Category: Entertainment

Can your PC replace your cable/satellite subscription? Part III

In part I, we learned about some free and completely legal ways to watch TV and movies. In part II, there was some long explanation, and a brief bit of some information about how to watch your shows that are not well-defined. The laws contradict each other, so you are on your own down that path.

Now, I will explain the completely illegal ways to get your shows. Please know that I do not suggest doing anything illegal, but feel that you should know about these methods so that you can avoid them and any trouble that comes with using them.

The first, easiest, and most common illegal way I see of getting music, shows, and movies is LimeWire. There are legal reasons for using Lime, but the use of it is not for those reasons. Lime is used mostly to illegally ‘share’ music and other files across the Internet.

People like to claim that they are only ‘sharing’ these files with their friends or, really, complete strangers across the Internet. That, is a lie. Not about what they’re doing, but pretending that it is legal. People are taking material that they do not own the copyright for and giving it away to others. They are also downloading material illegally from other LimeWire users. Along with the illegal files comes a big risk for viruses, also something I see a lot on PCs people ask me to fix.

Up next is Bit Torrent. Torrents are similar to LimeWire, except that they are used more in legal ways, such as sharing legal discs to install Linux and other free information. Unfortunately, a lot more people use torrents to illegally download movies, music, and more from others. So, Bit Torrent is covered under this illegal section.

How torrents differ from regular downloads is that it downloads from many different users in ‘chunks’. It operates on the idea that the more you ‘share’, the better/faster you can get files. It works out well for everyone because the more people share a file, the faster it downloads for everyone.

After downloading files illegally, the most popular way to steal (yes, it is stealing) material is to rent it from the video store, borrow a CD, or find another way to get a digital copy and rip it or copy it onto your PC.

People have mentioned several times that they rent a DVD when it comes out, rip it, and keep the copy they made on their PC. Once again, this is completely illegal. These people rent a piece of copy-written material, not own it, and make a copy (that may be legal if they owned it).

There is no salvation for those who rent a DVD or borrow a CD to copy it. Ripping most anything without owning a copy yourself is stealing from those who put it out there for sale.

As always, there are exceptions: if something has been released under a license that is free to distribute, like some written works and all Linux distributions. These materials are different than most things, and are the exceptions.

Generally, if someone downloads material that is copyrighted, they are breaking the law. If anyone is ripping material that they don’t own a copy of, they are also breaking the law.

This is the simple version, but gives a decent overview. As always, this is not legal advice. Do your own research.

Can you PC replace your cable/satellite subscription? Part II

In the first entry of this series, I explained some of the legal ways to get your television shows legally. I feel bad that I forgot to mention Netflix. You can watch some movies instantly using their service.

Now into the hazy world of ‘questionable’ ways to get television, music, and movies. What I talk about here and how you feel it applies will depend on how you interpret it. The reason for this is that the laws in our country are designed to deal with tangible and firm things like printed books, records, and actual reels of film. These laws were written before computers were common and before written, recorded, and filmed material could be transferred all over the world within minutes.

Many laws have been written to try to close the gap between written law and technology, but they mostly fail miserably. Most prominent of this legislation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA was written by Congress, therefore it was written by people who are generally ignorant of technology (in my opinion) and who are heavily influenced by lobbyists. Lobbyists are paid by companies like RCA, Paramount, Sony, etc. So, who do you think the DMCA favors? Correct.

With that history out of the way, we can move forward with our review of the blurry area: copies of compact discs, DVDs, and other material you own. When you buy a CD, you do not get unlimited rights to do whatever you want with it. You only get a copy that you can listen to, or watch if it is a DVD.

Now, like with an article in a newspaper, there is such a thing as ‘fair-use’ that lets you use pieces of the article for parody, discussion, etc. However, you cannot reproduce the whole work without permission. That is just plagiarism. With a CD/DVD, you are allowed to make a ‘backup copy for archival purposes’ as long as you own a legal copy of the original work.

Here is the ironic part: you cannot make a backup copy of the CD/DVD if it has any kind of copy protection, according to the DMCA.

So, it is legal to have a backup according to law, but you cannot make that copy. Kind of twisted isn’t it? To my knowledge, there is no significant challenge to this contradiction so that we can know what is illegal and what isn’t.

I have gone over all of this explanation to say that if you can legally make copies of DVDs and CDs, then you could rip them to your laptop or desktop computer. Once they are on your hard drive you can watch them any time you like and not have to worry about the discs becoming scratched or lost. The discs will be safely stored in your closet.

With more and more television shows being released on DVD as complete seasons and some complete series’ runs, you could easily pick up your favorites, rip them to your PC and watch them at your leisure.

For that matter, you could find a site to download recordings of your favorite new shows and keep them on your drive. Networks say that this is illegal, and we geeks say it is no different than using a VCR to record from TV like many people did less than 5 years ago.

Use your own judgment, as I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Tread carefully and read up before you make any decisions about whether to rip anything or download episodes of shows.

Can your PC replace your cable/satellite subscription?

In a word: maybe. The most deciding factor will be if you have a broadband connection to the Internet. If you don’t know, broadband is loosely a cable, satellite, or DSL connection. Sometimes, you can even use a wireless connection from some local providers. If you are still using a dial-up connection, you are not going to want to try watching video, but you probably knew that.

Finally, you need to look and see if there are shows that you like available online. There are many, many different ways to watch your shows and movies online. To be fair, I will talk about the legal, hazy, and outright illegal ways to watch them. Hazy and illegal will be covered in the next two columns. We are in NO WAY advocating anything illegal, but you should know about them so you can avoid them.

My personal favorite site to watch shows on is Hulu.com. Hulu has a very good looking site with a lot of content to watch. If you like Fox, NBC, or Comedy Central television, you should give them a shot. There are a few commercials in some shows, and some without. The good news is that there are less commercials than a regular show (4 on average). Hulu even has movies to watch, mostly older, but totally free.

Hulu has just launched a player for you to download to your desktop. It is brand new as I write this for you, so I don’t have a lot of experience with it. If it is anything like the site, it will be smooth and easy to use. Please go check it out and let me know what you think via askageek@register-news.com .

Another site I recommend is TV.com. I have not used it much, but it has been good when I checked it out occasionally. TV.com is owned by CBS, however it has shows from different companies. Go see if it suits your taste.

A slightly different way to watch shows and discover new material is Miro (getmiro.com). Miro is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It truly is available for any operating system you use. Miro is a Bit Torrent (I’ll explain later) and netcast client. It will download torrent files and netcasts for you while you surf or watch other shows in its player. There are videos of all types – gardening, news, talk, etc. available for you to subscribe to in the Miro directory. All of these subscriptions are free, so go see what you want to watch/hear.

To clarify for anyone who may not know, a netcast is a video or audio show produced for download over the Internet. Netcasts are also referred to as ‘podcasts, vodcasts (video)’, and other terms. There are good and bad, just like television and radio. Torrents are downloads that pull from a lot of different places to get you the download faster. They work really well, and I will explain them better under ‘illegal’, even though they are not.

The last legal way I can think of to watch free TV is to go to the station sites and watch your favorites there. Not every station, especially cable stations, offer their shows online. A good deal of them do, so you should go look around and see which ones are out there that you like.

Spiderman v Terminator, or why T4 sucks in my opinion

I was fired-up to go see Terminator: Salvation at the midnight opening show. I talked Hooch and Ashley into going with me, and we had fun there and watched Angels & Demons until T4 started. Surprisingly, the show was not a sellout. I had thought it would be, but it gave me room to breathe (unlike National Treasure 2).

We watched the show, and it was entertaining. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the sweet looking terminators, what little time they spent on the screen. Bale wasn’t horrible, his wife just kinda stood there being pregnant, and the acting overall was decent.

Unfortunately, they tried to connect the characters and audience and failed – miserably.

I’ve been trying to figure out why the connection didn’t happen. It was one of those things that kept bugging me every now and then. Why couldn’t I make the connection with characters I liked and a franchise I thoroughly enjoy?

Today, Erich had Spiderman 3 on while I was job searching and it hit me. The Terminator franchise has never been about the deep character empathy like in the Spiderman franchise, something they tried to force in the latest film.

For example: When aunt May gets attacked we feel for her. Peter loves MJ, and she loves him.

Unfortunately, I understand the characters in the Terminator movies, I just don’t empathize with them. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could. They face sci-fi problems that we can’t even imagine. It’s loosely based in reality, but not enough so that I feel connected to John Connor or anyone else in the franchise.

While Spiderman is full of fantasy as well, it is also tightly wound in with the fabric of everyone’s life in the film. We have all felt loss, anger, and most importantly love. These emotions are present in T4 as well, but not to the degree or as realistically as in Spiderman.

Maybe it’s just me, and sound off if you think so. I just don’t feel the latest incarnation is what it should be. Of course, I am a little bitter about FOX canceling the television series that I liked. Oh well.

Premiere this Friday perhaps

I just received word from Jeremy that my first bit of writing for our local newspaper will probably be appearing this Friday. Yay, I’ll be somewhat legitimate.

My first bite will only be a short piece about who I am and some background information. Nothing too fancy, but it will let people know who I am and perhaps help them relate to me.

From there, we will see how evolution takes the writing and me through its life-cycle. Maybe it will move to a Q&A style, perhaps it will be me posting things I like, and perhaps it will just fizzle out into nothing.

Jeremy is going to put my work in the online area of the R-N I suppose. Guess print is too expensive for an un-proven bit of work such as myself.

If you don’t mind, go check my corner out and see what you think. If nothing else, the hits should show interest. 🙂