Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

The expectation many had that the next-generation HD format would take off once the format war was over is pretty much a forgotten dream at this point. Sales of Blu-Ray haven’t experienced the massive jump people expected once wait-and-see consumers saw that HD-DVD was well and truly dead.

Consumers are balking at the $300-plus cost of most Blu-ray players especially because only limited movie titles are available in the format.

“People aren’t going to pay three times as much for a platform that’s only half-baked,” said Steve Wilson, a consumer electronics analyst with ABI Research.

The problem with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats, of course, was largely the library. Perhaps it’s only obvious to me, but when you’re touting the superiority of the platform as a prestige format, you might want to consider releasing Citizen Kane – a movie with a long history that most people would display proudly in their collection, and something more likely to be cherished by someone who just dropped $399 on a player – instead of, say, Ultraviolet – a movie whose design concept can best be described as “blurry, obviously fake, and designed above all to not be viewed in HD.”

This in turn feeds the price question. Why should people pay a prestige price for a player where the majority of titles are movies that people just flat don’t care about seeing in HD – many of which are $20+ on the new format when they’re already in the bargain bins on the old? I just purchased Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 on DVD for $5.99 each – movies I care about having in my collection (well, Alien 3 more for completeness’ sake). With the already high quality of DVD picture and sound, spending $25.99 for each of them on Blu-Ray would just feel wrong.

Of course, Blu-Ray could get an extra push from indie producers. More and more indie directors shooting on HD would mean an influx of content – some of which would be kept inexpensive to draw in new audiences, and which would help sell the new format to off-the-wall and indie film fans. Of course, it could provide this extra push – if Blu-Ray didn’t seem determined to exclude these producers from the new market.

Where are the POD solutions for Blu-Ray at this point? No, I’m seriously asking – where are they? CreateSpace, which is owned by Amazon, is still negotiating a deal to allow them to offer POD Blu-Ray. Kunaki? Lulu? Who knows? Neither one even mentions it. Why not?

It may have something to do with the $3,000-a-person entry fee the industry is imposing, otherwise known as the AACS DRM scheme. It appears that there’s been a real problem playing Blu-Ray discs that don’t include AACS, so everybody who wants to publish to the medium has to purchase an AACS license, and every title must include AACS – regardless of the wishes of the publisher and/or the artist.

Creative Commons-licensed material? Who cares? You’d better slap some copy protection on it.

Want to release a public domain film to Blu-Ray to help preserve our film history (or make a quick buck off of an HD release of The Last Man on Earth)? Sure. As long as that public domain film is one you’re willing to pay $3,000 to copy protect.

And forget about a sales system like EZTakes, that provides its DVD images DRM-free – but with the purchaser’s e-mail address embedded in the burnt copy.

Forget, too, about the share-friendly independent spirit that provokes legal statements like this one (found on my newest DVD, available soon, plug plug).

Low- and Micro-budget filmmakers will find themselves blocked out of the new next-generation disc market for as long as AACS is an expensive necessity and the artists are blocked out of making their own decisions as to how their content should be treated. The result? Well, unless the major studios wise up on their releasing schedule, a homogenized blend of movies nobody cares about seeing in High Definition, and a marketplace completely priced out of the range of the regular consumer.

After all, there’s one further aspect I’ve barely even touched on that is just as blocked by this current model – one could argue that DVD’s would never have become the consumer mainstay they are today if not for the bins of $1 DVD’s at the front of every major retail chain today…

What is surely to be one of the most heavily-hit Flickr sets of all times has just gone up – a side-by-side comparison of landmarks from New York City and its digital cousin, Liberty City. It shows an incredible eye for detail and an astounding amount of work done on world building.

Too bad they didn’t spend that much effort on walking down the street.

For the record, with neither a PS3 or an XBox, I’m out of the loop on the GTA IV goodness. I’m sure if I had the controller in hand, I’d be loving it. That doesn’t mean the physics that let you knock over streetlights while Sonny Bono-ing yourself on saplings aren’t fundamentally broken, however.

Much like Thudfactor, I already thought we were doing this everywhere, too.

The program takes treated sewer water, runs it through the same reverse osmosis process that bottled water companies use to purify their artesian (or tap) water, and then injects it into a deep aquifer that provides water for Orange County. The idea is to recycle as much of the water as possible and, in the process, reduce the water needs of a very arid and highly populated region of the country, southern California.

The article says that many people are “squicking out” about the fact that their water supply may contain water that came from someone’s toilet, but – as they also point out – pretty much all water came from someone or something’s toilet at some point in history. Heck, it’s only relatively recently that we’ve managed to find ways to ensure that water is safe to drink. Prior to that, people depended on the anti-microbial properties of alcohol in weak wine and beer to get safe hydration. Well, that is to say, they depended on it without realizing what “anti-microbial” meant. Let alone “microbe.”

Just like land, they’re not makin’ any more of water. The more we can process and reclaim it, the better off we’re all going to be.

I admit it. I don’t typically tune in to the Grammy awards these days. I think the last time I tried to watch the Grammies was the year that Outkast performed Hey Ya! with Andre 3000 in a green Hollywood-Indian outfit and No Doubt performed “Hey Baby” with acrobats on trapezes. It was quite possibly the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen onstage. Not the most painful – I’ve watched a lot of amateur theatre – but definitely the ugliest. My general experience with the Grammies has been an excess of spectacle that detracts from – rather than celebrating – the music it is supposed to honor. I’ve seen numbers from them that just seemed like an experiment in how much money could be put on stage rather than any valid artistic or aesthetic statement.

So I don’t know what to make of this scene that I caught today on sci-fi blog io9. For those who would otherwise be lost, allow me to explain what you’re about to see.

This is a Grammy performance of the song “Stronger,” by Kanye West. In recording “Stronger,” Kanye West sampled from techno duo Daft Punk’s song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” On Grammy night, however, West performed the song with Daft Punk backing him up live.

The mythology of Daft Punk [by the way – it should be noted that I love bands with mythologies] is that at 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, the two were working on a track when their sampler exploded. They awakened from the blast to discover that they had been transformed into robots. Their stage act – which has never been televised before – involves the duo wearing face-obscuring, Tron-inspired robot suits as they mix their music live on touch-screen synthesizers.

And here we have my indecision. Well, first, go ahead and check out the video.

Honestly, a number like this requires spectacle because the mythology and stage show of the band is spectacle. I can’t help feeling as I watch this video, however, that the revelation of Daft Punk mixing in the background is somehow overshadowed. For most of the number, Kanye West raps in front of a bright, neon backdrop. Then as Daft Punk shift to the forefront of the song, the neon pyramid slides apart to reveal… two dark figures rimmed in very dim red light working at green touchscreens. Their outfits are literally outshone by the neon going on around them, and it isn’t until a close-up obscures everything except the performers that it becomes clear how they’re dressed and what they’re doing – and as for the audience, the touch screen is a really neat bit of truly musical spectacle – but the audience doesn’t get to see it unless they’re watching at home.

So, for once, it seems to me that the Grammies got the spectacle in the right place – it was just executed poorly.

I have to admit, however, that it did make me want to see more of Daft Punk’s live act.

Right now, a lot of people are lining up to dance on HD-DVD’s grave. It appears it’s all over except for Toshiba’s quiet, lonely sobbing. Engadget reports that, hot on the heels of Netflix ditching HD-DVD from its rental service, Best Buy is breaking its long-held neutrality in the next-gen DVD war.

Starting in early March the store will showcase Blu hardware and software on its shelves and website, and switch from its current neutral stance, to recommending Blu-ray to any customers that ask.

Sometimes it becomes apparent to me how woefully behind the times I’m running.

It was just as the year was beginning that I wrote about Air America, and pondered aloud why I should continue to subscribe if they might delete my favorite show halfway through the year.

Then I also talked about HD disc formats and the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as though it would continue for a long time.

On January 14, Air America dropped The Young Turks and the show became available exclusively through their website.

And with the defection of Warner Bros. to Blu-Ray exclusive, people are largely ready to declare the format wars over and Blu-Ray the victor.

Well! I’m glad we got those two issues out of the way. So how about that Kucinich? Think he can take Ron Paul in the upcoming election?

I love Holga/Lomo fanatics. I was one for all of about three hours before the cost of film and development drove me to digital and away from the blurry snapshot “art” of the plastic camera. Somewhere I still have the roll of black and white film I shot using my taped-up super sampler, which I want to dig out every now and then and give another whirl.

(BTW – I love you guys and all, but my four-frame camera came from a science geek surplus catalog and cost me all of four bucks. You might want to shop around if you’re going the toy camera route)

Now one enterprising Holga enthusiast has created Holga: The Movie. It’s a brief walk through town with a techno soundtrack. The kicker? He modified his 35mm Holga to be a motion picture camera, albeit a choppy one. He also includes his instructions on how to recreate this effect.

The video appears to be un-embeddable, so you’ll have to click through to look at it here.

As more and more families find themselves with sizable HD tv’s occupying their living rooms, the format wars for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD seem to actually be taking off at long last. After a long stagnation on store shelves, including a period in which it looked like major chains were actually going to phase them out in favor of more DVD space, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are starting to move units. This despite a generally lousy selection of titles (really? Ultraviolet in hi-def? Why?) punctuated by a handful of truly stellar releases (Dr. Strangelove in HD? More, please!).

Would you believe that it was all the way back in January of this year (you know, the one about to end in my own time zone) that I linked to Variety’s report on a third alternative that had, at the time, only found support in Bollywood? I wonder whatever happened to that format…

The answer, apparently, is that it actually got released.

HD VMD is still flying under the radar, amazingly enough. But the players are out, and so are movies. And not just Bollywood, either. I was amazed to find in the HD VMD catalog such titles as El Cid, Alexander, Bridge to Terabithia, and Lord of War, to name just a few. Where, I wondered, did this come from? And what business do they have selling them in bundles with five movies (that you’ve probably never heard of) for a suggested price of $250 when the lowest-priced Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player I could find at Best Buy had an MSRP of $299.99 with no movies included?

Is HD VMD a viable alternative? Well, the technology is there and the price is right – but the movie support still needs work. While the catalog features titles from very strong players, it’s still pretty sparse – and I still haven’t seen them populating Best Buy shelves. For the moment, though, I’m tempted to keep watching…

Over at Thudfactor, Thud is blogging about some customer satisfaction issues. He’s not renewing Xbox live after his free trial is over – and for good reason. He’s not happy with corporate practices that result from executives being paid in spite of their job performance rather than having to, y’know, actually succeed or anything.

And he’s also not happy with Air America Radio.

Maddow’s show is still informative. She is very smart, and she is still concerned about very important issues — like our failing national infrastructure — that most news outlets (or blogs) ignore. But Kent Jones was the comic relief that made the show fun and funny. It’s not fun and funny any more.

Air America has not, as near as I can tell, responded in any way to Kent Jones’ fans. They certainly didn’t respond to me when I wrote and complained — politely. I will miss the Rachel Maddow Show but I think I will be canceling my Air America Premium subscription. There just isn’t anything worth the money any more. And I think the management at Air America resents their (erstwhile) fans. We don’t like to listen to what they think we should like.

Recently, I decided to cancel my subscription to Air America Premium, as well – for pretty much the same reasons. Al Franken no longer broadcasts there (not strictly their fault – he left to run for public office, after all), nor does Chuck D. Every show I came to like in the early days of Air America has pretty much closed up shop. Garafalo’s show never really came of age, but I enjoyed it – and it’s gone. As is the Morning Sedition.

In fact, the one show that I still listen to on Air America is The Young Turks, which still manages to be good even after the departure of Ben Mankiewicz. My brother doesn’t care much for their show, but it’s remained the one point on the Air America dial that kept me coming back.

Which is why, after a year of schedule shake-ups from the management at Air America, I decided I didn’t need their premium podcast plan any more – particularly not the Gold package that gave me access to all of the programming I didn’t really want. Sorry, but I’ve just never been able to get into Randi Rhodes. I just couldn’t justify the expense to subscribe to a package that might decide to take away the one show I liked midway through my subscription.

Instead, I decided to turn around and give my subscription money directly to The Young Turks. By subscribing to their website, I get access to both video and audio of each of their shows, including an audio podcast that comes directly from the show instead of being Air America’s copy (Air America, by the way, has been notorious for lousy quality in their audio archives). In addition, my subscription goes to help finance the show, bringing it one step closer to complete independence. The Young Turks has set the ambitious goal of being completely independent, funded by its subscribers instead of being beholden to the whims of sponsors or flighty networks.

I love progressive radio, and I still love the movement that Air America represented in talk – but the execution still needs some works. In the meantime, I’m tuning my iPod into the Turks.

Edited to note: On the plus side, Air America makes leaving incredibly easy. All it took was a couple of link clicks and I was informed that once my current subscription commitment expires (January 8), my subscription will not renew. At least they got something right.

Back when I worked tech suppor—err, “customer service,” one of the things we were told not to mess with was peoples’ sports. It didn’t matter if we were Steelers fans and the person on the line was a Packers fanatic, if we felt the Dodgers hadn’t been any good since they left Brooklyn and our customer was from L.A., or if we felt it was ridiculous to subscribe to the 15-channel Cricket Network. We did not comment on their sports choices.

I also learned very quickly that the most outraged and violently-inclined customers were the ones who – because of a problem with our product – would not be able to watch the sporting event they had been looking forward to. Thankfully, I only ever had to deal with regular season games – I quit the day before a massive Oscar De La Hoya pay-per-view, and people I went through training with told me later that I dodged a bullet by doing so.

So what is the MLB thinking – beyond “Here’s a way we can make greedy little fistfuls of extra cash” – when they tell their fans the games they bought from the MLB’s website can no longer be played? And furthermore, what are they thinking when they tell their customers that they can’t have their money back? [link via Boing Boing]

Just got off the phone with a MLB customer service supervisor.

“MLB no longer supports the DDS system” that it once used and so any CDs with downloaded games on them “are no good. They will not work with the current system.”

Great. Just effing great. ... As I told the supervisor, this is right in line with how wrong-headed and stupid and ass backwards MLB does everything.

I was told there is absolutely nothing MLB can do about these lost games. Plus, they said my purchases were all “one-time sales” and thus “there are no refunds”.

ahem.

And on a further note – don’t mess with peoples’ sports. They’ll kill you.