withdraw support of the HD-DVD and move solely to Blu-Ray, joining the rest of the pack.
The fight is almost over!
UPDATE 2/19/2008:
Game over! Toshiba has said it will discontinue use of the HD-DVD disc format, switching to Blu-Ray. The battle is over ...