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  1. Member netmask56's Avatar
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    SONY 75" Full array 200Hz LED TV, Yamaha A1070 amp, Zidoo UHD3000, BeyonWiz PVR V2 (Enigma2 clone), Chromecast, Windows 11 Professional, QNAP NAS TS851
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  2. Im a studio level DVD/BD author and can tell you first hand Piracy has personally and directly affected me and my industry.
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  3. Member AlanHK's Avatar
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    Nothing unexpected except seeing a critique like this in a mainstream newspaper. Usually these simply regurgitate whatever bollocks the lobbyists send out in their press releases.

    Disturbing that politicians, who should have staff to analyse this for themselves, are willing to not only believe but act on these transparent lies.
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  4. The problem with trying to estimate losses to piracy is that any estimation will always be wrong.

    The usual way to estimate losses is to ascertain how many times a copyrighted work has been downloaded from networks such as Bittorrent, which can be done to a certain degree.

    The problem with using this method is that it doesn't take into account those who are downloading the work simply because it's there, "free" and available, and would never have purchased the work if it wasn't.

    Working out who is downloading the work because they are trying to avoid paying for it, and who is downloading the work just because they can, is totally impossible.

    What they usually do instead is use the "one download = one lost sale" formula, which will of course give them a completely inaccurate result, but on the plus side for them, it looks great if they are lobbying for a new piece of legislation.
    Last edited by mh2360; 22nd Mar 2011 at 15:24.
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    Originally Posted by videopoo View Post
    Im a studio level DVD/BD author and can tell you first hand Piracy has personally and directly affected me and my industry.
    really? care to explain in exactly what way piracy has "personally and directly" affected you and your industry?
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  6. Rather obvious dont you think? Whens the last time you bought a DVD? Most of the lost revenue in the DVD business as been lost to VOD however. My kids and their friends torrent films and music all the time. I used to fly off the handle but gave up.

    My DVD menu design business went under but was lucky to enough to find another gig with one of the Studios. Many friends have lost their jobs as well. Many factors of course but piracy is one of them.
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    It's kind of funny that i was watching the biography of Black Sabbath last night on the biography channel and they were talking about how the record company's were ripping them off in the 70's.

    They would play a single gig for $250,000.00 and would walk away with $1000.00 per member for that specific show & how they had to tour constantly just to pay lawyers to fight the crooks.

    And there are many many situations just like that over a few decades of them ripping off artist's to line their own greedy pockets!!

    I would not believe anything the RIAA had to say if it was engraved in a gold block pressed between 2 bibles.....
    LOL!!

    And before digital, cassette decks were killing their profits!!
    I am amazed they did not go belly up when the dual cassette deck came out and people were dubbing tapes by the boatload!!

    LOL!!!

    But of course, lack of quality product & attitude would never have anything to do with it
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  8. I like having the disc rather than a "digital copy" and I also like having the box with all the art work and extras. I don't like paying too much for it and it burns me when I think about that TV serie I bought for $80 a box set and now see under $20. This might be the only solution. Sell more for less and end up making more money, a principle Costco and Radiohead seem to have mastered.

    I guess it's hard to increase net profit by trimming the fat when one is set in his ways. A good place to start, would be to quit paying those lobby groups that only end up tarnishing the entertainment industry's image. BTW, Pot meet Kettle.

    Oh, and I just bought 3 complete series just a couple months ago and I have my sights on a boxset right now. All the while prowling for clearence sales.
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    Originally Posted by videopoo View Post
    Rather obvious dont you think? Whens the last time you bought a DVD? Most of the lost revenue in the DVD business as been lost to VOD however. My kids and their friends torrent films and music all the time. I used to fly off the handle but gave up.

    My DVD menu design business went under but was lucky to enough to find another gig with one of the Studios. Many friends have lost their jobs as well. Many factors of course but piracy is one of them.
    nothing is ever obvious when it comes to economics, nothing. in addition to having taken every micro and macro economics course my college offered (all my electives were business and economics courses) i held a real estate license and i also ran my own pest control business for about 4 years. i went from making $1000 a day (that's not a misprint, the best i ever did was $2500 in 3 hours) to closing shop with less than $500 a month total sales to driving a cab at night for 70 hours a week to pay my bills to taking a job with an animal control firm to being unemployed getting ui benefits.

    industries dry up, businesses close their doors and while it's easy to pick on one market reality and vilify it the reality is that more often the not the major factors are as follows:

    1) the industry and/or business became "fat and giggly" and stopped caring about their customers, leading them to take advantage of said customers by artificially inflating prices (gouging), reducing the amount of services/product offered at existing price points and flat out not caring.

    2) economic downturns which lead to lose of discretionary income, when that happens "luxury" items are the first to go. in economics goods are classified in 2 broad terms; "elastic" and "inelastic", an elastic good or service is one who's demand is dependent on the price of said good or service; conversely an inelastic good or service has demand which is independent of the cost of said good. gas, under a certain price point, behaves as an inelastic good, the tipping point seems to be about $4 a gallon, at which point it starts to shift to an elastic good, cigarettes have repeatedly proven to be a strongly inelastic good, their demand survives heavy taxation as well as price gouging. the entertainment industry is heavily an elastic good under most circumstances.

    3) the dvd menu design business was destined to go under as technology shifted towards blu-ray, video-on-demand (as you pointed out) and streaming video.

    there's also this reality, as some jobs dried up, other jobs sprung up and the sad reality is that your industry had an artificially inflated job market as way too many people, more people than were actually needed, had their hands in the pot sucking money from the cash cow that was the entertainment industry.

    in my business i met more than a few union workers that worked concerts, live events, tv shows (law and order used to be filmed less than 10 minutes from me), etc and for years they ate with golden spoons, these people would get their buddies, cousins, brothers, you name it really good paying jobs making sets, working concession stands at concerts, all kinds of behind the scene jobs and they milked these jobs for every penny they were worth.

    eventually what goes around comes around and now that there is a balancing act and the cash cow has dried up they are bitching and moaning because they have to work for main stream hourly wages rather than they ridiculous cash they were pulling in.

    it happened to the american auto industry, it happened to the real estate market, it happened to the pest control industry, it's happening to the entertainment industry and eventually it will happen to the oil industry; you can't abuse the system and expect to get away with it forever, eventually it abuses you back.
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  10. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by nic2k4
    I don't like paying too much for it and it burns me when I think about that TV serie I bought for $80 a box set and now see under $20.
    I had this feeling when I bought each of the Lord of the Rings extended edition dvds new at full price at first release. Recently they went cheap - the extended versions not the regular editions. That hurt. Those were expensive. Worth every penny but expensive. Then of course a couple of years go by and huge sets go for a lot less.

    Originally Posted by nic2k4
    I like having the disc rather than a "digital copy" and I also like having the box with all the art work and extras.
    The thing I like about having a real disc is I have something I can always go back to. Amazons vod has a download limit on your purchased videos. Of course you can burn the encrypted file to disc or backup on a harddrive but this is one more hassle. redownloading isn't a problem but the limit is. And just the hassle of it.

    I like the dvd or bluray because you know it will ALWAYS work in the certified players. You see the logo on the hardware you can play the disc. Pure and simple.

    It takes a lot more effort to backup and convert online sources. I was able to backup a amazon vod purchase with tunebite 7 purchased version and with 8 I wasn't able to anymore. I was able to backup some Itunes video purchases and was able to convert to dvd nicely - I haven't done that since I got 8 so I hope it still does.

    -------------------

    Way off topic here but I thought some here might appreciate my resolve and final solution. I was having such trouble backing up my recently purchased amazon vod videos. I tried the convert option with tunebite 8s internal player but it failed everytime. I tried to do the screen recording with the amazon unbox player. It would record the whole video but the picture would disappear about halfway through! I kept trying over and over with no luck. I even tried doing the screen recording with windows media player. It would work for a short while and then stop.

    My final solution?

    Realtime recording to my hauppuage hd pvr from my xbox 360 over composite while streaming the video to the xbox 360.

    Thats right. The xbox 360 can natively play a purchased amazon vod video without any streaming software like tversity or playon.

    So I had the output from the xbox 360 recording to the hauappauge hd pvr while it was streaming the video from the same computer. CRAZY!! But it worked. I was able to make a dvd from the h264 file and thats that. I still burnt a backup of the original encrypted wmv but deleted it off my harddrive so I can save the space.

    It shouldn't be this difficult to backup video you legally purchased. I want to be able to play it on other systems besides the computer.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  12. Mod Neophyte redwudz's Avatar
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    This thread doesn't seem to have much concerning 'Latest Video News'. Moving to Off Topic.

    Moderator redwudz
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  13. Member zzyzzx's Avatar
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    I've been looking for an opportunity to post this pic. I would make it my sig, but it's too big.
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  14. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by mh2360 View Post
    The problem with trying to estimate losses to piracy is that any estimation will always be wrong.

    The usual way to estimate losses is to ascertain how many times a copyrighted work has been downloaded from networks such as Bittorrent, which can be done to a certain degree.

    The problem with using this method is that it doesn't take into account those who are downloading the work simply because it's there, "free" and available, and would never have purchased the work if it wasn't.

    Working out who is downloading the work because they are trying to avoid paying for it, and who is downloading the work just because they can, is totally impossible.

    What they usually do instead is use the "one download = one lost sale" formula, which will of course give them a completely inaccurate result, but on the plus side for them, it looks great if they are lobbying for a new piece of legislation.

    There is another variable you're missing, supply and demand. Freely available illegal downloads dilute the value of the legal ones.
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  15. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Noahtuck View Post
    It's kind of funny that i was watching the biography of Black Sabbath last night on the biography channel and they were talking about how the record company's were ripping them off in the 70's.
    Define what is ripping them off? If you're offered a contract and take it that's your problem.

    I had some friends that were in a very popular local band and they were offered a sign your life away contract. They declined but mostly for the reason they were having a very good time doing what they were doing. Perhaps they gave up the chance to be the greatest band the world ever knew and untold millions but that was the choice they made. If you want to loosen the grip the media giants have on the industry support your local bands instead of buying what you hear on the radio....


    ------edit--------

    What's killing the industry especially the music industry is people like me. I've owned copies of albums on 8track, vinyl, cassette and CD. In some cases multiple copies of the same album on the same media. That all ended with the CD. I buy them used, rip em and they sit on the shelf... The never ending cycle of buying the latest and greatest format has eneded and the CD for all intents of purposes has a never ending shelf life.

    About the only thing that might peak my interest now is if they re released albums on non DRM digital format that more closely emulated the original vinly recordings e.g. better mastering.
    Last edited by thecoalman; 14th Mar 2013 at 09:17.
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  16. Originally Posted by zzyzzx View Post


    I've been looking for an opportunity to post this pic. I would make it my sig, but it's too big.
    I tried real hard and just can't seem to be able to figure out what's the point of that poster. Is the RIAA advocating prostitution? Are they saying that beautiful women are prostitutes and we have to pay them for sex?
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    I figured out what that photo was getting at the first time I read it!!
    LOL!!

    Really, after 2 years ?
    LMFAO!!!
    There have been lot's of bands that were ripped off and NOT paid what they were owed in royalties!!
    Even in the last decade!!
    Not because of a bad contract, but because they were lied to, profits hidden and stolen and the general crooks of the record companies that say they are out to protect the artist's when in fact they are just out to line their own greedy pockets!!

    Not long ago I read an article in one of my magazines where they showed a chart of record company sales over a few years & it actually went UP while they were saying they were losing money from piracy!!

    They play word games to try and make it seem like they are losing money and in the negative....
    Like a nationwide company I used to work for as upper management.

    Oh we can't do this or do that because we lost money this year and are in the hole.....

    Okay, when you made 50 million profit last year, and you only made 45 million profit this year, that is NOT losing money or being in the hole!!!

    It is not making as much money so the VP can't afford another 3 $350,000.00 cars instead of 2 to add to the other 50 high dollar cars he already brags about with photo's in the company newsletter....

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  18. Member ranchhand's Avatar
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    The RIAA is making a big deal out of something that soon will be a non-issue. DVD/CD players are going the way of all flesh, and soon there will be nothing but streaming. So... Big Entertainment will finally have what they have wanted, which is full control over everything you want to view or hear. I was in Best Buy today, and they have some computers with no DVD players in them. Indication of what's coming.
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  19. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by ranchhand
    and they have some computers with no DVD players in them. Indication of what's coming.
    Do you mean something like laptops/netbooks? That I can understand. If you mean full size desktops I find that hard to believe. I don't doubt what you saw I just mean I can't see that as a total trend.

    Though I do remember the first computer I got without a floppy drive sure surprised me. 2004 I think it was.

    But so long as sony pushes bluray I don't think they'll go to far in that direction.
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  20. Originally Posted by ranchhand View Post
    The RIAA is making a big deal out of something that soon will be a non-issue. DVD/CD players are going the way of all flesh, and soon there will be nothing but streaming. So... Big Entertainment will finally have what they have wanted, which is full control over everything you want to view or hear. I was in Best Buy today, and they have some computers with no DVD players in them. Indication of what's coming.
    That's a rather large assumption to make.

    Although the internet is very popular, there are those in the world who do not have access to a high quality internet connection, either by choice, their geographical location or their financial circumstances.

    Although streaming is taking off in a big way, I think there will always be physical media of one sort or another for those who want it.
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    When dvds are $2 to $5 per disc, I can't help but buy them. Getting close to $10 and especially above $12 I get pissed. I saw a post from someone who owns a label that he pays like $1000 for a menu. It might have been $5000, I forget. But whatever it was I was shocked. That's too much and on a couple of his discs there was no chapter menu. He must have decided to cut costs.
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  22. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by ranchhand View Post
    The RIAA is making a big deal out of something that soon will be a non-issue. DVD/CD players are going the way of all flesh, and soon there will be nothing but streaming. So... Big Entertainment will finally have what they have wanted, which is full control over everything you want to view or hear. I was in Best Buy today, and they have some computers with no DVD players in them. Indication of what's coming.
    I'll bet they didn't have any with floppy drives either. Optical media is old tech and being replaced. My latest build I can't even connect old drives, no IDE connection. Had to get one with SATA.
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    The laptops I've seen without optical drives don't have them because people want the machines smaller and lighter and there'd be no room for one.

    I use a netbook quite often nowadays and I do not miss not having an optical drive at all. If I didn't have something else with a dvd drive I may feel differently but maybe not. I've ripped all the discs I have that I want and haven't burned one in some time.

    About the article mentioned by the OP ... well, that writer's a hack, isn't he?

    The effects of piracy are somewhat overstated. Music just doesn't matter as much to the younger target market as it used to because all that targeted marketing means there are just a lot more entertainment alternatives for them.

    And I'm not surprised people aren't buying as many dvds anymore. I always thought it was kind of a stupid fad anyway. Just how many damn times are you going to watch a movie? Unless it's something like Lord of the Rings or movies for young kids, not that many.

    But to suggest that the effect of piracy is a conspiracy is just plain idiotic. Like conspiracy theories in general. University towns were the first places to see big falls in music sales when Napster started.

    About Black Sabbath being "ripped off". They probably thought that when a record company gives you a 6-7 figure advance they're just giving you all that money. They aren't. It's an advance. They're the bank. The artist pays for everything. Being a recording artist is not an escape from the world of business. You are a business.
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  24. A recent article on ARS Technica claims that piracy has negligible impact on the legal sale of music. This is coming from a serious organisation, it was done by the European commission.

    About optical drives, I recently read that DVD burners were going to be phased out by the end of the year. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to remember where I read that.
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  25. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by nic2k4
    I recently read that DVD burners were going to be phased out by the end of the year. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to remember where I read that.
    On the surface if true thats not the end of the world as bluray rom drives burn dvds as well.
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    Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    Originally Posted by nic2k4
    I recently read that DVD burners were going to be phased out by the end of the year. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to remember where I read that.
    On the surface if true thats not the end of the world as bluray rom drives burn dvds as well.
    Yep, "if" they do phase out dvd "only" burners, you will still be able to use DVDR's on BluRay burners.

    Kind of like CD only burners but still being able to burn CDR's on DVD & Blu-Ray burners.

    But I doubt SATA DVD Burners will be out of production by the end of the year.
    There are still way to many people that are not any where near wanting or needing Blu-Ray drives, although lately I have been seeing some Blu-Ray burners for $50.00 shipped.
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  27. Member ranchhand's Avatar
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    Although streaming is taking off in a big way, I think there will always be physical media of one sort or another for those who want it.
    Well, like many of us here, I have been tinkering and working in computers for decades. I've watched technology advance through the years, and what we think will always be around disappears. Look at how many DVDs are on Newegg. There used to be as much as 10 pages of DVDs offered, now they could all fit on one page and the price has dropped to the floor. Read the tea leaves, they don't lie. It is to the media industries benefit that everything will stream. No more having a library, every time you want to see a movie you will rent it for one eventing on a stream. If you want to see it again, you will pay again. I have extended where this is going but there is not enough space here to go into it (and probably nobody is interested either ). They figure that would be the end of their concept of "piracy" also.
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  28. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by ranchhand
    They figure that would be the end of their concept of "piracy" also.
    Not so long as the analog hole exists via component and devices like the hdpvr still exist. Granted thats a minority of users and I'm only advocating that for purchased material of course.

    One thing I do like in the streaming world is what ULTRAVIOLET is TRYING to do. I like that it is accessible on more than one service. I have bought the disc to digital versions of several movies on VUDU but I can access them on cinemanow and flixster. So I like the concept of starting to open up where and when you can watch your purchased material. I don't like being locked into one service.

    Even though I have some movies on amazon instant and stuff it is nice that most if not all streaming devices can access amazon and vudu and the like. So even if you buy it on just one service you can at least watch it on more than just one device. So you are not locked into one device.

    I still don't plan on buying just a streaming only copy of a movie. I still want a physical piece of media. As mentioned before here or in another thread I want bonuses and I want to satisfy the inner pack-rat in me. I want to SEE my collection when the power is off .

    Originally Posted by noahtuck
    I have been seeing some Blu-Ray burners for $50.00 shipped
    You mean BURNERS and not ROM only?? Not bad. Not bad at all.

    What are blanks going for these days? I haven't even considered bluray recordable media since the drives were pricey for quite awhile.

    Though I'm still going towards a media hub of my own. I'm considering getting a 2tb drive or a couple 1tbs so I can start doing more ripping and converting of my blurays. I'm dubbing some with my hdpvr and looking into the best route to go for my dts-ma only discs that won't dub to the hdpvr. Well actually they will dub but my ps3 outputs stereo only over the dolby digital 5.1 selection that the hdpvr requires.

    I have an old dual core so encoding whole blurays to 1080p is not practical. 720p might be quicker but its still very time consuming an old pc. I'm contemplating dubbing my blurays in realtime and then working out how to extract the audio from the bluray after ripping it to the pc and then somehow synching that with my dubbed video. I'm not sure how I'll work out the synch issue since my manual recording won't be a 100% exactly matched to the original video length. I'm gonna try though.

    Edit - also if my new sony bluray player will read a mkv of a ripped bluray without compressing it I may simply invest in a lot of harddrives and simply rip the discs whole and not bother, otherwise I'll just move my wdtv gen one into the other room and use that assuming it can handle the newest movies in a mkv file, it should just haven't tested it in awhile.

    Oh well, lots of rambling here but whatever.
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    Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    Originally Posted by noahtuck
    I have been seeing some Blu-Ray burners for $50.00 shipped
    You mean BURNERS and not ROM only??
    Yep!!
    I know the difference between Blu-Ray burners and Blu-Ray roms....
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