Thymadman
Mine Mine
join:2002-08-07
Brooklyn, NY | Greed
Talk about Greedy. $5 for an episode, completely stupid and not worth it IMO
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If you can buy it, it's old! |
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claco
join:2002-09-29
Tallmadge, OH | Forget the price increase, I still don't understand why I have to pay anything at all for something that was broadcast over public airwaves and that I could record myself.
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Six of one, 1,426/2,852 dozen of the other. |
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kalphearion
In nomine Patri
Premium
join:2003-11-08
Denver, CO
clubs:
 ·Comcast
| said by claco  :Forget the price increase, I still don't understand why I have to pay anything at all for something that was broadcast over public airwaves and that I could record myself. To some level I do agree with you. |
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dualsub2006
join:2007-07-18
Newport, KY
| reply to claco
You don't have to pay anyone anything. DVR the stuff and then use your DVD recorder. Move it to your computer, chop the commercials, add some fades to make the transitions smooth and you have it done.
NBC can sit and spin, I've been getting it for free for a very long time. |
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Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA
| reply to claco
said by claco :Forget the price increase, I still don't understand why I have to pay anything at all for something that was broadcast over public airwaves and that I could record myself. Maybe for the same reason you can't walk into a store and walk out without paying for a DVD copy of some show you could have recorded yourself. |
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GunnarDanne
join:2002-12-02
Crown City, OH | Yeaaaa but when you do that, you steal the media it was copied to and the box. |
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tlcbob
join:2001-07-11
Harrisburg, PA | reply to Sammer
Hold on a second - it IS legal to record tv transmissions for personal use.... |
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anaon444
@swbell.net
| reply to dualsub2006
And YOU have figured out how to get this protected content off EVERY DVR in the world to a computer? What a Genious you are!
said by dualsub2006 :You don't have to pay anyone anything. DVR the stuff and then use your DVD recorder. Move it to your computer, chop the commercials, add some fades to make the transitions smooth and you have it done. NBC can sit and spin, I've been getting it for free for a very long time. |
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Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA
| reply to tlcbob
said by tlcbob :Hold on a second - it IS legal to record tv transmissions for personal use.... Yes but the iTunes store is a commercial service so personal use doesn't apply. |
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dualsub2006
join:2007-07-18
Newport, KY
| reply to anaon444
Re: Greed
YES! I am a GENIUS! And I'm not gonna tell YOU how I did it.
For everyone else, it is called a DVD recorder. I RECORD the content while I WATCH the content. Live or from DVR. I got mine at Best Lie for like $150 to some VCR tapes to DVD.
If I weren't such a GENIUS I never would have figured that out. |
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Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA
·Comcast
 ·SONIC.NET
4 edits | reply to Thymadman
Re: Greed
said by Thymadman :Talk about Greedy. $5 for an episode, completely stupid and not worth it IMO I didn't know episodes were available for $2 each. Too many MBAs involved: they announce a capability will be available soon, then get so mad at those of us who want to know when it is available that they never tell us that. I knew they would have it soon but never knew they actually had it. Anyway, $2 per episode is about the maximum reasonable price
, and if I had known they had it, I would have looked for things NBC sells that I might be interested in. Now, I won't, since they don't offer it, and $5 is exorbitant, not just because I say so, but simply because it cannot fit within my budget (as in it would make me homeless and die if I tried to pay for that garbage for $5 each 45 minutes).
Another thing that would help is if Apple stopped trying to piss me off by using obviously and blatantly deceptive pricing like "99 cents" in stead of $1, "1.99" instead of $2.
If iTunes announced something like this:
"We now have two years worth of over half of NBC's (ABC's, FOX's, etc.) programs available for download NOW using paypal or credit card for $2 each episode of 45 minutes or more ($1.50 for episodes 30 minutes or less)"
... then I would have been buying so much I would only be limited by my budget.
Edit: I am trying iTunes for the first time in my life right now. I couldn't find anything I wanted to watch (that's what makes Tivo method supposedly so great), so I chose an old episode I already watched, just to test everything. I was able to create the account (it takes paypal or credit card network based debit card), and it brought me back to the page where the BUY button for $2 minus a cent was again, I pressed it, confirmed yes, and the download began. It is "482.4MB" for a 44 minute episode (SG-1 10-3 The Pegasus Project), and claims it will take "3 hours" to download despite it coming what seems like a heck of a lot faster (Azureus is a LOT more accurate about ETA). It is limited by my blazingly fast up to 768kbps DSL inbound speed.
NOTE that I had to see this discussion thread to internalize that $199 wasn't TWO HUNDRED NINETY NINE DOLLARS. Psychologically "$2" is a LOT less than "$1.99".
I work as a cashier. These days most children don't get their change. There's a few reasons for this, but chief among them is revealed by what almost a third of them insist: "KEEP THE CHANGE!" What they mean is all that worthless clunky metal money that no longer adds up to anything useful fast enough (they want the paper money usually, although some of them even forgoe those pesky low value $1 bills). They say this for any amount: 99 cents, 1 cent, 75 cents -- usually much more than just 30 cents, often 60 cents and stuff, and they mean it. (Other reasons they don't get the change is they forget, but they forget not just because they're stupid but also because the force for them to remember isn't as great these days). So, cents are WORTHLESS. So, in a price, they and I only care about DOLLARS. So, when a price is "199", it looks like ONE HUNDRED NINETY NINE DOLLARS, not one dollar and ninety nine cents. MBAs are SO STUPID about continuing to put 99 cents in prices.
Edit 2: Apparently, I can start watching the show before it has finished downloading. That is great. However, there is a problem: I started watching it, and the quality sucks: (a) iTunes show has horrible movement artifacts that I never see in XVID versions of smaller sizes and lower bitrates! Big chunky movements! (b) It is extremely grainy -- how do they accomplish so much graininess? XVID shows are usually very sharp in comparison. Perhaps it is better than I know and I just don't see it yet, but it looks really bad compared to what I was used to. Perhaps my expectations were really high considering how much quality COULD be delivered with the iTunes model.
Using the iTunes model, getting Comcast makes more sense: I don't need as much outbound bandwidth, but obviously need more inbound. (I am already doingg a test install Monday to see how they are. I'll review it then.) I continued to watch the show, then when it ran into the download edge, I looked at its download statistics better. This is what I saw: quality still grainy (sandy), and movement badly represented, sound OK (not great) -- so far, worse than xvids from USENET/BT I've seen. I didn't check for subtitles or alternate languages yet to see if they have them. I haven't gotten to the action scenes yet (if there are any). The download information is too sparse: it only tells me ___._ "MB", not defining "MB", not telling me the current rate (which I calculated by timing it manually to be the maximum theoretical limit of my DSL connection as delivered (lots of overhead), not bad in itself), and it doesn't tell me how far it got in time. It also doesn't tell me the episode #. |
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Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA
·Comcast
·SONIC.NET
1 edit | reply to Anon
Ross,
what the other poster was saying is that you failed to consider that:
* You pay for cable
* You pay for television set
* You pay for DVD recorder
* You pay for DVD media
or
* You pay for DVR
or
* You pay for computer
* You pay for Internet connection
also, you pay for electricity, time spent doing the above, etc..
Those of us who discuss delivery prices talk about quality and quantity. Right now, the proposed $5 wouldn't have gotten enough quantity, and I posited that back when it was $2 minus one cent it had inferior quality due to lack of knowledge that it existed, but otherwise I bet iTunes might have had decent codecs that my system could handle (i.e., high res high bitrate XVID/something else as good), but I don't know. BT/USENET have half decent quantity and pretty darn good quality, but aren't always available (legally), however the prices are reasonable. But it always still costs money: whatever system you chose, you are paying for it. So, the question becomes what is the quality, quantity for that? Well, the quality of illegal is bad in itself. Besides and including that consideration, it is the quality and quantity we are discussing about NBC: if the quantity is 0 using their medium, it is insufficient for NBC to continue. If the quantity is one third of what it should be for the price paid, then it is overpriced, and insufficient in that regard, which is true of $5 per episode.
MBAs (which as a rule are always retarded in every way), and those discussing MBAs (because MBAs need all the guidance they can get), need to understand the basic fundamentals of what they're discussing to have any real progress that lasts to improve the MBAs' inevitably horrible offerings.
If a high quality show was offered for $1 to $2 per show (not 99 cents nor 99 cents plus 100 cents or anything dumb like that) using high quality codecs that my system could handle (I use it as a litmus test since it is a fast machine but not superfast so it is right where the dividing line can be), then it is reasonable. Double that price is unreasonable. $2 for a show that is not good is too much. $2 for a good show that has crappy codecs is too much. $2 for anything that I don't know about because they announced it only way way back when it was most likely just vaporware is irrelevent because I'll never buy it that way, and if I ever watch it, it will be via some other way. Not offering it at all of course doesn't conduct any business.
I use my full time minimum wage income (which is common for citizens these days due to government illegal alien employment encouragement and lack of controls for sending business to aliens) as the obvious measure for this stuff.
P.S., what shows did NBC offer? I never keep track of which old fasioned network is transmitting something, since I don't tune via those any more; I tune via other networks, and know very much about those. |
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GoD of KaOs
Agent of KaOs
join:2001-01-29
Chatsworth, CA
| reply to kalphearion
said by kalphearion :said by claco :Forget the price increase, I still don't understand why I have to pay anything at all for something that was broadcast over public airwaves and that I could record myself. To some level I do agree with you. Cable companies ask that same question when they negotiate a price to carry network channels. |
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LeftOfSanity
join:2005-11-06
Felton, DE
| reply to GoD of KaOs
Re: Greed
said by GoD of KaOs :said by kalphearion :said by claco :Forget the price increase, I still don't understand why I have to pay anything at all for something that was broadcast over public airwaves and that I could record myself. To some level I do agree with you. Cable companies ask that same question when they negotiate a price to carry network channels. Exactly. People bitch about price increases, yet they don't think about the content providers. They want a big piece of the action.
Think about it, they want 5 bucks for an Ipod version of 1 show. Imagine if services were Ala carte. |
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ross
join:2000-08-16
·Digizip
1 edit | reply to Anon
I don't have anything against a major network trying to double its profits by selling their own recordings of TV shows to people who missed the opportunity to record the original broadcast, as long as the network doesn't try to restrain the free distribution/sharing of similar recordings made by original contemporaneous audiences without charge to others for non-commercial enjoyment. The market, offset by file sharing, will act to rein in prices and keep things reasonable for those too lazy to have recorded the original broadcasts themselves, or to download from usenet, or via p2p.
However, in the case before us, NBC is seeking to double/treble its already doubled profits (made possible by the existence of outlets such as the iTunes store) by picking the pocket of the middleman. They are seeking to raise the wholesale cost/retail price beyond supportable limits; essentially asking Apple to pay over Apples existing margins, and forcing Apple to try and recoup the loss through pricing levels that can't be supported by the extent marketplace. At $1.99 (too high), the current price of NBC's offerings through iTunes exhausts the convenience factor. At $4.99, it's outrageous, simply price-gouging, and doomed to fail leaving Apple holding the bag.
It is one thing for NBC to price themselves out of the market, as that is their right, but quite another to ask Apple to subsidize their idiocy. |
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smcallah
join:2004-08-05
Home | reply to anaon444
Analog outputs on DVR's are not protected. |
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