Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Hulu – Good Seed Gone Bad.

When Hulu began it was a great idea.  It was the first sign that someone, somewhere, was starting to “get it” when it came to watching media content.  Hulu freed television from the model we have become familiar with.  Where once a show would come on at a certain time on a certain day, broadcast to your TV screen, Hulu gave you the ability to watch the shows when you wanted, how you wanted.  You were no longer tied to the television.  You could watch TV on your desktop computer, your laptop, and several portable computing devices.  All it took was a web browser and an internet connection.  Digital media was honestly coming our way.  Sure, it was ad supported and you had to watch a couple of commercials(far fewer than one has to sit through via traditional media models), but it allowed you a liberty of both time, and how you wanted to view your programming.

Boxee took this one step further.  Boxee is an application that streams media content, bypassing the web browser.  It still had all the same ads when it streamed its programming via Hulu, but it allowed you to enjoy those shows on your television.  It completed the circle allowing the freedom of watching programming at your own leisure, with the ability to watch it on your TV as well as any other media capable device.  For people who have been finding cable companies to be more and more draconian in terms of both service and pricing it allowed us to cut our bonds with our cable provider.  Now that I could stream this legal TV content through my AppleTV it made cable, for me, obsolete (in terms of television – I still use them for internet access).

Things seemed fine and dandy until the powers that be suddenly realized that Boxee found a way to bypass a traditional media outlet.  Big business, slow to catch on, or understand new potential business models, did what it always does and pressured Hulu in to ordering Boxee to cease streaming of their service.  Perhaps if Boxee had provided viewers with a way to skip the advertising I could sympathize with this decision, but that’s not the case.  This is another instance of big media trying to dictate to the end user how they must view their programming.  It’s about control.  With Boxee someone else got to put those shows on the TV in homes across the country; that was no longer the domain of cable and satellite companies.  Not even understanding why big business had to send orders from on high to eliminate this new model.  It’s proof that the existence of Hulu was mostly just a fluke as the big business clung tight to their control.

Hulu, of course, was more than happy to point out that this decision came due to pressure from their content providers.  That this providers would have pulled their shows from Hulu, and that by ordering that Boxee quit streaming the service they were actually protecting their users access to content.  Hulu, in fact, is more than just in bed with big content providers.  Their parent corporations are big content – News Corporation and NBC.  Access for their users wasn’t what Hulu was thinking when they made the decision, they were thinking that to stand up for their users would likely cost them a large amount of revenue.  While I understand this is how the business world works, I just wish Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, hadn’t lied about his motivations when he claimed “ Please know that we take very seriously our role of representing users such that we are able to provide more and more content in more and more ways over time.”  While I do believe a part of him truly is sympathetic to the people affected his actions certainly make these claims hard to believe.  Nowhere is it evident that he made any type of attempt to represent these users, instead capitulating at the drop of the hat(though I will admit this may not be true we don’t have all the information of what took place behind closed doors – it’s just hard to imagine that the user was actually advocated during any discussions).

The reality of what Hulu did is two-fold.  First the alienated their user base in order to save face with big business.  They proved that instead of being revolutionary they were no more than another outlet for the control over content and big media’s desire to control how users have access to that content.  Secondly, and more importantly from a business stand point, they reduced the overall viewership on their ad supported media.  Take note advertisers, Hulu effectively cut the number of eyeballs watching yours ads.  Is it effective to do advertising with a business who is willing to reduce their overall viewing base?  You might want to think about that one before you spend any advertising dollars on the Hulu media outlet.

In the end I guess I’m not surprised.  Big media has always been slow to adapt, more willing to fight losing control over an old business model than crafting a way in which to profit off a new one before others can do the same.  It’s a pattern that continues to repeat itself, and it is something that the industry as a whole constantly forgets.  It was nice having Hulu on Boxee, but at the end of the day I’ll carry on.  I won’t be rushing back to cable as my content provider.  I’ll seek alternative forms of entertainment, and continue to enjoy the programming that is still available via Boxee from providers who just may actually “get it”.

Mirror Mirror: The Super Bowl Edition

It’s here, that magical time of year in America known as Super Bowl Sunday.  It’s the high holiday of the American belief system.  It’s that day when we celebrate spandex clad warriors smacking one another on the ass in celebration of moving the sacrificial pigskin that extra yard down the field.  How we, the fans, will cheer, jeer, and explain why the coaches have no clue what they are doing and offering our suggestions on how each and every play should have been run if the guy calling the plays was even in the least bit confident.  Because, after all, merely being a fan of the game fills us with an infinite knowledge of all things football, elevating us to a superior plane of existence then those mere mortals who tout their actually experience as if it were some sort of qualification for coaching a team.  Fools.

So today we find two great adversaries about to do combat in a pre-selected arena that spares no creature comforts for our fine warriors.  From the barren wastelands better known as Pittsburgh comes the Steelers who are of course led by Omar Epps Mike Tomlin who, despite not sitting in his recliner and drinking beer whilst enjoying a hearty bowl of nachos and yelling at the television, has some vague notions about what it takes to lead his team to victory.  Yes, how the down-trodden denizens of the Three Rivers cry “Huzzah!” every time this man steps on the field, clip board in hand, ready to bring glory to their once mighty kingdom.  It is fair to say that there are some other guys who help him out, but most of them aren’t routinely mistaken for being a Hollywood star.

Opposing these might men of steel are the Arizona Cardinals.  That’s right, Arizona is home to a professional sports team.  They are, in fact, home to no fewer than 4 professional sports teams, all of whom share the defining quality that no one really cares.  That is, until now.  Oh how the Cardinals have lifted the hopes of those nomadic peoples of the Arizona wastes, waking them from their dreary slumbers as the scratch their heads wondering “Wait, when did we get a professional football team?”  Arizonaites, you have arrived!  With your none-to-menacingly named Cardinals you shall march out on to the field of battle prepared to show the entire world you really are a state!  Arizona is led by their quarterback, Kurt Warner, best known as “the guy who was in a bunch of ads for soup.”  This journeyman quarterback has inspired the hopes and dreams of two guys who work concessions at the stadium and is now ready to bring his team to the big game.

I for one wait with baited breath, beer in hand as I mentally prepare myself to witness the Super Bowl spectacle.  While those all knowing odds makers his sit high in their neon lit Vegas towers have bestowed their blessing upon the Steelers I can’t help but wonder if once again the Cardinals are being overlooked, or downright forgotten.  In fact the entire NFC forgot about them, but time and time again they reminded them that indeed, really they have a football team, and apparently a good one at that!  My heart often goes out to the underdogs, but as I am also afraid of incurring my mothers wrath I find it hard to bestow my own blessing upon either of these champions.  Today one team will emerge victorious, lifted upon the shoulders of their adoring fans, many animals sacrificed to barbeque pits in their names.  The other team will leave the field, their heads hung low as they limp back to their multi-million dollar homes, forgotten and unloved by those fans who have been wearing their lucky logo emblazoned t-shirt, unwashed all season long in order to help elevate their team.  

Yes, it is here, the Super Bowl.  No matter who reigns triumphant we all wish for the same thing, some really kick ass commercial spots.  Because after all, what’s the Super Bowl without the commercials?

DVD Oddities.

As I was ripping some of my DVD’s so that I could add them to my AppleTV I ran in to an issue with one of the episodes on a disc of Las Vegas.  The first episode on the third disc continually ripped with the sound majorly our of sync with the video.  All the other episodes ripped from the same disc worked flawlessly.  I tried different settings in Handbrake, then I tried VisualHub, but all of them had the same issue in varying degrees - none of them even close to right.  If you play the episode directly from the disc, either on the computer or in the DVD player it runs just fine.  The problem has me absolutely stumped.  I could understand if all the episodes had the same issue, because then I’d believe that it was just an issue with the disc.  Only one episode having a problem just doesn’t make any sense.  I may have to try ripping it with a program in Windows or Linux and see what happens there.  For now, I’m just watching the episode on DVD as I catch back up on the series.

Apple TV: The Follow Up.

A while ago I did a post when we got our AppleTV.  I promised a followup after I had played around with it for a bit, but fell out of the habit of updating this blog.  Well I’ve certainly had plenty of time to play with the AppleTV and I thought now that I was trying to update this a little more frequently I’d follow up on some posts of the past, and this one seemed like a good one to start with.

After playing with the AppleTV for a little bit it was time to get down to the business of hacking it so that it could play a multitude of video formats as well as allow the attachment of an external storage device.  There are lots of instructions online for rolling your own hacks on to a USB key, but out of laziness, and the fact I’m willing to let better qualified people do the work for me, I went with the guys at aTV Flash.  They frequently update the software which is especially helpful as some of Apple’s updates to the units firmware can tend to break the things you so meticulously went about hacking.

The 160GB internal storage of the AppleTV wasn’t going to cut it once I started making digital copies of my DVD’s to transfer to the device.  We ended up hooking up a 1TB external USB drive to it, which was a snap.  I formatted it as HFS+ Journaled, plugged it in to the AppleTV, and it was immediately recognized.  I was able to FTP in to the unit and copy files over to the external HD.  After the finished copying the were accessible through the AppleTV’s menu – specifically in the “DVD” section of the expanded menu that appears after initially hacking the unit.  For ripping the video I find that Handbrake’s default settings work quite well – a great compromise between file size and quality of both picture and sound.

One of the other benefits that came from hacking the device is access to Hulu (along with other services)through Boxee.  I’ve watched some old episodes of ALF for nostalgic purposes as well as a few other gems (Airwolf and Knight Rider in particular).  It’s hit or miss with newer episodes of some shows through Hulu, but I use it more when I don’t know what I want to watch as opposed to stay current with series I follow.  More recent series I’ve slowly been acquiring from the Apple Store.  Following the series that I do as well as purchasing a couple I haven’t seen in awhile works out to the same, if not a little cheaper than the cable bill had been.  Boxee has also enabled me to have access to every episode of South Park that has been made thus far – something I take frequent advantage of.

The AppleTV has been working great as a replacement for live TV.  Yes, I do miss popping on the occasional football or hockey game, but I can always go to a friends house or one of the sports bars in town to see those.  I certainly haven’t felt any less transitioning to this digital centered, cable tv free lifestyles.

Apple TV has arrived!

My bright and shiny new Apple TV arrived today.  I’ve been looking at them ever since they came out, and decided I wanted one after the Take 2 software was released.  Finally the day came to actually purchase one.  I have to say that initially pairing it with a computer can get a bit wonky.  Right off the bat it wanted to suddenly synch all my media files via iTunes.  I had to cancel that and dig throuhg a few menus to eventually figure out what I wanted.  The synching is quite like it is for my iPod Touch.  After clicking through a few menus I was able to synch only what I wanted, and keep it from displaying the items that I didn’t synch (it does this in case you want to stream files from your computer directly from your computer).  If you’re going to be syncing via a laptop I suggest you have both the laptop and the Apple TV plugged directly in to your router rather than using wifi as the wireless connection can be slow if sync’ing an entire media library.

Once I had some shows on it, it ran like a champ.  Denise and I watched National Treasure 2 which I purchased through the iTunes store on my laptop while we were in Maui.  It ran smoothly and both the picture and audio were great.  I didn’t get the lagginess some people say they experienced during action scenes in movies.  There was no pixelization either, just clear DVD-looking quality video.  Now we’re watching an episode of Torchwood that I converted with a great program called VisualHub.

My initial reaction to it are pretty positive.  The biggest cons I’ve found is the limited selection of video formats that it can play (this can be fixed by hacking the machine.. something I’ll be looking in to), and the fact that you can’t simply plug in a big external hard drive for additional storage (again, something that can be accomplished with a little hacking).  I’ll follow up more after I’ve played with it more.