>> A good example is the adverts before a film on a DVD that you are forced
>> to watch. A cracked copy will usually cut out the adverts, and some
>> people would say it is doing no harm by doing that themselves for their
>> own personal use. But, the fact that the adverts cannot be skipped is
>> actually creating income for the publisher, without them they'd need to
>> charge more for the DVD in the first place.
>>
> This is funnier than hell. You do realize that 100% of those
> advertisement are for products *produced* by the same company that you
> bought the DVD from? Who are they losing revenue from if you remove
> them, themselves?

> Sure, you "might" see something you want to buy later,

You seemed to answer your own question.

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> While there seems to be no restrictions in terms of TV size, a 3D TV
> needs a minimum refresh rate of 120Hz (a basic 60Hz displayed for each
> eye). The higher the refresh rate, the smoother the 3D effect. So a
> 240Hz set will be capable of outputting 120Hz to each eye.
>
> HDMI 1.4 will also be required for full HD per eye viewing."

According to the wikipedia article on HDMI there seems to be various 
options for how to actually send the 3D data along the link (frame by 
frame or left/right image joined together in each frame).  It's a bit 
unclear exactly how this is sent, but the table further down says that 
3D over 1080p60 is not possible.

> The forum post I found explaining why I couldn't just use a TV that
> claims 120hz, but isn't, I don't remember the link to. But, basically,
> while, in theory, you only need 25 frames a second to "see" an image,
> this isn't practical for various reasons, especially motion issues,
> which is why games *attempt* to always produce at least 50 frames a
> second, if not 60. The difference "is" visible, since even though the
> eye only needs 25, those 25 don't necessarily match the "frame rate" the
> eye is looking at the screen with (i.e., your meat system isn't
> "synchronized" with the refresh rate on the display). So, trying to use
> 30 frames a second, by splitting 60hz (i.e. 60 frames) flat out won't
> work properly. The closer you can get to 60 frames a second per eye, the
> less likely you are to notice any sort of flicker, blurring, etc., from
> desynching.

I guess the TV processes whatever input it is getting and then decides 
how to display it.  If it's getting a 2xp24 input then it probably shows 
each eye frame twice alternately.

Next step is to find out if it's possible to coax a standard PC/GPU/3DTV 
to show a 120 Hz 2D image...

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On 21/01/2011 05:01 PM, Darren New wrote:

> So the model does work. How well and for how many is another question.

I guess it depends on how popular your work is, who wants is, and what 
type of people they are.

Actually, that sounds pretty much like the success factors for a 
*normal* distribution channel...

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On 22/01/2011 10:48 PM, andrel wrote:

> There is also the problem of finding an artist if I don't yet know
> her/him. What seems to be missing from the whole IP debate is the role
> of the person that recommends the music/book/fashion. These people are
> vital, but how do we pay them for sifting through the bulk of mediocre
> stuff?

Yeah, there is the argument that by "illegally" showing people music or 
whatever that they didn't pay for, they might well go out and buy a copy 
themselves.

I still find it slightly weird that if I ask a friend to copy a CD for 
me, that's illegal. But if I turn on my radio and listen to the exact 
same music, that's completely legal. Either way it costs me nothing, and 
it's the exact same music. WTF?

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>>> Depends on the quality you're looking for, but yes, having the right
>>> tools helps (in both cases).
>>
>> I'd suggest having the right technicians helps more. Mix engineering is
>> non-trivial, whether you have the right equipment or not.
>
> I consider the personnel part of the toolset in this case.  Just like if
> you're publishing a technical book, having a good technical reviewer and
> editor is essential to ending with a good product.

Drifting somewhat off topic here, but today you can buy software and 
hardware that lets you use a home PC to do almost everything that would 
be possible in a recording studio. (About the only bit you *can't* 
easily do is really high quality recording of acoustic signals. But if 
you're making synthesizer music like me, that's irrelevant.)

The difference, of course, is that me twiddling with the equaliser knob 
is no match for a professional mix engineer who knows WTF he's doing. 
And if you listen to the music I've made, you can tell it doesn't sound 
very good.

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> I still find it slightly weird that if I ask a friend to copy a CD for
> me, that's illegal. But if I turn on my radio and listen to the exact
> same music, that's completely legal. Either way it costs me nothing, and
> it's the exact same music. WTF?

Why is that weird?  A radio station is a company making money.  They 
give you music you want, and in return you listen to their adverts.  So 
long as the radio station makes more money from advertising income than 
it has to pay to the content owners then it will work.

Of course stations run by the BBC don't have adverts, but everyone is 
forced to pay a license fee for that.

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On 21/01/2011 06:16 PM, Darren New wrote:

> Basically, the music and film industry depends on it being possible to
> make copies but not cheap to make copies.

And now those assumptions have been brutally violated. You say the 
industry needs to "deal with that", but I'm really not sure where that 
leaves us. The only obvious solution is to just not sell content for 
money any more, since the model isn't workable. (This of course leads 
directly to high quality content no longer being made, which would be 
very sad.)

>> But then of course, the publishers think "OK, well if we embed this
>> computer program, we can stop people copying it". (Actually no, no you
>> cannot. But the CEO probably isn't smart enough to comprehend this.)
>
> Even if he is, the shareholders aren't. It's like the TSA - security
> theater.

What's TSA?

>> I have no problem with content creators expecting a return on their
>> investment. But I object to DRM, on a number of grounds. (Point #1
>> being "it doesn't work".)
>
> The real reason it doesn't work is that you only have to break it once.
> Once someone takes the copy protection off, they can distribute the
> broken version. So the DRM has to keep out the *smartest* attackers, not
> just the average attackers.

The other reason is that you *must* take the DRM off to use the thing. 
No matter which way the image data is encrypted, you /must/ decrypt it 
in order to see it. If you can see it, you can copy it.

About the only thing this potentially doesn't apply to is computer 
software. (Or anything similarly interactive, I guess.) Even then, if 
you can somehow pluck the decrypted data out of the computer's memory...

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On 24/01/2011 09:40 AM, scott wrote:
>> I still find it slightly weird that if I ask a friend to copy a CD for
>> me, that's illegal. But if I turn on my radio and listen to the exact
>> same music, that's completely legal. Either way it costs me nothing, and
>> it's the exact same music. WTF?
>
> Why is that weird? A radio station is a company making money.

How the hell does that work though? They don't do anything that produces 
income.

> They give you music you want, and in return you listen to their adverts.

Seriously? That actually generates more than a few pence per day?

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>> They give you music you want, and in return you listen to their adverts.
>
> Seriously? That actually generates more than a few pence per day?

People pay thousands of pounds to have their advert on radio.

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On 24/01/2011 10:05 AM, scott wrote:
>>> They give you music you want, and in return you listen to their adverts.
>>
>> Seriously? That actually generates more than a few pence per day?
>
> People pay thousands of pounds to have their advert on radio.

OK, but that still only works out to a few pennies per day over the 
duration that the advert plays for. I would have thought that even if 
you played adverts 24/7, you would never come close to making enough 
money to cover even the basic costs of electricity to run the 
transmitter, never mind all the other stuff you'd need to pay for. And 
the few actual radio stations I've listened to don't play adverts very 
much at all.

(More to the point, what adverts they do play inevitably sound very 
cheap and amateurish. Not at all like the slick, polished adverts that 
constantly bombard you on TV. Presumably advertising on radio is much 
cheaper than TV - although I also wonder how the hell TV makes enough 
money to keep going...)

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