On 20/02/2008, Brian Butterworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On 20/02/2008, Ian Forrester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I don't know guys, it may have been said multiple times but the only > > winner in this battle must be the online services. > > > > However I'm still left wondering when the general public will get their > > head around non-physical media. People seem to like the look and feel of > > physical media like CDs, Vinyl, DVDs. > >
Or, put it this way. In the late 1970s, home computers were the digital watch with it's battery-flattening LED display, the calculator and a "TV game" called Tennis (aka Pong). The game scored to 15 points because it was a FOUR bit processor. There was always Prestel, a acoustic-coupler version of Ceefax, a 40x24 display on a 1275 modem. That's 1200bps download, 75bps upload. You could store data on a compact cassette at perhaps the same 1200 baud, When I started at one school, they had TWO computers. An Apple ][ and a BBC B! The former had a printer and there were two games for it. My first network I set up was an Econet of BBC Micros. The "server" was a 10Mb Winchester drive. The whole school used it. The micros had 32K of RAM, 32K of ROM and a 8 bit CPU at around 1Mhz. The Econet network ran in up to a massive 100kbps! My first "professional" Netware installation was a Netware 3 one. By then the server had a 1Gb drive, the network was "thick" and "thin" 10Mb/s network. The "WAN" used Kilostreams at 64kps, and that led eventually the the Internet. As I recall those iMega 100Mb drives were all the rage. A few years later I used a Sun SparcStation to digitally record my first full audio track. I've still got the recording and I don't think it would past muster these days! When I start MP3ing all my CDs, I get a Rio 100. With 64Mb of memory! Ten tracks, if you are lucky, or double the RAM for £100. But even then my office 64kbps KiloStream to the Internet costs me £4000 a year! That's £173 a month for a service that is 1/32th the speed of a bog-standard 2Mb/s broadband you get for free (sort of) now. If you can't be persuaded by the science of climate change or peak oil, then if there is any better dead-cert it's Moore's Law. By 2015 the nets going to be 100s of Mb/s, it's going to be a question of how you can display all those 3D HD feeds at once! > I was talking to Dave about this in Edinburgh. > > The thing is, the current evidence suggests that this might be a false > assumption. > > From a physiological point of view, lots of marketing efforts does indeed > go into selling "things" to people. However, the modern liberal > international capitalist system puts a lot of effort into promoting > "brands", which a not things, but virtual. > > It is quite a logical step to say that brands therefore exist in > cyberspace. They have value only as something that is possessed by a > company that hey can use. > > I've got three enormous boxes that I have all my CDs in. I gaffer taped > them up when I finished MP3ing them, which was years ago now. How many > times have I unpacked them? None. > > I've got a Vista Media Center with all my music on it, and I can copy and > play this (using www.orb.com) anywhere. It's connected to the TV and has > a remote control, and does my videos and all my thousands of photos. I can > access all this lot from where ever with one remote control. > > I'm not alone. Everyone with an MP3 player (say an iPod) can carry around > an amount of music you couldn't carry around in a transit van if it were on > vinyl. > > Look, I'm such a nerd that I bought all of Star Trek (not Enterprise, > obviously but with the Cartoons), Doctor Who and Blake's Seven on VHS and > they took up the whole damn loft! Now I can have it all on a box smaller > than half a VHS cassette. > > And if that's not enough. To quote from Down The Line, "What is point > DVD?" > > The weirdest exam result (was the A) I got for an AO Level in "Science in > Society", so I've known about the idea of "peak oil" and "climate change" > for ages. I recon that if we are going to run out of the oil and stop > killing the planet, then the easiest thing for people to give up is buying > data stamped onto heavy plastic carted around by lorry. It's just so > unnecessary! > > If you are investing, invest in fat datapipes not past-it plastic. > > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/feb/19/musicnews.netmusic?gusrc=rss&feed=technology > > > Cheers > > > > zzzzzIan Forrester > > > > This e-mail is: [x] private; [] ask first; [] bloggable > > > > Senior Producer, BBC Backstage > > BC5 C3, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP > > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > work: +44 (0)2080083965 > > mob: +44 (0)7711913293 > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Woodhouse > > Sent: 20 February 2008 13:31 > > To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk > > Subject: RE: [backstage] HD-DVD / Blu Ray > > > > > > On Tue, 2008-02-19 at 15:26 +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > What I /heart/ about the pre-2K bit of plastic is the way it takes > > > control over your TV/DVD and insists that you watch the copyright > > > notices > > > > Sounds like you need to get yourself a better DVD player. > > > > -- > > dwmw2 > > > > - > > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, > > please visit > > http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial > > list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ > > > > - > > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, > > please visit > > http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial > > list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > k/ > > > > > -- > Please email me back if you need any more help. > > Brian Butterworth > http://www.ukfree.tv > -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv
