Obsolecence (Was RE: OT: PC Motherboard with a vacuum tube)

From: James E. LaBarre <jamesl_at_bestweb.net>
Date: Mon Sep 9 09:20:01 2002

J.C. Wren wrote:
> "I guess they are trying to force users to switch to DVD."
>
> You make it sound like a conspiracy. It's a simple matter of economics.
> Every time you play a VHS cassette, you degrade it. DVD does not inherently
> suffer from this, unless you mishandled a DVD. DVDs take less space, in a
> vertical spine-out display configuration. DVDs do not need to be rewound.
> DVDs have a better picture. DVDs have better sound.
>
> In fact, the *only* disadvantage that DVD has as a medium is that unlike
> VHS, it's not readily recordable.
>
> If I were a video rental store, I'd be dumping miserable VHS cassettes as
> fast as I could. Let the antique shops rent them. The DVD market now
> represents a rather large percentage of the rental market, since a
> reasonable DVD player is as cheap as a mid-range VHS deck.


My dislike of DVDs has been more political than technical. I do not
like the heacy handed way the MPAA has been using DVDs (and it's
brain-dead encryption) as a weapon to take away the rights of a consumer
to use a product *which they purchased with their own hard-earned money*
on whatever system they desire. A problem with off-shore bootlegging of
disks should not be used as an excuse to screw the consumer. Posessing
a decoder not "authorized" by the MPAA so that you can watch your *own
property* on some OS which the MPAA & friends felt was beneath their
dignity to port to should /not/ be a crime. The only reason I even have
a DVD player is because we were given one for Christmas. I certainly
will not be going hog-wild buying DVDs for home.

The RIAA are pulling the same sort of crap too. All that legislation
they're trying to get passed not only screws the ordinary consumer
simply trying to make optimum use of the MPAA's overpriced product, but
is an effort to subsidize themselves and drive the independent labels &
artists out of business at the same time.
Received on Mon Sep 09 2002 - 09:20:01 BST