🚀 go-pugleaf

Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:

> I wonder how long the national video store chains will take to catch on 
> to this. Imagine, you order up your video (something NOBODY has in stock) 
> and the video store downloads it and makes a tape on a high speed 
> replicator. 20 minutes later you pick up the video and then stop next 
> door to pick up the pizza.

> Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
> his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
> Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.


To my knowledge there is no such animal as a "high speed replicator" that
can write a normal SP VHS cassette in 20 minutes (6x speed).  That would
be more realistic with disc technology, but even there it's still beyond
the current state of the art.  Real time video on demand over cable to the
home using MPEG-2 is the more likely delivery vehicle for the forseeable
future IMHO, and that's a threat to the local video store *if* studios
permit new releases to be delivered that way.  (The bulk of video store
profits come from rentals prior to pay per view release.)  Frankly, I think
that's doubtful unless the video on demand system includes some form of
anti-recording technology (the lack of which is a reason that pay per view
releases lag tape releases). 

--
Best regards,
John  <JNavas@Netcom.com>

A decent compressed video channel for a standard cable television feed
> >(such as appears on the 18" dishes) runs about 6Mb/s!  That drowns most
> >Internet stuff.  So, how would the Internet support video on demand?  The
> >same way it supports news now. 

If rumors are true, then the Microsoft Network will show the way - use the
Hughes Direct TV dish for high-speed downstream delivery.  Load Megabytes
in seconds. It's universal, fast & comparitively cheap (no special
lines/boxes).

Imagine clicking on a MPEG icon for clips of current (or past) movies as
on their CD ROM. You'd get a clip downloaded in seconds rather than
minutes. A CD-ROM with infinite storage! The box already has MPEG decoding
hardware and (near) VOD potential with hit movies broadcast every 1/2 hour
or so. If Microsoft used it as a downstream backbone, they could make
Multi-Media fly!

Hughes has another satellite platform for 1.5M 2-WAY data transmission
using 3 foot dishes. It could put pressure on the phone companies, too. A
satellite backbone broadcasts to millions, simultaneously, without
overhead. 

I really like this concept. Can anyone think of a more cost/effective
delivery mechanism?

Michael Dillon (michael@junction.net) wrote:
: In article <3llna5$si9@kaiwan.kaiwan.com>,
: Bill Schultz <guru@kaiwan.com> wrote:
: >>(oh, and compare the amount of bandwidth used by text versus that used
: >>by video some time!)  
: >
: >YES!  A decent compressed video channel for a standard cable television feed
: >(such as appears on the 18" dishes) runs about 6Mb/s!  That drowns most
: >Internet stuff.  So, how would the Internet support video on demand?  The
: >same way it supports news now.  You have a local video on demand server
: >that gets loaded once over the net with the video signal, using TCPIP because
: >it does not have to be loaded in real-time (i.e., basically an FTP situation).  The
: >users access the video off of their local servers, just as they do news.  Its the
: >only practical solution at the present time.

I interviewed at one of the many "video on demand" startups for a software
engineering position, and during the tour of the facilities, I was shown a
demo of MPEG-II transmitting real-time video over a 9600 Modem connection.

The image quality was pretty good, but far from digital quality.  
Aliasing and artifacts were obvious if you knew what to look for, but 
it's definitely good enough for most consumers.

-- 
Stephen Mann <smann@rahul.net>

In <samc-0704951141560001@ip-pdx6-15.teleport.com>, samc@teleport.com (Sam Churchill) writes:

[deleted]

>Hughes has another satellite platform for 1.5M 2-WAY data transmission
>using 3 foot dishes. It could put pressure on the phone companies, too. A
>satellite backbone broadcasts to millions, simultaneously, without
>overhead. 
>
>I really like this concept. Can anyone think of a more cost/effective
>delivery mechanism?

Not off the top of my head.  I like it too. :-)

Also, I was scanning the ads yesterday, and I saw a local computer store
advertising a CD-ROM maker for under $2,000.  That (finally) makes CD-ROM
practical as a backup medium.  It also gives the end user a practical place to
put all that data that could come flying down such a pipe.

The technological building blocks may actually all be falling into place at the
same time in order to make us a "wired" society.

/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|     Bill Schultz     A Warped Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.....
|                                          Use OS/2 Warp: Waste Not, Want Not.....

jnavas@netcom.com (John Navas) writes:
>Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
>> Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
>> his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
>> Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.

>To my knowledge there is no such animal as a "high speed replicator" that
>can write a normal SP VHS cassette in 20 minutes (6x speed).  That would
>be more realistic with disc technology, but even there it's still beyond
>the current state of the art.

Gee.  I get to scoop _you_, John?

Wow.

Commercial duplication of VHS video tapes for the rental/sell-through
market is customarily done on a machine called a pancake duplicator.  It
uses a thermal process to contact print the movie from a master tape, and
then loads it into a cassette and clips and crimps it.

Hint: these things are _not_ cheap.  (Figure $100k a pop, I think.)

They do, however, run at between 60 and 120 ips, quite a bit faster than
helical dubbing.

Cheers,
-- jr 'I'd have to double check the speed, but they're fast' a
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth       High Technology Systems Consulting              Ashworth
Designer             Linux: The Choice of a GNU Generation        & Associates
ka1fjx/4       "Conscientious Objectors should not be drafted  +1 813 790 7592
jra@baylink.com  into cyberspace." Buford Terrell, on net-lawyers    NIC: jra3

>Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
>
> Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
> his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
> Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
>
>
	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"

-- 
U.S. District Court	 	|Richard L. Spelling, Systems Administator
Northern District Oklahoma	|rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov
333 W. 4th RM 411		|# My opinions do not reflect those of my 
Tulsa, Ok 74103			|# employer (and probably not even mine)

guru@deltanet.com  (Bill Schultz) writes:

>In <samc-0704951141560001@ip-pdx6-15.teleport.com>, samc@teleport.com (Sam Churchill) writes:

>[deleted]

>>Hughes has another satellite platform for 1.5M 2-WAY data transmission
>>using 3 foot dishes. It could put pressure on the phone companies, too. A
>>satellite backbone broadcasts to millions, simultaneously, without
>>overhead. 
>>
>>I really like this concept. Can anyone think of a more cost/effective
>>delivery mechanism?

>Not off the top of my head.  I like it too. :-)

>Also, I was scanning the ads yesterday, and I saw a local computer store
>advertising a CD-ROM maker for under $2,000.  That (finally) makes CD-ROM
>practical as a backup medium.  It also gives the end user a practical place to
>put all that data that could come flying down such a pipe.

Haven't been following this debate, but bear in mind that CD's are write once
and so the cost of the media must be taken into consideration.  The price of 
the mastering system may well be in line with DAT, Exabyte etc drives.  But
if you use (for example) 1 CD a day, at a rough price of $A15 a CD (that's the
price I have seen).  You are looking at $A5475 a year for media.

Now do you still think that CD is an effective backup media?

NB: $A1 approx = $US0.70

Dean Povey (dean@psy.uq.oz.au)            "When he's underwater does he 
Department of Psychology                  get wet? or does the water get 
University of Queensland, Australia       him instead?" - TMBG      
ph: +61 7 365 6713, Fax: +61 7 365 4466

In <3mfcn4$mc9@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au>, dean@psy.uq.oz.au (Dean Povey) writes:
>guru@deltanet.com  (Bill Schultz) writes:

[deleted]

>>Also, I was scanning the ads yesterday, and I saw a local computer store
>>advertising a CD-ROM maker for under $2,000.  That (finally) makes CD-ROM
>>practical as a backup medium.....

>Haven't been following this debate, but bear in mind that CD's are write once
>and so the cost of the media must be taken into consideration.  The price of 
>the mastering system may well be in line with DAT, Exabyte etc drives.  But
>if you use (for example) 1 CD a day, at a rough price of $A15 a CD (that's the
>price I have seen).  You are looking at $A5475 a year for media.
>
>Now do you still think that CD is an effective backup media?
>
>NB: $A1 approx = $US0.70

As a "backup media?"  YES!  Definitely.

Remember, there is absolutely no need to put your copy of Microsoft Whatever
on your CD every day.  You only put "new" data, or data files that are in some
way altered.

Also, most CD systems I have examined have the ability to write only pieces of
a CD, as opposed to being required to write the whole CD in one shot, or nothing
at all.

Given those conditions, then, to require a new and different CD each and every
day, you would have to be generating and/or modifying 700 MB or more (how
much more would depend on compression, as a "backup media" is surely a
compressed media) of data each day.  That kind of data processing application
can surely afford the cost associated with the creation of a long lasting record
of all of the data.  (Also, your total indicates 365 days a year of usage, which
is also quite unusual for anything but a 24x7 type of operation, which again
would implicate an organization whose data is "mission critical.")

Of course, in a more typical environment, you would generate some fraction of
a CD on a work-daily or weekly basis.  This might generate more like 10-25 CDs
per year.

However, all of this results from my personal bias in favor of saving backup
media "forever."  I still have backup tapes from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, even
though the equipment to read them is, in many cases, long deceased.  You
see, you never know when a new thread will pop up on alt.folklore.computers
which might require me to shout:  "Yes is IS so, and I have the data tape right
here which would prove it, if only you could read it!"

/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|     Bill Schultz     A Warped Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.....
|                                     Use OS/2 Warp: Waste Not, Want Not.....

Richard L. Spelling (SA) (rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov) wrote:
: >Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
: > Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
: > his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
: > Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
: 	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
: 	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"

On the other hand, how would you prevent people from making copies? It's nice
that there is a copright law and other related laws, but how does a government
enforce those laws on the Internet? Not only is it very easy to copy digital
information, it is also a problem to enforce laws on the entire Internet.
Remember, the Internet is not a US net, it's world-wide... (so many countries,
so many different laws, so many differences in the enforcement...)

Groetjes,
Peter Busser
-- 
UNIX sysadmin, Oracld DBA, TCP/IP netadmin, Security specialist
Tel.: +31-35-712709
I'm the operator with my pocket calculator...

peter@2hoog.vpro.nl (Peter Busser) wrote:

>Richard L. Spelling (SA) (rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov) wrote:
>: >Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
>: > Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
>: > his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
>: > Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
>: 	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
>: 	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"

>On the other hand, how would you prevent people from making copies?

Encryption.
--
Best regards,
John   <JNavas@Netcom.com>

In <3mh425$itp@aimnet1.aimnet.com>, JNavas@Aimnet.com (John Navas) writes:
:>peter@2hoog.vpro.nl (Peter Busser) wrote:
:>
:>>Richard L. Spelling (SA) (rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov) wrote:
:>>: >Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
:>>: > Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
:>>: > his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
:>>: > Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
:>>: 	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
:>>: 	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"
:>
:>>On the other hand, how would you prevent people from making copies?
:>
:>Encryption.

This thread has gone somewhat astray.  If I recall the thrust of the original
post, it was that high speed data connections could be used by video stores to
deliver video tapes on demand.

Obviously, such a service could not be offered without an appropriate license
from, and payment to, the owner of the copyrighted material on the tape.

Virtually all of the major copyright owners are exploring/entering/already in one
or more partnerships with one or more cable/phone companies in order to create
the technology for delivering such a service.  It follows that they would not
seek to create the technology without a) taking any and all appropriate steps
to safeguard their copyright(s); and b) believing that this technology would
result in a greater revenue stream than they get through the current system.

Why is this happening?  Because, as I stated above, the owners of the movies,
etc., believe they can make more money doing it through video on demand than
they can make doing it through selling tapes to video rental stores.

How do they make more money?  They do it the old fashioned way, they
eliminate the middlemen.  The middlemen are the video stores.  The video stores
will not exist in a decade or so when virtually all new movies are only released
through video-on-demand services.  (For regular movies, everyone knows that
it is the new releases that provide most of the profits to the video stores.  For
pornography, the rules are different, but that is a different market.....)

So, don't buy any equity interest(s) in any video stores (hint: why did Blockbuster
want a movie studio of its very own?).

/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|     Bill Schultz     A Warped Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.....
|                                     Use OS/2 Warp: Waste Not, Want Not.....

In article <3mh425$itp@aimnet1.aimnet.com>,
John Navas <JNavas@Aimnet.com> wrote:
>peter@2hoog.vpro.nl (Peter Busser) wrote:
>
>>Richard L. Spelling (SA) (rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov) wrote:
>>: >Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
>>: > Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
>>: > his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
>>: > Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
>>: 	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
>>: 	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"
>
>>On the other hand, how would you prevent people from making copies?
>
>Encryption.
with the right type of encryption and signatures and etc etc, copies CAN be
used for efficeincy with both the server holding the copy getting their
cut and the original owner getting his.  This sort of payment system will be
essential for these on demand services.
	-jrg

-- 
internet    jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us  John R. Galloway, Jr  795 Beaver Creek Way
applelink   D3413                  CEO...receptionist    San Jose, CA   95133
magicedge   BLIND MAN              Galloway Research     (408) 259-2490 v
							 (408) 259-5058 f

In article <1995Apr10.193304.27997@oknd.uscourts.gov>,
Richard L. Spelling (SA) <rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov> wrote:
>>Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
>>
>> Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
>> his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
>> Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
>>
>>
>	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
>	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"
>
>U.S. District Court	 	|Richard L. Spelling, Systems Administator

For someone who works at a district court, you seem to know very little 
about the law. It is *NOT* illegal for video store chains to set up a 
system such as I described using high-speed tape duplicators. As long as they
make arrangements with the owners of the movies and pay them a royalty fee,
it is perfectly feasible and perfectly legal.



-- 
Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-549-1036
Network Operations                                  Fax: +1-604-542-4130
Okanagan Internet Junction                     Internet: michael@junction.net
http://www.junction.net  -  The Okanagan's 1st full-service Internet provider

Michael Dillon (michael@junction.net) wrote:
: In article <1995Apr10.193304.27997@oknd.uscourts.gov>,
: Richard L. Spelling (SA) <rlspell@oknd.uscourts.gov> wrote:
: >>Michael Dillon <michael@junction.net> wrote:
: >>
: >> Of course, the high speed replicators will be useful when everybody and 
: >> his brother wants to rent the latest and greates all-hyped hit movie. 
: >> Just make more copies. This is the way it should be.
: >>
: >>
: >	This is illegal. You know, copywrite laws and all. Video store owners
: >	have went to jail for "Just make more copies"
: >
: >U.S. District Court	 	|Richard L. Spelling, Systems Administator

: For someone who works at a district court, you seem to know very little 
: about the law. It is *NOT* illegal for video store chains to set up a 
: system such as I described using high-speed tape duplicators. As long as they
: make arrangements with the owners of the movies and pay them a royalty fee,
: it is perfectly feasible and perfectly legal.


In fact, Blockbuster is doing just that on an experimental basis in a few 
cities.  (Not in the bay area.)  

-- 
Stephen Mann <smann@rahul.net>