[LINK] Consumer Electronics Show - wireless DVD player that c onnects to Internet direct

[Craig Sanders]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 01:02:56PM +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> At 08:06 AM 12/01/04 +1000, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> >. Hard drive record/playback/route is 'cool' but is it worth the cost to the

it's more than 'cool', it's extremely useful.  the random-access nature of disk
or memory is qualitatively different to the sequential-access nature of tape.

> Hmmmm....well the interesting thing will be how the 'free to air' will
> continue to be 'free' when the advertisers wise up to the pervasive access to
> ad skipping.

you're right.  and just think of all those thieves and pirates who go to the
toilet, or make a cup of tea or read a book[1] during the ads.  there ought to
be severe penalties for this kind of criminal behaviour.


free-to-air will stay free for the same reason that it is free now.  while most
people can ignore ads (and many do) a sufficient number don't care enough to
even change the channel and will happily sit and watch the ads anyway.
strangely, some people even *like* advertisements, because they're amusing or
pretty or because they cynically exploit basic emotional reactions about babies
or whatever.

these people are the target market, anyway.  they are the ones who are most
easily influenced by advertising.  advertisers know that they wont get the
cynics no matter how hard they try.


> I would like a larger storage off air than linear tape for all kinds of
> reasons: quicker scanning/searching, skipping to bits to rewatch, all the 

yep, random access makes things like this possible.

> digital service stuff that could be captured as well, DVD on open broadcast
> if you will.

but why should you have the same consumer rights with digital media as you do
with analog media like VCR?  after all, this is a new opportunity to extend
copyright priviledges in ways that have previously been explicitly denied.


craig

[1] guilty as charged, your honour.

btw, most advertisers are fortunate that i don't pay attention to ads.  i
normally only remember them if they're annoying enough for me to put them on my
"do not ever buy anything from these jerks" list.