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Alternate Ways of Rewarding Content Creators

This article was written by Smithee in Consumer. 2 comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot since the last time we talked about my ongoing internal troubles with stealing entertainment. In general, my habits are tending more toward avoiding theft, even accidentally. I want to make sure that the creators know that the thing they made was good, and I want to help them make more.

The no brainer: “new media” creators

I’m proudly displaying DVDs for Homestar Runner (we also bought some figurines and a car window cling of The Cheat), Tiki Bar TV and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on my shelf. Those are great shows that would never have found a home on traditional television, so it’s up to people like me to reward them and help them make more.

I’ve also been meaning to pick up The Guild on DVD. Wait a sec.

*click* There. Done.

My wife and I are also both subscribing for $5 a month to The Sound of Young America, and I’ve recently started buying some iRiffs here and there (these are like the fan-made commentaries we talked about earlier, but usually by people you’ve never heard of).

All of these shows have different business models, because “new media” (the linguist in me really hates that term) is still figuring itself out. The important thing is that they make it convenient to enjoy the things they make, and that they make it easy to reward them.

Where are you, high-def movie downloads?

We have the technology in place right now to make blu-ray obsolete. I’ve streamed high-def movies through my TV provider’s DVR, and through Netflix on the XBox, and I bought “Terminator 2″ in HD through iTunes (which I have connected to our TV). That last one even came with “extras” like a blu-ray disc would. So it seems absurd to me that “the market” still wants me to get a blu-ray player. I don’t need a separate device to play HD movies. I can already play them.

Besides, a blu-ray disc usually also costs more than its DVD equivalent, which makes no sense to me, because they both contain the same thing: one movie.

The sad truth is that it is easier for me to download the blu-ray high-def version of a movie for free, illegally, and store it on my home network than it is for me to stomach the idea of buying a blu-ray player (not least of which because I was rooting for HD-DVD, since that format was region-free). But I don’t want to be a thief. So, lately I also started buying the blu-ray versions of movies that I already downloaded, and which I know we’ll watch again and again. “Galaxy Quest” for example, and the new “Star Trek” movie. In fact I just ordered “Star Trek” at the same time I bought “The Guild” a few paragraphs ago.

But this isn’t what I want to do. I want to pay directly for a digital—software—version of the movie. I don’t want “the market” to think that actual blu-ray discs are more popular than they are. The only place I know I can do this is inside of iTunes, and as of this article there are only 286 HD movies available to buy. And for the life of me, I can’t see any rhyme or reason to which movies are there on the store. It seems totally random; not the kind of movies I want to enjoy many times over.

The downside: not rewarding bad content

All that being said – and I hope you agree I’ve made some improvements – I still don’t feel right paying for something that I didn’t enjoy. Earlier this summer we managed to go out to three movies in a row that weren’t any good. After that, I decided to be a lot more strict about getting reviews from places like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes before heading to the theater.

And I’m trying to be more patient when things seem iffy. I was excited to see “Drag Me to Hell”, because I’ve always liked Sam Raimi’s work (yes, up to and including “Xena: Warrior Princess”), but I waited for it to be available to download (on Netflix or otherwise), and I’m very glad I did, because wow, did I not enjoy that movie. In fact I only saw about 60% of it before I thought of something better to do.

Thankfully, the guys at Rifftrax are making an alternate commentary, which should help erase the memory of watching it raw the first time.

Photo credit: Lan Bui

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HD DVD Officially Dead: Long Live Blu-ray

This article was written by Flexo in Consumer. 8 comments.

When VHS finally emerged as the market leader over Sony’s Beta format, we gave our immediately-obsolete player to my grandmother.

I’ve been following the high definition format wars with moderate interest, since I was a “late early adopter.” Last fall, I picked up an HD DVD player and during the holidays I received a Blu-ray player. In my opinion, HD DVD was the better deal — more interesting technology, players that were ready to enter the market, and better price points on the hardware. Blu-ray had the benefit of larger capacity and the bandwidth to allow higher quality encoding. Blu-ray also uses region encoding, like standard DVDs. Blu-ray discs purchased in one country will therefore not work in all countries. HD DVDs were “region-free.”

I thought that HD DVD would be the format that caught on, but I underestimated Sony’s ability to get the studios on their side. In the last few months, movie studios and distributors, one after another, announced they would be publishing future releases exclusively on Blu-ray, most likely due to the region restriction (and probably some financial incentive).

Toshiba, the major company behind HD DVD, has finally surrendered. The company announced they are discontinuing their entire HD DVD business. Thankfully, I haven’t invested too much in this technology, but with few movies being released on HD DVD in the future, I won’t need a device used for less than 10 movies (5 of which were free) taking up space in my entertainment center.

Toshiba announces discontinuation of HD DVD business [hddvd.org]

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Midweek Roundup: Welcome Consumerist Readers

This article was written by Flexo in Link Sharing. 2 comments.

Thanks to the editors of The Consumerist who directed their readers towards Sasha’s 5 Stupid Financial Mistakes in 2007 and Four Factors That Determine the Value of a Coin. Please feel free to subscribe to the Consumerism Commentary RSS feed to be notified whenever new articles are posted here.

Here are some articles I’ve enjoyed lately from around the web.

A Look at the Ten Highest-Yielding Dow Stocks from AllFinancialMatters. JLP reveals CitiGroup as the highest yielding Dow stock last year. Some of the top ten stocks appear in my mutual funds, but I don’t own any of those stocks outright. The two stocks that I own, MSFT and AKAM, did not do well last year.

50% of Debt: Gone! from No Credit Needed’s guest author, Tricia from Blogging Away Debt. “There are moments of pure bliss when you pay off a chunk of debt. The first year we were paying off chunks of debt left and right. We were tightening our financial belt and bringing in more income. Debt reduction life was good! The next year, things were a lot different.”

You Should Be Paid an Extra $133k for a Long Commute or Lots of Travel. Free Money Finance should tell that to my boss. “Nattavudh Powdthavee of the University of London published research to show that if you are going to take a job where you will give up seeing family and friends on a regular basis, you would need to earn $133,000 just to make up for the lack of happiness you feel from being away from those people.”

Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD: Blu-Ray Likely Winning on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. As Jim mentions, more studios are now supporting the Blu-Ray format exclusively. I was rooting for Blu-Ray in the early stages thanks to its higher capacity; it’s just unfortunate that there has to be one winner and the formats can’t somehow find compatibility with each other. Now I’m glad I hedged my bets and allowed my girlfriend to give me a Blu-Ray player to accompany the shelf with my HD DVD player.

Feed a Family of Two on $10,000 a Year. BankerGirl Heidi is creating her first budget ever this year. “I know that there are people out there that have proven that you can eat well on $20 a week or less — and I say, ‘Good for them!’ We won’t be going to that extreme — we’re trying to eat healthfully and buy locally whenever we can, and sometimes that means paying a bit of a premium.”

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Upgrading My Living Room Entertainment, Part 3: High-Definition DVD

This article was written by Flexo in Uncategorized. 12 comments.

To complete — at least for now — my living room upgrade, I purchased a Toshiba HD-DVD (HD-A20) from Circuit City. Just looking at the listing now, I see the price has increased since Tuesday from $359.99 to $399.99. In fact, in the store, the advertised price was $399.99, but after showing the listing on the internet from that day, they matched their online price.

Before deciding on this device, I had to face the big question that is preventing other people I know from jumping into high-definition video: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? For me, the answer is straightforward. Blu-Ray players are often twice as expensive as HD-DVD. It’s a shame that studios are aligning themselves with one format over another; this might prolong the inevitable crowning of one champion, like Beta vs. VHS.

Once settled on the HD-DVD format, I wanted to find the best value I could. After more online research including Consumer Reports and a number of other communities, I chose the system I mentioned above. No, it’s not built with high-end components, but it delivers a good value.

I also picked up one HD-DVD, Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow. I saw the movie in the theater when it came out. It wasn’t a fantastic movie, but it was visually stunning, a perfect candidate for high definition. Once the HDMI cables arrive today or tomorrow, I’ll have something to pop in immediately to see how 1080p suits me.

The store didn’t have a wide selection of HD-DVDs, but I’ve been finding more options on Amazon.com and adding them to my Wish List for future purchasing.

After my expenditures this week, it’s time to cool down for several months. There are still several components I need in order to make the experience complete, but I will hold off for a while. Here is what is missing in my set-up:

* Television stand or wall-mounting brackets, so I can reclaim my repurposed coffee table
* High definition audio receiver with surround sound and additional speakers, as the television’s internal speakers are not so hot
* Fancy remote control that can communicate with all devices, so I don’t need the variety I use now
* Game system like the Xbox 360 so I can waste more time when I should be blogging

Once I’m ready to spend significant money in this department, I’ll be looking back at this list.

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Tom Hanks to Help Blu-Ray’s Success

by Flexo

I saw this tidbit thanks to pfblogs.org and the Japan Stock Blog, part of the Seeking Alpha Network. Ever since the two next-generation video disc formats, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were announced, I was pulling for Sony‘s Blu-Ray to come out on top, simply because it allowed for more storage space and fewer security features. Sony ... Continue reading this article…

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Blu-Ray to Go the Way of Betamax?

by Flexo

4 studios back new DVD format It seems like the movie studios are putting their weight behind Toshiba’s HD DVD format, a specification vastly inferior to the tech-preferred Sony Blu-Ray. Simply, the storage capacity of a dual-layer Blu-Ray disc is 50GB while the maximum a HD DVD disc can hold is only 30GB. Since the ... Continue reading this article…

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