[pgnewarkboy]

My ISP, COMCAST, has set limits on how much I can download without paying extra charges. This is a trend in the industry. Movies are dowload intensive and thus impracticable to use for a file swapping service. After all, the whole idea is to get FREE movies.


I am sure the MPAA knows this. Congress, apparently, does not. It seems that they are trying and suceeding at confusing congress and the public about their true intent. They don't have to worry about dowloading. They simply want to eliminate copies for personal use.

 

[JMartinko]

Quote:

Originally posted by pgnewarkboy .....It seems that they are trying and suceeding at confusing congress and the public about their true intent. They don't have to worry about dowloading. They simply want to eliminate copies for personal use.

I think you waaay under-estimate the MPAA and Jack Valenti. What they REALLY want is Pay-Per-View and Pay-Per-Play for all television content. Eliminating the ability to make personal copies is only the first step. Why do you think you hear so much about "On-Demand" systems? That way you would have to pay for anything and everything you watch EACH TIME you watch no matter when you watch it.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Quote:

They simply want to eliminate copies for personal use.

But if you are downloading a movie from the net, then its not even legal for personal use, right? So I'm not sure why the presence of download limits keeping people from practically downloading lots of movies means that all other attempts to implement DRM are invalid.


Also, a lot of people don't have download limits, and MPEG4 can make a download pretty reasonably sized for folks with broadband, and they are generally made available in chunks that you get down one at a time (over a couple days if you have download limits) and recombine. Probalby plenty of people downloaded the MPEG4 rip off of LOTRs.

 

[trbarry]

Blank DVD-R's & DVD-RW's are just over a buck these days and each can hold a few movies at typical download resolutions. Once every high school and college kid has a DVD burner the cost will be about the same as blank CD's are now. The MPAA is maybe barking at the wrong mailman.


- Tom

 

[chrisbui]

Where can you get DVD-R and DVD-RW for just over $1? From what I hear they're $3.50 at the cheapest (CompuUSA I believe) and up to $10 per DVD. I'm still hoping for the prices to drop to about $0.10 per DVD media like the CD-Rs are priced at now so that I can truly consider purchasing a DVD Burner for my computer.

 

[Trevor L]

bout 1.50 @ http://store.yahoo.com/meritline/index.html

 

[tomwid]

Can you clarify how Comcast is implementing this? I have Comcast and I don't have a download limit, only a cap on availible bandwidth at 1.5mbit. Which is decent, when Comcast was using @Home, we were capped at 3mbit.


Are you saying they are charging customers, that download above a certain ammount each month, extra? I have not heard anything about this, and yes, I download like crazy.

 

[Trevor L]

comcast contracted Giganews to provide newsgroup servers to comcast customers. The "free" accounts you get have a limit of 1GB per month, but if you go over you allotment they will let you keep downloading and subtract it from the subsequent months. It suks, but the are a lot of other news providers out there. You can get 20GB accounts for $12.


I don't think this will have any affect on piracy.

 

[Trevor L]

here's another cheap DVD store

http://www.supermediastore.com/dvdmedia.html


I've gotten good disk from both.

 

[Raid]

But what does this have to do with HDTV?

donloading some bad vcd cam copy of a move

or a svcd rip of a DVD.

both look like ****..and sound the same.

when someone uploads a FULL copy of a dvd then we will see.

 

[tomwid]

DVDs are availible for download. The most recent one to be made availible is Gladiator. This is the FULL DVD, if you have a DVD burner, you wont be able to tell the difference.


Check out www.isonews.com

 

[Raid]

FULL dvd?

you need to look again!

If you can't tell the difference then you need glasses and a hearing aid.

and still this has nothing to do with HDTV.

 

[peternm22]

Full DVD? So people are now putting 8GB movies on the internet for public consumption?


Give me a break...


Peter

 

[Trevor L]

4.36 GB and they are putting Xbox DVDs games on the net

 

[pgnewarkboy]

Try this link - I Cringely explains it much better than I did.


: Broadband Providers are Finding New Ways to Take More of Your Money




It is simply a matter of economics.

 

[pgnewarkboy]

Well that didn't work out. Sorry. Here is the link:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020516.html

 

[baimo]

AT&T sux.They are so desperate to make money they are hoping you will buy an upgraded service from them

 

[tomwid]

Raid, don't be a moron. You need to look at one, not me. Unless you've seen it, don't talk.


There is no compression, no loss of quality. As I said, FULL DVD, which means up to 8GB. Takes a couple of days, but hey, that's why I pay the big bux to my ISP.

 

[turbobuick86]

Those that are into serious heavy downloading subscribe to private newsfeedseds where there is no cap on speed, but most have 1 GB daily max on material. Many ISP's share common newfeeds that are free, but limit users to 128k down regardless of your capabilities.


Terry

 

[foundation]

There are other uses for lots of bandwidth other than piracy. I work for a company that generates MRI datasets that are a GB each. I like to work from home sometimes, and I need to download a sample dataset or two.


Also, I'm a photographer and so is my dad, we trade hi-res (65MB) pictures back and forth.


Flat rate pricing is part of what has gotten the internet so embedded in everybody's lives. They're shooting themselves in the foot if they try and switch to a pay per byte model in my opinion.