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Underball

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Posts posted by Underball

  1. Posted

    The only reason I was interested in this article and post it here was because I was hoping of a change of

    direction at Lucasarts. Back to the days when they were, lets just say...a bit more creative.

     

    I don't know how much impact this suit will have on the creative element of the games they produce -

     

    But if I had to choose between fantastic MM games like Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, or dreck like Jedi Power Battles - I'd go for the former. I've been pretty satisfied with Lucasarts in the last 3-4 years. hadnt' really been for the previous 10 or so, though.

  2. Posted

    I love both the handhelds...........they go together perfectly, like peanut butter and jelly.

     

    Both of them have dozens of excellent, solid titles to choose from. I hate it when fanboys diss either handheld because both are excellent, IMO.

    Does it really make someone a "fanboy" if they at one point owned both systems, and after using both for quite some time, came to the conclusion that they simply liked one much better than the other? I don't think so.

     

    What I find absolutely retarded is that people aren't allowed to like anything someone else dislikes, especially if it's something less than super-popular (or in the case of this forum, something made by "Evil Sony"), and everyone is expected to be agreeable, super-polite, and never disagree with anyone.

     

    Cut the crap. Some people like one thing, others don't. It's really not a big deal. It's just video games. It's nothing to get upset over.

     

    I like the PSP, mostly because of the homebrew/emulator ability. It also has some great games of it's own, although there are a lot of clunkers too. The DS isn't capable of 1/10th of the things the PSP can do. It relies solely on it's own game library, which is pretty limited, and mostly geared towards younger kids.

     

    I just don't really understand why people get so emotional about this stuff. Don't you guys like kidding around with your friends, and making fun of each other in a friendly way? Or does everyone here take everything so deadly serious, and fly off the handle and get all upset over everything?

  3. Posted

    Click on your profile and check your posts since March 25th, hell check all your posts from the time you registered with the exception of a handfull....See any type of pattern?

     

    Yeah, I talk about whatever subject catches me in the mood, or happens to be at the top of the various forums here.

     

    Keep digging under rocks. Kinda creepy, dude. It's just a video game forum. get a life.

  5. Posted

    I would have thought it was ok to talk about Blu-Ray in this thread.

     

    Oh I wasn't just talking about this thread. ;)

     

    Also, Not taking it seriously and I just showed you I wasn't exaggerating. :cool:

    You posted that Blu-Rays were selling at retail for $39.99. But none of your examples are actually $39.99, and I can't find any new releases at most of the normal Electronics retailers selling at that price either. That's the MSRP, in most cases. The only places I know that sell electronic media at MSRP are Bookstore retailers like Borders and Barnes and Noble. People who are buying Movies and music at those places are getting screwed, but no one in their right mind would shop there for that stuff anyway. Those places are notoriously overpriced.

     

    I don't like paying high prices, so I don't. I get them on sale, or with coupons, or used. No big deal. Once HD stuff reaches a bigger market foothold, prices will come down. Blu Ray hasn't even been around for a year and people are already complaining about it being overpriced. Apparently Some people have short memories and don't remember that one year into it, DVD players were still retailing at $400 without progressive scan, and movies were all $40 to $50, and barely anyone carried them. It took DVD a good 4 years to become the dominant home video format.

     

    HD Cable and Sat just recently became affordable through the various package offers out there. Up until a year ago, HD Sat tuners were still $800. HDTV's and higher end Home theater products themselves will always be a niche market and cost more, because it costs more to produce them.

     

    I don't get all the whining. DVD's are plenty cheap. just buy the damn DVD and shut up. :D

  6. Posted

    there are dozens of retail and online vendors selling new release and catalog blu-rays for far less than $39.99. anyone who is paying prices like that is either blind, doesn't shop around, or likely both.

     

    I'm none of those things Underball, re-read my post and pay attention to the word..."retail" You may not know this, but not everyone orders things from online, or even is online. They aren't blind, and they do shop around in their area. Go into a Target, Circuit City or Best Buy and check the price on a Blu-Ray disk and see what an average consumer walking into a store is expected to pay. Here's some examples in case you haven't checked lately:

     

    Target - I Robot - $27.95

    Circuit City - I Robot - $34.99

    Best Buy - I Robot - $34.99

     

    Circuit City - The Jane Austen Book Club $34.99

    Target - The Jane Austen Book Club $26.95

    Best Buy - The Jane Austen Book Club $29.99

     

    (Note : These are roughly twice as much as standard DVD from the same places)

    Now I realize some places have disks cheaper than others Underball. Not everyone does shop around though.

     

    I've noticed the majority of your recent posts seemed geared towards Blu-Ray. The only person I can think of that had such an un-natural love for an HD format was Danno. You sure you're not Danno with a new username? :lol:

     

    Anyways, Amazon has a Blu-Ray forum on there site. Why not post there where like minded folks (and folks that actually give a rats ass) can tell the world how great their choice of HD disks are? :cool:

     

    You made an exaggeration about pricing. I merely commented on it, disagreeing. You sure do take this stuff a bit too seriously. From the thread title and the ensuing conversation, I would have thought it was ok to talk about Blu-Ray in this thread.

  7. Posted

    The DS could have its own forum. The PSP has a forum already, its the garbage can. :ponder:

     

    I came to Atariage.com after searching for info about atari homebrews, becaus I was so psyched that my PSP allows me to play every format of Atari games I had when I was a kid using emulators, including games people here have made.

     

    I had a DS. It reminded me of a Speak n Spell with games that featured mostly Pokemon characters and other boring Japanese Anime crap. I sold it.

  8. Posted

    I enjoyed the "war".

    I was loving all the buy one get one free sales both camps were offering during that time.

    Now I'm only snagging the HD DVD closeouts when I see a movie I can tolerate. Just picked up Enter the Dragon for $12 and Heroes Season 1 for $45.

    Blu-Rays at a huge disadvantage right now...trying to pawn off HD flicks like Nacho Libre and Alien Vs Predator for $39.99 each retail.

    LOL

    I'll pass. You have at that though godslabrat. If enough people buy into deal like that, it'll become the standard for sure.

    I however am not willing to pay (re-pay in many cases) that much. I'd be suprised if most folks are.

    there are dozens of retail and online vendors selling new release and catalog blu-rays for far less than $39.99. anyone who is paying prices like that is either blind, doesn't shop around, or likely both.

  10. Posted

    Looks like THX isn't too happy with Laurie Fincham's comments on Blu-Ray:

     

    Here’s what THX PR Manager Graham McKenna had to say,

     

    “THX recognizes the quality and benefits that the Blu-ray HD format brings to the home theater experience. We are dedicated to supporting Blu-ray with new THX technologies and other initiatives. At its very core, THX is about advancing the quality of the entertainment experience, whether that is on optical disc, downloads or other emerging media. I believe Mr. Fincham’s comments reflect that broader goal.”

     

    I betcha Mr. Fincham will be seeking work elsewhere, pronto.

  11. Posted

    I don't think any one thing right now is going to keep Blu-Ray from become the next standard. It's a combination of things available now or coming in the very short future that will take away from Blu-Rays dominance. In the end there will be better alternatives than a spinning disk.

    I don't really think there will be a "standard". There will be multiple freely available options. Net Downloads, On-Demand Pay-Per-View, services like NetFlix, etc, and as always, purchased physical media.

     

    But there isn't any physical media that will outplace Blu-Ray for the HD install base for the foreseeable future. It is the HD physical media standard.

  12. Posted

    Oh and still no answer about 3rd world factories? I guess media company reps are afraid of getting shot at! :twisted:

     

    The net effect on Domestic US sales of media by Malaysian and Indoneisan pirated bootlegs isn't even apparent enough to be measurable. It has no effect here. It's not a concern. I don't work in Japan or China, so I can't speak intelligently on it's effect over there.

     

    But there's no one quivering in Silicon Valley or up at MIT in Cambridge over 10 old Chinese Ladys on Canal Street in NYC selling crappy bootlegs along with fake Gucci Purses no one wants to buy.

  13. Posted

    I like owning physical media myself, especially for movies and TV shows, but the problem with today's disc media is that it's still too big and easy to damage. How about a storage medium that would be the size of a credit card, that you could just slip into a player like slipping a bank card in an ATM machine? It seems like the best of both worlds to me, because such cards would take very little shelf space, and re-writable card models could be bought and used to store downloaded movies. The technology already exists, but I find SD-Cards and other similar flash media way too small (they're great for cameras, but for movies, I'd prefer something a little more finger-friendly). The only area that would probably need improvement is the data transfer speed between the card and the player.

     

    Just think of it: You could collect movies like baseball cards! :D

    8 gig sd cards are about $150.

     

    HD optical media requires 40 gigs of data storage.

     

    It's simply not feasible, even if ti would be more convenient.

    I see your point. Oh well, this only means that it'll take a few more decades before the technology becomes available and affordable. :)

     

    I vaguely remember a report I saw on TV a few years back about some lab people working on glass-based data storage. IIRC, they talked about putting 10000 CDs' worth of data in a single glass cube, so I would assume a single movie could be stored on a small strip of glass. The best part is that they can make this kind of data-storage glass as hard as rock, so it could be a sterdy medium for everyday use.

     

    I say it's just a matter of time before movies-on-cards become a reality. I just hope I'll still be around when it finally happens. :D

     

    considering that DVD has only been around for 11 years, and is on it's decline - blu Ray should do just fine inbetween now and the time something like what you've proposed is even remotely affordable.

     

    That was really my only point here. Blu-Ray isn't perfect by any means. But it's not going anywere but up for teh foreseeable future.

  14. Posted

    I find it funny that your industry tosses numbers like millions and billions, but offer no hard data to back it up. If you believe the numbers some people toss around, pirate copies of software just about equals the number of legal copies.

     

    And you didn't address either one of my issues. Home users aren't the ones passing around numerous copies of media. If there is a problem with internet piracy, then deal with those sites. Also, what about the issue I brought up about the factories churning out illegal copies in 3rd world countries? They're a far greater problem than a home copier. The entertainment industry loads software up with DRM and hits the consumer market because it's the path of least resistance not because it's the greatest threat.

    All you have to do is look at the daily downloading stats on torrent sites like mininova.org and thepiratebay.org (or the 1,000's of other torrent sites and P2P networks).

     

    Thousands of available torrents/links. Thousands of users sharing those available torrents. Some of these sites host torrent files where the users move 20 terabytes PER DAY of illegally shared copyrighted material.

     

    Apparetly, you don't really understand how Bittorrent and P2P sharing works. It's not particular sites hosting downloadable files. It's sites hosting a link to millions of interconnected end users sharing the files amongst themselves.

     

    It's the USERS.

     

    The technology itself is not illegal. It's a great distribution platform for legally shared data, such as Linux Distros, and other freeware/shareware.

     

    It's the millions of END USERS who upload and share copyrighted material that make it so bad. And they are only growing by leaps and bounds. Especially since the Economy in the US is in the dumper and we're going into a recession.

  15. Posted

    Sorry, digital is way more convenient.

     

    Until your Hard Drive crashes, or your data gets corrupted, or accidentally deleted, or you get a poer surge taht knocks out your PC/Mac.

     

     

    I guess you didn't read the part about having a backup. My off site backup costs me $5 a month for unlimited data ;)

     

    I also keep a local backup, so I think I'm in pretty good shape.

    Sounds like an awful lot of extra work.

     

    Not really that convenient after all.

     

    After the initial setup, it all runs automatically every sunday night ;)

     

    But it's way too complicated for joe six pack.

     

    It's hard to have conversations about technical subjects like this on technical boards like this one, because most people aren't anywhere near as technically inclined as the people who post here.

     

    I bet your system is awesome, and makes the best sense, but it will never fly with the average Wal-Mart bargain bin shopper who has trouble sending email or setting the clock on the VCR.

  16. Posted

    I like owning physical media myself, especially for movies and TV shows, but the problem with today's disc media is that it's still too big and easy to damage. How about a storage medium that would be the size of a credit card, that you could just slip into a player like slipping a bank card in an ATM machine? It seems like the best of both worlds to me, because such cards would take very little shelf space, and re-writable card models could be bought and used to store downloaded movies. The technology already exists, but I find SD-Cards and other similar flash media way too small (they're great for cameras, but for movies, I'd prefer something a little more finger-friendly). The only area that would probably need improvement is the data transfer speed between the card and the player.

     

    Just think of it: You could collect movies like baseball cards! :D

    8 gig sd cards are about $150.

     

    HD optical media requires 40 gigs of data storage.

     

    It's simply not feasible, even if ti would be more convenient.

  17. Posted

    Sorry, digital is way more convenient.

     

    Until your Hard Drive crashes, or your data gets corrupted, or accidentally deleted, or you get a poer surge taht knocks out your PC/Mac.

     

     

    I guess you didn't read the part about having a backup. My off site backup costs me $5 a month for unlimited data ;)

     

    I also keep a local backup, so I think I'm in pretty good shape.

    Sounds like an awful lot of extra work.

     

    Not really that convenient after all.

  19. Posted

    Sorry, digital is way more convenient.

     

    Until your Hard Drive crashes, or your data gets corrupted, or accidentally deleted, or you get a poer surge taht knocks out your PC/Mac.

     

    You can't delete the data on commercial optical media. It's not subject to magnetism, power surges, or curious children with not enough skill to know what they are doing poking around in your magnetic video library.

     

    It's convenient, sure. But it's not a permanent solution. It's a temporary convenience. In the end, it will only co-exist, and not overtake the wishes of physical media collectors. If Classic media collectors and today's "Re-Gifting" ebay culture are any indication of what's to come - especially given what this particular site is dedicated to - digital only media doesn't really stand a snowball's change in a 3 alarm fire.

  20. Posted

    I hardly think that a home copying system would be used to mass produce media to pass along or sell to others. After all plenty of people can do that now and it isn't happening.

    Actually - it is happening. It's called the internet. There are literally MILLIONS of people illegally sharing copywritten material every minute of every day. MILLIONS.

     

    This is why they've turned to DRM. This is Why the US Justice Department has made such an important focus on such cases.

     

    Media producers are losing money compared to decades past, hand over fist. It's also the reason why computer and home console video games still retail at $50+ per unit, even though they now make more money than the Movie industry. They could easily reduce the cost of these games to more competitive prices now that they are all released on optical media, but they don't, because the financial bleeding from pirated versions is negating their profits as is.

     

    The casual home user may not care, may not even think its' a big deal. "So what, I shared a copy with my friend, nobody gets hurt!"

     

    Some of us actually work in industries where we might get laid off from one day to the next, because pirated media has killed off our firm's profitability. I wish more people thought about that before they copied stuff.

  22. Posted

    Big Box Stores like Best Buy and Circuit City have software like DVD X-Copy and the like on their frigging end caps for christ's sake.

     

    You don't need to be a 733t H4XXoR to be able to pirate DVD movies anymore, not for a long, long time.

    Then why even bother with DRM? Why can't I make a copy without a pc using special software? Why can't I just plug a DVD player into a DVD burner and make a copy? I could do this with records, cassette tapes and LD's. Why can't I make copies of commercial tapes and DVD's on my DVR/DVD burner? Like I said the average user gets screwed while pirates do whatever they want. Why do these companies even bother with copy protection? It just doesn't work and will never work.

     

    And about your comment about most people being dis-honest. I guess you work for some entertainment company to believe that bullshit. :roll:

    because the "average user" outnumbers the pirates by about 4000 to 1.

     

    the quick rise in popularity of the internet made distribution of pirated digital material so ridiculously easy, they needed to head it off and stem the tide. If everyone had free reign access to copy this stuff, with the prevalence of the internet in homes now compared to even 10 years ago, Software and entertainment Media manufacturers would be going out of business by the thousand.

     

    You could copy records, tapes, LD's etc. 10, 15, 20 years ago, because mass distribution wasn't feasible. Now, it's not only feasible - it's so simple a 5 year old can figure it out.

     

    They know it can't be 100% stopped. But if they make it enough of a pain in the ass to copy stuff, MOST people won't bother. and all they care about is MOST people.

  23. Posted

    All that DRM of any type does is tie the hands of honest users. Pirates will ALWAYS find a way to copy media. It doesn't matter what form that media takes. Just employing DRM assumes that everyone is dishonest. There is simply no good reason to keep an honest user from making a backup of something they have already paid for.

    Most people are dishonest.

     

    those who claim they aren't, are lying. Everyone lies. People make "backup copies" for their friends or coworkers all the time. Sure, they aren't as much of a threat as Torrent hosters and FTP pirate hosts, but the principal is the same. You paid a license for ONE copy of the software/movie/music you bought. ONE license. Not as many copies as you like.

     

    I understand the reasoning for wanting copies. Portability. backup so you don't damage the original. ease of use, etc. They all make perfect sense to the end user. But They don't make any sense to the manufacturer. the manufacturer/producer is in business to make a profit on units sold, not on how convenient it is for the end user.

     

    see how that works? :D

     

    I think the current means of employing DRM are crap, they're clunky, and generally dont' benefit anyone. But the principal behind it makes perfect sense.

  24. Posted · Edited by Underball

    taking away the rights of the average citizen to be able to make back up copies of software they legally bought

    this is the biggest load of Malarkey ever.

     

    people pirate stuff. plain and simple. maybe .001% of people "make backup copies" of movies and CD's.

    Yet the people who may want to have copies, and don't know their way around the internet can't have them. And the pirates freely copy and distribute. :ponder:

     

    Yes, modern DRM is quit successful! ;)

    Big Box Stores like Best Buy and Circuit City have software like DVD X-Copy and the like on their frigging end caps for christ's sake.

     

    You don't need to be a 733t H4XXoR to be able to pirate DVD movies anymore, not for a long, long time.

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