TV shows
22:37 07-03-09
Oh my word its been too long since I have written anything here.I have been thinking about video recently. Well more accurately about TV shows. A couple of years ago I happy proclaimed that if iTunes sold TV shows to the US, I would happy download. They have been for a couple of years now, and I have yet to buy one. Why is this?
Well lets consider the recent case of my ipod breaking. While I waited to fix it I used my phone as a music player, and while maybe not quite as good (the USB 1.1 was a killer) it was pretty good. But one thing got me. I could only put some of my music on it. I have a lot of music from iTunes that has DRM. This means to use it I either have to be told how I am allowed to, or I have to burn to CD and the import them all, and I don't want to use that many blank CD's.
Now iTunes has recently stopped selling DRM'd music and this is great. (Although I still can't upgrade all the music I have brought.)
This issue surrounding video is even greater though. Fist off there is a way around the DRM on music. There isn't on tv shows. Lets consider some of the ways I want to use TV shows. To have them all stored on a central location. Until someone does a laptop with a 1+TB hard drive, its not particle to have them all on my laptop. From that location I can stream to any number of devices in my house. Either my laptop various boxes connected to TV's, other computers, or even playing on my phone or ipod. This is further complicated by the want for HD. Yes iTunes now sells HD episodes of many TV shows, and once you start watching HD you really can't go back, its stunning.
Now here we start to see the problem with DRM on video. I buy TV shows from itunes and I am faced with only being able to play on 5 computers. (You hit this sooner than you think with family members etc) And if I want to play around the house then its apple TV's. I can't recycle older devices. But beyond that. Say I buy the latest episode of Big Bang Theory in HD because that's what I want to keep it in. But I want to watch it on the way to college on my ipod. Because of the DRM I have to buy it again in SD, at another £1.89. That comes to over £4 for one TV show, just so I can watch it on my ipod, and in HD. Its over a season.
But this continues, if I want HD itunes is currently the only place to go in the UK, unless I want to start buying blueray. This would mean buying a blueray player, and while I am not necessary against that. You can't currently rip blueray disks to something useful on your computer. I love having my media all in one place. I don't play my dvd disks any more, and am happy to pay for them to rip once. (Except for the fact they arn't HD.) I know that strictly its illegal to remove the copy protection every DVD has, however I am going for fair use, and don't really want to go too far down that line.
So where does this leave me? Well of course there are sources of HD TV shows, that you can do what you like with the files, that are free, but also illegal. (Piracy is stealing.) It may be possible to argue, that I am going to use this source and then buy the dvd, but if you download in HD, you are then left with a lower quality. If you buy blueray, you are left with a disk you never use, but looks very nice on the shelf.
Currently if you want a HD TV show (or movie) that you can play on any computer (assuming its powerful enough) and transcoder, for your own use on other devices. You are left with only once choice. I am not saying this is justifiably, or that its ok to do. But the movie and tv show industry have to sort this out.
I am not looking for files I can share with all of my friends, and other people on the internet. (If I wanted to do that it already exists.) Simply a way to get my favourite TV shows in a way that fits into my current system, leaves me room to expand, in HD. Is that so unreasonable?
tech rants random
Comments
Seb
08:29 05-04-09
Hey dude the is a legit way to do some of what you wanted! ;) I'll give you a call and left u know howHTML code can not be used, however the following can:
[b][/b] [i][/i] [strike][/strike] [url="http://yoursite.com"]Your Site[/url]
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