Thursday, August 08, 2002

It's Late, I'm Tired, and What better Time to Ramble? Consumer Friendly (or Disney Hostile) DVD Players? [Slashdot] OK, the writer is looking for a DVD player that will let him skip trailers as well as the FBI notice on DVDs. Someone suggests VideoLAN as an option. So what is VideoLAN? VideoLAN is a project of French students from the École Centrale Paris and developers from all over the world. Its main goals is MPEG streaming on a network, but it also features a standalone multimedia player. The VideoLAN Server can stream video read from a hard disk, a DVD player, a satellite card or an MPEG 2 compression card, and unicast or multicast it on a network. The VideoLAN Client can read the stream from the network and display it. It can also be used to display video read locally on the computer : DVDs, VCDs, MPEG and DivX files and from a satellite card. It is multi-plaform : Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, BSD, Solaris, QNX, iPaq... The VideoLAN Client and Server now have a full IPv6 support. VideoLAN is free software, and is released under the GNU General Public License. Pretty sweet. Now, if you have the scratch, imagine setting this up with a server that has some large, fast hard drives. The server watches the folders of your machines that you ahve set up with PVR cards, and grabs the show once it's taped. You also set up the server to snag a stream of a DVD as it's played, so that you have an archived copy in your system. Since you own the DVD and would never, ever tell anyone about this, you don't have to worry about getting busted for it. Now, the cool thing is, you can have the server multicast, so you can effectively program your own TV channels. I know that for me, alte nights when I can't sleep, the best thing I can do is sit down with a quart of milk, a box of cookies, and watch some horror films, preferably Hammer Studios Dracula series. Puts me right out (and explains a lot, really.) Now, if you could tie this in with your personal assitant/Major Domo, Higgins, you'd be onto something. Higgins: "Sir, you have insomnia?" (Higgins has noticed that you are stirring, and have just gone from the kitchen to the living room, and are now aimlessly channel surfing.) User: "Yes Higgins. Anything good on?" Higgins: "Mostly infomercials on broadcast. HBO 12 is showing ''My life in Bhutan'', which is one of your favorites..." User: "No thank you Higgins, Que up some drive in horror, bugs and vampires please." (User has just used some keywords to describe what he's in the mood for. Higgins will now search through his archives for what the User likes, hasn't seen recently, and that matches the search terms used) Higgins: "How about, The Giant Mantis, Them, and Dracula's Brides, sir?" User: "Perfect. On the headphones, and theatre lighting." Higgins: "Done and done." (Higgins switches the audio channel to the user's wireless headphones, and the changes the lighting to the theatre preset for the room.) User: >belches Higgins: "Excuse me sir?" (Higgins is in the headphones how) User: "Nothing Higgins, I'm all set, goodnight." (This is a voice cue to put Higgins into standby unless he is addressed by name) Higgins: "Goodnight sir." User: (Kicks back and drifts off watching the film.) Obviously, Higgins could be configured differently, to either respond with tones and text displays, differing genders and colloquialisms depending on region and user preference, etc, etc. 10:51:28 PM    comments

OK, Cool, Naaaw, Fuck. FCC pushes digital TV adoption. CNET Aug 8 2002 12:22PM ET FCC requires all-digital TVs. MSNBC Aug 8 2002 12:30PM ET... FCC to add anti-copy tech on digital TV. ZDNet Aug 8 2002 12:50PM ET... FCC pushes piracy-proof, digital TV. ZDNet Aug 8 2002 1:04PM ET... ... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service] 3:17:51 PM    comments

Broadcast flags, bad, Beeer Gooood. Get ready to buy a new TV [USA Today : Front Page] The gist of the article is that the FCC is going to require that all TVs be digital signal compatable, which is fine by me, as long as the it caries over to VCRs and DVR machines as well, and there is no steenking rebroadcast badges incorporated into the technology. In advance of Thursday's decision, Jenny Miller, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Electronics Association, had said, "We believe there's going to be a mandate for the inclusion of a digital broadcast television tuner in all television sets." But she also said she felt the manufacturers might challenge such a ruling in court, if necessary. Miller said the requirement would cost $250 for each set, amounting to an annual "TV tax" on the industry and consumers of about $7 billion. She said that with most consumers receiving television signals by cable or satellite, putting the tuner in all TVs would make people pay for a device most won't use. Economy of scale - if the chipsets are put in every TV, VCR etc as I described above, it simply can't cost that much to implement, as someone will be either designing or making them for cheap. 12:29:43 PM    comments

Doc Knocks Another One Out of the Park Memorializing one of the few times that copyright paranoia lost the day    You gotta read Jack Valenti's testimony against the VCR back in '83. That's when Jack famously said, I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.   But there's more. So much more...   But now we are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the video cassette recorder and its necessary companion called the blank tape. And it is like a great tidal wave just off the shore. This video cassette recorder and the blank tape threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copyright owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright...   Because unless the Congress recognizes the rights of creative property owners as owners of private property, that this property that we exhibit in theaters, once it leaves the post-theatrical markets, it is going to be so eroded in value by the use of these unlicensed machines, that the whole valuable asset is going to be blighted. In the opinion of many of the people in this room and outside of this room, blighted, beyond all recognition. It is a piece of sardonic irony that this asset, which unlike steel or silicon chips or motor cars or electronics of all kinds -- a piece of sardonic irony that while the Japanese are unable to duplicate the American films by a flank assault, they can destroy it by this video cassette recorder...   Now, I don't have to tell anybody in politics -- I have spent most of my adult life in politics and you learn one thing. Nothing of value is free. It is very easy, Mr. Chairman, to convince people that it is in their best interest to give away somebody else's property for nothing, but even the most guileless among us know that this is a cave of illusion where commonsense is lured and then quietly strangled. That is what it is all about...   And my favorite exchange:   Mr. VALENTI. Now, let me tell you what Sony says about this thing. These are not my words. They are right straight from McCann Erickson, whom you will hear from tomorrow, who is the advertising agency for Sony and here is what they say. They advertise a variable beta scan feature that lets you adjust the speed at which you can view the tape from 5 times up to 20 times the normal speed.   Now, what does that mean, Mr. Chairman? It means that when you are playing back a recording, which you made 2 days or whenever -- you are playing it back. You are sitting in your home in your easy chair and here comes the commercial and it is right in the middle of a Clint Eastwood film and you don't want to be interrupted. So, what do you do? You pop this beta scan and a 1-minute commercial disappears in 2 seconds.   Mr. RAILSBACK. Is that all bad?   What got me started on all this was a signature in an email this morning:   Jack Valenti is to the American film viewer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.   Heh. [Doc Searls Weblog] 11:59:12 AM    comments

Anyone have an opinion on the HRRC? More Remote Control? Try a Dish. While cable companies try to exercise as much control over their content as possible, satellite companies like EchoStar and DirecTV give the consumer more options. But that kind of freedom might not last. By Brad King. [Wired News] Here's hoping the FCC doesn't mess this up for DVR owners. Aside - 1996 Telecom act was supposed to get cable companies to open up their networks, in terms of allowing conumers to buy their own cable boxes, much like you can do with satellite. That hasn't happened. But if I could have bought a DVR/cable box, I'd probably have both digital cable and an iMac with a superdrive right now, as well as the software that would let me burn the full length movies that I had recorded. Not to sell, or give away, but so that I could archive my favorite shows and flicks that I recorded, which, last time I checked, is legal. Hmmm, reading the above link, according to Nov 1991 legislation, your digital cable box is illegal... 10:56:26 AM    comments

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