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Thursday, August 08, 2002 |
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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 
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Doc Knocks Another One Out of the Park
Memorializing one of the few times that copyright paranoia lost the day 
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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. |
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But there's more. So much more... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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And my favorite exchange: |
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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. |
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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. |
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Mr. RAILSBACK. Is that all bad? |
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What got me started on all this was a signature in an email this morning: |
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Jack Valenti is to the American film viewer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. |
[Doc Searls Weblog]
11:59:12 AM
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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
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© Copyright 2003 Ryan Greene.
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