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The deception of “buying” digital movies

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#411

Post by The-Bus »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #406

I work in R&D where tens to hundreds of millions are spent on talent/materials/engineering to design new high tech materials for the world. It’s strange that this much effort practically gets about 10-15 years of protection(or less depending on prosecution time with the patent office), while a drawing of a mouse or “moving-pictures” is protected for a century.

Not using cost measured in dollars to equate the benefit of different things, but most studio films are at minimum tens of millions of dollars, with nine figures not being uncommon.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#412

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

jacobr1 wrote: post #407
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying, but if a construction worker buys a new Ford F150 that is constantly breaking, that is a much bigger problem to him than if a wealthy person buys a Range Rover as a 3rd vehicle for Tahoe runs and that vehicle has some recurring check engine lights. Unless we're calling construction workers buying F150s with 72 month loans wealthy these days.

No, I think the OP is suggesting that the more likely scenario is some professional-class "weekend-warrior" type bought the F150s with the 72m loan, which later on was resold to the working-class construction worker on the secondary market.

I suppose. Even lemon laws are funny if you follow them to their conclusion, so maybe OP is right.

Once a vehicle gets lemon lawed, it gets sent to auction where it is disclosed to dealers, and then it's just sold again to the public as a used car without the ability to be lemon lawed at that point.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#413

Post by The-Bus »

kranke155 wrote: post #94
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Noisy, grainy, just bad." AKA, it was shot on film. Film has film grain, which can only be removed by Digital Noise Reduction. DNR removes film grain, but also scrubs away detail and can leave waxy faces among other artifacts, as well as a fairly artificial and non-cinematic look. Film grain compresses very badly over streaming, so DNRing the streaming version before compression is probably what you are seeing. In t…

It’s funny if the poster is actually complaining about grain. Digital compression, like the one that Netflix uses, will often clean up the image of grain as a secondary effect of the compression algo. Essentially grain is a lot of detail that video compression algorithms have been taught to ignore/remove. H.264 was notorious for virtually removing all grain making it impossible to have authentic film grain on YouTube…

Netflix removes the film grain in compression then adds it back in: https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/Netflix-removes-movie-n...

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#414

Post by The-Bus »

FalconSensei wrote: post #344
itslennysfault wrote: post #197

This hit me long long ago when the kindle first came out. At the time (haven't looked since), eBooks were the same price as paper back books, but with a paper back book you OWN it. You can GIVE it to a friend. You can SELL it. Heck, if it gets really cold you can even burn it. With an eBook you can read it, and thats about it.

It's usually cheaper, and they often have sales were you get it for 10%~20% of the paperback price. Also, for fiction, it's an advantage too because many times there's only a hardback + ebook release. Since hardbacks are the more expensive and less convenient/easy version to read - heavier, get's damaged more easily - you can just get the ebook for maybe half the price of paperback

I understand the point you are trying to make but a hardcover book is definitely can take more damage than an ereader.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#415

Post by jacobr1 »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #412
jacobr1 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think the OP is suggesting that the more likely scenario is some professional-class "weekend-warrior" type bought the F150s with the 72m loan, which later on was resold to the working-class construction worker on the secondary market.

I suppose. Even lemon laws are funny if you follow them to their conclusion, so maybe OP is right. Once a vehicle gets lemon lawed, it gets sent to auction where it is disclosed to dealers, and then it's just sold again to the public as a used car without the ability to be lemon lawed at that point.

There are some laws around maintaining the history the car. Sales must be recorded, certain accidents. I think certain types of flood damage. Getting a carfax is a must if you are buying a used car.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#416

Post by evancox100 »

dangets wrote: post #239
kranke155 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny if the poster is actually complaining about grain. Digital compression, like the one that Netflix uses, will often clean up the image of grain as a secondary effect of the compression algo. Essentially grain is a lot of detail that video compression algorithms have been taught to ignore/remove. H.264 was notorious for virtually removing all grain making it impossible to have authentic film grain on YouTube…

It sounds like movies need to start including gpu shaders with them to add grains or other effects regardless of the compression.

Not literally a gpu shader but AV-1 now has film grain synthesis as part of the decoding process:

https://waveletbeam.com/index.php/av1-film-grain-synthesis

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#417

Post by franciscop »

RealStickman_ wrote: post #334
rendaw wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does handbrake presets give you good space savings? I was imagining at most something in the 10-20% range.

Most Blu Rays I have are MPEG-2. AVC compresses to about half the size for the same quality and HEVC does that again on top.

Cannot wait for hardware support for AV1, since encoding with software takes hours for short clips.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#418

Post by nonrandomstring »

NoGravitas wrote: post #382
nonrandomstring wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would almost seem like most of the engineering for the Blu-ray format went into things which very specifically doesn’t act in the interest of the buyer. It doesn't seem like that. It is like that. Welcome to modern tech, where the management, perception, control and tactical destruction of real value is the only place left to eek out a profit margin. We build 8 core CPUs and blow e-fuses in the factory to make t…

>Welcome to modern tech, where the management, perception, control and tactical destruction of real value is the only place left to eek out a profit margin. It's almost as if there's a consistent economic process that leads companies to do this kind of thing again and again. We could call it "the tendency of the rate of profit to fall".

Consistency may be running out. It may be time to turn this elegant observation (not immutable law) into an anti-pattern. As an optimist I prefer "tendency of systems toward failure of innovation" (AKA sloth of the entrenched incumbents). This is the last crisis. Because it's not a crisis of capital, it's a crisis of the very substrate (the planet) which allows for the possibility of capital. Schumpeter's creative destruction is now literally environmental destruction. A new broom is required. Let's hope it's not the communists again. A few simple bits of regulation could go a long way to correct things.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#419

Post by whimsicalism »

Xeoncross wrote: post #255
senko wrote: post #215

Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps. I'm not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value. However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, b…

Does the US have any state or federal laws that don't benefit the wealthy at least as much as a regular citizen? As far as I'm aware, even laws for the small business play into the favor of larger corporations either directly or via auxiliary laws.

Progressive taxation?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#420

Post by est31 »

Xeoncross wrote: post #390
wpietri wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich do need to eat, but they can and generally do eat from places with much higher margins and higher-value brands. Those places have less incentive to cut corners and more incentive to keep their customers healthy. The poorer you are, though, the more constrained your choices are and the more risk you may have to take. Food safety laws act as a quality floor (or a risk ceiling if you prefer), so they help poor…

While this is true, the OP's argument could also include other reasons they wanted this such as avoiding costly sickness in their employees. I can assure you that amazon and walmart care at least a little about the health of the minimum wage workers they depend on to move inventory.

Amazon is famous for not caring about the health of their workers, compared to competitors in the same industry. They pay above the market and replace the market's healthy workers with workers with health issues. They don't care to optimize their process towards worker health as currently the supply outstrips their demand.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/study-amazon-workers-suffer-...

But I do agree with your general argument, a healthy workforce is better for a country's economy.

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