[FoRK] Media Roundup

Tue Mar 11 19:01:11 PDT 2008

Tom Higgins wrote:
> With hulu going public tomorrow and miro working flawlessly for the
> past month or so I think maybe its time to tap on the collective fork
> brain stem and see how the answers go for this.....
>
> How do you get your media and how do you consume it (devices, places, times) ?
>   
I currently refuse to subscribe to either satellite or cable TV.  I have 
better things to spend $700-$1500/yr. on.
I use GoogleWiFi.
My two extravagant media buys right now are 5 phones and a USB data 
modem on a Sprint EVDO Rev. A account with a zillion minutes / free 
intra / off hours, and an inexpensive and high end colocation.  (Plus 3 
free-to-me colocations, plus Amazon ec2/s3/et al.)

Myself:
Video:
1) Computer (classes, clips, some shows, movie trailers) via school 
custom web site, You Tube et all, Joost (cool but until they nail 
content deals, just a curiosity) Azureus / Vuze (slick!), Hulu (way too 
limited, but some older stuff), Amazon (purchased and free shows).
2) Tivo (HD direct broadcast, Amazon Unbox for movies and missed 
episodes, Tivo podcast pull), plus a Slingbox Pro with a Sony uxpc for 
remote viewing.
3) Sprint Treo Centro for misc. time fillers, You Tube. 

I miss made-for-cable series, mini-series, and movies, although I can 
now wait a year to purchase.  This includes Dexter and things along the 
line of Rome.

Audio:
1) Old CD's ripped to MP3s.
2) Songs automatically captured, separated, and titled from direct 
broadcast via a PC receiver and software. (About 3000 songs, maybe 800 
at moderate or better quality, good enough for a noisy environment.)
3) A smattering of purchased songs.
4) Free or subscribed Internet broadcasts: Live365 portal or XM 
subscription.

Daughter or her friends:
1) Audio: MP3s of unknown origin.  (I'm sure they are a subset of our CD 
collection.)
2) Video: Tivo'd shows.  (She misses cable, mainly A&E, which has little 
available for download in any fashion.)
I am about to subscribe to Sprint's package at MobiTV to get A&E (and 
various other shows) for my daughter.  I don't know if she'll adapt or 
appreciate an EVDO Treo version.  MobiTV is cool, but they squeeze the 
bandwidth too much and seem to be using a constant bitrate codec that 
loses on scene changes and action.  If they would just support the same 
content A) to a computer and B) at slightly better quality, they'd have 
a zillion subscribers.

So, I looked pretty hard for a la carte cable/satellite content.  A few 
shows, from both broadcast networks and cable/satellite, are available, 
but not most of the hot ones.  Some are available for free, many as 
teasers, and some as paid content at about $1.99 / episode (too much in 
the long run, $1 is closer).  There are a number of scams advertising 
the holy grail, but nothing real that has any kind of consistent coverage.

Clearly, this will become a commodity a la carte business soon.  The 
cable / satellite guys will fight it to the death, but in reality most 
of their customers aren't going to fly and those of us in the margins 
(and overseas) are business on the table.  At some point, a big chunk of 
cable/satellite customers will flee, but I think the dynamics of content 
owners vs. distribution vs. providers along with FCC putting pressure on 
everyone to stop tying and allow a la carte, will mean that the 
progression is inevitable now.

In the mean time, I have plenty to keep me busy and my daughter is back 
to reading nonstop, so it's a win overall.  Although my Tivo 3 was too 
expensive, I'm not sure I'll get the promised rebate, and I need a home 
for my souped up Tivo 1 and Tivo 2 that are obsolete for me.

Now, if there was something like the Amazon Kindle (free EVDO et al) 
that supported at least 8x10x150bpi (preferrably 8.5x11x150bpi), PDF 
support, direct or indirect voice / speech recognition dictation, 
bluetooth keyboard with freemind and syncable wiki support with full 
enough document editing, Matlab/Scilab, and regular expression search, 
I'd be happy.  My minimum bar is display of a PDF scan of an 8.5x11 text 
book with multi-column small text, diagrams, and formulas.  The device 
can be smaller, but the resolution has to be there, or at least half 
that in landscape mode.  That works out to 1275x825 or 1275x1650, or, 
assuming reasonable white space, 1280x900 or 1280x1600.  Should have 
2-4x that for proper anti-aliasing, but it would be livable.

Have you noticed ebooks that become unavailable on Amazon?  I think at 
least one that I purchased just disappeared with a "this title is no 
longer available" message.  I should get a refund and notice.

sdw

> Episodic and scheduled shows (used to be called tv/radio)
>
> Movies, documentaries, toons/anime
>
> Music
>
> Reading
>
>
> -tom(.....minds want to know)higgins
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>   

-- 
swilliams at hpti.com http://www.hpti.com Per: sdw at lig.net http://sdw.st
Stephen D. Williams 703-371-9362C 703-995-0407Fax 94043 AIM: sdw