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DIGITAL DIGEST  | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 213

29 August, 2010

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INDEX:

1. Introduction

2. Weekly News Roundup

3. Weekly Software Roundup

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1. Introduction

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2. Weekly News Roundup

After my Australian NBN rant last week, there won't be a pre-WNR rant this week. I really probably should have put that segment as its own blog entry, but then even less people would read it, and a good rant is only as good as the number of people that it reaches. There's still no firm outcome  in the Australian election, so the fate of the NBN still hangs in the air, but I hope it goes ahead, not just because it means I can finally have an alternative to my 0.8 Mbps 3G connection that dies every 30 minutes due to congestion at peak  times. There's a bit more to go through in this WNR, so let's get started.

In copyright news, the RIAA is at it again, and it now wants the government to create even tougher copyright laws, claiming the DMCA that the RIAA and other groups hailed at the best thing ever, has failed.

It has failed, according to the RIAA, because ISPs and websites can now "hide" behind it when their subscribers and users violate copyright. You see, the DMCA's safe harbor provision protects ISPs, search engines and websites with user generated content as long as they have a copyright infringement policy which they enforce. Of course, the level of enforcement is left up to ISPs and websites, since enforcement can be costly, time consuming, and in the end, something will always get through. But the RIAA is not happy because, well, they're never happy really. If they can't stop 100% of all piracy, then they might have to innovate and stuff, and nobody wants to do that! But there is a reason why safe harbor exists, as otherwise Google, YouTube, and your ISP, would not survive the round after round of lawsuits that the RIAA, MPAA and others would love to throw at them, and not fail every time (haha Viacom, sucks to be you). I don't know about you, but faced with the choice, I'd rather Google, YouTube and the Internet exist, rather than to make the RIAA and MPAA feel safer at night knowing piracy is stopped, even though it probably won't bring them more money (since people who can't afford to pay for stuff, still can't afford to pay for stuff, even if you get rid of piracy completely). This Crusade Against Piracy needs to end.

But another day, and another new, innovative, fool proof, way to end piracy once and for all. The latest involved suing the people advertising on websites that host pirated content. That's what Disney and Warner Bros. are doing by suing Triton Media which they claim supplied ads to websites hosting or linking to pirated content. But Triton Media may have been running one of the piracy websites in question, so it's not an all out attack on advertising agencies. Yet.  Cutting the funding source for piracy websites, and thus ensuring there's less incentive to start one, sounds like a reasonable plan, but reputable ad agencies already have policies which prevent these type of sites from signing up, but the less reputable agencies won't care about a lawsuit or two if they're located in places that are hard to sue. Thinking about advertising actually makes me think of adult websites (you see, I normally never think about, let alone visit, adult websites … it's not worth the money I'm paying for my crappy 3G connection with limited bandwidth!). A lot of adult websites that host free content rely on advertising, and if there was a Crusade Against Porn (heh, it's CRAP again), then the "Won't Someone Think of the Children Council" or whoever is running the crusade will be going after the advertising agencies providing ads to these types of websites for sure. And I'm sure they'll be calling on government to monitor people's Internets so they're not downloading pron, and asking for tougher laws against ISPs, search engines and websites that allow the spread of pron to go unchallenged. And most of us would then recognise how stupid and futile that moral crusade would be. Just like this one.

But this is about money, so the crusade has even more fervent support. But if it really is just about money, then surely record profits should at least comfort those in power that, maybe just maybe, there's light at the end of the piracy tunnel. But it seems the only thing they're seeing may be the imaginary piles of cash that piracy is taking away, although those piles of cash will now and forever remain imaginary, despite what happens to piracy. And then greed will ensure that they will probably ruin whatever they did right (like innovate) to earn the record profits they have. It may be starting with cinemas, which have recorded amazing profits in the last few years, but ever increasing ticket prices are now damping people's enthusiasm for 3D and big screens, it seems. So innovate, more customers and profit, greed comes in, ruins everything. That's about right. They want to have their cake, eat it, then have another cake, prevent other people from eating free cake, and then make people pay them for eating cake.

And then there are cases when it's not even about piracy. Take Apple's recent patent application which could see them disable iPhones remotely if they've been detected as having been jailbroken. This is despite, or may be in retaliation to, the recent DMCA changes that allows for legal  iPhone jailbreaking. Apple can put up only a very feeble attempt to portray this as a piracy problem, as iPhone app piracy is possible on jailbroken iPhones, but that's definitely not their main concern. Their main concern, as always, is to ensure everything you do on the iPhone has something to do with Apple Corp, and if you even try to use it without Apple's involvement, then be prepared to at least lose your product warranty (which may or may not be legal, depending on your statutory rights as a consumer), and at worse, have all your data deleted and your phone disabled. And by making sure everything has to do with Apple, it ensure their current and future profits. And that's all it's really about, money. There is a (good) argument that Apple puts out which says that a controlled eco-system means a better product, and that's true. And if many of the apps that only run on jailbroken devices were made available by Apple, then hardly anybody would bother to jailbreak their phones. But for various reasons, some directly related to Apple's bottom line, others relating to deals they've made with phone carriers and such (which also affects their bottom line), Apple can't let you use your legally purchased product in the way you want to. I have a simple solution to this – don't sell us stuff that we can't do whatever we please with. Instead of selling us iPhones, rent us the hardware, for peanuts or even for free, and then you can get to control how we can use the device. Otherwise, if you do intend to make hundreds of dollars on the iPhones, iPads, or even PS3s, then the hundreds of dollars we've paid should be enough financial compensation for daring to play  with (or "hack") our devices and to want to do more with them. The versatility of most devices these days means there's even more incentive to do more "hacking" than ever.

And as a perfect way to segue from discussions about DRM to HD/Blu-ray/3D, the news about Samsung's latest firmware update will do.

Samsung's new firmware, believed to be DRM related, screwed up their BD-P*600 series of Blu-ray players that none of them, once updated, can now play Warner and Universal studios produced Blu-ray movies. Some users managed to downgrade the firmware, but those that couldn't are now stuck waiting for Samsung to produce a fix, which won't be coming until sometime in September. So it's not okay to hack our own devices to make it do more, but it's apparently okay now for manufacturers to hack *our* devices to make it do less (Sony … cough … Other OS … cough).

Okay, so this is not like the PS3 Other OS thing, because this was an accident, not a deliberate attempt to disable functions. But once again, it goes to the heart of the argument that frequent firmware updates are bad thing, and since the Blu-ray DRM sort of depends on this, this makes DRM a bad thing. Samsung stuffed up here, and they should pay the price. Something like a bunch of free Blu-ray movies for those affected might be nice, as long as these movies aren't from Universal or Warner, of course.

But firmware updates are good when it helps to keep your hardware recent. The PS3 is a good example of these types of good firmware updates for the Blu-ray playback function at least, as successive ones have allowed the PS3 to keep pace with Blu-ray player development. Profile 1.1, 2.0, 3D … the PS3 has survived all of these, unlike other standalone players. But if the update is related to the optical laser, then the PS3 won't be able to keep up, and this is happening now with BDXL, the new higher capacity Blu-ray format. Sony's new standalone Blu-ray recorders, as well as those from Sharp, will now support BDXL, and it's expected that standalone players will probably support them soon. But the PS3 won't, and so could the PS3 be made obsolete as a Blu-ray player? I don't think so, mainly because I don't think movie studios will publish movies on BDXL. It is very much a recording format, and not even one that's likely to be mainstream. There's just no need for 100/128 GB discs, not when it's much cheaper and easier to just provide multi-disc sets. But if BDXL do take off as a home recording format, then the PS3 will miss out.

The Blu-ray format overall though it still looking healthy, although as I talked about last week, the rapid growth seen last year is slowing down (but the major releases aren't out yet for the year, and we'll see how well Blu-ray does when Inception is out). Fox Australia thinks that 3D will help to ensure growth remains healthy. While it's possible to deliver 3D via DVDs, there's no standard like there is with Blu-ray (not to mention the lower quality), so this is one area in which Blu-ray is going to do very well compared to DVDs. Whether it will help it overtake DVDs as the most popular home video format, I really do doubt this. My experience with 3D is that it's pretty much still a gimmick – good to have, some will love it, but I would prefer a good film (even in SD) over a bad one with great 3D effects, any time.

And some further development in the slow brewing, so quite boring war, between H.264 and WebM. The MPEG LA, the people responsible for H.264 licensing, has promised free H.264 streaming forever. So websites like YouTube can keep on using H.264 to stream their videos without worrying about a hefty licensing fee (although for Google/YouTube, they'll be able to pay the fee with the change they find in Larry and Sergey's sofa). But this latest development isn't convincing Mozilla, because their problem with H.264 isn't because it isn't free (and licensing fee they would pay would be quite insignificant), but because it's a closed, proprietary format. Unlike WebM. So unless H.264 can go open source, or at least some "web streaming" version of it to go open source, it looks like Firefox and Opera will be dealing with WebM instead, and webmasters will have to produce videos that work with both codecs, which is kind of annoying.

And in gaming, and speaking of Other OS (he said three paragraphs later), now that the PS3 has been hacked, there's been calls for Sony to bring back Other OS. I mean if disabling Other OS was to prevent the PS3 being hacked for piracy, and now that it's been well hacked, why not bring it back?

But Sony have acted quickly to stop the PS3 jailbreak device, suing three retailers in Australia who are selling the device in the federal court. And the next round of firmware update will surely attempt to do something to stop such devices from working, which will probably have produce some collateral damage, and cause something to stop working.

And that's all the news I bothered to find this week. You know, it's not me skipping news item after news item just because I was busy watching movies or playing games or something. I do actually have to look at the news item, see if it's some press release or one form of advertising or another ("PS3 is most excellent, says Sony's PR department", etc…), or that it's not an old news disguised as "new" news (a lot of that happening now, with websites spamming Google News and whatnot … there's apparently this new format called HD DVD, according to a "new" news article I read this week), and then decide which makes it, and which gets skipped. It's not as easy as it sounds!

Watching movies and playing games are much easier.

See you next week.

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3. Weekly Software Roundup

August 29, 2010	Media Player Classic HomeCinema Edition 1.3.2371 Beta Freeware
August 29, 2010	kmttg v0p7m Freeware
August 29, 2010	PlayOn 3.0.11.1120
August 29, 2010	ProgDVB 6.46.5 Freeware
August 27, 2010	Cinema Craft Encoder SP3 1.0.4.2
August 27, 2010	AVStoDVD 2.3.2 Alpha Freeware
August 27, 2010	VideoLAN (VLC) 1.1.4 Freeware
August 27, 2010	ImageGrab 5.0.3 Beta Freeware
August 27, 2010	XMedia Recode 2.2.6.3 Freeware
August 27, 2010	multiAVCHD 4.1 build 767 Freeware
August 26, 2010	GoldWave 5.58
August 26, 2010	DVD Swarm 1.0.10.825 Freeware
August 25, 2010	x264 r1703 Freeware
August 25, 2010	MediaCoder 0.7.5 Build 4730 Freeware
August 24, 2010	PopCorn MKV AudioConverter 1.82.11 Freeware
August 24, 2010	Ut Video Codec Suite 8.1.0 Freeware
August 24, 2010	Video DVD Maker Pro 3.23.0.61
August 24, 2010	Video DVD Maker 3.31.0.78 Freeware
August 23, 2010	BDtoAVCHD 1.1.4 Freeware
August 23, 2010	SolveigMM AVI Trimmer 2.0.1008.17 Beta Freeware
August 23, 2010	Mp3tag 2.46b Beta Freeware
August 23, 2010	Smart Cutter Ps/Ts 1.2.8f
August 23, 2010	StaxRip 1.1.6.8 Beta Freeware
August 22, 2010	avi.NET 3.2.0.0 Freeware
August 22, 2010	MKVExtractGUI-2 1.2 Freeware

======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

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DIGITAL DIGEST  | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 212

22 August, 2010

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INDEX:

1. Introduction

2. Weekly News Roundup

3. Weekly Software Roundup

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1. Introduction

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2. Weekly News Roundup

Another very light news week, and I was too preoccupied with other stuff to have time to make up some news, so basically, there's not much to talk about. Which means I will have to go on one of my long, pointless rants until the required word count is reached, which is funny, because I'm not paid by the word (nor am I actually paid).

I shall start the ranting even before we get to the WNR proper, and it's something I've rarely covered here: politics. Okay, I've covered plenty of politics, since unfortunately, the Copyright Crusade™ has become very much a political issue, although one that seems to receive bipartisan support. But today, I shall talk about the elections in Australia, and the result which leaves the future of the National Broadband Network in the air. I didn't really want to talk about the elections before the actual voting, since this is not what this blog is about, and I've talked about the NBN before and the benefits it would bring, such as a truly on demand video service, which could go a long way in fighting the piracy problem.  The NBN plans to bring Fibre to the Premise to 93% of Australian homes, to provide up to 100 Mbps for all, with wireless and satellite of at least 12 Mbps to take care of the rest of the 7%. The opposition to the NBN has mostly been about the cost of the project, and also with some objecting to the need for faster broadband, so I thought I would outline some of the reasons why I support the NBN:

• Cost: $27 billion, over 8 years, in tax payer contributions, not $43 billion. Contributions will be earned back with interest under the NBN Co's projections, so effective cost to tax payers is $0 for infrastructure that lasts for decades and decades. The $27 billion represents just 0.3% of the GDP over the 8 year build cycle of the NBN. As a comparison, Australia spends $27 billion per year on supporting a defence force with only 55,000 active personnel. And while the opposition has concentrated their attacks on the cost of the project, hardly anyone has attacked the value of the project – in other words, if the NBN could be built for cheaper, hardly nobody would be in opposition to it. Since the trial rollout is current under budget, the cost may very well be reduced, since the rollout process is very much a repeatable process.
• Current Internet Access: Australia currently ranks 50th in terms of broadband speed in the world, below even New Zealand. This is for those that actually have access to ADSL, as there are 1.2 million pair gain or RIM affected lines that can't access ADSL (no direct copper connection to exchange). RIMs, mostly located in new housing estates, do not have enough ports to provide ADSL to all homes that it services, and for those that it does, congestion means sub 1 Mbps speeds in peak times. Internet access in the bush is even more pathetic.
• International Backhaul: Critics of the NBN say that having fast local speeds won't matter if the International link is insufficient, and they're right. Except Australia's link to the rest of the world is more than sufficient. And increased local speeds will mean much content will be cached locally, which reduces the need to use International links.
• Applications: In terms of current services, even accessing Google Maps and YouTube proves difficult for those in the broadband  blackspot areas. 720p IPTV requires 4 Mbps for decent-ish video, with 1080p requiring, in my opinion anyway, at least 8 Mbps, preferably 12 Mbps. With IPTV, TV networks would no longer be locked to the limited number of stations they current broadcast on, bringing television into the 21st century. I also work from home, and having adequate broadband would allow many other Australians to equally work from home, thus saving employers money and helping the environment as well by reducing congestion on roads. Cloud hosting will also help software companies fight piracy. As will "DVD/Blu-ray on demand" type services, which also keeps your "video library" floating in the cloud, ready for access at any time (anywhere), which helps with storage and also casual piracy. Those that read this feature will know I've long been a proponent of such a system. And of course there are those applications that will only invent itself after the network is in place, much like how YouTube came about, not when people were still using dialup, but when broadband speeds had reached a certain acceptable level.
• Alternatives: Wireless is dubbed an alternative to fibre, but the reality is that a shared service will never completely service the wide land that is Australia. Existing 3G and almost-4G services in Australia are already heavily congested. And any system that still relies on the quickly deteriorating copper network has no positive long term outlook. Relying on a private rollout is also infeasible, since the large geographical area of Australia, and the relatively low population, means no single company can afford to rollout fiber in the scale of the NBN, even if the business case is sound. Private companies would not look out for the national interest, and some will argue nor should they. The current unacceptable state of broadband (which both major political parties agree, that the current situation is unacceptable) has much to do with relying too much on privately owned infrastructure, and if private industry hasn't come up with a solution 15 years since the Internet went mainstream, they are unlikely to ever come up with one.
• Filter: The most controversial aspect of the proposed NBN is the proposed filter that also comes with it, blocking out indecent content, and possibly piracy related resources. The filter was always unlikely to pass through the senate, and given current election results, it's unlikely to even pass through the lower house, so it's pretty much dead. Which is good to see.

Anyway, in short, the NBN is good. And hopefully it will still be built. Let's get on with the rest of the WNR now.

Starting with the copyright news, is piracy really bad, or does it actually help content owners. I've asked this question many times here, and I can only conclude that there is a positive side to piracy, and content owners are well aware of it (see Viacom vs YouTube, and how Viacom employees allegedly pirated their own stuff for promotional reasons).

So it was interesting to read that the CEO of one of the largest porn companies in the world say that piracy may be a good thing. Pirated adult videos is even more of a problem than mainstream videos, because by their nature, they're very attractive, and paying isn't always viable (if someone else has access to your credit card bills, for example). Private Media Group CEO Berth Milton says that he not only accepts piracy exists, and he actually welcomes it, thanks to increased promotion. He also talks about selling things that aren't easy to pirate, like physical objects. This is a topic I've been thinking about lately (no, not porn or porn related accessories), is that even with the dangers of going completely digital (ie. making things easier to pirate), not more is done to create a more balanced product. Remember when DVDs first came out and they all came with booklets with chapter stops and information about the movie, and then the booklet became a single sheet, still with the chapter stops, and now, there's nothing inside the box except ads and sometimes an anti-piracy leaflet. A value added physical object, that is much harder to pirate, has been removed and studios wonder why piracy is up?

I've long been an advocate of all digital distribution, but physical distribution still has its merits and will have a place in the "new world order". And I would definitely like to see more unique physical products accompany digital music, movies and games. Games instruction booklets are so thin these days, there's barely any explanation of the sometimes quite wonderful storyline. Sure, you'll get to know the story when you play the game, but perhaps a little additional content, some back story, would help gamers get into the mood better, perhaps. And it's good that collector's editions now usually feature physical collectibles, but I think even the standard releases could use some more printed content and other things that are harder to pirate. This is definitely one way to compete with digital piracy. On that topic, I should mention the most excellent Lost Complete Collection Blu-ray, which I will talk about more in the HD/3D/Blu-ray section below.

Another way to fight piracy is to just give the content away, legally. Well not exactly give away, but ad-supported or subscription services like Spotify may just be another way to combat music piracy. A new poll shows that users of Spotify and related services are pirating much less music, and some have completely stopped. Ad-supported content sometimes do work, but most of the time, it's hard to cover costs, let alone make a profit. Subscriptions do make more sense, because the discovery element of music means that it's awfully expensive to legally purchase everything you want to listen to. Many have theorized, and it's backed up by some stats, that a lot of people pirating music are only doing it so they can sample a new artist's work, and many eventually end up paying not only for CDs, but concerts and more. And one of the best things about the digital revolution is improved access, and people want access without the current cost associated with it, and Spotify and other music services provide this without promoting piracy. I think the same model could work for video, because I see people recommending TV shows all the time, and I wonder how many are actually buying the DVDs just to check it out, and how many are following up on these recommendations by pirating the shows. Which is why Hulu is so successful I guess, but unfortunately, it's only available in the US.

And last week I posted in the forum, but not here, about Google going Evil, the Google, Verizon Net Neutrality deal, or how Google learned to stop being so nice and love their corporate power. I didn't post it here because, while there are copyright implication, it wasn't so clear cut. But with the RIAA wading into the debate, it is now definitely more clear cut. The RIAA wants to use the deal as a platform to get ISPs to do more about piracy, with incentives (does not getting sued count as an incentive?). The RIAA, and the cohorts, are about the only people happy with the Google/Verizon deal, which is just so typical, really.

There's more about piracy in the gaming section below, in regards to a surprising development for the PS3. But before we get to that …

In 3D/HD/Blu-ray news, the news I posted about Star Wars on Blu-ray didn't include a firm release date. It's believed that October 2011 is when we can expect the trilogy (both the good and bad one) to come on Blu-ray. That still sounds like a long time though, but if it means a superior transfer, perhaps all the various editions of the film seamlessly branched, and new bonus content, and maybe a Lost style package (see below), then the wait have been worth it.

Speaking of Lost, the complete Blu-ray collection is available to pre-order on Amazon (please click link to buy if you want to buy from Amazon, to help out this humble, unpaid, blogger). I saw it being promoted on Jimmy Kimmel, and it really impressed me, and I've seen a few special editions in my time. Puzzles, black light, hidden content (did Matthew Fox say hidden discs?) – it all sounds like a fun package. And the best thing is that the price isn't totally crazy either, currently less than $150 for all six seasons of Lost (that's 5074 minutes of prime time TV), plus all the goodies. Well, it's better than that Lord of the Rings package anyway.

And moving on finally to gaming. The PS3's status as the only next-gen console not to have been hacked for playing copied games is under threat, with perhaps the simplest hack yet. So simple, that I'm still not convinced it isn't a hoax.

But assuming it's real (and I think it is, thanks to new videos being posted of the hack in action), the hack involves only buying a USB drive which when plugged into the PS3, allows games to be dumped to either the internal or external HDDs. And copied games can then be played back, and all of this is done with the latest firmware. Sony is said to be aware of the hack, so expect the next firmware to quickly plug the hole, but perhaps the USB drive can be software upgraded to defeat then next firmware update (or users can stick with 3.41, and resist upgrading). And so on and so on. It's bad news for people not interested in piracy (or playing their backed up games), as this will mean more Sony firmware, which may equal more upgrading pain. It is ironic though that the hardest to break console requires the easiest to implement hacking solution in the end, although we'll see how Sony fights this with their firmware updates.

And that was that. A very top heavy rant-astic edition of the WNR this week. See you next week.

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3. Weekly Software Roundup

August 22, 2010	K-Lite Codec Pack 6.3.5 Freeware
August 22, 2010	multiAVCHD 4.1 build 765 Freeware
August 22, 2010	ProgDVB 6.46.3 Freeware
August 21, 2010	Net Transport 2.95
August 21, 2010	Media Player Classic HomeCinema Edition 1.3.2283 Beta Freeware
August 21, 2010	ImageGrab 5.0.0 Beta Freeware
August 21, 2010	MPEG-VCR September 2010 Update (3.14.7.4)
August 20, 2010	PlayOn 3.0.8.1093
August 20, 2010	VDownloader 2.10.509
August 20, 2010	eXtreme Movie Manager 7.0.7.6
August 20, 2010	WebM 0.9.10.0 Freeware
August 20, 2010	DeVeDe 3.16.9 Build 4 (Windows) Freeware
August 19, 2010	VideoLAN (VLC) 1.1.3 Freeware
August 19, 2010	TS-Doctor 1.0.58 Freeware
August 18, 2010	HandySaw DS 4.4
August 18, 2010	MeGUI 0.3.5.8 Freeware
August 17, 2010	VideoInspector 2.2.6
August 17, 2010	AVC Streamer 0.02-alpha.b138 Freeware
August 17, 2010	PlayClaw 1.9.9 build 1000a
August 17, 2010	J. River Media Center 15.0.95
August 17, 2010	XMedia Recode 2.2.5.8 Freeware
August 17, 2010	madVR 0.27 Freeware
August 16, 2010	DVDRemaster Pro 6.3.4
August 16, 2010	DVDRemaster Standard 6.3.4
August 16, 2010	BurnAware Free Edition 3.0.3 Freeware
August 16, 2010	BluRip 0.5.1 Freeware
August 16, 2010	x264 r1698 Freeware
August 16, 2010	FLV Extract 1.6.1 Freeware
August 16, 2010	eac3to 3.24 Freeware
August 16, 2010	DVDStyler 1.8.2 beta 2 Freeware
August 16, 2010	CDBurnerXP 4.3.7.2356 Freeware
August 15, 2010	SPlayer 3.5 Build 1383 Beta Freeware
August 15, 2010	Subtitle Edit 2.9.3 Freeware
August 15, 2010	InfraRecorder 0.51 Freeware
August 15, 2010	Comskip 0.80.032
August 15, 2010	WAV to AC3 Encoder 5.0 Freeware

======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

• New Members 2