This isn't new at all..

Author	All Replies
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY	This isn't new at all.. One thing that always annoys me about modern video/audio products is how a company gets to call what was "illegal downloading" "innovative" - this isn't a new concept. It's been almost a year now where you could subscribe to a $15/mo service(usenet), get a TV show a la carte, choose a quality level that suits you(PMP level quality, playable on xbox and better looking quality, or full out 720p), and grab it. What annoys me more is that they're still better. There's no DRM involved in the old way. There's no "it'll only work on this device" involved in the old way. There's no "this costs just as much if not MORE money than buying the season on DVD" way. And there's no "this is the best there is because it's apple, we have nice packaging, it's in a white box so it's the best" arrogance in the old way. -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-23 06:08:03 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL	I agree, but a year? Usenet has been around for many, many years now. That being said, this things sucks and I'm totally unbiased as I plan to buy a macbook in the near future. This thing, overheats, serves pixelated video, and isn't very functional in the least. Now put XBMC in that bad boy, and you have yourself a really neat little device.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-28 18:20:57 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY	Yes, but differing levels of TV quality haven't. the DVDrip/350 MB-40 minute standard has been around and prominent for a long time.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-28 19:18:37 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL	Yes; didn't realize you were making a distinction as to 'types of rips'.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-28 19:58:19 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY	It made sense to buy HD before now. Compare real HD to 350 MB xvid/40 minutes and there's no comparison. The problem is, the pirates won. They got 90% of the HD quality(10-20% more than the best of the iTunes shit as well), BEFORE the industry could get out HD in a format other than OTA transmission that, if you miss recording, you're screwed. I'd pay $50 for an HD version of 24 season 5, since I lost my streams from last year... but can I? No. Technological progress is against the MPAA's plan - just look at how they handle the internet. -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-28 23:18:21 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL	said by thender2: It made sense to buy HD before now. Compare real HD to 350 MB xvid/40 minutes and there's no comparison. The problem is, the pirates won. They got 90% of the HD quality(10-20% more than the best of the iTunes shit as well), BEFORE the industry could get out HD in a format other than OTA transmission that, if you miss recording, you're screwed. I'd pay $50 for an HD version of 24 season 5, since I lost my streams from last year... but can I? No. Technological progress is against the MPAA's plan - just look at how they handle the internet. I'm sorry; I mean no offense, but I'm having a hard time following. What you said about 'made sense to purchase HD before now' related to 'pirates winning' sounds like a non sequitur. HD wasn't available for purchase on next gen format 'before now', as you said. So how could it make sense to buy the thing which was not available to buy? HD has been around on Usenet for quite awhile in 1080i OTA. Now it's mostly x264 1080p and 720p ripped off blu-ray or hd-dvd disc. I don't think it reasonable to compare HD to HD-Rip (apples to oranges) because both are fairly easy to obtain via usenet and they both have pros and cons (i.e. DVD quality small file size vs. superior quality but not cost/time effective in both downloading and archiving). But again, I agree with most of what you're saying. Distribution of 'pirated' content is streamlined much better because there is no red tape (DRM, licensing, etc.) to deal with and it's open compatibility formats.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 15:41:30 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY 1 edit	It made sense to buy HD over a year ago IF it were available because you couldn't find it all over the place. Even if you were being screwed in the ass by DRM, high prices, and subpar HD encoding, it would have beeen better than nothing. Now, it's not. Let's ignore the price for a second - nowadays, piracy is superior in portability, quality, and selection to the legal solutions. Yes, HDTV was posted to usenet one year ago, but in much smaller quantities, it wasn't as mainstreamed as it is now. And a lot of it sucked due to people posting HD lite streams or streams with bad reception, or streams cut up with inferior software that mess up sync(hdtvtompeg2) -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 16:02:54 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL 4 edits	I guess I did understand [part of what you were saying at least]. I'm sorry, but you're just plain wrong. If it were available a year ago, it would be pirated just as it is today, both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray; nothing would be different in early '06 because where there's a will, there's a way. There's just more 'hype' now. Also, it didn't suck before. In fact, in many ways I found it better because my vid card (as many other last or last-last gen cards) offload mpeg2 decoding to gpu so 10% cpu on 1920x1080i content whereas now, I can barely play 720p x264, even with CoreAVC. Notwithstanding, better selection many times from what's recorded; stuff you could never get otherwise (i.e. Live concerts in high def, BBC's Planet Earth). I've never heard of any issues with 'bad reception', at least from my experience nor have I ever had seen anything messed up as a result of hdtv2mpeg2. In fact, I think that's a great piece of software, IMO. Perhaps you should raise your beef with the author before passing it off as inferior; it does its intended purpose. see here: »www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre···66&pp=30
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 20:55:09 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY	said by hakujin: I'm sorry. No you're not. said by hakujin: If it were available a year ago, it would be pirated just as it is today It wasn't available a year ago. Not every show got posted in HD, not even every episode of the shows that were usually posted in HD. And very rarely, if ever, was the content reposted. Also, they were often posted 3-4 days after air, not five hours after air. It was more of a pain in the ass back then because there was no system, no organization to it. said by hakujin: I've never heard of any issues with 'bad reception Anyone who once regularly downloaded HD content posted as split transport streams and watched them who hasn't run into the bad reception or flickering, hasn't done it regularly. I am not talking about 'official' stuff, just joe blow caps and uploads. These people usually have no idea how to check for errors in the stream, or if the bitrate makes it even worth uploading(7.5 mbps mpeg2 HDTV? fuck that) said by hakujin: nor have I ever had seen anything messed up as a result of hdtv2mpeg2. I have. Say I chop something up with hdtvtompeg2 and split it - it's fine. Say I put it back together into one big 4-6 gig stream, it's still fine. Say I demux the audio, and reencode the video to something suitable for a portable media player, xvid 480x272. It won't remux the audio to the new xvid video in sync. dgindex, when demuxing, will tell you how out of sync audio is in milliseconds, and it's always right. It's an established tool when working with encoding video with audio in windows. If you resync the video with the audio with the same delay dgindex gives you upon demux, you won't get audio anywhere near in sync with the video. I have done numerous experiments with the program, that's just how it is. I haven't tried it since November 2006, because it's been like that for so long and there are free programs like projectx that do a much better job. It makes the stream useless for further processing. Programs like projectx and videoredo will not only repair errors on muxdown, but they put the audio back in sync! If you run dgindex on an HD stream, or anything cut my videoredo, you get 0 ms delay on the ac3. HDTVtompeg2 doesn't hurt the stream, but it does damage it to a point where you can't put it back together if you do something with it. said by hakujin: Perhaps you should raise your beef with the author before passing it off as inferior; it does its intended purpose. Complaining about free software is one thing, but bothering the developer is another. I've learned my lesson about criticizing free software to people who make it - it never goes well. -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 21:13:48 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL	Exactly, HD wasn't available on optical media (anybody here an echo?), so your argument WAS is if it were available, it would fill an otherwise void; people would buy it, and piracy would be less than what it is now? Wrong, piracy would be roughly the same. You said it would be better than 'nothing', but there was clearly 'something' so wrong there as well. Then you change track to television shows... Your argument wasn't whether or not Season 2 Ep. 5 of House was uploaded as a UMD file; this is silly. You made an over generalization that 'HD' wasn't available and are now back pedaling. I can show you at least 2-3 years of HD TV Rips to prove you wrong! Further, there has been a system in place by release groups for years now. Admittedly TV shows are a newer breed as opposed to movie releases (but certainly not that new). Most shows have been posted at most, the day after for well over a year now, so I have no idea what you're carrying on about. Reposting groups have been around for a lot longer and with premium subscription and 50+ days retention, it's not even an issue anyhow. Then there's torrents for pretty much anything else. I have no interest nor argument in remuxing HD to portable media, nor do most others so moot; HDTV2MPEG works for the common task of joining multiple .TS files from usenet to make a movie 'complete'. Yet another example of a broad statement that is later retracted into a myriad of details.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 21:58:00 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY 4 edits	said by hakujin: Further, there has been a system in place by release groups for years now. Admittedly TV shows are a newer breed as opposed to movie releases (but certainly not that new). Most shows have been posted at most, the day after for well over a year now, so I have no idea what you're carrying on about. Reposting groups have been around for a lot longer and with premium subscription and 50+ days retention, it's not even an issue anyhow. Then there's torrents for pretty much anything else. What the hell? No they weren't. The first true HD show that was ever put out was 24 5x19 by CTU, in x264, 900 MB, which got nuked because it wasn't HR HDTV(700 MB for 40 min, 960x528, xvid with ac3) or HDTV(some low shit 624x352 res, 128k abr mp3 audio, 350 MB xvid for 40 min). Before this, ANYTHING of true HD(mpeg2) was put on usenet for the most part, 3-4 days after air, by a usenet poster independent of organized TV internet releasing, and a royal pain in the ass to track down and find half the time. said by hakujin: Exactly, HD wasn't available on optical media (anybody here an echo?), so your argument WAS is if it were available, it would fill an otherwise void; people would buy it, and piracy would be less than what it is now? I never said piracy would be less than it is now, you seem to be. I said there'd be a point to it because, it'd be easier to access. Yes, back then it was harder to get the same stuff as now because of the way things were distributed in the world of online copyright infringement, so I would maybe buy it so I could have the whole season in HD, with no skipping, or so I could have it after air instead of 3 days after air. Maybe you're talking about HD rips like LOL, xor, notv, etc. I am not talking about that. I am talking about the 4-5 gig per ep posts of the original mpeg2 capture. The stuff you could watch on fullscreen and not see pixelation and other garbage. said by hakujin: Then you change track to television shows... Your argument wasn't whether or not Season 2 Ep. 5 of House was uploaded as a UMD file; this is silly. You made an over generalization that 'HD' wasn't available and are now back pedaling. I can show you at least 2-3 years of HD TV Rips to prove you wrong! I don't care what you can show me. I already know what it was like finding HD stuff on usenet(not 960x540 xvid, I mean real HD) and other places a year ago, it was a fucking pain in the ass. Some episodes would be skipped over and never posted, some episodes would have subpar reception, some would be lower bitrate than others. There was no organization. I never said it wasn't there, you are putting those words in my mouth so you can "prove me wrong" - I said it was harder, and less available, and that was true. Yes, stuff was there. I know this - I downloaded it, I watched it. But it wasn't as good as it is now. said by hakujin: I have no interest nor argument in remuxing HD to portable media, nor do most others so moot; HDTV2MPEG works for the common task of joining multiple .TS files from usenet to make a movie 'complete'. Yet another example of a broad statement that is later retracted into a myriad of details. I haven't retracted shit. The program is there for editing, and combining streams. If I can't remux after I edit, then why use it over something free like projectx for what I intend to use it for? The program is for editing too - so I should be able to use it for this and expect it won't mutilate the stream it is rewriting. Jsust because you don't use it for this doesn't mean others have tried to, and gleefully wasted their time when they received an output stream that was useless for any sort of reencoding. My point still stands. A year ago, when getting video that'd fill a 720p TV without too much pixelation and artifacting was a pain in the ass, maybe some would have dealt with this service. Now that TRUE HD(or damn close to it - unlike the other two kinds of "HD" xvid I pointed out before) can be had at higher quality than itunes's store, without DRM, why bother with it? Either offer something better, or STFU - no one's rushing to buy their HD content. -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 22:31:21 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL 2 edits	LOL, the 1st true 'HD', only to be later superseded in the same paragraph by 'true HD (mpeg2)'. The tangled web you weave with your wording. Hard to follow your points... they keep changing, and all this back pedaling is messing up the links on my 10 speed chain. I could continue on with this nonsense but I Have 'true HD' to get to. Cheers, and no hard feelings
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 22:49:30 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY 2 edits	said by hakujin: LOL, the 1st true 'HD', only to be later superseded in the same paragraph by 'true HD (mpeg2)'. The tangled web you weave with your wording. Compare episodes of those quality to the original. Then compare episodes of any other encode class to the original. Then you'll see why I called either true HD. ..Or maybe you haven't watched any. Also, it's back peddling when I change my stance. It's not back peddling when I reexplain the same point in more detail because you purposely misinterpret it. -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 22:52:56 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL 3 edits	No, you should re-read your original and 4th post. Now you're making entirely different points. Now what you're arguing is only relevant to you and the 10 other teenagers of the world that actually tweak out at the subtle difference(s) between a mpeg2 and mpeg4 HD television release or honor the 'day' a 'proper' x264 HD television release with a certain bit rate as thought it were a deity. Do you really think I was arguing the day a x264 HD television show release was uploaded to usenet? LOL I see that you're 18. Good luck on your 1st class in philosophy, particularly in fallacies of reasoning.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 23:09:42 ·

thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY 4 edits	said by hakujin:Now you're making entirely different points. Now what you're arguing is only relevant to you and the 10 other teenagers of the world that actually tweak out at the subtle difference(s) between a mpeg2 and mpeg4 HD television release or honor the 'day' a 'proper' x264 HD television release with a certain bit rate The irony is that I brought that up because they are both true HD to me for most intents and purposes(unless I'm paying for it). Not to point out differences in the x264 vs the original, that only someone with a magnifying glass to their TV would care about. x264 and mpeg2 stuff, throughout this thread, I've referred to as good HD. Again, I'm not making different points. You're just interpreting what I say as the opposite of what I say so you can say I'm wrong. People do it all the time to troll the cooler, and other forums on this site. I'm not dumb enough to miss it when I see it. What I've argued is simple. Getting HD that looked nice in fullscreen was hard a year ago, and is easy now. If this service were around when it were harder to get HD that looked nice on a fullscreen, it may have been more widely used. People would download the high res version on itunes, look at LOL's, and say "wow, this is great." Today, with HD that looks almost the same as the original all over the internet, someone is less likely to say that. Someone is less likely to be as impressed with the iTunes 1280x720, and less likely to deal with the lack of cross compatibility you get with iTunes media. How you mutilated that point down to "go to school because I'm too smart to argue with you" is beyond me. Although I am glad you took the time out to check unrelated posts for information not relevant to this topic for flame-ammo - it's good to be thorough when trolling. -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 23:20:57 ·
ProtusMose Immortal. Eternal. Premium join:2001-10-03 Bellevue, NE kudos:4	reply to hakujin Your mom.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 23:39:36 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL 4 edits	reply to thender2 ... and reality tells the 'rest of us' that HD that looks nice on 'fullscreen' (don't you mean widscreen?) has been around for quite longer for those that know how to get it. Obviously 'nice' is subjective and the rest of us (say 99% of humans) think DVD quality is 'nice' but nevertheless HD as you mentioned (generally speaking, not x264 mpeg4 high bitrate tv rips) HAS been around for longer than a year on usenet, that was my point; not all your semantical specifics. You should be clearer from the get-go so as to avoid misunderstandings because you certainly don't represent the norm. Off topic, but your take of regular people is wack. Consumers prefer ultra-easy and socializing 1st and foremost; most are not overtly concerned about imperfections between HD, DVD, and xvid mpeg4 rips, particularly when it's FREE. That's what drives piracy. Yet you actually think that people would split hairs between a 720p x264 rip and something HD on iTunes?! Pffffftt... What 70"+ tv are you watching this stuff on? I need to get a better job like the rest of the country [implied I think] if I'm the only one that thinks a x264 or even 10mb (avg. bitrate) mpeg2 HD looks superb on my 37" LCD. Somehow I get the feeling that I'm not. But I digress... People would more likely download the LOL version and say, "Wow, it looks the same on my TV; why did I pay for this version?" Also, most people WOULD NOT consider downloading from usenet easy; particularly those that download content from iTunes. That's why you rarely here about usenet in the news (RIAA/ MPAA letters etc). Edit: Yeah, I'm a troll... based on what? Your ambiguity? lol
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 23:48:52 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL 4 edits	reply to ProtusMose 'JO MOMMA! I'm out! Or am I? NO HARD FEELINGS; all in good fun I hope.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-29 23:52:18 ·
thender2 Glamour Profession Premium join:2004-05-16 Staten Island, NY	reply to hakujin I think people would split hairs over the one on iTunes and the x264 on usenet. The one on usenet doesn't have DRM, it's free, and it'll play on everything(that can play x264). You don't have to mention video quality(nor do I think itunes 720p vs usenet 720p should be much different in that area). The difference between LOL and x264, on a bigscreen, is something I think even the average apple consumer may notice. Not the kind that uses composite video to hook up his hdtv, but the more average kind, sure. It's a difference you don't have to focus on to see, it's nicer. Usenet isn't in the news as much because it's harder. It's not "let's download some stuff and see who uploaded it", it's "let's subpoena the news provider and hope the logs haven't been purged by the time it gets there." -- The Problem With Music. Our Rationale Time to rewrite the DMCA.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-30 00:12:03 ·
hakujin join:2004-02-19 Chicago, IL 4 edits	I guess I don't see an average user with a bigscreen HDTV. I have a 37" and I'm perfectly content with Xvid TV. It backs up nice on the media that's abundantly available now, and the sacrifice in video quality is not a big concern in relation to TV shows. Obviously this may change if my wife stays to her word and lets me purchase a 70" when we move. But I still think LOL will be preferred across the masses because well... it is. It's free, and works across many platforms with relative ease; it's economical and its ubiquitous. Same can't be said about x264 but that will of course change with time. Sure people would notice the quality difference between a LOL rip and x264, but a lot more time and cost goes into x264. We don't all have access to FIOS I agree with remark on usenet. Not just harder for the predator, but also the prey. Bittorrent is a lot easier to understand (e.g. less steps, more streamlined, usually files not even compressed, etc.). Hence, it's more popluar; more news coverage.
	to forum · permalink · 2007-03-30 00:35:42 ·

AppleTV Impressions > This isn't new at all..