theOven

It looks like we are heading for another DVD war between two of the mayor companies that produces DVDs and DVD burners. The two companies are Sony and Toshiba and they have both launched their own new DVD format, which they think should be the only format on the market.

Sony has introduced the Blu-Ray format, which have a storage capacity of 50 GB and Sony is going to used Blu-Ray in the new Playstation 3. Toshiba have introduced the HD-DVD which have a storage capacity of 45 GB and supports High Definition footage. Thosiba has also launched a HD-DVD Burner which puts them ahead of Sony at the moment. Toshiba also have more support from the film companies, and the HD-DVD is not that different from the DVDs we are using now, which will make the production costs lower.

Last time there was a DVD format war, they were fighting about the DVD+ and DVD- formats, that war resualted in that most DVD-players and burners could read and use both formats, and it didn’t make much difference which format you where using. This is less likely to happen this time, since the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is too different. Both sides agrees that it should only be one format, however it will take time before they agree on which one.

Before the DVDs there was the war between BetaMAX and VHS in the time before the VCR, so it looks like this is a never ending battle. As the technology evolves there will always be more than one company that wants the biggest piece of the market, and introduce a new format that they will claim as the best and that should be the only format. I’m positive to the concept of one format world wide, and think that is important. However it must be another way of decide which format we should use. I’m not willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a product that I in a year time would have to throw away, because I bought the wrong format and then have to spend another couple of hundreds on the other fomat. I would rather wait untill they decide…whenever that will be.

Keep you self updated on the recent DVD war here.

DVD-Jon, or Jon Johansen has done more than cracking DVDs, he has cracked iTunes DRM (digital rights managment) technology. (Blog on DRM here) This means that if you have this program you can buy and download the music from Apple’s iTune store without DRM or the restrictions, and use it as you want. The new program is called PyMusique (no it’s not a link to the program), and iTunes has tried to modify their stores to lock out the first version of the program. However, the program has been updated to go around Apples lock out. Jon Johansen also claim to be close to crack Napsters online store’s DRM, which won’t be popular with Windows and Microsoft. It seems that DVD-Jon likes playing with the big boys..

Jon Johansen got famous all over the world when he developed and distributed a program that copies DVD movies when he was 15. Not only that, he also defeated The Motion Picture Association of America, who was representing Hollywood companies like; Walt Disney Co, Universal Studios and Warner Bros in The Oslo district court. The ruling said that prosecutors had not proven that Johansen’s program, DeCSS, had been used for illegal copying of DVDs, and according to Norwegain law he was entitled to make a copy of legally purchased DVDs (a law that now is been rewritten..look at this blog), more on the trial here.
DVD-Jon also won the appeal, before the Norwegian police had to give up.

It is predicted that it won’t be long before Apple realise that they can’t win the code dueling, and make their lawers sue Mr Johansen. Hopefully Mr Johansen will be as succesful as last time he was in legal trouble, even if Norway is changing it’s laws.

According to the Futurologist Ian Pearson we can by 2050 have tricked death and will by help of technology have immortality?

Ian Pearson predicts;
“If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it’s not a major career problem,”

This means that if I stay healthy and live a normal life, I and my generation could be immortal. If I’m poor I probably have to wait untill 2075 or 2080, which makes it less likely for me to achive eternal life. This is for me is serious stuff, and even if I’m not sure that Mr Pearson is right, according to himeself he is in 90% av his predictions (have a look at his CV), It means that I have to take a stand for or against immortality and decide if I want it or not. That is really an abusrb thought.

As a futurologist it is Mr Pearsons job to make predictions about the future for his employer, BT. And immortality isn’t his only prediction; in the next 45 years we will get aeroplans that are afraid of crashing and intelligent yoghurt. The Observer In the near future we have to expect the Playstation 3 to be launched and that will according to Mr Pearson be 35 times more powerful as previuos game consoles, and have the capacity that equal 1% of the human mind.

Then from Playstation 3 the computers will evolve and in 2050, they will have the same capacity as a human brain. It freaks me out, in some way it is a good thing, in other terrifying. I know it shouldn’t but it makes me think of the movie The Matrix, where the technology that we human creates becomes to smart and takes over the humans posisionon Earth. Will Technology be the end of humans, and are the limits for how far we can go? Most civilized countries have forbidden experiments with cloning of humans, but what will they do with the possibilty to download a human brain on a computer chip or on a disk?

Butch aka Travis :: whats up doco :: June :: 2005

Butch, or Travis as his real name is, just put on a good blog on interactive documentary.

To sum it up, he says that a traditional documentary can be interactive even if it don’t require the viewer to press a button or particepate in any phisycal way. A documentary that makes you think, feel and get engage is as interactive as any other documnetary.

I couldn’t agree more. Not that I have anything against ineractivity and pressing buttons. However, to really understand and engage in a story I think you have to keep it simple and consentrate on understanding the issue.

Again we are talking about new media technology and how to use it in a way that will be accepted and will work to the benfit of the general public. My opinon is that interactivety is very effective in an educational way, and if you make an interactive documentary, it is not only to tell a story, but to educate someone on the topic.

I had to do the same assignments as Butch referes to in his blog, and Kim and me did chose to approach it a little different by mixing the educational and the doco story telling into one project. We made a proposal for a Aussie Rules doco, with in depth interviews of players and other characters but also with training and diet instructions and tips.

Even if interactivity is suppose to be fun, I think we have to give the viewer a reason to rewind or watch the same scene over and over, not just the possibility to get to another path in the story, who wants to look for something if there isn’t anything it for them…?

I’m also a fan of documentary with a point of view approach and only tell the story from one side (Terrorists, a point of view doco from one of my favourite film creaters, Lucas Moodysson). It can make a documentary more emotional however, I like to see some one able to do a point of view doco with interactivity, I think it would be hard to make it as interesting as a traditional one.

While iTunes are opening stores all over the world and contributing to the downloading of music from the internet for a small fee, they are also limiting the use of the downloaded files by usind Digital Rights Management (DRM)

“DRM systems restrict the use of digital files in order to protect the interests of copyright holders. DRM technologies can control file access (number of views, length of views), altering, sharing, copying, printing, and saving. These technologies may be contained within the operating system, program software, or in the actual hardware of a device.”quote from www.epic.org

When you download a file from iTunes online store and store it in your iTunes program on your computer it will become a DRM file, and that means that you can only play your file in your iTunes player or you iPod. The file is not a DRM file when you download it, but becomes one when you put it in your iTune. So you may say that you don’t have to put in iTunes, but the music you download from iTunes online store is not mp3 it’s acc which only works on iTunes…

The Apple webpage have renamed DRM to FairPlay and tell us:
“The iTunes Music Store uses FairPlay, Apple’s digital rights management system that’s designed to be fair to the artist, to the record companies and to you. In a nutshell, your FairPlay agreement entitles you to play your music on up to five computers (and enjoy unlimited synching with iPods), allows unlimited burning for individual songs and lets you burn playlists up to 7 times each. ”

But the DRM isn’t FairPlay as apple claims;

“DRM Systems Cannot Recognize Fair Use Rights

Statutory and Common Law interpretations of copyright law afford individuals “Fair Use” rights. Fair Use provides a defense to individuals who engage in an unauthorized use of protected content. It is impossible for DRM systems to incorporate Fair Use principles because they are difficult to define, and evolve over time. Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has argued that for DRM to recognize Fair Use, engineers must be able to program a federal judge onto a computer chip.

Fair Use allows individuals to interact with content to promote cultural production, learning, innovation, and equity between content owners and consumers. Fair Use includes libraries’ and educators’ rights to provide content to users, the right to sell physical copies of certain content that one acquires lawfully (the “First Sale” doctrine), and the ability to make a backup copy of software and music. No DRM scheme developed affords users these rights. “quote from www.epic.org

People that are Mac lovers, would probably not have a problem with this. However, I as a neutral in the war between PC and Mac don’t like it at all. I think that DRM is more damaging than it is protecting it’s content. Richard Stallman has discribed the horror that may be our future if Apple and DRM are allowed to contiune develop their copyright systems;

“For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college–when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her–but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong–something that only pirates would do.” from the book The Right to read.

Butch aka Travis :: Star Wars …. 3 :: May :: 2005

I have now seen Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, and I really don’t know if I liked it that much. I have previously blogged that this was George Lucas last chance to prevent a proffesional sucide, and I think he did prevent it. This was a much more serious movie than the two previous, and had a stronger storyline. However, I didn’t get swept away by the story or the effects, execpt in the opening scene, that was just great, and I totally agree with Butch on his view on that scene.

One thing that did get in the way of the story, was bad acting, I did expect that from Hayden Christensen (I was never a fan), but what the h… was Natalie Portman doing? She is normally quite good. Didn’t anyone tell her that she is suppose to be a strong poltician, not a drama queen, in this movie…?

As the movie goes on, you see effect after effect, and it’s just stops being that impressive (even if I know that they are still good). I also expected a lot more newer CGI, but there was a lot of the same as we saw in Episode I and II. I do have to admit that all the Star Wars movies are way ahead of everyone else when it comes to combining CGI with blue and green-screen technology, specially Episode III.

Ultimately I think the main reason you would go to see Episode III is to get the link between Episode I and II and Episode IV. The link and story behind it all, was clever, but happend too quickly in my opinion, the movie could easily have been 20 minutes longer without me getting bored.