$2 each....

[laurion]

Babylon 5 has now made its way onto the iTunes store. Season one so far, but others are on their way. As someone who (he admits sheepishly) has only seen a handful of episodes, this is a dangerous thing.

On an unrelated note, people who do technical work are frequently called technicians, but very few people who do medical work are called medicians.....

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Comments

[taellosse.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, software exists which can convert DVD video into mp4s for the iPod anyway, so you could buy them on physical discs and then get it onto the iPod if that was your thing. Me, I don't watch all that much video on my iPod, though I do have some--mostly random music videos I like.

Sampling a show you might not watch makes sense, though. $2-4 to determine whether you like something is fairly trivial. On the other hand, renting it also works pretty well (that's how I determined I liked Stargate SG-1 enough to buy, as well as, more recently, Battlestar Galactica) and with things like Netflix, the cost of that is fairly low as well.

You do have a point about loss of physical space with DVDs, though. We've got a closet devoted to movies and such, and, while the space is used somewhat inefficiently, it's overfull and only gets worse. Trouble is, We pretty much just watch movies and TV series on the actual TV, and occasionally a computer screen, so digital formats don't make much sense for us.

I prefer to avoid buying physical CDs anymore as well, for most of the same reasons, though my collection is only about a third the size of yours (even including my wife's, its still less than 400 discs). I listen to them pretty much exclusively on my computer or through my iPod anyway, so I may as well just own them in that format. The liner notes aren't that important to me, since most of the time lyrics can be found with a web search if one cares, and otherwise they sit in a sleeve on a shelf collecting dust, along with the discs.

[laurion]

There is software which can convert DVDs, but that is of dubious legality as well, as it generally had to bypass the built in copy protection to do it. To my mind, it is fair use. I should be able to convert my movie to take with me on my ipod, but the question has yet to be answered by congress or the courts.

Renting costs at least $2, and has less convenience than an iTunes download. Netflix works if you have it, but I haven't the time for it, so it would actually be of less value for me.

I built my own DVR (TiVo), so my TV is a computer monitor of sorts, and it would be trivial for me to watch an iTunes purchase there if I chose. In my case digital formats do make sense. I still do almost all my watching with material that comes over the cable connection, but the very first thing that happens is the DVR captures it digitally (and then set skippoints so I don't get commercials). I don't even have a video iPod, actually. (I have an old 40GB B+W)

[taellosse.livejournal.com]

Seeing as how the creation of mix tapes, and the copying of VHS tapes for personal use was accepted by the courts and Congress long since, I find it unlikely that, should it ever actually make it to a courtroom, the results of copying something you already own into another format for your own use is going to be treated any differently. Its when you put it on a p2p network, or give it to friends, that the legality starts to get somewhat murky.

We still haven't got a DVR, though we've talked about getting one recently, nor do we bother with true cable anymore--we only get about a dozen channels total--so much of our viewing is done via DVD. We both have our own Netflix accounts, and, on average, go through at least 6 discs apiece per month, and often more. That comes out to slightly more than $2 per disc, but if I were to DL them from iTunes, I'd have to convert them into another format and burn them to disc for us to watch them on a proper TV, so I figure the half a dollar or so extra is worth it--especially since the selection on Netflix is much larger than iTunes.

But I can see how that option would make more sense for you than me. Our circumstances differ, so the direction we're likely to take to arrive at the same endpoint is likely to be different.

[taellosse.livejournal.com]

I admit I haven't watched the issue all that terribly closely. I've never been terribly interested in the legal details, honestly. It'll happen, and the tools necessary to make it happen will be available, regardless of the legality. If I find myself wanting to make a copy, I'll get what I need to do so. I'm not going to start selling pirated movies or music or anything, but as far as I'm concerned, if I paid for it, I can do with it as I please.

The 2 Netflix accounts has more to do with the fact that we each had it before we moved in together than anything else. At that time, it wasn't possible to set up profiles for multiple people on a single account, as it is now, and there's also the fact that we've both got queues numbered in the hundreds, that neither of us wants to take the time and energy to recreate on a new account. Our combined accounts cost cost the same amount as the 6-at-a-time version does (actually, oddly, its 1 cent cheaper), so there's no reason to change it, really.

[jducoeur]

I've never been terribly interested in the legal details, honestly. It'll happen, and the tools necessary to make it happen will be available, regardless of the legality.

Mayyybe. To the hacker, likely true. But at the consumer level, it's becoming steadily harder, quite rapidly. Most consumer-grade tech these days obeys the copy-protection bits, and it's getting to the point where consumer-grade computers are doing so as well.

So while I suspect that the dedicated hacker will always be able to circumvent copy-protection, it's fairly likely that those avenues will close for 95% of the public, fairly soon...

[taellosse.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm no hacker. I've never had all that much trouble tracking down the tools I need before, though, whether its media or software. I am a firm believer in benefiting from the effort of others, and hackers inclined to circumvent such restrictions frequently do so out of philosophical objections to the protections, and then make their cracks available online. It takes a bit of creativity and diligence to track down something, but it's rarely impossible to find.

On the other hand, 95% of the public can't navigate the internet as well as I can, most likely (that's not intended to sound arrogant or anything, it's just probably true), so you're undoubtedly correct all the same.

[laurion]

Mix Tapes and VHS tapes are legal yes, but the legality question isn't whether it is legal to make copies for personal use, it is whether or not is is legal to bypass the encryption that DVDs now carry. Please note also that more recent VHS tapes also had copy protection technologies included. But the DMCA (new legislation) has made it illegal to bypass encryption, to make tools that bypass encryption, etc. So it may well be illegal to convert the video, not because you are converting it (which is legal) but because you are bypassing the manufacturer's restrictions. The MPAA and RIAA have spent the last 10 years trying to forcibly legislate their way into new controls over what the end consumer can do with the products they pimp out. See http://www.eff.org/IP/fairuse/ and http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/ for more information. Generally the EFF site is a bit rabid, but provides good coverage of the issues. You can also read up in more rationally toned articles on Ars Technica.

Re: cable, I find there are two people out there, TiVo people and NetFlix people. People use one or the other to fill their watching hours, and no one really has enough time for both (although I know people who have both). There are definitely arguments on both sides of the camp. Me, I like watching shows when they are first broadcast, and don't want to wait for them to come out on DVD, so I TiVo. Both options give you a huge amount of variety, and a great deal of flexibility with your time.

I do marvel a bit that you have two netflix accounts. Wouldn't it be cheaper to have one that allowed for more discs out at once?

[Edit: Updated with more useful links]