I was not quite there yet.

Although all my digital music and movie downloads are now legal, only most of my television show downloads are. I obtained Naruto from a popular fansub and I obtained Doctor Who just as quickly as it became available Saturday afternoons, using a wonderful program called TVTAD.

But no more.

Stealing is stealing. Stealing is not the appropriate response to content providers who have yet to make their content available legally on the Internet. If I am going to say anything more about this in the future, then I better make damn sure I am on the appropriate moral ground to do so. Therefore, I have uninstalled TVTAD and deleted all the past episodes of Naruto and Doctor Who I had stored.

Goodbye, pirating. The activity brought me great enjoyment and near-instant gratification. But if content providers do not want to put their content up for the world to enjoy, legally, then I do not need their content. I will also no longer respond by stealing their content. And when they do offer their content legally, then I will have something to look forward to as I get caught back up.

Oh, and creators of Doctor Who: stop ragging on transhumanists with your silly plots! The Doctor himself is an enhanced and incredibly capable entity. Why are enhanced capabilities okay for him but not for humans? Come on now!

Tom Merritt from CNET writes about “My fight with Amazon Unbox” and his thoughts, along with many of those commenting on the article, are predictably negative. In the blogosphere the universe centers around the individual speaking and most individuals tend to fill their space with bitching. Call it Bitch 2.0.

Amazon Unbox is the best digital download service yet since Apple added television programming for purchase through their iTunes Music Store last October. From iPod quality to DVD-quality, from one download version to two (DVD-quality and portable media player versions), from a modest selection to 200 television series and 1000 movies, from one service to many, and all of this in less than a year. This is something to bitch about?

Merritt complains that the Unbox software is too invasive and requires too much effort to install and uninstall. He complains that he cannot burn his purchases for viewing on a DVD player, and he complains that the first file downloaded was corrupted.

Merritt, and his sympathetic readers, should remember that he is an early experimenter with a service early in the existence of this industry. He should remember that just a year ago, no such extensive video service or software existed. He should remember that content producers pay money to produce content and can be forgiven for being Draconian in their first fledging attempts in a new industry. He should remember that Draconian measures always diminish with competition. He should remember that he was not forced to download the Unbox software and that his first Unbox digital download was free. He should remember that new services and software are beta whether or not they have been labeled as such.

I, on the other hand, remember what it was like before most media became available online. I remember my clunky television and the physical storage space required for VHS tapes and DVDs. I remember not having ready access to my favorite television shows and movies. I remember driving to the store to purchase content or waiting for content to arrive via snail mail. I remember watching television at a network’s preset time. I also remember the sour reception of DVDs, iPod and the iTunes Music Store, and other so-called failures. I remember less than a year ago when there were no broadband video channels supported by advertising nor burn-to-DVD services.

In spite of the negative commentary, consumers are rapidly adopting digital downloads. Competition continues to sweeten the offerings. In a year, most of the issues with current services will have been resolved or replaced.

Bitch all you want, you Bitch 2.0′ers; all you are really doing is taking for granted just how rapidly our world is changing and how far we have come.

In May there was a series of specials called “The End” on CBC Newsworld about the end of traditional media. I finally got around to watching the first one about radio tonight, and found both a wealth of music options and, in my opinion, confirmation that terrestrial radio is dying a slow and agonizing death. The most important find was Pandora, a web service for creating your own streaming radio station.

Back in the late 1990’s while I worked at eBay, I used a vaguely similar streaming radio service. You rated songs as they came up and based on your ratings the station slowly tuned itself to your interests. This was fantastic until the music studios had the service shut down. Their argument? Adding artists and rating them meant the listener could basically listen to whatever they wanted whenever they wanted for free.

Now that the media conglomerates are finally starting to experiment and relent just a little, new web services have better options for licensing their content. Pandora allows you to start listening to music right away without setting up an account. An account gives you greater access to songs and you can listen on different computers, though only one at a time. A paid subscription (around US$36 a year) gives you ad-free access to the Pandora site.

Pandora station setup began with choosing a song or artist I like. I chose my favorite band: Fleetwood Mac. The service then began playing a Fleetwood Mac song, followed by other artists’ songs that Pandora believes are similar in sound. This similarity comes from what Pandora calls the “Music Genome Project” - a group of musicians and music experts who analyze music to capture those attributes than can relate songs together. As songs play, you give them a thumbs up or a thumbs down and the service will tailor itself based on your votes. My “Fleetwood Mac Radio” station now includes Gin Blossoms, James Taylor, Queens of the Stone Age, The Pretenders, and artists I have never heard of but who turned out to be great. You can ask Pandora “Why did you play this song?” and it will respond with something like “Based on what you have told us so far we’re playing this track because it features electric rock instrumentation, a subtle use of vocal harmony, major key tonality, electric rhythm guitars, and many other similarities identified in the music genome project.” How true

If you want more variety in your station, you add addition songs or artists and the station will search for wider ranges of music. I added another favorite band - The Weakerthans - and a different “genome” of music started to queue (leading to songs from the Beatles!) You can create separate stations for specific sounds, or stations with a wider variety of favorites across multiple genres.

All of this activity is through Flash, done correctly. Navigation is easy to figure out. Other features of Pandora include the ability to search for songs and albums for purchase on Amazon or iTunes; read more information about the song, album or artist; and send family and friends your stations and lists of bookmarked songs. You can even add your lists to your blog (something I may add here in the near future). Here is my page if you want to take a listen to my station:

http://www.pandora.com/people/rleisjr

Music options today are nearly endless. Pandora is a wonderful example with its mix of streaming favorites and new discoveries. The only thing missing is portability. The day Pandora becomes available in my car will be a box opening worth living for.

A recent The New York Times article published at News.com suggests that although DVD growth has slowed, the format will continue to dominate for many years to come despite competition from the high definition DVD formats, digital downloads, pay-per-view (PPV), and video on demand (VOD).

The conclusion was similar ten years ago when DVD’s were not expected to significantly replace VHS tapes for some time because of expensive hardware and limited content made available by the movie studios. Ten years later, the DVD format not only replaced VHS tapes in record time but it changed the entire video industry. Walmart’s booming DVD sales business, television shows offered by the season, reissue after reissue, and Netflix are just a few unexpected outcomes of the rapid transition that occurred.

There are several reasons why DVD’s defied expectations. When DVD’s were introduced compact discs had already become wildly popular. Consumers unexpectedly began watching DVD’s on their computers, prompting earlier than expected adoption. Television series were put out two episodes per disc until the first full season boxed sets became immediate successes. The price of hardware fell rapidly while other consumer electronics such as game consoles began adding DVD support.

Of all contenders for distribution of video content in the future, only digital downloads can equal or surpass DVD’s in impact. Experts argue that digital download services are handicapped by limited selection, lower resolution, and the late arrival of broadband to a significant number of consumers in many countries. However, these obstacles are rapidly being overcome, while the problems faces by competing formats escalate. The format war over high definition DVD’s has abruptly inhibited any chance for their success even as holographic disc technology poises to leap frog over HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. PPV and VOD are popular but limited to satellite and cable. By the time these services adapt to IP, digital downloads will have become the popular format of choice by both content providers and consumers.

The availability of legal digital movie downloads took off earlier this year when the movie studios began making their content available to Movielink and CinemaNow. Both companies are rapidly increasing selection, spurred on by the success of television and music videos in the iTunes music store in only eight months and the inevitable launch of an iTunes movie store. Google jumped into the fray early with a growing library of more obscure, independent, and cult classic movies. Amazon, Netflix, and Blockbuster are all rumored to be working on their own digital download services.

All of this activity has occurred in less than one year and this intense competition will lead to much more content and higher resolution video very soon. The success of the $1.99 per episode model of television series on iTunes in spite of the low resolution tailored for the small screen of the iPod with video, as well as the willingness of consumers to watch these video on their computer monitors, indicates any increase in resolution will be immediately matched by greater demand.

Broadband penetration continues to rise while speeds increase and competition between traditional telecommunications, cellular, wireless, satellite and utility companies heats up. The Internet itself, regardless of how we access it, continues to swallow traditional media whole. When consumers finally embrace the availability of all media at all times on the Internet, all other distribution methods will fade away, beginning with physical media.

Then, around 2010 when digital downloads become the preferred format for entertainment distribution, the real significant changes will begin. The Internet is already transforming into a globe-spanning computing, software, format, sensory, energy and distribution platform called the Grid. When the Grid arrives and nearly every technological device becomes a mere extension of the platform, media content will become available anywhere in the world at anytime on any device both inside and outside of our bodies. Downloading will not be necessary because content will simply be there, accessible at the speed of light.

DVD’s, digital downloads, and then the Grid. Ten years from now, every other format will be mere footnotes in history.

I cannot help but post this on my blog. I cannot help but play this over and over again. I cannot help but dance around my bedroom like a freak. I cannot help but collapse in giggles.

Loituma is a Finnish act - see video of them performing this song here.

digg description:
“Try opening it in multiple windows.”

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[Commentary] | [Spoilers]

The first episode of the new season of Doctor Who was the last place I expected to see a rant against cloning, life extension, and transhumanism. In the new episode, written by Russell T. Davies, [spoiler alert] a race of feline nurses in the distant future has secretly grown and experimented on human clones to learn how to cure all diseases. By the end of the episode the Doctor has expressed his outrage, freed all of the imprisoned clones, and convinced a grotesque transhuman enemy that she must give up her pursuit of beauty and life extension and instead die like she is suppose to [end spoiler].

Clearly, popular fiction is the last place I should expect a thoughtful exploration of issues. Why popular fiction continues to depict scientists and transhumanists as villains and progress as “yucky” is unclear, but it is unfortunate that these fallacies also continue to play such a huge role in the ongoing debates over stem cell research, nanotechnology, life extension, cryonics, etc. Like Davies, critics create from their incorrect notions frightening futures of science gone awry to scare people into resisting new technologies.

It can easily be shown that these futures are simply not possible. For example, progress in stem cell research, organ tissue engineering, and artificial organ replacements have already rendered obsolete the human clone slaughterhouses envisioned by Davies and other critics. Why feed, store, clean, and otherwise maintain human clones when you can just grow or replace the required organs more cheaply and in much less time? Human clone farms, clone armies, clone basketball teams and all the other nonsense proposed as reasons for banning human cloning are neither economically feasible nor worthwhile to even the most despicable villain.

Science fiction has always been important for exploring the events and issues of the times. What we need are new archetypes that live within future worlds extrapolated from our own reality. Prose continues to offer just such fiction. I wonder if and television and movies will catch up.

When it is a vidcast. The number one and two podcasts listed in Apple iTunes’ “Today’s Top Podcasts” list are vidcasts, with three more in the top 20. There cannot possibly be as many iPods with video purchased yet as there are older video-free iPods; the new iPod came out a few weeks ago. Therefore, portability must not be the primary feature driving people to vidcasts. Despite claims to the contrary, people really are watching longer-form video on their computer monitors.

Simply put, we love video, regardless of where it comes from and where it is displayed. Do we love video more than we love music? Possibly. Podcasts went from nowhere to everywhere in less than one year. Vidcasts appear to be doing the same in half the time.

Personally, I cannot listen to a podcast if I know there is a video version available (Diggnation is a case in point.) If a favorite podcaster announces a vidcast versions of the show, I will jump immediately. Let me repeat here a prediction I made two months ago about the future of podcasting and vidcasting: Vidcasting will be huge, and it will dwarf podcasting. All the hype about podcasts that made many shake their head? It will all be realized with vidcasts.

With video now available for your iPod, your cellphone, your television, your computer, your car, your sunglasses, and your refrigerator, there is only one place left for video to go. Before I tell you where that is (it should be obvious by now,) let me highlight recent announcements about the future of video.

• NBC News will begin providing “NBC Nightly News” episodes on the Internet beginning November 07, 2005, just a few hours after the episode airs on network television.
• Federated Studios, the producers of popular cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls (a personal favorite) and The Fairly OddParents, began offering last week a video podcast called Channel Federator. Quoting from the Channel Federator site: “We really love cartoons and the people who make them. Because of our day job, we see lots of excellent stuff that never gets seen by most people. Channel Frederator gives all cartoons a shot at being shown to the wired world’s masses.”
• Apple claims one million video downloads in the first 19 days of $1.99 music videos, Pixar shorts, and series episodes from Disney/ABC becoming available in the iTunes Music Store. Steve Jobs is quoted in the press release as saying: “Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods.”
• Comedy Central is set to launch a broadband video channel called Motherload, consisting mostly of short clips from their existing cable network shows.
• MTV recently launched a broadband video channel called mtvU ÜBER with clips of their existing cable network shows, longer form content, and music videos, supported by advertising.
• Many technology news IPTV series are making iPod-compatible episodes and providing RSS feeds to automate downloading.

Meanwhile, vidcasts (another term for video podcasts) have become increasingly popular in just the past few weeks, as reflected in the increasing number of them rising in the ranks of the top 100 podcasts listed by iTunes. Several vidcast and IPTV directories have recently launched online to cover the burgeoning technology news and commentary series produced by amateurs and independent producers. Fan fiction and original fiction series are also increasing in number (as well as in quality) with Mighty Moshin’ Emo Rangers debuting today and Venus Rises coming soon, joining existing series like Star Trek: Hidden Frontier (completing its sixth season soon,) Star Trek New Voyages, The Scene, Red vs Blue, Stone Trek, and Ninjai: The Little Ninja.

Is this activity unrestrained hype or something significant? There is no question that the rapid-fire announcements coming from traditional networks and content producers are a knee jerk response to their uncertainty over piracy, consumer response to independently produced content, and the accelerating spread of Internet broadband around the world. The result is hype, as traditional content producers try to paint their picture of the future as if it was in their head this entire time.

Of true significance is the rapidly changing habits of televisions viewers growing accustomed to the Internet. The Internet is consuming television whole and transforming passive viewers into active participants. These new viewers want to watch AND create video content. They want to participate in the story, which they can do increasingly through video games. When they do passively watch video they want to do so on their own schedule on the device of their choice no matter where they are located.

And these desires, unleashed by the Internet, herald the radical change that will make this entire era of video transitory. Convergence will reach its logical conclusion inside of us. The devices – media player, television, radio, cellphone, camera, etc. – and their capabilities – mobile telephony, image taking, media playing, etc. – and their larger significance to communication, entertainment, and education are all coming together inside of the human body. The cyborg that results is not the Borg of fiction but a melding of technological capabilities with organic beings. It is not that the iPod of the future will be embedded in your body; instead, your body will become imbued with the capabilities of that iPod.

Of course, by that time the iPod itself will be a distant memory, it capabilities swept up into descendant technologies, not all of them physical and many of them purely digital. The leap from technology outside of our bodies to technology inside of our bodies may seem at best esoteric, but please stay tuned. I will continue to explore this idea here on Cybernudism.

Dear Apple (with greetings, and apologies, to Disney/ABC),

Thank you. Thank you for finally providing legal downloads of television shows. I just deleted all the episodes of “Lost” I downloaded via Bittorrent and from now on I will pay US$1.99 per episode (plus tax in my state) the day after that episode airs on the ABC network. It took only ten minutes to download an episode of “Lost” using iTunes, compared to several hours to complete a download using Bittorrent. There were no commercials (making the US$1.99 price absolutely worthwhile to me.) It was convenient and legal.

Please continue to add other television series to your lineup and consider offering older series at US$0.99 per episode with a discount for purchasing an entire season (please, bring me “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer”!) Here are a few other changes and future additions that will keep me happy and eventually wean me from Bittorrent forever:

• Double or quaduple the file size for better quality video. Episodes downloaded using Bittorrent still have the advantage in quality (an hour of television looks great at 340 MB and absolutely fantastic at 700 MB.) Currently, the episodes through iTunes look about as good as standard television. Let’s bring on high definition…
• The first season of Lost is available for US$34.99. If I buy all 24 episodes of this second season of Lost, I will pay nearly US$48.00. Please offer a subscription to a full current season of a show for the same price as full past seasons. I will prepay before the season even starts.
• Please consider adding in extras that would normally show up on the DVD release of a television series, for no extra charge, when purchased with a full season.
• More series, including obscure series, classic series, series that were cancelled early, Internet-only series, independent series, public-access series, series from around the world (hello, “Dr. Who” and “ReGenesis”,) and free series. Oh, and “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer”!
• Movies - no more than US$9.99 to own, no more than US$0.99 to watch one time. All movies. I will pay, I assure you. Just please, please, please, build a complete movie library of all known titles from the dawn of movies until the present, accessible at any time (like those sleepless nights when just one particular treasured movie or genre will do.)
• Let these movies be displayed on my iPod video, computer monitor, big screen television, refrigerator, glasses, sunglasses, retina-writing contact lenses, etc. In other words - buy once, own forever, play anywhere. If I cannot buy once, then at least let me buy everything for one-time playback at US$0.99 or less. I promise I will spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year.

Again, thank you, Apple. Thank you, Disney/ABC, Pixar, and the music video publishers, for your early offerings. I no longer require physical media for my entertainment content. Put everything on the Internet, let competition work on the prices, and let me have immediate access to it all whenever I want.

Best regards,

Richard Leis

Tivo and Bittorrent have allowed viewers to cull through the dreck of mainstream network television and the onslaught of nearly 18 minutes per hour of commercials to create an experience they will not give up easily. With vidcasting, viewing video entertainment has become an absolute joy again. Of special note is Rocketboom, hosted by the luminous Amanda Congdon, with two episodes last week that showcase truly creative and cutting-edge video art.

The first was on Tuesday, September 27, 2005. The brilliant use of yesteryear science-themed tunes, a recent astrophysical discovery, remakes of remakes of remakes of physical mechanics in motion, the blurring of image and reality, and Fidel Castro’s rant on American beer…beep, beep, indeed

Then, on Friday, September 30, 2005: silent film-era host/disco diva Amanda and a postmodern music video in BASIC…beautiful ground, indeed.

Other fantastic Rocketboom moments have included Amanda’s dance through Saint Petersburg, Russia, and her impassioned two-word impeachment plea.