Lawyers Guns & Money: Can DivX’s Safe Harbor Protect Them From Stage6 Pirates?

February 7th, 2008 Davis

DivX took a step closer to being forced to walk the plank after suffering their first legal setback in their copyright dispute with Universal Music Group. In a legal filing published late Tuesday night, Judge Dana Sabraw dismissed DivX’s request to declare Stage6 legal, ahead of their UMG piracy trial.

The dispute originally started in December 2006, when UMG notified DivX that several of their videos were showing up on their Stage6 website. In the original cease and desist letter, UMG didn’t provide DivX with a list of the infringing videos, but still demanded that DivX remove all Universal content. A month later, UMG sent a second letter, only this time identifying specific videos that they had problems with. DivX promptly removed the videos in question and didn’t hear from UMG’s legal department for another 8 months.

After this 8 month period of awkward silence, UMG approached DivX and agreed to license their content, albeit at a very steep cost. In order to atone for their past sins, UMG wanted DivX to pay them $30 million.

Sensing a shakedown, DivX balked at the deal and decided to take their chances in court. They had fully complied with all of the provisions of the DMCA and if UMG wanted to punish them, they’d need to attack the DMCA’s safe harbor provision to do it. After calling their bluff, UMG dragged their heels on filing a lawsuit, but the potential threat for conflict still created a real problem for DivX. With the company trying to spin off their Stage6 asset, these storm clouds of uncertainty cast a long shadow over the legality of their Stage6 operations.

With UMG threatening legal action against the site, DivX was forced to choose between trying to sell the asset at a discount or trying to see if they could ride this storm out. With UMG seemingly content to continue to accrue alleged damages, DivX felt compelled to ask the courts to rule on whether or not Stage6 was protected under the safe harbor provision.

DivX took a huge risk by pushing this issue. If they are right then their wager will certainly pay off. If the courts can establish the legality of their Stage6 website, it would remove a lot of the uncertainty surrounding the business and would allow potential suitors to feel more comfortable about its long term potential. If DivX is wrong though, the consequences could be severe.

Six weeks after DivX filed for declaratory relief, UMG finally made good on their threat and filed a lawsuit against DivX accusing them of piracy. By bringing DivX up on charges, they were able to successfully argue that their trial was a more appropriate venue for this question to be answered. While this does represent a set back for DivX, I doubt that the result was entirely unexpected.

Still, through legal maneuvering, UMG has been able to regain control over home court advantage and they’ve put themselves into a position where they can always settle or walk away if things start to look bad. Even if DivX sticks with the full court press, they may not end up with the declarations that they were hoping for. In the discussion section of the judgment, Sabraw sympathized with DivX, but couldn’t justify running a separate trial now that DivX is facing legal action.

“Defendants argue declaratory judgment is an incomplete remedy since this action does not include all parties to the lawsuit pending in the Central District. Furthermore, since Plaintiff cannot identify all copyrights at issue, Defendants argue the remedy in this Court is limited to adjudicating only the copyrights named.

The Court agrees with Defendants. Athough the fear of uncertain litigation may have initially justified Plaintiff in filing this action, Defendants have since filed a lawsuit in the Central District that eliminates the uncertainty. Moreover, the DCMA [sic] safe harbor analysis Plaintiff seeks here will be more completely and efficiently undertaken in the Central District, where the court will be able to determine Plaintiff’s compliance with respect to particular copyrights that Defendants identify in the course of those proceedings.”

While it may appear that DivX has lost round 1, the dismissal of this case won’t be the end of this dispute by a long shot. With the declaratory issue now out of the way, DivX will need to focus on defending themselves against UMG’s lawsuit. Even though DivX’s initial lawsuit has been dismissed, they’ll still get an opportunity to defend their website. Still, until DivX can reach some kind of resolution, the lawsuit will certainly make it more difficult for them to separate their Stage6 assets from their core business. With rising bandwidth bills, the credit crunch and legal questions surrounding this asset, it may be difficult for them to find a buyer who is willing to get involved in this kind of a dog fight.

Sensing that conditions weren’t right, DivX pulled back on their plans for Stage6 in December and in a press release announcing the resignation of Jordan Greenhall, they also warned that their Stage6 transaction wouldn’t be finished by the end of the year like they had planned. The company promised to update investors in the first quarter of 08′ and with DivX expected to report earnings soon, you can bet that Stage6 will be a hot topic on their next conference call. The plan that DivX management lays out, will be critical in determining how investors interpret their financial results.

Last quarter, investors rewarded DivX by focusing on their non-gaap growth and ignoring the Stage6 and compensation expenses. If DivX still plans on spinning off Stage6, then it’s fair for investors to ignore the rising bandwidth costs and focus on the value of the underlying asset.

If DivX’s legal battles really mean that they need to hold onto Stage6 in order to maximize its value, then investors may be in for a shock when they realize that Stage6 is really a long term investment. Facing the prospect of a drawn out legal battle, they may not take as much comfort in “one time” charges or expenses.

The answer to the Stage6 riddle isn’t an easy one, but after years of profiting from their popularity in the pirate community, it’s ironic to see DivX’s finally starting to feel some heat over the activities of their community. Even beyond the copyright liabilities, there is a significant cost for DivX to foot the bill for pirated Stage6 content and I suspect that DivX isn’t anymore enthusiastic about piracy on Stage6, than UMG is. There’s no way to know how this all will end, but I have a feeling that its going to take longer than people expect, in order to sort it all out.

Posted in SA, DivX, Technology, Media, VOD | No Comments »

The Not So Modern Guide To Life

January 31st, 2008 Davis

Ten years ago, someone gave me a book called The Modern Man’s Guide to Life. It’s basically a how to guide for surviving as a bachelor. It features advice on everything from fixing a leaky faucet to crash landing a plane if the pilot dies. The book was originally published in 1987, so some of the advice is a little out of date, but most of their tips have stood up against the test of time.

One area that could probably use some updating though, is their technology section. When I recently found the book in an old box, I got a real kick out of looking back at the issues that tech enthusiasts struggled with, during the 1980’s. Here are few of my favorites entries.

-Record Storage- The ideal containers for record storage are plastic milk crates - although not all sizes will work, and neither will all shapes (square ones are better than rectangular ones). The crates are stackable, but to preserve the records, set the boxes on their sides. Never store records stacked one atop the other.

-Universal Film and Processing- If you’re ever in doubt about which brand of film to buy or where to get it processed, go for Kodak. They’ve maintained a consistently high standard of quality and their labs are everywhere.

Posted in Technology, Media | 1 Comment »

Maybe Someday

January 31st, 2008 Davis

Posted in Music, VOD | No Comments »

The Pros and Cons Of Media Center Vista

January 31st, 2008 Davis

Over the past few months, I’ve finally started to get a feel for Media Center Vista and while I haven’t tried out every feature in the program, I have played around with it long enough to have some initial thoughts. Before I tried the software, I had low expectations, but after actually using the program, I’ve been really impressed with what the Media Center team has put together.

Media Center Vista allows you to perform some pretty advanced tasks without having to be a computer geek in order to figure out how to use it. I initially had some reservations about the user interface, but it only took about a week, before I found it growing on me. There are still improvements that Microsoft needs to make, but they’ve made a giant leap forward, compared to the original XP version.

Pros

-Media Center Vista is wicked fast at finding new programs. In the XP version, the software was painfully slow at trying to search for shows. As soon as I would start typing in the name of a show, XP would freak out from trying to sort through so much information. In Vista, the program still starts searching immediately, but the indexing has been turbocharged. Instead of having to wait for the menu, the results will appear as fast as you can type. This faster indexing shows up in a number of areas. When you are browsing, you can hit page down and scroll through programs as fast as you can read them. If you want to rearrange the priority of your recordings, you can make changes and move onto other areas of the program without having to wait forever while the system checks for conflicts.

-The interface looks fantastic. Microsoft has done a good job of creating a clean and intuitive DVR experience. The program is easy to navigate and has lots of extra features. On the surface the design appears relatively simple, but you can tell that Microsoft has paid a lot of attention to the little details. Whether it’s being able to double click on the picture in picture window, in order to bring up the full screen or being able to see the DVD art for upcoming movies, there are a lot of subtle features that make for a more enjoyable media experience.

-Vista comes with 30 second skip enabled. TiVo fans know that you can hack your remote to add this feature, but the big studios were able to scare TiVo into disabling it for the masses. In the past, I’ve never really used the 30 second skip feature because it meant giving up the skip to the end button on my remote. After spending some time with it on Media Center, I’ve been really surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. Hitting a button six times is a lot easier than trying to guess when the program is about to start again.

-There is minimal interference between you and your recordings. One of my biggest frustrations with the generic DVR was that it required too many unnecessary steps, before I could interact with my content. It felt like I had to hit ten buttons before I could schedule a movie, delete a recording or even watch a show. With Vista Media Center, it’s an entirely different story. The entire experience is built around the content that you are interacting with. You can’t do everything from all levels of the software, but each step is intuitively linked to the task that you are focused on. If you are watching a TV show, then by right clicking you can delete the program or burn it to DVD. If you are playing music it’s one click to pause, skip, repeat, shuffle . . . .

-You can watch TV while surfing the web. Media Center is really designed for the living room, but I’m primarily using it in a desktop setting. I didn’t think that I’d watch a lot of TV at my desk, but I’ve found it to be the perfect compliment to streaming Netflix and YouTube. This isn’t ideal for shows with intense action and complex story lines, but its perfect for tuning into the news when you see a story break online or for listening to late night talk shows, while you’re multitasking on the web. This feature won’t benefit you, if you plan on using Media Center on your TV, but it’s a good reason to add on a TV tuner, the next time you upgrade your PC.

-You can use the XBox360 as an extender. I’ve read a lot about the Xbox extenders, but I had never actually seen one in action. Connecting my Xbox to Media Center took an extra registration step, but it was well worth the time to get it set up. When I first heard about Microsoft’s extender strategy, I was skeptical that it would stream videos without problems or program lock ups. While I didn’t test the connection using WiFi, my experience using the Xbox was almost identical to having the PC directly connected to the TV. No lag, no stuttering, just instant access to my content on my big screen tv.

-You can watch TV while using the menus. TiVo uses picture in picture technology on their Comcast download, but you won’t find it on their stand alone DVRs. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this until I started using Vista as a DVR. Whether it’s a live show or a recording, Vista will minimize whatever program that’s on, when you want to dig deeper into the menu settings. This isn’t good if you’ve accidentally stumbled onto a football game and are desperately trying to avoid the score, but it is nice for when you’re not exactly sure what you want to watch.

-It will help you find programs that are on right now. Vista Media Center allows you to search for programs in a number of ways, but its their support for upcoming television, that impressed me the most. When it comes to searching for things like TV series, kid shows, etc., it allows you to browse alphabetically or by date. They’ve also built a separate section for movies and for sports where they’ve packed in some extra bonus content. In the TV and movies section, they offer plugins for various movie download services and in the sports section Vista will let you check the box scores or add fantasy players to track.

-You can skip automatically skip commercials. DVRs make it easy to skip commercials, but Vista Media Center takes things one step further by supporting plugins, that can edit out those pesky little ads entirely. It’s not easy to set up and it’s not something that is enabled by default, but it’s still a pretty sweet feature to add.

-You can placeshift your TV. The Slingbox is great if you have a cable DVR or a TiVo, but with Media Center you can download a free plugin that will let you watch your content wherever you can connect to the net. I haven’t actually used the program yet, but it’s still a great feature to have access to.

-You can burn DVDs. Normally, I’m pretty good about watching all of the shows that I record, but when it comes to boxing, I just don’t have time to see every fighter. It’s my favorite sport, but since I record every fight (even the ones on the Spanish channels), there isn’t enough time/hard drive space, to get caught up. Since I’ll never really know which fighters will end up making it big, I’ve decided to use my Media Center to archive all of the fights. By saving them to DVD, I should be able to go back and watch the fights that mattered.

-It supports external storage. Media Center gives you a lot of control over how you want to set up your storage. Since I’m using it as a secondary DVR, I’ve set it up to record a maximum of 100GB on my internal drive. If I need more, I can add an external drive or increase my internal hard drive allocation.

Cons

-You shouldn’t have to reboot your TV. One of the things that I love about my TiVo is that it just works. You don’t have to be a tech geek to figure it out, you plug it into your TV and it records everything. In the entire time that I’ve been a TiVo customer, I can think of very few occasions where TiVo failed to record my programing. When it comes to Media Center, it’s important to remember that it’s a PC first and a DVR second. Over the last few months, I’ve found the program to be mostly reliable, but it hasn’t been smooth sailing either. Whether it’s been dealing with poor DRM design, troubleshooting a bug that refused to let me download the guide data or having my computer crash while recording television, there have been several times where I’ve missed recordings, because of PC related problems. While I can’t blame Microsoft for all of my problems, it’s still frustrating to miss a show because of technical difficulties.

-Internet video support is weak. Media Center includes support for services like Vongo and Showtime on Demand, but it involves registering and downloading a separate program before you can get it working. As a Netflix subscriber, I was looking forward to being able to use Watch Now inside of Media Center, but Microsoft has left it up to the fans to build support for this. Microsoft includes some MSN internet video content, but they make you watch pre-roll ads before knowing whether or not it’s something that you are interested in. The Xbox may unofficially support DivX, but you can’t access it inside of media center. If you prefer to use a media extender instead, it will support your XviD files, but it’s set up to block your DivX content.

-It won’t record radio. XM may have just settled a lawsuit over their radio DVR, but recording radio shouldn’t be any different than television content. Media Center will let you listen to OTA radio, but it doesn’t let you record any of the programs.

-Fast forward is a little too powerful. It may be, that I’m just used to TiVo, but Vista’s fast forward speeds are hard to adjust to. They’ve got slow, almost fast and then it jumps to hyper speed. I can’t tell whether or not they are using a five second skip back, but when I hit play, I’m usually way past the start of the program. If you stick to the 30 second skip it’s not a problem, but it’d be nice if there was some kind of a way to adjust the timing on this.

-You can’t skip to the middle of a program. One of the things that I like about downloaded video is being able to immediately jump to the middle or the end of a program. Since this is a key feature in Window’s media player, I was surprised to see this missing from Media Center. There is also no way to jump 15 minutes ahead. If you happen to fall asleep during the middle of a program, you’re stuck with fast forwarding in order to get back to where you were at.

-You can’t rate your television. As television continues to involve, it’s becoming increasingly personal. Media Center does a good job of recording TV, but it doesn’t do a very good job of getting to know you. You can sort movies by the highest rated, but its using someone else’s criteria. Because you can’t tell Media Center what you do and don’t like, there are no suggested recordings or personalization.

-It doesn’t support auto-recording of wishlists. I’m a big basketball fan, but I’m really only interested in seeing the Laker games. Media Center will let me search for the next time that they are playing, but it won’t automatically record the game. It would be nice to be able to use media center to record programs that are customized to my interests.
Al pointed out in the comments that you can actually uses wishlists, you just need to set it up from the add recording field. Thanks for the help Al. This one definitely should go in the pro category.

-Vista’s DRM doesn’t play nice with HD. I’m still fuming over this one. I knew that recording HDTV on Vista would be a hassle, so I stuck with standard tuners when I customized my computer. After upgrading to an HD monitor, Vista disabled my Netflix Watch Now and put Media Center into lock down. If Apple’s DRM wasn’t just as bad, I would be thinking differently after this experience.

-It takes forever to burn a DVD. I was really jazzed up over being able to archive shows onto DVD, but the sluggishness of the DVD burning capabilities has me rethinking this game plan. It took me 2 and a half hours to burn a one hour program to DVD. It’d be one thing if I was using lousy hardware, but it takes less then 4 minutes for me to burn a 2 hour DivX film. It’s nice to be able to save your TV, but it should never take more time to burn the disc, than it does to watch it.

-Good for early adopters, complicated for everyone else. Vista Media Center offers a lot of unique features, but it takes too much tweaking to set these up. Placeshifting and auto commercial skipping are available, but it’s up the consumer to find and install these programs. Even if you know what you are doing, the setup can still be complicated. Instead of making consumers seek out these programs, Microsoft should be including them as part of the package. It wouldn’t be popular with the media companies, but it’d win the company a lot more fans.

-The recording quality is terrible. It’s probably not fair to compare a cablecard connected TiVo with an analog cable media center set up, but the TiVO SD recordings on my 60″ screen, look way better than the Media Center recordings on my 22″ monitor. This probably has less to do with Media Center and more to do with the tuners that I’m using, but it still takes away from the user experience. Unless you want to spend the big bucks on a cablecard media center, you may end up having to deal with poor resolutions.

-There’s no turning back once you delete - As careful as I am, sometimes my DVR instincts go on auto-pilot and I’ll accidentally delete a show before watching it. With TiVo I can recover that program, but in Media Center it is gone forever. The file isn’t even in the Recycle bin. Media Center will always ask you to confirm before deleting, but this also creates one more button to push when you are done with the shows that you have watched.

So there you have it, the good, the bad and Media Center Vista. There are some rough spots around the edges, but it really is a fantastic program. I’m hoping that we’ll see better support for HDTV and for online video as the program continues to evolve.

Posted in TV, Media, DivX, Slingbox, DRM, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Microsoft, TiVo | 7 Comments »

Netflix In A Coma I Know

January 7th, 2008 Davis

For the past few months, KK and SalGal have been reviewing their Netflix movies on YouTube and their videos are hilarious. This is my favorite new TV show and its not even on television. Normally, I wouldn’t be a fan of midlife chick flick movie reviews, but their dark sense of humor is right down my alley. In this video KK interviews SalGal after she slips into a coma. You can see more of their videos at their YouTube page or you can visit them at their Midlife Gals blog.

Posted in TV, VOD, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix | 1 Comment »

Bad COPP No Netflix

January 3rd, 2008 Davis

Even though I’m an HDTV fanatic, it wasn’t until this past weekend, that I finally made the jump to an HD monitor. While I don’t have HDTV tuners on my Media Center, I do have an HD camcorder and it was important for me to be able to edit my high resolution videos.

After doing a little bit of research, I decided to pick up a SyncMasterTM 226BW from Samsung. Between the new monitor and my ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT video card, the resolution looks absolutely stunning. Even my home movies look fantastic in HDTV. I really couldn’t have been happier with the upgrade.

Unfortunately, Hollywood isn’t quite as thrilled about my new HD Media Dream Machine and they’ve decided to punish me by revoking my Watch Now privileges from Netflix.

I first found out about the problem on New Year’s Eve, when I went to log into my account. When I tried to launch a streaming movie, I was greeted with an error message asking me to “reset” my DRM. Luckily, Netflix’s help page on the topic included a link to a DRM reset utility, but when I went to install the program, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this warning.

The minute I saw“this will potentially remove playback licenses from your computer, including those from companies other than Netflix or Microsoft” I knew better than to hit continue. Before nuking my entire digital library, I decided to call Netflix’s technical support, to see if I could get to the bottom of my C00D11B1 error message.

When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft’s DRM sniffing program access to all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM. This means that I would lose all the movies that I’ve purchased from Amazon’s Unbox, just to troubleshoot the issue.

Technically, there is a way to back up the licenses before doing a DRM reset, but it’s a pretty complex process, even by my standards. When I asked Netflix for more details, they referred me to Amazon for assistance.

Perhaps even worse than having to choose between having access to Netflix or giving up my Unbox movies was the realization that my real problems were actually tied to the shiny new monitor that I’ve already grown fond of.

Netflix’s software allows them to look at the video card, cables and the monitor that you are using and when they checked mine out, it was apparently a little too high def to pass their DRM filters.

Because my computer allows me to send an unrestricted HDTV feed to my monitor, Hollywood has decided to revoke my ability to stream 480 resolution video files from Netflix. In order to fix my problem, Netflix recommended that I downgrade to a lower res VGA setup.

As part of their agreement with Hollywood, Netflix uses a program called COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocal). COPP is made by Microsoft and the protocol restricts how you are able to transfer digital files off of your PC. When I ran COPP to identify the error on my machine, it gave me an ominous warning that “the exclusive semaphere is owned by another process.”

My Netflix technician told me that he had never heard of this particular error and thought that it was unique to my setup. When I consulted Microsoft, they suggested that I consult the creator of the program. Since Microsoft wrote the COPP software, I wasn’t sure who to turn to after that.

The irony in all of this, is that the DRM that Hollywood is so much in love with, is really only harming their paying customers. When you do a DRM reset, it’s not your pirated files that get revoked, it’s the ones that you already paid for that are at risk. I’m not allowed to watch low res Netflix files, even though I have the capability to download high def torrents? How does this even make sense? It’s as if the studios want their digital strategies to fail.

While I understand the need for the studios to protect their content, I believe that these measures go too far. It makes little sense to block my ability to copy low res internet movies, when I can always rip the DVD straight from my Netflix discs instead. By blocking access to my Netflix membership, Hollywood is once again punishing their customers by pushing defective DRM.

Posted in Technology, Microchips, VOD, DVDs, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, DRM, Netflix | 93 Comments »

How The Sith Stole Christmas

December 18th, 2007 Davis

Posted in DivX, VOD | No Comments »

Forget Radio Shark, The Stream Ripping Piranhas Were What The RIAA Should Have Been Worried About

December 18th, 2007 Davis

The RIAA may have given up on trying to outlaw DVRs, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to interfere with your legal right to record content and when it comes to recording radio, they’ve drawn a line in the sand. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of innovative radio DVR gadgets hit the market, only to be squashed by the goons at the RIAA squad. What’s made the RIAA’s strategy even more boneheaded than usual, has been their insistence on trying to keep this technology out of the hands of their paying customers.

Whether its their ridiculous lawsuit against XM Satellite radio or Creative’s decision to remove FM recording from their MP3 products, there are plenty of examples where the RIAA has used heavy handed tactics to try and stifle innovation.

Yet, no matter how hard they try, they can’t put this genii back into the bottle and by taking such a strong stance against legitimate companies, they’ve driven DVR radio underground, where they’ve now lost all control over it.

The RIAA may have been worried about RadioShark, but it was the radio piranhas that were the real threat and while they were busy suing their partners, the open source movement has been filling the stream ripping wake, that corporations are now too afraid to touch.

Stream ripping software isn’t new, but the functionality has been relatively limited and the interface hasn’t been ready for the average user. Screamer Radio is an excellent open source solution for DVR radio, but it lacks the aesthetic appeal and scheduling features, that make traditional DVRs so easy to use.

Luckily, the open source community has been hard at work and what Screamer Radio leaves out, Raima Radio is now bringing to the table. Raima Radio is a powerful freeware program that fuses features like wishlists, program scheduling, and video support with the traditional features of most stream ripping programs.

This combination turns a tremendous amount of power over to the consumer and will certainly have the RIAA taking extra heartburn medication (when they find out about it ) If they didn’t like XM’s limited subscriber base, having the ability to record satellite radio, then they will hate this program. It gives anyone with a computer and an internet connection, the ability to time shift radio to an mp3 player.

Raima supports a large number of internet radio stations and includes links to web pages, where you can find even more mainstream programs. If you are midway through a program, you can hit record and it caches the data, so that you can get all of the program. For years I’ve wanted to tune into Kevin and Bean’s morning show on KROQ, but since I live in San Francisco, I haven’t had easy access to the program. Now I can use Raima’s program to start recording, before I even wake up. By bridging the gap between the internet and the mp3, Raima allows you to follow radio that would normally be out of geographic reach.

Even more powerful then the scheduling capabilities, is the ability for Raima to monitor and record specific songs or artists that you are interested in. Instead of illegally downloading songs from the P2P networks, Raima allows you to create wishlists and will scan for those songs on any station that you tune into. The number of streams that you can simultaneously record is only limited by your bandwidth. This allows you to set up filters, record 10 different stations overnight and in the morning you’ll have a hefty mp3 collection.

This is the functionality that has the RIAA so terrified. If consumers are able to easily record the songs that they hear off the radio, it reduces their need to buy the hit singles. As someone who prefers albums over singles, I think that this is the wrong way to look at it, but I can still understand why they would see this as a threat to their business model. If you get me hooked on a few of your best songs, I’m going to buy your albums, go to your concerts and tell my friends about you, but if you are a casual music listener, this software will enable you to avoid ever having to purchase music again.

While the radio capabilities are Raima’s strongest suit, they’ve also thrown in support for recording streaming video. There isn’t a large selection of channels and the quality is terrible, but its a nice bonus over some of the other stream ripping programs. I would like to see them add support for recording internet video into XviD, but portability is more important for music, than it is for video.

The biggest drawback to Raima’s software is that the quality of the sound files isn’t always the best. The songs usually start recording ten seconds early and cut off before they finish. Unlike TiVo, there is no way to tell the system to start recording earlier or later to account for the lag. The mp3 streams also tend to include commentary from the DJs and sponsors. This isn’t a big deal if you’re trying to listen to a half an hour of talk radio, but it can be annoying, if you are only focused on the music. The quality of the mp3’s is also dependent on your internet connection. If you are trying to record a stream from Japan, while watching YouTube, running Bit Torrent, and playing online poker, then expect stuttering and interference to show up in your recordings. If you have a dedicated connection to a local radio station, then you should be fine.

While these deficiencies aren’t a major drawback, they still help to differentiate time shifted radio from buying the actual music. As great as Raima Radio is, it still can’t replicate the selection or quality that you can get from visiting Amoeba or buying .mp3’s online.

Another drawback to the software is that you can’t tell if a station is broadcasting until you try to tune into it. Because Raima includes a lot of dead streams, it means that you have to spend a lot of time trying to load dead air.

Overall, Raima Radio is a great freeware program and one that is pushing the envelope for time shifted radio. While there is plenty of room for improvement, its one of the better stream ripping programs out there. Universal may be relishing the royalties that they extracted from XM, but in the end, they paid a fair steeper price by trying to squash innovation.

Posted in Music, Technology, Media, DRM, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | 5 Comments »

How About Never?

December 18th, 2007 Davis

Posted in Music | No Comments »

DVDPost Clones Netflix’s Website

December 17th, 2007 Davis

When Copywrite.org stumbled onto the Belgian DVD company, DVDPost, he noticed something eerily familiar about their website. Over the years, Netflix has inspired their fair share of copycats, but DVDPost had cloned more than just their business model, they completely ripped off Netflix’s website as well.

The similarities between the two sites made Copywrite wonder if Netflix was running a secret European division or if this was just a cheap international counterfeit. While the conspiracy theorist in me desperately wanted to believe that Netflix was using Belgian subsidiaries to expand internationally, deep down inside I knew that this was just another internet knock off. It wasn’t the first time that Netflix’s website had been copied and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

My gut reaction was to start blasting DVDPost as a fake, but luckily I decided to do a little research first. Instead of finding another internet scam, I found a renegade DVD company that has been trying to make a name for themselves, by stirring up controversy in the media.

DVDPost first struck publicity paydirt, when they ran a commercial for a spoof company named Rent-A-Wife. The ad featured a man tying up his wife and trading her for a new one DVDPost claimed that the ads were meant to be light hearted, but critics felt that the company had gone too far with the shock tactics. After local media pressure, DVDPost yanked the Rent-A-Wife website, but followed it up with an equally tasteful ad, featuring Osama Bin Laden as one of their customers.

While it’s possible that DVDPost is trying to fool consumers into thinking that they are somehow related to Netflix, I think its more likely that their recent web redesign is part of a PR campaign. Normally, I try not to fall for this kind of PR bait, but I found their marketing techniques too entertaining, to resist commenting on this latest guerrilla ad campaign.

Posted in Marketing, DVDs, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix | No Comments »