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It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here

Weblogging and commentary by Chip Rosenthal

High Def Discs are Dead on Arrival

Submitted by chip on Sat, 29-Jul-2006 - 9:09 am
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Last night, while stumbling around Fry's, I noticed they have a small HD-DVD section. I was not a fan of the format to begin with. Now, I'm even less so.

The first thing that surprised me was the prices. The movies cost in the range of $25-50. That's insane, nobody is going to pay that sort of money per unit for their movie collection. Sure, back in the day I bough a few "Mobile Fidelity Sound Studio" albums (high priced specially pressed vinyl records), but I didn't need to buy special record player to hear them.

I guess they feel that early adopters are less price sensitive, but these prices sure do discourage people from becoming early adopters. The volume of these movies is going to be so small initially, the studios are almost certainly going to lose money, and they probably wouldn't lose that much more if the price was a buck. Prices these high won't help them to prevent losses, but they sure will help prevent sales.

But, hey, who wouldn't jump at the chance to pay $35 to own The Chronicles of Riddick.

Which brings me to the second problem: the selection is almost exactly not what you want. I think the early adopters would want stunning eye candy, such as Star Wars (Fox) and The Matrix (Warner Bros.). Instead you get stuff like Blazing Saddles (Warner Bros.), which while one of the ten most important movies ever made ("Work...work...work...hello boys!"), I can't imagine it benefits from the HD format.

There is so much technically wrong with the high def formats to begin with. The price tag is just icing on the shitpile. I don't think I'll be upgrading my DVD collection to HD anytime soon.

For more info, here is a recent Ars Technica article on HD-DVD movie prices.

Endangered Access TV

Submitted by chip on Thu, 27-Jul-2006 - 7:53 pm
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Tonight, I sat down with Ruth Epstein of the local ACLU to record an interview on threats to public access television. The topic of the session was "Endangered Access TV." The program will air later this month on (appropriately enough) public access television.

She previously interviewed PACT Austin Executive Director Linda Litowsky and outreach coordinator Stefan Wray, and I'll be very interested to hear what they had to say. I'll post when I found out when it will air.

She was looking for direction on what the state ACLU could do on this issue, and I fear that she wasn't satisfied with my answer of "wait and see." There certainly are issues with the state telecom reform legislation (SB 5) passed last year, but that could be preempted by federal legislation. I think we need to wait until the end of the session in Washington and then decide where to go.

Why is Congress considering such anti-consumer telecom bills?

Submitted by chip on Wed, 26-Jul-2006 - 11:23 am
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One of the most disheatening things about all the astroturf groups that lobby for telecom legislation is their effectiveness in controlling the media story. So, I was delighted to see an article from telecom industry analyst (and activist) Bruce Kushnick come in over the wire:

Bruce Kushnick writes that both telecom bills before Congress would be huge giveaways to the very same telecommunications giants that have in the past pocketed massive government subsidies while shafting consumers and knee-capping American competitiveness. But they've taken very good care of members of Congress.

Read the full article over at Harvard University's Neiman foundation.

Important: if you think more people should see Bruce's article, then go here and Digg it.

Chinacat Upgrade

Submitted by chip on Sun, 23-Jul-2006 - 10:21 am
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I did an emergency system upgrade of chinacat, my main workstation (Ubuntu Linux 6.06 Dapper Drake) this weekend. Where "emergency" means I was so pressed that I drove down to Fry's to buy parts instead of ordering them online.

I built chinacat two years ago next month. It was a Gigabyte GA-K8VT800 motherboard with an AMD Athlon 64 2800+ Newcastle (1.8GHz) processor. The motherboard was an early Via K8T800 board, and it had some troubling quirks. The most troubling problem was that it would lockup overnight when populated with two memory modules, so I was stuck running 512MB when I really wanted 1GB. The second most troubling problem was that DMA could not be enabled for the DVD drive.

Lost without a Sync

Submitted by chip on Mon, 17-Jul-2006 - 11:14 pm
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About two weeks ago I upgraded chinacat (my Athlon 64 1.8GHz workstation) from Ubuntu Linux 5.10 (Hoary Hedgehog) to 6.06 (Dapper Drake). The upgrade has been excellent, except for one minor problem that is rapidly growing into a major nuisance. I've been unable to sync my Samsung SPH-I500 Palm OS PDA/phone.

The problem, unfortunately, appears to be a kernel bug in the current Linux 2.6.15 release. I'm going to have to try building (or loading, if I can find it) a 2.6.17 kernel and see how it does.

This is really bad, because not only can't I carry a current calendar around with me, the calendar and addressbook data on my phone and my computer are drifting apart. Ouch!

Chronicle runs protest photo, neglecting to mention Scientology connection

Submitted by chip on Thu, 06-Jul-2006 - 10:14 pm
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On page 15 of this week's Austin Chronicle, there is a photo of an anti-psychiatry rally. It's unfortunate they didn't assign a journalist to do some...you know...journalism. If so, they may have noticed an awful lot of connections between the protest group and the cult of Scientology.

I question the newsworthiness of the photo, but that's their call. They do, however, owe their readers the context and background. For instance, here is an article from an official cult publication that notes a Scientology "humanitarian award" that was conferred to protest spokesperson John Breeding.

Community Media Forum a Success

Submitted by chip on Tue, 04-Jul-2006 - 1:58 pm
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The Austin Community Media Forum happened recently. It was a great success. About 46 people showed up to discuss the future of public access television. The Austin Chronicle wrote about the event. There is a report of the event posted to the PACT Blog.

The morning sessions were panels with invited speakers on topics ranging from the history of access television in Austin, to current legislative and regulatory issues. The afternoon was filled with breakout sessions selected and operated by the attendees. There was a good mix of topics: ranging from accessibility to flagship programming to expanding access.

I was most excited to see the broad interest in expanding access television into new media and new communities. I was most concerned to see the lack of youth involvement. Web sites such as YouTube and MySpace show that folks under 30 do want to produce video. So, how to we get them to do community-focused work on access? That question may be critical to the future of access television.

Sen. Wyden to the rescue

Submitted by chip on Sat, 01-Jul-2006 - 8:45 am
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As I mentioned yesterday, Sen. Ron Wyden is putting a hold on telecom legislation over the lack of net neutrality protections. If you are from Oregon, please consider contacting Sen. Wyden to express your support in this matter.

Sen. Hutchison kills net neutrality

Submitted by chip on Fri, 30-Jun-2006 - 11:26 am
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On Wednesday, the Stevens telecom bill moved out of committee and on to the full U.S. Senate. There is much not to like about this bill, from allowing build-out discrimination to mandating copy-protection technology. The most discussed, most controversial aspect, by far, is net neutrality protections.

The current Internet is content and provider neutral. The large providers like AT&T have indicated a desire to move to a tiered access model, which allows them to "double dip": charging both ends of the connection for the same content. Not to get all chicken little about it, but tiered access really does mean the end of the Internet as we know it.

Sen. Olympia Snow offered an amendment to the legislation to protect net neutrality. The amendment failed on an 11-11 tie vote.

This is a particularly sad day for Texans, because Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison sat on this committee. Her vote could have assured an open and neutral Internet. Instead, she voted the telco position to permit tiered access.

Here is another Texas take on the issue.

The good news is that the telco-funded initiative may be faltering. They won by a landslide in the House. This week, their margin was cut to a whisker. Sen. Ron Wyden has threatened to put a hold on the telecom legislation over this issue. So there is increasing hope the big telco grab can be stopped.

Letter to Sen. Hutchison on Telecom Legislation

Submitted by chip on Wed, 21-Jun-2006 - 10:31 pm
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The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. (The "Phone Company Welfare Act of 2006" would be more truthful.) Senator Hutchison sits on this committee.

Dear Senator Hutchison,

Re: problems with S. 2686, the Communications, Consumers Choice and Broadband Deployment Act.

There are significant problems with S. 2686 that I hope can be remedied in committee. Your consideration of these matters would be greatly appreciated.

1. Net Neutrality - the providers of broadband access should not be allowed to utilize their duopoly position to discriminate on the basis of content or services. Innovative services such as Google, Ebay, and blogging occur because of the open nature of the platform. Don't allow the Internet to be like cellular phone service, where the access providers leverage their control to limit third party innovation.

2. Broadcast Flag - copy and content protection should be implemented through innovation, not legislation. And it certainly doesn't belong in a telecommunications bill. The broadcast and audio flag provisions are anti-consumer and anti-innovation and should not be snuck through the back door.

3. USF - we need a strong Universal Service Fund, but proposed expansions threaten to turn it into the worst form of corporate welfare. Please ensure that USF is administered fairly, and the intended purpose of basic access for all.

4. Local Provisions - there are a number of proposed amendments that would be greatly harmful to local communities. Please oppose provisions that would rollback franchise fees and PEG funding. Please support strengthened build-out and anti-redlining requirements.