51–60 of 61 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean Silverlight and Flash are nonfree? As an end-consumer I've never paid for either of them.
If you're running Silverlight, unless you pirated Windows, you've paid for it.
> ~my cable provider's my best broadband option" We're witnessing non-death throes of a more-intelligent animal. When the music industry was disrupted completely, their Plan B was a white-knuckle-grip onto Plan A (their traditional business model). The cablecos were foresightful enough to turn their TV monopolies into broadband value-adds. They've done a d rn good job at it, despite the bellyaching we can do. While p…
> As for torrenting, etc., "it's only 'free' if your time has no value" comes to play. Whenever I hear someone disregard torrents offhand, I get the distinct impression that they've either never actually tried it or that they're simply being dishonest, because piracy has never been easier. Have you actually tried torrenting TV shows or movies (or any other type of digital content, for that matter)? Contrary to the FU…
I saw this in the paper yesterday, but I was immediately disappointed to see that their primary forms of switching away from cable not only required cable Internet connection (because let's face it, DSL and others have no way to stream that quickly), but also required nonfree software (Silverlight for Netflix, Flash for Hulu). The world can offer so much more to these people who have been wronged by corporations, but…
What do you mean Silverlight and Flash are nonfree? As an end-consumer I've never paid for either of them.
And Flash, of course, is annoying when it does work :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you only do it for NFL, you might reconsider. All regular Sunday day games, Sunday night football and all ESPN/NFL network games with your local team are available for free in HD over the air. And all playoff games and Superbowl, too. The live sports was my main reason for holding on to cable for so long, but I finally made the switch two years ago and it's great. I can watch all NFL I want, once a week baseball a…
I know nothing of HD over the air, but ESPN is available? In my oldschool mindset, that's a "cable" channel and not available over the air. But I could be wrong.
I saw this in the paper yesterday, but I was immediately disappointed to see that their primary forms of switching away from cable not only required cable Internet connection (because let's face it, DSL and others have no way to stream that quickly), but also required nonfree software (Silverlight for Netflix, Flash for Hulu). The world can offer so much more to these people who have been wronged by corporations, but…
Anyone switch to Clear or some other 4G variant and have success? seems cheaper than just Comcast.
Anyone switch to Clear or some other 4G variant and have success? seems cheaper than just Comcast.
I'm literally next door to a tower, so my experience is going to be better than most, I fear. I get 2mbit down and 1mbit up on a typical day. 8mbit down on a great one. I seem to get better speed after an outage, oddly enough.
The price is about 1/3 what Comcast would charge (I have the two-plan bundle: home net and phone service). No complaints about the phone service at all except for the extreme ping times. Talking to a mobile phone from the "home" phone is just as laggy as two mobiles talking. International rates are awesome.
I've run a light bittorrent set over it with no problem. I haven't hit a usage cap so far. Customer service, as others have noted, is pretty bad. AT&T/DSL-level bad.
> ~my cable provider's my best broadband option" We're witnessing non-death throes of a more-intelligent animal. When the music industry was disrupted completely, their Plan B was a white-knuckle-grip onto Plan A (their traditional business model). The cablecos were foresightful enough to turn their TV monopolies into broadband value-adds. They've done a d rn good job at it, despite the bellyaching we can do. While p…
Kessler is undaunted, saying HBO regards cord cutting as a temporary phenomenon that will go away once the larger economy improves. That is a profoundly terrible research on their behalf. Yes I cut my cord because it was cheaper for me, but i didn't do it to save money, I did it because cable tv simply isn't worth the money for me. paying for streaming hbo would definitely be worth it however.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As for torrenting, etc., "it's only 'free' if your time has no value" comes to play. Whenever I hear someone disregard torrents offhand, I get the distinct impression that they've either never actually tried it or that they're simply being dishonest, because piracy has never been easier. Have you actually tried torrenting TV shows or movies (or any other type of digital content, for that matter)? Contrary to the FU…
> Whenever I hear someone disregard torrents offhand, I get the distinct impression that they've either never actually tried it or that they're simply being dishonest, because piracy has never been easier. It wasn't offhand: it takes more time to find and download content than it does to turn on the tube and flip through its offerings. With hope, you're not arguing that point. Your distinct impression is incorrect in…
> I also value my time and the frictionlessness with which I can ~"mindlessly" enjoy some programming. Less hassle - even if it's still little hassle - is worth it to me.
I think our use cases are different. I have no interest in flipping on the TV and "mindlessly" watching whatever programming happens to be on at the time. I have always hated "channel surfing", and I certainly don't like watching anything from the middle (of the episode or the season).
I carefully pick and choose what I watch. Once I've picked a show, I always watch it from the beginning to the end, in order, and keep careful track of which episodes of which shows I've seen (using Anigrate: http://anigrate.glacicle.org/). As you can imagine, I take my TV viewing quite seriously (though this is not necessarily true for all, or even most, torrenters).
> The last several torrents specifically for shows not then available via other means took me several minutes to find and many more to download. The shows in question weren't tiny unknowns; in my experience, finding less-popular shows is even more of a hassle. If any of these had been available on demand, for "purchase," or via Hulu (to which I subscribe), I would have preferred those methods.
Like I said, it takes a (small) upfront investment of time to educate oneself in the best means of finding such things. I don't know which particular shows you were looking for, but I can likely find a torrent (or direct download, if that's your preference) of any show you name in under 30 seconds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As for torrenting, etc., "it's only 'free' if your time has no value" comes to play. Whenever I hear someone disregard torrents offhand, I get the distinct impression that they've either never actually tried it or that they're simply being dishonest, because piracy has never been easier. Have you actually tried torrenting TV shows or movies (or any other type of digital content, for that matter)? Contrary to the FU…
But aren't you scared? As far as I know all P2P is easily detectable and the liklihood isn't all that small that you will be caught at some point. Aren't the sums of money involved then potentially life-destroying in the US?
However, if that's your fear, you can always use direct download, which also has the nice advantage of being sequential, so you can watch the episode as it downloads (basically streaming). In fact, if your connection is fast enough, you can stream 720p TV show episodes.
Try it for yourself. Go to http://www.filecrop.com/, disable the Rapidshare and Hotfile checkboxes (leaving just Megaupload), then search for any TV show, adding the usual Scene-style season/episode indicator (e.g., S01E01). If you want HD, add "720p". You can find a direct download link that will max out your connection for pretty much any show.