Streaming BBC iPlayer Stinks

Posted on December 17, 2007 by Mark

So, I thought I’d give the iPlayer from the BBC a try. It comes in two flavors: A downloadable application and a Flash player version. The downloadable version is Windows only, so I had to try the Flash version.

I was impressed by the ease of accessing the actual shows. All you have to do it navigate to the page and click on a show to start watching the most recent episode.

Unfortunately, starting the show is all I could do. No matter which shows I tried to watch, they all ended about three to five minutes in with a message that there was a problem playing the video.

So, once again, in an effort to protect the rights holders from having to get off their butts and innovate, we’ve got yet another video site that doesn’t work as well as bittorrent.

Oh well, maybe next time…

Posted in Tech | 2 Comments

Apple TV Killed by the DMCA

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Mark

There have been a number of reports in the media about the failure of the Apple TV. While right, none of them have correctly identified the problem. Namely the DMCA.

The DMCA makes it illegal to break an encryption key used to protect copyrighted content. In plain english, while Apple can ship iTunes with the ability to rip CDs, they can’t, by law, add the ability to rip DVDs to iTunes.

There is no technical challenge to ripping DVDs, any more than CDs. It’s simply that they would be breaking the law.

Absent the ability to rip DVDs, the only use for Apple TV is to buy movies from the iTunes Store.

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Unlocked iPhone Available to Entire EU

Posted on October 17, 2007 by Mark

There have been a number of US sites reporting that when the iPhone goes on sale in France, it’ll be available in both locked-to-Orange and unlocked versions.

The unlocked version will apparently cost more than the locked version.

This means two things:

1) The phone is being subsidised, like most phone. It’s just not as transparent.
2) Anyone in the EU will be able to buy an unlocked iPhone.

The EU is a single market. This means anyone can go to France, buy an unlocked iPhone, and take it back to their own EU country and Apple can’t stop them (well, legally. They might try as they do with the iTunes Store).

I expect a lot of people to buy unlocked iPhones in France and ship them to other EU countries.

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Is George W. Bush a Copyright Criminal?

Posted on October 5, 2007 by Mark

In a Washington Post article dated Friday, December 16, 2005, available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121502378.html, President Bush is asked about the music on his iPod.

President Bush is quoted as saying, in part, that one of the artists on his iPod is The Beatles.

As you may know, none of The Beatles songs are available on the iTunes Store or on any other online music store. The only way to get them onto an iPod is to copy them from a Beatles CD.

Jennifer Pariser, Sony BMG’s the head of litigation, recently testified, when asked if it was “okay if a consumer makes just one copy of a track they’ve legally purchased. She said no — that’s “a nice way of saying, ‘steals just one copy.’”

So, it seems the position of Sony BMG is that George W. Bush is a thief. I wonder when they’ll file the lawsuit.

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iTunes UK TV Shows. Is Apple Kidding?

Posted on August 29, 2007 by Mark

The Apple UK iTunes Store started offering television shows and boy, what a rip-off. First, the price is too high. Second, you get lower quality, third, it’s locked to your Apple hardware.

In the US. The price for series 1 of Lost is $34.99. That’s about £18 including tax at the current exchange rate. So what is Apple charging for the same thing in the UK? £34.99. That’s about $70. Nice profit margin for someone, but I’m sure not going to pay it.

Even leaving out the UK/US price comparison, you can buy the series one DVD box set from Amazon UK for £32.97. That’s the total price with free shipping and look at what you get for money:

* A higher resolution picture (720×576 for PAL vs. 640×480 for iTunes video)
* Dolby Digital 5.1
* Lost Flashbacks All New Unaired Flashbacks
* Welcome To Oahu The Making Of The Pilot Behind The Scenes Featurette
* The Genesis Of Lost
* The Art Of Matthew Fox
* Audio Commentaries
* Before They Were Lost Audition Tapes And Personal Stories From The Cast
* Deleted Scenes

So, not only is it slightly over two pounds cheaper, but you get 5.1 audio, a higher resolution and a bunch of extra scenes and content.

But surely you get something unique in the iTunes version right? Yup, here’s what:

* Available to watch within a few hours
* Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to prevent you from playing back your purchase on anything other than Apple’s devices

So why in the world would I buy the iTunes version when I can have the DVD version for the same price? And if I want to watch it on my iPod or AppleTV, there’s always [Handbrake](http://handbrake.m0k.org/).

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