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Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

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Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#81

Post by scarface_74 »

gnopgnip wrote: post #57
awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

I think the endgame will be like music licensing, with a max royalty set by the government with a short exclusivity period. This is why smaller companies like deezer and tidal can compete with Apple Music, YouTube music, Spotify and still have substantially all of the same music

There is no government imposed royalty on "music" for on demand music.

Sites like Pandora where you can't choose your playlist do come under mandatory licenses. But services where you can play any music on demand is individually negotiated with the rights holders. The reason competition is ubiquitous is that the music labels didn't want to be beholden to one company during the streaming era like they were with Apple during the iTunes era. Besides, they make all of the money from streaming (70%+) and leave the services with a pittance. It's a horrible business to be in as a standalone service.

It only makes sense as an integrated offering. Spotify and every other stand alone service is going to always be stuck with the "Dropbox problem". A streaming service is a feature not a product.

There are also government mandated max royalties for songwriters.

When I was a part time fitness instructor, the only way you could get music from the original artist was by knowing some DJs who did it low-key who could mix music on the 32 count phrase with a consistent beats per minute (step/cardio kickboxing etc.). The more mainstream fitness music had to use cover versions of the music. It's easier to get a license on the music, song writing than the entire performance.

You or the studio also had to have a separate performance license to play the music during class.

I can go on and on forever and I yada yada yada'd over the details on purpose.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#82

Post by pcthrowaway »

crisopolis wrote: post #61
shyn3 wrote: post #49

Funny someone is doing the same with Radioshack and Crypto [0]. [0] https://www.radioshack.org/

No, RadioShack brand is just being used for a trend. Not even related to keeping their technology or stores open/alive in 2022. RIP RadioShack

Not only that, the person behind defiling the brand is none other than Tai Lopez (the "here in my garage ... KNOWLEDGE!" guy)

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#84

Post by scarface_74 »

roywashere wrote: post #10
metadat wrote: post #2

Un-paywalled: https://archive.ph/jotV3

Thanks. Not only is the original link paywalled it is also not accessible from EU because GDPR and they think it is easier to block us than to not have so much third party cookies or such :sad:

Blame your government. The only thing that the 99 section/11 chapter GDPR accomplished was to make the web worse with shitty Cookie notices.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#85

Post by [deleted] »

jinto36 wrote: post #39
awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

One of the most noticeable things about playing laserdiscs on modern displays is the poor black levels and noise in shadows, and of course the difficulty in scaling interlaced material. Even with what should be a decent (but not nearly top of the line) FPGA-based deinterlacer/scaler I still feel like it should look better than it does, given how much better laserdisc resolution can be than VHS. But it's also analog v…

[deleted]

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#86

Post by JackFr »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #80
Dig1t wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in the 90's and have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of renting a movie on Friday night and watching in the living room with my family, eating popcorn and candy. I think there's probably a lot of people who have that from their childhood.

Parent is referencing how Blockbuster put all the local video stores out of business, like Walmart and Main Street America. It happened with record stores, too, via Tower Records and other national chains I can’t remember now

Good record stores outlasted Tower Records. What failed were record stores which were basically Tower records, only watered down weaker versions.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#87

Post by zw123456 »

I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how about something completely different, he would always find us something great. Or usually (one time he recommended Eraser head, we still laugh about that one, so even though it was a dud, great memory).

I get it, today's AI is pretty good, meh, not really, but it would be hard to beat my old "Dave". Maybe someday.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#88

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

crisopolis wrote: post #61
shyn3 wrote: post #49

Funny someone is doing the same with Radioshack and Crypto [0]. [0] https://www.radioshack.org/

No, RadioShack brand is just being used for a trend. Not even related to keeping their technology or stores open/alive in 2022. RIP RadioShack

Brand necrophilia.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#89

Post by thanatos519 »

vlunkr wrote: post #31
awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

It's interesting that when we revisit older movies, all the way up to the 90s, we're watching them at much much higher quality than we did originally. Special effects, costumes and sets are all much more believable when you're viewing them on a little grainy screen. I think some older movies are unfairly judged by how they look on hardware that couldn't have existed at the time.

Television that was made on film has held up pretty well.

I'm watching ST:TNG at 1080p now and it's visually stunning. Everything else about it is still awesome, too.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#90

Post by laumars »

jacobsievers wrote: post #75
laumars wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then I don’t think anyone has forgotten how crappy VHS was/is. At least with vinyl, the sound quality was good even if the medium was bulky. But VHS just sucked in every way imaginable. Even in the 80s I hated VHS. It was the best we had but it always felt like a game of chance whether your recordings worked. I don’t miss a single thing about recording…

I don't know, VHS Hi-Fi wasn't bad. It had a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz and signal-to-noise ratio about 70 dB.

Maybe. That wasn’t used by regular VHS rigs though was it (ie PAL or NTSC recordings)?

I just remember VHS audio sounding muffled after the tape had been used a few times.

To be fair, recording stuff from RF wouldn’t have helped much either.

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